Siege of Belgrade (1456): Mehmed II's Defeat Episode 29, Part 2

[00:00:11] July 14, 1456. On the waters of the Danube, the Ottoman Empire has just suffered a humiliating reversal. For days, Sultan Mehmed II's warships had attempted to seal off the great Hungarian fortress of Belgrade. The plan was straightforward. Isolate the defenders, prevent reinforcements from arriving, and allow the Ottoman army to batter the fortress into submission.

[00:00:40] And then, John Hunyadi arrived, the Hungarian commander, a man who had spent much of his adult life making life miserable and terrible for the Ottoman Empire. He assembled a flotilla and smashed his way through the river blockade. Ottoman vessels were damaged, captured, set on fire, or driven off.

[00:01:03] The defenders of Belgrade, who had been staring down the prospect of complete isolation, suddenly saw the specter of reinforcements and much needed supplies. And Mehmed II had just been handed a rather unpleasant surprise for himself. But, ladies and gentlemen, the siege was far from over. Because, despite Hunyadi's success on the Danube, Mehmed still possessed an enormous army, powerful

[00:01:33] siege artillery, powerful siege artillery, experienced in deadly infantry, and the determination of a 24-year-old Sultan who had already conquered one of the greatest cities in the world. Belgrade was no Constantinople. But, Mehmed intended to take it just the same. Over the next eight days, the fighting would escalate into one of the most extraordinary confrontations the Ottoman army had fought up until now.

[00:02:03] They would storm the fortress, the defenders would fight through the night, and then, in a sequence of events that almost nobody seems to have planned, a battle appeared, that appeared to be going Mehmed's one way, suddenly turned into a giant catastrophe.

[00:02:20] By the time it was over, the Ottoman army would be retreating, the Sultan himself would be wounded, and John Hunyadi would have secured one of the greatest victories of his most remarkable career. So, welcome back to the Ottoman Empire podcast. I am Frank, your host. This is episode 29, part 2, The Siege of Belgrade, The Sultan's Defeat.

[00:02:47] And, we're picking up our story in the middle of July 1456, with an increasingly frustrated Mehmed II staring across the battered defenses of Belgrade.

[00:03:24] July 15, 1456, the morning after Hunyadi's naval victory, the strategic situation around Belgrade had changed dramatically. But, it hadn't changed enough to make the Ottoman army simply pack up and go home. Not by a long shot. Mehmed's forces still occupied their positions outside the fortress. His artillery continued to threaten the walls. His troops maintained pressure on the defenders.

[00:03:54] The Ottomans had lost control of the river blockade, but they had not lost their ability to conduct the siege. And this is where we need to understand geography. Belgrade stood at the confluence of two great rivers, the Danube and the Sava. Whoever controlled this fortress possessed one of the principal gateways between the Balkans and the Hungarian heartland.

[00:04:18] For Mehmed, capturing Belgrade meant opening a route for further Ottoman operations towards Hungary and Central Europe. For Hunyadi, holding it meant preventing the Ottomans from turning their victory at Constantinople into another strategic breakthrough and disaster for Christianity. And both commanders understood the stakes.

[00:04:43] Now, the defenders had gained something enormously valuable from the naval battle. They had gained time. They had also gained valuable reinforcements. But most importantly, they had gained confidence. Hunyadi had demonstrated that the Ottoman army was not invincible. But confidence doesn't repair a shattered wall. And Mehmed's enormous guns had been doing a great deal of damage.

[00:05:11] The fortress defenses were under tremendous strain. Every day of bombardment created new problems for the garrison. And every breach offered the Ottomans yet another opportunity to effect a breakthrough. Hunyadi faced a difficult calculation. He had to keep enough men defending the damaged fortifications while at the same time preserving the ability to respond when the Sultan finally ordered a major assault.

