Battle of Stefaniana

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the battle of Stefaniana in May 1344, a Serbian and Turkish army met for the first time . The battle ended with a victory for the Turkish cavalry.

background

In the Byzantine civil war 1341-1347 , the Serbian Tsar Stefan Dušan initially supported the Byzantine regent John VI. Kantakuzenos , then switched to the side of the Byzantine emperor Johannes V. Palaiologos . Kantakuzenos soon found new allies in the Beylik of Aydın , a Turkish principality that was in what is now the Aegean region . The prince of Aydın, Umur Bey , came to the aid of Kantakuzenos with around 3,000 riders (according to the sources of Kantakuzenos; some modern historians even speak of only 300 riders). The Turkish auxiliaries took part in Kantakuzenos' attempt to capture the major port and second most important city of the Byzantine Empire, Thessaloniki . The siege failed, and the Byzantine-Turkish fleet of Kantakuzenos and Umur Bey was defeated and badly affected by a combined fleet of the Venetians , Johanniter and the Kingdom of Cyprus , so that the Turkish auxiliary troops were forced to take the overland route to their homeland.

course

Finding out about this, Stefan Dušan sent an elite group of so-called Panzerreiter under the voivode Preljub to the Turkish auxiliary troops with the order to destroy the Turkish auxiliary army on the spot. That consisted mainly of the light cavalry, so that a victory of the Serbian armored riders was considered certain. The Panzerreiter reached the Turkish relief army at Stefaniana not far from Lake Volvi north of the Chalkidiki peninsula . The Turkish cavalry then withdrew to a heavily overgrown mountain, on which the heavy cavalry of the Serbs made difficult progress. The armored riders dismounted their horses in order to reach the mountain on foot, whereupon the Turkish cavalry suddenly diverted and stormed the Serbian armored riders. Surprised by the onslaught, the dismounted armored riders could only offer weak resistance. After their surprising victory over the Serbian armored riders, the Turkish cavalry continued on their way to the Dardanelles in order to embark on the Asian Minor side. The battle of Stefaniana had no direct influence on Stefan Dušan's politics. However, the defeat of his elite armed forces, which was actually superior to the Turkish cavalry under Umur Bey, and under the command of Preljub, who was considered to be Dušan's most experienced field army, produced a bitter aftertaste, and was also the nimbus of invincibility that Dušan had built for himself destroyed.

literature

  • John VA Fine, John Van Antwerp Fine: The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest . University of Michigan Press, Michigan 1994, ISBN 0-472-08260-4 . (on-line)
  • George C. Soulis: The Serbs and Byzantium during the reign of Tsar Stephen Dušan (1331-1355) and his successors . Dumbarton Oaks 1984, ISBN 0-88402-137-8 . (on-line)
  • Mark C. Bartusis: The Late Byzantine Army: Arms and Society, 1204-1453 . University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8122-1620-2 , p. 83. (online)