The Slow Death of Chivalry

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Fifteenth-century War Wagons were decidedly unheroic and stood against all notions of chivalry, but they afforded vital protection for infantry and handgunners against cavalry and could also transport artillery shot and other tools of ‘modern war’

May Allah never grant me another such victory.

The Ottoman Sultan Murad II on the battlefield, having just defeated the Crusade of Varna in 1444.

Hunyadi’s successes sent the papacy into a frenzy of diplomacy and preaching to push the Turks from Europe. At the Hungarian diet in April 1444 a grand coalition was formed under Vladislaus III, King of Poland and Hungary, though under the tutelage of Hunyadi. The plan was complex. The Crusader army would follow the Danube, and Burgundian, Venetian and Genoese ships were to close the straits and deny the Turks reinforcements from Anatolia. The Greeks were expected to make diversionary attacks in the Peloponnese. In a flight of fantasy the Crusade looked beyond freeing Varna and on to liberating Jerusalem.

Many Serbian and Hungarian nobles had received favourable terms from Murad in 1443 and refused to participate. However, the timing of the Crusade was propitious; there were Janissary pay riots, successful uprisings in Albania led by the rebel Skanderbeg, and Murad had ‘retired’, possibly exhausted by the horrors of the battlefield.

At Varna the Crusaders found a massive Ottoman army waiting for them. The Venetian-Burgundian fleet had failed to close the Dardanelles and the Genoese transported Murad II, who had come out of retirement, and his reserves across to Europe. Byzantium simply stood aside.

Hunyadi took the centre with about 3,000 men comprising the king’s bodyguard, and Hungarian mercenaries and nobles. The left of the Hungarian line was comprised of about 5,000 Transylvanian troops and German mercenaries. On the right 6,000 German Crusaders were under the command of the Bishop of Varadin and Cardinal Cesarini.

Murad had 20,000 cavalry on his right, another 15,000 on his left and his centre was comprised of some 10,000 Janissaries and other infantry levies, well dug in and behind barricades on a small hill. He pinned the peace treaty of 1443 above his tent as evidence of the Hungarians’ perfidy.

A sudden wind blew up and knocked down all of the Christian banners except that of Vladislaus and then Murad began his attack on the left. The Crusader right plunged into the attacking Ottomans, exposing the centre’s flank, and Murad then sent his right wing of cavalry against the Hungarian left but Hunyadi countered this with an attack he personally led against the Ottoman right from the centre. The Hungarians seemed to be winning the battle at this point, but their right wing was in fact near collapse and only a few of the troops made it back to the safety of the war-wagon laager before the rout.

Hunyadi’s energy and bravery still nearly won the battle. He led part of the Hungarian left and centre across the battlefield to attack the Ottoman left. The Royal Guards joined him and the Ottoman cavalry broke. Murad II had only his Janissaries and infantry levies left on the field. Victory was snatched away from Hunyadi by Vladislaus. Hunyadi had warned the king to wait for the whole army to reform before engaging the Ottoman centre, but Vladislaus was swayed by nobles who were jealous of Hunyadi’s reputation and who wanted their sovereign to claim the victory. The Janissaries’ hail of arrows destroyed his cavalry and killed Vladislaus. The Crusader army fled the field but the Ottoman army was so broken that it could not pursue them.