[00:05:41] And he knew that an assault was simply a matter of time. Because Mehmed II had not marched all the way to Belgrade from Constantinople simply to show up, watch his naval blockade fail, and fire a few artillery shells and then call it a day. Hunyadi knew that Mehmed II was about to make his move. Before we reach the final assault, let's take a look really quick at the Ottoman side.

[00:06:11] Mehmed had not assembled a shapeless mob. His army was divided into great regional commands. Rumilian troops held one sector. Anatolian troops held another. And the Janissary Corps occupied the center near the Sultan's command post. Cavalry screened the approaches. Artillery stood before the walls.

[00:06:33] The river flotilla had been intended to seal the northern flank until Hunyadi's attack on July 14th wrecked that arrangement. And there had already been a potentially decisive argument among the Ottoman commanders. When news arrived that Hunyadi's relief army was approaching, Karaka Pasha reportedly urged the council to send troops across the Danube and to meet it before it could interfere.

[00:07:03] Instead, he had been overruled. The council concentrated on reducing Belgrade. From the Ottoman perspective, this was understandable. The fortress was the prize. However, this decision allowed Hunyadi time and room to maneuver. The army had chosen to keep its eyes on the walls while an experienced enemy commander gathered strength and was left the strategic room of maneuver.

[00:07:30] Then, the bombardment claimed an important Ottoman life. During the exchange of artillery fire, Karaka Pasha was killed by a shot from the defenders. A senior Ottoman commander was gone. The river blockade had failed and the fortress still refused to surrender. Mehmed answered by intensifying the bombardment and he ordered his men to prepare for a landed breach against its walls.

[00:08:00] The campaign was rapidly moving towards the point where patience was about to end and the poor old common infantrymen was about to pay the bill. July 21st in 1456. After weeks of siege operations, Mehmed prepared to deliver the decisive blow. His artillery had battered Belgrade's defenses and the Ottoman command believed the fortress could be taken by storm.

[00:08:28] This was the moment when siege warfare became something much more intimate. Cannons could break stone, but men still had to capture the walls. And capturing a fortified position meant climbing over rubble, fighting through narrow approaches, and engaging defenders who had every advantage of elevation and they were familiar with the ground.

[00:08:53] Mehmed had experienced troops available for the task, including his valued and prized janissaries. The janissaries were not simply another collection of infantrymen. They represented the professional core of the Ottoman military establishment, troops that were trained to operate under a centralized command, and they were accustomed to the demands of siege warfare.

[00:09:19] But even the best infantry in Europe could be slaughtered if forced into the wrong position. The Ottoman objective was to exploit the damaged defenses, overwhelm the defenders, and then try and secure a foothold inside of Belgrade. Once enough troops could penetrate and exploit a breakthrough, they could then begin clearing defensive positions, opening the way for the rest of the main army.

[00:09:46] For Han Yadi, the problem was exactly the tactical opposite. He had to, at all costs, prevent the attackers from turning a local breach into the collapse of the entire defensive system. As evening approached, the Ottomans gathered their forces. Mehmed was at the front of his command tent, with his janissaries and other elite corps units assembling before him. The order was given.

[00:10:13] The fighting at the walls of Belgrade, brutal throughout the night. Ottoman troops surged forward against the damaged walls, while the defenders, ringing bells and clanging other instruments, attempted to hold the rally and gather as many people as they could to fight the Ottomans. There was smoke, there was rubble, there was confusion. Men fought over breaches and passages, where superior numbers could become almost meaningless.

[00:10:43] Imagine the conditions for just a moment. Darkness is falling over the fortress, already devastated by artillery fire. Your eyes and your nose are burning from the ascetic burn of gunpowder. The noise of men shouting orders in several different languages. The crash of weapons against armor. The smell of the smoke, the burning tinder, and all of the loud sounds.

[00:11:07] And somewhere beyond the walls, the Sultan was waiting for news that his troops had finally broken through. As the fighting continued into the night, Ottoman attackers managed to penetrate parts of Belgrade's alder and even into the inner defensive perimeter. For the defenders, this was the nightmare that they had been preparing for. The enemy was no longer merely outside the fortress. He was now inside.

