Battle of Maritsa
The Battle of Maritsa, also known as the Battle of Chernomen, was fought on 26 September 1371 near the Maritsa River, close to the village of Chernomen. The conflict pitted the Ottoman forces under Lala Şahin Pasha and Hacı İlbey against a coalition of Serbian lords, led by King Vukašin Mrnjavčević and his brother Despot Jovan Uglješa who sought to halt the Ottomans' westward advance. The battle ended in a decisive Ottoman victory in which both Serbian commanders were killed, marking the decline of Serbian power in Macedonia and paving the way for Ottoman expansion into the central Balkans.
Background
The Battle of Maritsa took place during the formative phase of the Ottoman Empire's expansion into the Balkans. In 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe and seized Gallipoli. From there, they advanced through Thrace, capturing Demotika, Philippopolis, and finally Adrianople by 1369. From the Ottoman perspective, these campaigns were regarded as part of a holy war for the spread of Islam and were accompanied by the settlement of Turkish nomads and the creation of frontier provinces under commanders such as Lala Şahin Pasha. By 1370, most of Thrace, stretching from the Rhodope to the Balkan Mountains, was under Ottoman control, bringing them into direct contact with the lands of the Serbian lords.The Serbian Empire had entered a period of decline following the death of Emperor Stefan Dušan in 1355. His successor, Stefan Uroš V, was unable to maintain central authority, and the empire fragmented as its vassals asserted independence. Recognising the growing Turkish threat, Despot Uglješa Mrnjavčević|Uglješa], the Serbian ruler of Serres, sought to form a coalition to drive them out of Europe, but his efforts to secure Byzantine and Bulgarian Empire|Bulgarian] support failed. Most other Serbian nobles were preoccupied with internal rivalries, and only his brother Vukašin joined him.
Prelude
In the summer of 1371, Vukašin marched to the Principality of Zeta to support his relative Đurađ Balšić in a conflict with Nikola Altomanović. His army was in Skadar preparing for action when Uglješa summoned him. Believing Ottoman control in the region was weak while Murad I was in Asia Minor, Uglješa saw an opportunity to launch a surprise attack on the Ottoman capital, Adrianople. Vukašin left Skadar to join him, and the combined Serbian forces advanced east across the Thracian plain, meeting the Ottoman army near the Maritsa River at Chernomen.Battle
The battle took place near the Maritsa River, about 20 miles west of Adrianople. Ottoman ghazi warriors under Lala Şahin Pasha and Hacı İlbey attacked the Serbian camp at night while most of the soldiers were asleep. The army was massacred along with its commanders. The engagement resulted in the annihilation of the Serbian forces, described by John [Van Antwerp Fine Jr.|John Fine] as a crushing defeat attributed in later accounts to the Serbs being caught unprepared. Donald Nicol characterises the engagement as a catastrophic blow for the Serbs and for the whole cause of eastern Christendom, citing Konstantin Jireček, who wrote that both princes perished and that their men were slaughtered "in such numbers that the river ran red with their blood." Alexander Mikaberidze similarly concludes that, despite the Serbs' attempted surprise attack, superior Ottoman tactics produced a decisive victory. Turkish historian and Ottomanist Abdülkadir Özcan notes that Ottoman accounts claiming that Şahin Paşa and Hacı İlbey defeated the Christian army by a sudden raid are questionable.Estimates of the armies' sizes vary widely. 14th-century Serbian Monk Isaiah claimed 60,000 Serbs, while 15th-century Byzantine Greek scholar Laonikos Chalkokondyles wrote of 800 Ottomans led by "Süleyman", an anachronism likely based on a later Ottoman source. Fine notes that the allied army was "large but probably nowhere near the sixty thousand claimed by the monk Isaiah", Aleksandar Šopov, citing Byzantine accounts, notes that for this period even armies numbering only a few thousand men were regarded as large, and that no contemporary source provides reliable figures for the battle. Nicol adds that later Ottoman chroniclers claimed there were 60,000 Serbian soldiers to 4,000 Ottomans, but argues that, since Sultan Murad was absent and the Turkish force was a mixed body under Hacı İlbey and Lala Şahin, "it is hard to maintain that this was a victory for the Ottomans", even though it proved disastrous for the Serbs.
Aftermath
The Battle of Maritsa marked a significant stage in the Ottoman expansion across the Balkans. With the forces of King Vukašin and Despot Uglješa defeated and both leaders killed, Ottoman troops advanced into Macedonia and parts of central Serbia. According to historian Ion Grumeza, the Serbian Empire lost a large proportion of its ruling aristocracy as a result of the battle. In the aftermath, several regional lords, including Vukašin's son Prince Marko, became Vassal and [tributary states of the Ottoman Empire|Ottoman vassals], obliged to provide tribute and military service.The defeat deepened the political fragmentation of the Serbian lands. Emperor Uroš V died childless later that year, ending the Nemanjić line, while nobles such as Prince Lazar, the Balšići and the Brankovići established their own principalities. Ottoman expansion continued into Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece, where some rulers also accepted vassalage. Over the following decades, fragmented resistance continued among regional rulers, culminating in Prince Lazar's stand against the Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389.