Siege of Belgrade (1456)

This article is about the 1456 siege of Belgrade. For other uses, see Siege of Belgrade.

The Siege of Belgrade or Battle of Belgrade or Siege of Nándorfehérvár occurred from July 4–22, 1456. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II rallied his resources in order to subjugate the Kingdom of Hungary. His immediate objective was the border fort of the town of Belgrade (in old Hungarian Nándorfehérvár). John Hunyadi, the Voivode of Transylvania, who had fought many battles against the Turks in the previous two decades, prepared the defenses of the fortress.

The siege eventually escalated into a major battle, during which Hunyadi led a sudden counterattack that overran the Ottoman camp, ultimately compelling the wounded Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror to lift the siege and retreat. The battle had significant consequences, as it stabilized the southern frontiers of the Kingdom of Hungary for more than half a century and thus considerably delaying the Ottoman Muslim advance in Europe.

The Pope celebrated the victory as well, as he previously ordered all Catholic kingdoms to pray for the victory of the defenders of Belgrade. This led to the noon bell ritual that is still undertaken in Catholic and old Protestant churches nowadays.

Since 22 July 1456, the date when Christian forces led by John Hunyadi and John of Capistrano defeated the Turks besieging Belgrade in 1456 has been a national memorial day in Hungary.

Preparations

At the end of 1455, Hunyadi began preparations for the defence of the city. At his own expense, he provisioned and armed the fortress. Leaving in it a strong garrison under the command of his brother-in-law Mihály Szilágyi and his own eldest son László. Hunyadi then proceeded to form a relief army and an additional fleet of two hundred corvettes. The barons feared Hunyadi's growing power more than the Ottoman threat, and left Hunyadi entirely to his own devices.

An Italian Franciscan friar allied to Hunyadi, Giovanni da Capistrano, preached a crusade to attract peasants and local countryside landlords to Hunyadi's cause. The recruits were ill-armed, many with only slings and scythes, but highly moralized. The recruits came under Hunyadi's banner, the core of which consisted of a smaller bands of seasoned mercenaries and a few groups of minor knights. All in all, Hunyadi managed to build a force of 25–30,000 men.

Siege

However, before these forces could be assembled, Mehmed the Conqueror's invader army (160,000 men in early accounts, 60-70,000 according to newer research) arrived at Belgrade. The siege began on July 4, 1456. Szilágyi could rely on a force of only 5,000-7,000 men in the castle. Mehmed set up his siege on the neck of the headland and started heavily bombarding the city's walls on June 29. He arrayed his men in three sections: The Rumelian corps had the majority of his 300 cannons, having his fleet of 200 river war vessels the rest of them. The Rumelians were arrayed on the right wing and the Anatolian corps were arrayed on the left. In the middle were the Sultan's personal guards, the Janissaries, and his command post. The Anatolian corps and the Janissaries were both heavy infantry troops. Mehmed posted his river vessels mainly to the northwest of the city to patrol, the marshes and ensuring the fortress not being reinforced. They also kept an eye on the Sava to the southwest to avoid the infantry's being outflanked by Hunyadi's army. The zone from the Danube eastwards, was guarded by the Sipahi, the Sultan's feudal heavy cavalry corps, to avoid being outflanked on the right.

Gothic fresco of the Siege of Belgrade in a Church of Olomouc (Modern Czech Republic) from 1468. It is probably the oldest depiction of the battle. It shows Giovanni da Capistrano and John Hunyadi, too.

When Hunyadi was informed of this, he was in the south of Hungary recruiting additional light cavalry troops for the army, with which he would intend to lift the siege. Although relatively few, his fellow nobles were willing to provide manpower, the peasants were more than willing to do so. Cardinal Capistrano had been sent to Hungary by the Vatican both to preach against heretics, and to preach a crusade against the Ottomans. Capistrano managed to raise a large, albeit poorly trained and equipped, peasant army, with which he advanced towards Belgrade. Capistrano and Hunyadi traveled together though commanding the army separately. Both of them had gathered around 40,000-50,000 troops altogether.