[00:11:35] And now, John Hunyadi faced the most dangerous hours of the entire siege. Before we follow the attackers through the breaches, let's picture Belgrade as a series of obstacles rather than a single stone circle or curtain. There was a lower town with its river port and an upper town with a substantial defensive structure. In addition to this, there was an interior castle.

[00:12:03] Gates, walls, changes of elevation would create successive defensive positions. Taking the first line, did not necessarily guarantee an attacker possession of the entire complex. It could instead put him into a confined space, being funneled into a fatal tactical ground.

[00:12:24] The commander of the fort, or one of its sub-commanders, Hunyadi's brother-in-law named Michael, commanded the original garrison. His troops had endured the bombardment long before the relief army arrived. Now, they would be fighting alongside the reinforcements Hunyadi had brought into the fortress. This was not a collection of nameless defenders waiting for rescue. It was a hard-pressed garrison with commanders who had been preparing for this very moment.

[00:12:55] On the nights of July 21st, going over into the early morning of July 22nd, the battle had become a vicious struggle for possession of different pockets of the fortress. Mehmed's artillery had accomplished what siege artillery was supposed to do earlier. The defenses had been weakened, the portions of the wall were broken, and Ottoman infantry had found opportunities to penetrate and then exploit the city's outer defensive perimeter.

[00:13:26] But there was a problem beginning to develop. Breaking into the fortress and then capturing a fortress are two very different things. The Ottomans were discovering that that distinction was most unpleasant. Belgrade was not defended by a single wall. Its defensive system incorporated multiple positions, including the lower town and the more formidable upper fortress.

[00:13:53] An attacking force might penetrate one section of the defense, only to find himself facing another fortified position. The Ottoman, manned and defended by men who knew precisely where all of the choke points and killing grounds were located. The deeper the Ottoman attackers pushed, the more difficult it was becoming to maintain unit cohesion and overall command and control of the army once it had penetrated inside of the Belgrade fortress.

[00:14:22] Let's try and picture what that must have been like for just a moment. An Ottoman infantry fighting in the darkness. There's shouts, there's loud clangs, there's loud sounds, there's smoke everywhere. You become confused, you become cut off, and then the next thing you know, you have two of the castle's defenders bearing down on you at first with rocks, and then lances, and then finally with daggers.

[00:14:47] Behind these men slowly being isolated and cut off were thousands of Ottoman foot soldiers cut off at choke points, who were desperately looking for an opportunity to break into the fight where they could join their men who were being cut down. But the very breaches that allowed the Ottomans to enter Belgrade, as Sultan Mehmed II saw from his vantage point, was also restricting his troops' movement.

[00:15:14] A narrow opening does not care how enormous your army is. You can have 50,000 men standing outside a fortress. But if only a handful can move through the breach at a time, then guess what? Your superior numbers and advantage rapidly evaporates. John Hunyadi understood this kind of fighting.

[00:15:35] He had spent decades confronting the Ottoman armies, and he knew that the survival of Belgrade depended on focusing all of his available defenders on these numerous choke points. His men fought desperately throughout the night to contain the penetrations. One of the most famous episodes of the night involved the defenders using burning materials against Ottoman soldiers, attempting to scale or cross the damaged defenses.

[00:16:05] Contemporary accounts describe the use of fire to separate attackers from their reinforcements. Imagine being an Ottoman soldier who has finally crossed the shattered wall, only to discover that the route behind you is now burning. You and just a handful of your buddies are cut off. You cannot retreat. Your only reinforcements cannot reach you.

[00:16:28] The enemy is now burning. The defenders gradually contained the Ottoman assault, and by the early morning of July 22nd as the sun rose, the attempt to take Belgrade by storm had failed.

