10 November 1444
The lines
On the morning of 10 November Murad draws up his army in an arc facing the crusaders. In the centre the janissaries stand behind a ditch and two palisades around two Thracian burial mounds, and Murad watches the battle from one of them. An anonymous Ottoman chronicle has the broken treaty hung from a lance beside him. The Anatolian sipahis under their beylerbey Karaca Bey form the right wing towards the lake, the Rumelian sipahis under Şehabeddin Pasha the left wing below the plateau, and akıncıs and janissary archers hold the edge of the plateau.
A janissary, drawn by Gentile Bellini in Constantinople in 1479–1481Wikimedia Commons, Gentile Bellini, Public domain (Yenieri-aturkishjanissary-gentilebellini.jpg)
John Hunyadi draws up the crusaders in an arc about 3.5 km long from the lake to the slopes. Władysław holds the centre with two banners, 3,500 men of his Polish and Hungarian guard, royal mercenaries and the banners of Hungarian nobles, and the Wallachian horsemen wait in reserve behind them. The right wing, 6,500 men in five banners on the slope, is led by the bishop of Várad and holds the banners of Cardinal Cesarini and of the bishop of Eger and the Croatian banner of the ban of Slavonia. The left wing, 5,000 men under Hunyadi’s brother-in-law Michael Szilágyi, holds Hunyadi’s Transylvanians, Bulgarians, German mercenaries and the banners of Hungarian magnates.
The wagon fort stands behind the line, nearer the lake and the town. It is held by 300 or 600 Czech and Ruthenian mercenaries with Poles, Lithuanians and Wallachians, each wagon has a crew of 7 to 10 men, and the fort carries bombards. The accounts differ on the Ottoman wings, and some put the Rumelians on the right and the Anatolians on the left.
Sources
- Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Histories (c. 1464).
- Filippo Buonaccorsi (Callimachus), Historia de rege Vladislao (about 1487).
- Mehmed Neşri, Kitâb-ı Cihan-nümâ (late 15th century).
- Anonymous, Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osmân (late 15th century).
- Oskar Halecki, The Crusade of Varna: A Discussion of Controversial Problems (1943).
- John Jefferson, The Holy Wars of King Wladislas and Sultan Murad: The Ottoman-Christian Conflict from 1438–1444 (2012).
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