10 November 1444
The wings
The Ottoman wings attack first. On the crusader right the akıncıs come down from the plateau and the Rumelian sipahis ride against the banners on the slope. The Croats of Franko Talovac and the bishops’ banners drive them back with bombards and hand guns and follow them in disorder, and more Ottoman horsemen fall on their flank.
Ottoman mail and plate armour of 1480–1500Wikimedia Commons, World Imaging, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Ottoman armour 1480-1500.jpg)
The crusader right breaks and flees behind the army towards the marshes of the lake south of the town, making for the fortress of Galata across the bay, and most of its men are killed in the marshes. Cesarini flees with them. Only Talovac’s Croats get back behind the wagon fort.
On the crusader left the Anatolian sipahis attack, are thrown back and come on again. John Hunyadi asks the king to wait until he returns and rides to the left with two companies of horsemen, and the Anatolians break and flee. Their beylerbey Karaca Bey is killed. Kenneth Setton writes that Murad thinks of leaving the field when his wing gives way, and that the janissaries hold him back.
Sources
- Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Histories (c. 1464).
- Filippo Buonaccorsi (Callimachus), Historia de rege Vladislao (about 1487).
- Jan Długosz, Annales seu Cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae (late 15th century).
- Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), vol. 2 (1978).
- Colin Imber, The Crusade of Varna, 1443–45 (2006).
- John Jefferson, The Holy Wars of King Wladislas and Sultan Murad: The Ottoman-Christian Conflict from 1438–1444 (2012).
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