[00:16:54] But the battle was far from finished, not even close. Because something was about to happen outside the walls that would transform an unsuccessful Ottoman assault into a full-scale disaster for Sultan Mehmed. And, remarkably, it was not the result of some elaborate master plan drawn up by Hunyadi. It began with men who were supposed to remain where they were.

[00:17:23] The Ottoman assault had been repulsed. Belgrade still stood. But the defenders were exhausted, the fortifications were badly damaged, and the Ottoman army remained outside the city. Under normal circumstances, this would have been the moment for both sides to regroup. Mehmed could reorganize his forces, evaluate the damage, and decide whether another assault was practical in the moment.

[00:17:50] Hunyadi could reinforce his defenses, care for the wounded, and prepare for whatever the Ottomans had in store for him next. And considering how close Belgrade had come to falling, remaining behind the walls would have been the sensible, rational military decision. Unfortunately, sensible decisions were about to become rather scarce. Outside the fortress, elements of the Christian army began moving towards Ottoman positions.

[00:18:19] Amongst their number were crusading volunteers, inspired by the Franciscan preacher John of Capistrano. Now, Capistrano was not a professional military commander in the mold of Hunyadi, as I have just said in Part 1 of this, Episode 29. He was a religious figure whose preaching had helped mobilize thousands of men for the defense of Hungary.

[00:18:45] Many of these volunteers were poorly equipped compared with the professional soldiers of the Ottoman army. They were not an elite formation of heavily armored knights. Some carried improvised weapons. Some had little formal military training. But what they did possess, in considerable abundance, was religious enthusiasm.

[00:19:09] And on July 22nd, that enthusiasm was about to become a serious problem for Sultan Mehmed II. The movement appears to have begun as a limited confrontation near the Ottoman lines. Men from the Christian side began to advance towards the Ottoman troops, taunting them and then throwing objects at them, and then finally initiating small-scale skirmishes. The Ottoman troops began to reply in kind.

[00:19:39] The encounter escalated. More volunteers began to join in what was sporadic fighting. What may have remained a minor skirmish began to develop into a larger and larger engagement.

[00:19:53] Capistrano became involved himself, leading two advances, encouraging his crusaders as the confrontation began to grow directly in front of the Ottoman lines to now encompassing up and down Mehmed's defensive positions. And now, Han Yadi, looking at all of this, realized that he now faced a difficult choice.

[00:20:17] He could attempt to rein in all of this mess and attempt to restore discipline before disaster befell him. Or, as he analyzed the battlefield, the confusion in the Ottoman front line may be an opportunity was developing to exploit some confusion. The Ottoman army had just endured a costly nighttime assault. Its formations were regrouping and recovering.

[00:20:46] Its commanders were trying to muster and take headcounts as it attempted to restore order. And portions of its siege apparatus were now exposed. An attack at this moment was dangerous, for sure, but it also presented an opportunity. John Hunyadi recognized that the Ottoman army was now vulnerable. And, instead of allowing the confrontation to remain an uncontrolled skirmish, why not roll with it?

[00:21:16] And, ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the most extraordinary moments in military history, when events began moving faster and faster than anyone can possibly control. A handful of men began to leave their positions. A skirmish begins. Taunting is all up and down the line. Pretty soon, people are fighting in small groups. Those groups got bigger and bigger and bigger. Reinforcements from both sides began to send in more men.

[00:21:46] Commanders found themselves having to act without higher-up orders. And, suddenly, an army that had spent weeks besieging a fortress now found itself fighting for its own survival. Mehmed's troops were arranged around Belgrade to conduct a siege. This meant that his artillery positions, encampments, supply arrangements, and formations were designed to contain defenders and support the assaults against the wall.

[00:22:15] A siege army is not necessarily positioned to respond immediately to a determined attack emerging from the fortress it is besieging, especially when that attack develops immediately after a failed assault when most of the Ottoman army was tired out. And, this was the opening Hunyadi exploited.

