13 February – October 1352
Demotika, 1352
Kantakouzenos’s son Matthew holds eastern Thrace around Adrianople, and John V the western part. In 1352 John V attacks Matthew with Serbian help and besieges Adrianople. Kantakouzenos calls on Orhan, whose son Süleyman crosses with Ottoman horsemen, retakes the towns that have gone over to John V and plunders them, Adrianople among them.
Emperor John V Palaiologos in a mosaic of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, digitally restoredWikimedia Commons, David Hendrix (photographer), Public domain (Restored mosaic of John V Palaiologos (1).jpg)
In October 1352 about 10,000 Ottoman horsemen under Süleyman meet 4,000 to 6,000 Serbian horsemen, sent to John V by Stefan Dušan, near Didymoteicho (Demotika). The Serbs are routed, with 7,000 dead by Kantakouzenos’s count and 4,000 by Gregoras’s. John V flees to the Venetian island of Tenedos. The battle is the first large Ottoman victory in Europe.
Venice and Genoa are at war in these years. On 13 February 1352 their fleets fight in the Bosporus, and Orhan, at odds with Venice, sends troops to the Genoese at Galata. After Demotika Süleyman holds Tzympe (Çimpe) on the Gallipoli peninsula, which Kantakouzenos grants to the Ottomans about 1352, their first base in Europe. By Ottoman tradition Süleyman takes it in 1356 in a night attack with 39 men.
The remains of the castle of Tzympe (Çimpe) on the Gallipoli peninsulaWikimedia Commons, Myrat, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Cimpe Castle.jpg)
Sources
- John VI Kantakouzenos, Histories, book 4.
- Nikephoros Gregoras, Roman History.
- John V. A. Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans (1987).
- Donald M. Nicol, The Reluctant Emperor: A Biography of John Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor and Monk, c. 1295–1383 (1996).
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