Chapter XXII: Wallachia and the White City
Belgrade, the White City of the Serbs, grew from the ancient Celtic and Roman city of Singidunum
Belgrade, the White City of the Serbs, grew from the ancient Celtic and Roman city of Singidunum
While the emperor and his son were away touring the Balkans, empress Katarina led the new government through its first foreign affair. Prince Radu IV of Wallachia, the one who had sheltered the Notaras boys, had died in 1508. He was replaced by his cousin, Mihnea, the son of Vlad the Impaler and his first wife. The new prince proved as cruel as his father had been, but targeted the nobility, as impaling Turks had become impractical. Unsurprisingly, he was overthrown with Roman support in early 1509, and replaced by his son Mircea III. Mihnea remained in the country however, and might have even acted as his son's councillor, but was assassinated in March 1510 outside a church in Sibiu, Transylvania.
Mircea then led a hunt to catch the assassins, but having lost the support of his nobles, fled to Hungary, and Katarina sent an army in support of the new prince, Vlad V, who swore loyalty to Constantinople and proved it by defeating Mircea and his Hungarian backed army in 1511. Then he betrayed the Romans by recognising Vladislaus II of Hungary as his suzerain, trying to play both sides.
The empress was furious at this treachery, and dispatched an army to overthrow the line of Dracula. Again, the nobility turned on their lord and the Romans installed Neagoe Basarab as the new prince. Wallachia would henceforth be a Roman vassal. The new prince proved a good ruler, and gave the Vlachs some much-needed stability. Neagoe Basarab was eventually recognised as a saint, but the prosperity his rule provided did not outlast him, and Constantinople would continue to meddle in the country's affairs, eroding its indecency with each passing decade.
Katarina’s meddling in Wallachia infuriated the Hungarians. Vladislaus II was a weak king, known in Hungary as “Dobzse László” (King Very Well) as he always approved the decisions of the Royal Council in Hungary, critically weakening royal power in favour of the nobility. The expulsion of the Turks had made the Magyars complacent, as misguided confidence replaced existential fear.
Vladislaus II, King of Hungary
Tensions between the two Balkan powers eventually led to war over Bosnia. The great king Matthias Corvinus had defeated the Ottomans in several engagements, and secured some territory north of the former kingdom following its fall to Mehmed II in 1463. This territory had expanded after the Turks had been expelled by the emperor Manuel, but the Romans managed to seize large portions of the former Ottoman provinces. This insulted the Hungarians, as Corvinus had been made king of Bosnia by the remaining catholic nobility. Though this claim was not recognised by the last remnant of the old Bosnian state, the so-called duchy of Saint Sava, ruled by Orthodox princes, who instead bowed to Constantinople.
In the spring of 1512, Hungarian and Croat border lords gathered an army with royal backing, and advanced into the Roman province of Pannonia, as the territory of the former Bosnian kingdom was now called. The Magyars estimated that the Romans could gather an army of 30 000 to resist them, but that they would move slowly in the rugged terrain of the Balkans, giving the Hungarian-Croat army enough time to capture key fortifications. They were mistaken.
The emperor Isaakios immediately summoned an army, appointing his son Theodoros to command it. The co-emperor gathered 15 000 professional soldiers and 30 000 levied troops at Skopia. This included the new arquebusiers, and nearly 300 cannons. By comparison, the entire Hungarian army had only 85 artillery guns.
Both armies were well-equipped with smaller firearms. Due to the legacy of Matthias Corvinus’ Black Army, Hungary was one of the premier exporters of firearms in Europe, and ironically many of them were bought by Romania. Though the Black Army had been disbanded, its legacy lived on. Guns of this period were cumbersome, and as a result, were only really effective in defensive positions, which is why the Hungarians wished to capture Roman fortifications as quickly as possible, and force the Romans to be the attacking side.
Theodoros would not indulge them. He ignored Bosnia and marched straight towards Belgrade (Nándorfehérvár). This strategically positioned fortress city at the confluence of the Danube and Sava river protected the entire Hungarian kingdom. It had withstood sultan Mehmed II in 1456, and was one of the greatest fortresses in the Balkans. But after the expulsion of the Turks from Europe, the city’s defences were allowed to decline.
When the Roman army arrived before the walls of Belgrade, the city had only 800 soldiers, and no guns.
Still, with the help of its citizens, Belgrade resisted the Romans for 64 days, in the end, the walls were breached and the city fell. Less than 100 of its defenders survived. Theodoros was impressed by their efforts, and allowed them to leave with their weapons, banners, and other possessions.
The fall of the White City sent shockwaves across the domains of king Vladislaus. The fortress of Sabac fell at around the same time, and chronic lack of funds meant that there were now no defences between the Romans and the Hungarian capital of Buda.
The Bosnian campaign was abandoned at once and the army was summoned to defend the kingdom itself, but Theodoros then turned around, and marched to secure Pannonia before the end of the campaign season.
During the winter, the Hungarians restocked and repaired their new main defensive point at Petrovaradin in Syrmia, but in the spring of 1513, as the Hungarians marched on Belgrade, the Romans outflanked them and took the fortress after a three-week siege. Afraid of being caught between the army of Notaras and the garrison of Belgrade, the Hungarians retreated once more.
Theodoros then decided to do something unexpected. Instead of invading Hungary, he marched on Croatia with the Slavic and Turkish cavalry accompanying his professional Roman soldiers.
Croatia was ruled by the king of Hungary in personal union, but the weakness of Vladislaus II had led to the Croats looking towards Vienna as their new patron. For now, no support would come from either direction. Some of their best horsemen had been sent to accompany the main army in Hungary, and so the defence of the country was entrusted to a number of forts and small groups of light cavalry. Petar Berislavic, ban of Croatia, decided to face the enemy on an open field contrary to the advice of his officers. He hoped an element of surprise would allow his force of 14 000 to defeat Theodoros’ army of 20 000, but the Romans stood their ground, inflicting over 7 000 casualties on the Croats with their overwhelming firepower.
Following this victory, the Croatian capital of Knin was sacked alongside other settlements in the area, before the Romans withdrew with considerable spoils.
Spring of 1514 saw the Hungarian attempt to reclaim Petrovaradin. They managed to drive off the local Roman forces, consisting mostly of levied peasants, but were unable to breach the fortress before Theodoros arrived with his main force. Soon, panic began to set in among the besiegers, as the fortress was on the south side of the Danube, with only two bridges connecting it to Hungary proper in the north. Large numbers of men were still on the wrong side when the Roman cavalry smashed into their ranks, followed soon by Turks and Slavs.
The siege cost the Hungarians some 10 000 men. The army was no longer in any condition to fight and withdrew to the capital, leaving the countryside practically undefended. Theodoros now crossed into Hungary and raided as far as Temesvár and Szeged. As winter set in, the two sides agreed to a truce. A final peace treaty could not be signed, as Isaakios and Katarina refused to recognise the king’s claims on Bosnia, but large-scale military campaigns ended, for now.
This was the beginning of the so-called “little war”. Every summer, the inhabitants of the Balkans would face raids conducted primarily by light cavalry of both sides. King Vladislaus II died in 1516, leaving behind a 10-year-old son to succeed him, a squabbling nobility that dominated the country, no active fortresses on the Roman border, and a royal debt of over 400 000 florins. All this bode ill for the crown of Saint Stephen.
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