[00:22:37] As Capistrano's volunteers pressed the Ottoman positions, Hunyadi led his disciplined force out against the siege lines. The Hungarian commander was making a beeline for the Ottoman artillery and the supported positions around it. This was an enormously important tactical decision. The artillery had been the foundation of Mehmed's siege.

[00:23:02] Without those guns, the sultan's ability to continue battering Belgrade would be severely diminished. And, if the attackers could seize or disrupt the artillery positions, they could strike at the very machinery that had nearly brought down the fortress. The fighting spread throughout the Ottoman siege works.

[00:23:24] Christian forces attacked gun positions and disrupted the Ottoman formations that were desperately attempting to assemble. As Sultan Mehmed looked on from his headquarters tent, he noticed that his army was now being forced to fight on the ground that it had simply expected to maintain control over. And, the situation began to deteriorate rapidly. Now, I'd like to emphasize something here.

[00:23:52] This was not a case of the enormous Ottoman army simply running away or, because of a few enthusiastic peasants appeared on the battlefield, they decided to throw their armor and weapons down and run away. No. The Ottoman military machine was a well-oiled and disciplined fighting force. The Ottoman soldiers fought back in small groups.

[00:24:15] Mehmed possessed experienced commanders, professional infantry, and cavalry capable of responding to threats. But, the timing was everything. And, this counterattack was simply devastating. The army had been fighting throughout the previous night. And, on top of that, it was a costly and failed assault. And, now, the defenders were attacking the very positions from which the Ottomans had been conducting the siege.

[00:24:45] The battlefield was becoming increasingly confused. And, confusion is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to an army, dependent on coordination between infantry, cavalry, artillery, and command. An artillery crew cannot continue its work effectively when enemy soldiers are pouring into their position.

[00:25:08] A cavalry commander cannot simply charge through his own camp without regard for friendly troops. And, an infantry formation or company that has spent the night attacking a fortress may not be enthusiastic about immediately fighting another battle in the opposite direction. The Ottoman army began, after an hour or so, to lose the initiative. And, for Mehmed II, that was simply dangerous and unacceptable.

[00:25:39] The sultan had come to Belgrade, expecting to dictate the course of the campaign. And, instead, he was now being forced to react to Hunyadi. And, that was a very dangerous position to occupy against a commander of Hunyadi's experience. Mehmed II now faced a possibility that his campaign could collapse. Remember who we're talking about now.

[00:26:05] This was the sultan who had captured Constantinople only three years earlier. He had broken through the defenses of one of the most famous fortified cities in the entire world. He had established himself as one of the most formidable rulers of his generation. And, now, outside of Belgrade, he was watching an army that had appeared overwhelmingly powerful begin to disintegrate. Mehmed attempted to rally his soldiers.

[00:26:34] Accounts of the battle described the sultan personally entering the fighting and being wounded in his thigh. That detail matters. A ruler of Mehmed's importance did not casually expose himself to the hazards of close combat. His personal involvement illustrates the severity of the crisis. When the supreme commander of an army must intervene directly to restore the situation, things have gone very, very badly.

[00:27:04] And, this was not simply a matter of personal bravery. Mehmed's presence was intended to restore morale and cohesion. Ottoman soldiers needed to see that their sultan remained in command. They needed to believe that the battle could still be won. But, a commander cannot restore an entire battlefield through sheer determination alone.

[00:27:28] By this point, Ottoman forces were suffering significant disruption and moderate to heavy casualties. The siege artillery was already threatened or most of it lost. Troops began to fall back in smaller groups. And, the Christian counterattack surprisingly was gaining ever more momentum. The wounding of Mehmed further complicated the tactical situation. The sultan would survive.

