Battle of Maritsa Information & Battle of Maritsa Links at HealthHaven.com

Date	September 26, 1371
Location	Maritsa River (near Chernomen, today Ormenio in Greece)
Result	Decisive Ottoman victory

Battle of Maritsa
	Part of the Ottoman wars in Europe; Bulgarian-Ottoman Wars
	; The Ottman advance after the battle of Chernomen.
Date	September 26, 1371
Location	Maritsa River (near Chernomen, today Ormenio in Greece)
Result	Decisive Ottoman victory
Belligerents
Serbia; Bulgaria[citation needed]	Ottoman Empire
Commanders
Vukašin Mrnjavčević †; Despot Uglješa †	Lala Şâhin Paşa
Strength
~ 70,000	10,000[citation needed]
Casualties and losses
heavy losses	Unknown

The Battle of Maritsa, or Battle of Chernomen (also known as the Second Battle of Maritsa) (Serbian: Маричка битка, Bulgarian: битка при Черномен), took place at the Maritsa River near the village of Chernomen (today Ormenio in Greece) on September 26, 1371 between the forces of the Ottoman sultan Murad I's lieutenant Lala Şâhin Paşa and the Serbs (including their Bulgarian allies) numbering some 70,000 men under the command of the Serbian king of Prilep Vukašin Mrnjavčević and his brother despot Uglješa.

Despot Uglješa wanted to make a surprise attack on the Ottomans in their capital city, Edirne, while Murad I was in Asia Minor. The Ottoman army was much smaller, but due to superior tactics (night raid on the allied camp), Şâhin Paşa was able to defeat the Christian army and kill King Vukašin and despot Uglješa.^{[citation needed]} Macedonia and parts of Greece fell under Ottoman power after this battle.

The battle was a part of the Ottoman campaign to conquer the Balkans and was preceded by the Ottoman capturing of Sozopol and succeeded by the capture of the cities of Drama, Kavála and Serrai in modern Greece. The battle preceded the later 1389 Battle of Kosovo, during which the Serbian forces were again annihilated, after which they would be unable to recover and would fall under Ottoman control. This battle marks beginning of long history of the Serbian-Turkish wars.

[edit] Notes

^ Sedlar, Jean W., East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000-1500, (University of Washington Press, 1994), 385.
^ Rossos, Andrew, Macedonia and the Macedonians, (Hoover Institution Press Publications, 2008), 40.

[edit] References

Rossos, Andrew, Macedonia and the Macedonians, Hoover Institution Press Publications, 2008.
Sedlar, Jean W., East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000-1500, University of Washington Press, 1994.
Stavrianos, L. S. The Balkans Since 1453, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000.
Turnbull, Stephen R. The Ottoman Empire 1326-1699, Osprey Publishing, 2003.

[edit] External links

Battle of the Maritsa River Encyclopædia Britannica

Military history of the Ottoman Empire portal

[0] Sedlar, Jean W., East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000-1500, (University of Washington Press, 1994), 385.

[1] Rossos, Andrew, Macedonia and the Macedonians, (Hoover Institution Press Publications, 2008), 40.

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