The outnumbered defenders relied mainly on the strength of the formidable castle of Belgrade which was at the time one of the best engineered in the Balkans; as Belgrade had been designated to be the capital of the Serbian Despotate by Stefan Lazarević, 53 years ago.

Fortress of Belgrade as it looked in the Middle Ages. The lower and upper town with the palace are visible.

The fortress was designed in an elaborate form with three lines of defense: the inner castle with the palace, a huge upper town with the main military camps, four gates and a double wall, as well as the lower town with the cathedral in the urban center and a port at the Danube. This building endeavor was one of the most elaborate military architecture achievements of the Middle Ages. After the Siege, the Hungarians reinforced the north and eastern side with an additional gate and several towers, one of which, the Nebojsa tower, was designed for artillery purposes.

On July 14, 1456, Hunyadi arrived to the completely encircled city with his flotilla on the Danube while the Ottoman navy lay astride the Danube River. He broke the naval blockade on July 14, sinking three large Ottoman galleys and capturing four large vessels and 20 smaller ones. By destroying the Sultan's fleet, Hunyadi was able to transport his troops and much-needed food into the city. The fort's defense was also reinforced.

The heroism of Titusz Dugovics

But Mehmed II was not willing to end the siege and after a week of heavy bombardment, the walls of the fortress were breached in several places. On July 21 Mehmed ordered an all-out assault which began at sundown and continued all night. The besieging army flooded the city, and then started its assault on the fort. As this was the most crucial moment of the siege, Hunyadi ordered the defenders to throw tarred wood, and other flammable material, and then set it afire. Soon a wall of flames separated the Janissaries fighting in the city from their fellow soldiers trying to breach through the gaps into the upper town. The fierce battle between the encircled Janissaries and Szilágyi's soldiers inside the upper town was turning in favour of the Christians, and the Hungarians managed to beat off the fierce assault from outside the walls. The Janissaries remaining inside the city were thus massacred while the Ottoman troops trying to breach the upper town suffered heavy losses.

Battle

Siege of Belgrade (in Hungarian: Nándorfehérvár) 1456. Hünername 1584

North wall of the Belgrade Fortress from the 17th century

The next day something unexpected happened. By some accounts, the peasant crusaders started a spontaneous action, and forced Capistrano and Hunyadi to make use of the situation. Despite Hunyadi's orders to the defenders not to try to loot the Ottoman positions, some of the units crept out from demolished ramparts, took up positions across from the Ottoman line, and began harassing enemy soldiers. Ottoman Sipahis tried without success to disperse the harassing force. At once, more defenders joined those outside the wall. What began as an isolated incident quickly escalated into a full-scale battle.

John of Capistrano at first tried to order his men back inside the walls, but soon found himself surrounded by about 2,000 peasant levymen. He then began leading them toward the Ottoman lines, crying, "The Lord who made the beginning will take care of the finish!"

Capistrano led his crusaders to the Ottoman rear across the Sava river. At the same time, Hunyadi started a desperate charge out of the fort to take the cannon positions in the Ottoman encampment.

Taken by surprise at this strange turn of events and, as some chroniclers say, seemingly paralyzed by some inexplicable fear, the Ottomans took flight. The Sultan's bodyguard of about 5,000 Janissaries tried desperately to stop the panic and recapture the camp, but by that time Hunyadi's army had also joined the unplanned battle, and the Ottoman efforts became hopeless. The Sultan himself advanced into the fight and killed a knight in single combat, but then took an arrow in the thigh and was rendered unconscious. After the battle, the Hungarian raiders were ordered to spend the night behind the walls of the fortress and to be on the alert for a possible renewal of the battle, but the Ottoman counterattack never came.

Under cover of darkness the Ottomans retreated in haste, bearing their wounded in 140 wagons. They withdrew to Constantinople.