[00:27:56] But, his army had reached the point where continuing the siege was no longer a tactical reality. The battle had been lost. And, the immediate priority was no longer capturing Belgrade. It was preserving what remained of the Ottoman field army. There was one more reversal before the end. As the Christian attackers reached the Ottoman camp in guns,

[00:28:23] an advisor reportedly urged Mehmed to withdraw for his own safety. Mehmed refused. He entered the fighting personally, accompanied by members of his janissaries and personal household troops. The sight of the sultan fighting helped steady his soldiers' nerves. Ottoman troops counterattacked as hard as they could and forced the Christian fighters back from the central parts of their camp.

[00:28:51] For a moment, it seemed like disaster could be staved off. But, this was not the same thing as restoring the siege. Mehmed looked down at himself, badly wounded. And, the Ottoman attempts to regain their artillery positions were failing one after the other. His army could still fight. It could still march. However, it was no longer in a fighting position to reduce Belgrade.

[00:29:19] That was the decisive distinction. The sultan's courage had proved that it could hold out. However, he could not simply get the guns or the initiative. The war council convened and accepted that a battlefield plan had to be made and the siege should come to an end. On the night of late July 22nd, going over into the early morning hours of July 23rd,

[00:29:49] the Ottoman army began to withdraw in good order from Belgrade. The siege was now over. Mehmed II, conqueror of Constantinople, had failed to capture the fortress that guarded the southern approaches to Hungary. And, the retreat was not just the only thing that was causing a bad conclusion to the campaign. It was also following a severe battlefield reversal.

[00:30:17] Ottoman artillery and equipment were abandoned or captured. And, the army began to withdraw quickly southward. The precise number of Mehmed's casualties remain unclear. I've done my research, but unfortunately haven't come up with any solid number. However, I can certainly tell you this. The scale of his defeat was certainly unmistakable, and it was felt all throughout the Ottoman Empire.

[00:30:44] For Hunyadi, the result was simply extraordinary. He had defended one of Hungary's most strategically important fortresses against a major Ottoman expedition. He had broken the river blockade. He had survived, and he had achieved a decisive result. As for the Christian side of the curtain, in the aftermath of the battle, celebrations spread across the Christian world. Belgrade had survived.

[00:31:13] The Ottoman advance into Hungary had been checked. And, I'm not talking about just this year or the next year. But, any Ottoman advance further north would now be stifled because Belgrade stood in the way. And, John Hunyadi had once again demonstrated why he was regarded as one of the most formidable opponents of the Ottoman Empire. But, the victory also extracted a terrible price.

[00:31:41] Disease had spread throughout the crowded military encampments. The same conditions that made siege warfare so miserable also created opportunities for germs and epidemics. Thousands of men had gathered around Belgrade. Sanitation was awful. Supplies had been strained. And, the aftermath of the battle left the region in a dreadful condition. Hunyadi would fall ill.

[00:32:09] And, on August 11, 1456, less than three weeks after his major victory, John Hunyadi died. Think about it. A man who had spent decades fighting the Ottoman Empire had just secured one of the most important victories of his life. He had prevented Mehmed II from capturing Belgrade. He had preserved a crucial defensive position for Hungary.

[00:32:37] And then, almost immediately afterward, he was dead. There is something profoundly tragic about that ending. Hunyadi, the survivor of many campaigns, sieges, political struggles, assassination attempts, and battles. Well, guess what? He couldn't fight the one thing that you can't see. Disease that followed his greatest triumph. And, he was not the only prominent figure to die. John of Capistrano,

[00:33:07] whose crusading volunteers had played such an important role in the final battle, also became ill. And, he would die later that same year in October. Within months of the victory, two of its most celebrated figures were gone. Belgrade had been saved. But, the men who helped save it would not live long enough to see the consequences of their achievement. There is one extraordinary legacy of Belgrade that most people encounter

[00:33:36] without even knowing its origin. In June 1456, Pope Colitis III ordered churches to ring their church bells and call the faithful to pray for the men defending Belgrade. The order went out before the outcome of the siege was known. Communications in 15th century Europe were not exactly instantaneous. In some places, the news of victory arrived before the papal instruction.

