Battle of Ivankovac

The Battle of Ivankovac was the first significant victory of the Serbian rebels in the course of the First Serbian Uprising . The battle took place in Serbia in 1805 . The two conflicting parties were Serbs striving for independence and the Ottoman Empire .

course

The Ottoman Empire, which then controlled Serbia, sent the commander of the city of Niš , Hafiz-Paša, to fight the rebels. He led an army of 15,000 soldiers.

The rebellious Serbs awaited the attack by the Ottomans and divided into two groups. On Mount Gilj near the town of Jagodina , the rebel leader Đorđe Petrović Karađorđe with about 4,000 to 5,000 men was waiting for the attack by the Ottomans. Duke Milenko Stojković and about 2500 men holed up on Mount Ivankovac (about 4 kilometers from the town of Ćuprija ). The Paša and his soldiers first arrived at Ivankovac.

After an unsuccessful attempt to bribe Stojković, the Turks attacked. The attack on the Serbian trenches lasted until the evening before Karađorđes Stojković's troops came to the rescue. The Serbs launched a counter-offensive. During the battle, the Ottoman soldiers withdrew to the small town of Paraćin , where they were besieged by the Serbs and shot at with cannons. A bullet hit Hafiz-Paša in the foot. He fled to the city of Niš , where he eventually died of his injuries.

This insurgent victory marked a turning point in the history of Turkish influence in the Balkans , even though the 1813 uprising was finally put down.

literature

• A. Aleksić: Boj na Ivankovcu . Ratnik, 1885