Aftermath

However, the Hungarians paid dearly for this victory. Plague broke out in the camp, from which John Hunyadi himself died three weeks later (August 11, 1456). He was buried in the Cathedral of Gyulafehérvár (now Alba Iulia), the capital of Transylvania.

As the design of the fortress had proved its merits during the siege, some additional reinforcements were made by the Hungarians. The weaker eastern walls, where the Ottomans broke through into the upper town were reinforced by the Zindan gate and the heavy Nebojsa tower. This was the last of the great modifications to the fortress until 1521, when Mehmed's great-grandson Suleiman eventually captured it.

Noon Bell

Pope Callixtus III ordered the bells of every European church to be rung every day at noon, as a call for believers to pray for the defenders of the city. The practice of the noon bell is traditionally attributed to the international commemoration of the victory at Belgrade and to the order of Pope Callixtus III, since in many countries (like England and the Spanish Kingdoms) news of the victory arrived before the order, and the ringing of the church bells at noon was thus transformed into a commemoration of the victory. The Pope didn't withdraw the order, and Catholic and the older Protestant churches still ring the noon bell to this day.

This custom still exists also among Protestant and Orthodox congregations. In the history of Oxford university, the victory was welcomed with the ringing of bells and great celebrations in England. Hunyadi sent a special courier, Erasmus Fullar, among others to Oxford with the news of the victory.

Follow Up

Part of Belgrade Fortress from the 17th century

Battle of Nándorfehérvár, Hungarian painting from the 19th century. In the middle Giovanni da Capistrano with the cross in his hand.

Stone in the Kalemegdan park, in Belgrade, with engraved inscription on the place where Christian forces under command of John Hunyadi won the battle against the Ottomans in 1456.

The victory stopped the Ottoman advance towards Europe Europe for 70 years, though they made other incursions such as the taking of Otranto between 1480 and 1481; and the raid of Croatia and Styria in 1493. Belgrade would continue to protect Hungary from Ottoman attacks until the fort fell to the Ottomans in 1521.

After the Siege of Belgrade stopped the advance of Mehmed II towards Central Europe; Serbia and Bosnia were absorbed into the Empire. Wallachia, the Crimean Khanate, and eventually Moldavia were merely converted into vassal states due to the strong military resistance to Mehmed's attempts of conquest. There were several reasons of why the Sultan did not directly attack Hungary and why he gave up the idea of advancing in that direction after his unsuccessful siege of Belgrade. The mishap at Belgrade indicated that the Empire could not expand further until Serbia and Bosnia were transformed into a secure base of operations. Furthermore, the significant political and military power of Hungary under Matthias Corvinus in the region surely influenced this hesitation too. Moreover, Mehmed was also distracted in his attempts to suppress insubordination from his Moldovan and Wallachian vassals.

With Hunyadi's victory at Belgrade, both Vlad III the Impaler and Stephen III of Moldavia came to power in their own domains, and Hunyadi went himself to great lengths to have his son Matthias placed on the Hungarian throne.

While fierce resistance and Hunyadi's effective leadership ensured that the daring and ambitious Sultan Mehmed would only get as far into Europe as the Balkans, the Sultan had already managed to transform the Ottoman Empire into what would become one of the most feared powers in Europe (as well as in Asia) for centuries. Most of Hungary was eventually conquered in 1526 at the Battle of Mohács. Ottoman Muslim expansion into Europe continued with menacing success until the Siege of Vienna in 1529, although Ottoman power in Europe remained strong and still threatening to Central Europe at times until the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

Literature

It is claimed that, after the defeat and while he and his army were retreating into Bulgaria, this sound defeat as well as the ensuing loss of no less than 24.000 of his best soldiers, angried Mehmed in such a manner that, in an uncontrollable fit of fury, he wounded a number of his generals with his own sword, just before getting them executed. The Sultan later came into conflict with Stephen III of Moldavia, resulting in an even worse defeat at Battle of Vaslui and later a pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Valea Albă.