[00:34:05] And, the noon bell became associated with thanksgiving for the defender's success. So, when you hear the story that the noon bell was created to celebrate Belgrade, there is a twist. The original order was a plea for help. And, the victory transformed its meaning. It is a remarkable example of a battlefield echoing into ordinary daily life. A desperate fortress on the Danube, an army in retreat,

[00:34:34] and bells ringing hundreds of miles away. So, what did the Battle of Belgrade actually accomplish? Well, first, it prevented Mehmed from capturing a critical fortress on Hungary's southern border. That alone was a major, and I mean a major, strategic achievement. Had Belgrade fallen, the Ottomans would have possessed a powerful forward position from which to threaten the Hungarian interior. Instead,

[00:35:04] the fortress remained a major obstacle for decades to come. Second, the battle demonstrated the Ottoman military's superiority was not absolute. Mehmed's army possessed formidable artillery, experienced infantry, and enormous resources. But, the campaign revealed also the limits of those advantages when confronted by difficult geography, resilient defenses, and an effective

[00:35:34] enemy commander. Third, the victory would strengthen the defensive position of Hungary at a critical moment in its history. Constantinople, the ever shield of Europe against the Ottomans for so long, had fallen in 1453. Ottoman expansion into the Balkans was continuing anew. Many European rulers feared that Mehmed intended to push further into Central Europe. Belgrade showed that the advance

[00:36:04] could be resisted. But, we should not confuse the defeat of an Ottoman army with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed II, our favorite sultan here at the Ottoman Empire podcast, was still very much alive after the battle. His empire remained powerful, his armies would campaign again, and the sultan was not the sort of man who responded to humiliation by retiring to a quiet country estate

[00:36:32] and taking up gardening. Belgrade had checked him, but it had not ended his ambitions. Over the following decades, the Ottoman Empire would continue expanding its power in southeastern Europe. And, the struggle for control of the Danube frontier would continue long after Han Yadi's death. In fact, Belgrade itself would eventually fall to the Ottomans in 1521

[00:37:02] under Sultan Suleiman I. But, that was 65 years into the future. In 1456, the fortress had held, and for the moment, that was enough. I'd like to end by returning us back to Sultan Mehmed II. Because, throughout this episode, we've been examining the battle largely from the perspective of the defenders. But, this is the Ottoman Empire podcast, so let's kind of park the bus

[00:37:32] and take a look around in the tent of Mehmed. For the Ottoman Empire, Belgrade was a painful lesson. Mehmed sure had conquered a lot of territory. He had demonstrated the power of concentrated artillery, determined infantry assaults, and carefully coordinated siege operations. Yet, three years after the fall of Constantinople, he had failed at Belgrade. And why was that? Because, the same military

[00:38:01] methods that had succeeded at Constantinople simply did not guarantee success everywhere. Every fortress presented different problems. Every enemy commander responded differently. And every campaign depended upon logistics, geography, timing, and the ability to maintain control of events when things began to go in unexpected directions. Mehmed had learned that lesson the hard way. But he was still

[00:38:31] young, only 24 years old. His reign was far, far from over. The Ottoman Empire would continue its expansion. And the Sultan, who had failed at Belgrade, would go on to achieve victories that reshaped the political map of southeastern Europe. For now, however, the year was 1456, the Ottoman army retreating from Belgrade, John Hunyadi was dying, and the frontier between Hungary and the Ottoman

[00:39:01] Empire remained one of the most dangerous places to take a stroll in Europe. Meanwhile, in the nearby principality of Wallachia, another figure was consolidating his hold on power, a prince whose name would become synonymous with terror, Vlad Dracula. And, although Mehmed II had just suffered defeat at the hands of John Hunyadi, his future confrontation with Dracula would produce

[00:39:31] an entirely different kind of war. History, it is said, can be a cruel bastard, and in 1456 it was particularly cruel to John Hunyadi. Thanks for listening to the Ottoman Empire podcast. I am your host, Frank, and until next time, thank you.