King Vukasin and the disastrous Battle of Marica

Essay from the year 2007 in the subject History of Europe - Middle Ages, Early Modern Age, grade: keine, , language: English, abstract: It is a historical fact that the two armies – Turkish and Serbian – clashed near the village Černomen (Chirmen, Chernomen, Chermanon) at the River Marica (Mariç, Ebros, Hebros) on Friday the 26th, September 1371, and that a slaughter beyond description took place. The Serbian army suffered a true massacre in which both brothers King Vlkašin and Despot Uglješa were slain. The battle is today commonly called the Battle of Marica (after the river Marica in today’s Bulgaria) or the Battle of Chernomen (after a nearby small village on the lower Marica River). In trying to accurately convey the course of the battle one has to be contented with the contradictory assertions of the chronicles. What we can say with certainty is that Sultan Mūrad "did not participate in the clash, as he was not yet in Rumili. It seems that he was occupied with matters concerning Anatolia." Elizabeth Zachariadou points out that the battle was not fought by the regular Ottoman army but by the army of the gazis. Vlkašin was surprised by the greatly outnumbered Ottomans. Namely, led by Sultan Murad I’s Lieutenant Lala-Şâhin-Bey – Beylerbeyi (governor) of Rumeli – the Osmanlis attacked the Serbian camps in a night raid and managed to achieve victory against all odds. After this defeat, the Mrnjavčevićs virtually vanished from the political scene. Not the Ottomans, but Manuel Palaeologus made use of this defeat of the Serbs to add Serres (Despot Uglješa’s land) to his appanage at Thessalonica.