The Siege of Belgrade (1456), Part 1 Mehmed the Conqueror vs. John Hunyadi

[00:00:00] July 14, 1456, the Danube River outside of Belgrade. Wooden ships are closing in on one another. Men are shouting orders. Arrows and gunfire cut across the water. Grappling hooks fly and suddenly the distance between two vessels disappears.

[00:00:19] Somewhere in the middle of this mess is John Hunyadi, a man who has spent much of his adult life making life miserable for the forces of the Ottoman Empire. On the river stands the fleet of Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople. Behind it, the Ottoman army has been hammering Belgrade with artillery for days and days.

[00:00:44] The defenders are trapped, the walls are suffering and crumbling, and the Sultan expects the fortress to fall at any moment. But Hunyadi has arrived with his boats, and he is about to find out whether a river blockade is as strong as it looks.

[00:01:02] Welcome back to the Ottoman Empire Podcast. Last time we followed Mehmed North toward Belgrade in episode 28. Today, we are going to meet the armies, walk the ground, examine the weapons, and watch the opening of a siege that could change the balance of power in southeastern Europe.

[00:01:22] And by the time we have finished, the Danube is going to be a very, very unpleasant place to be around. So, let's dive into it.

[00:01:56] Before we get into the shooting, the stabbing, the burning, and general medieval unpleasantness, we first have to understand why Belgrade mattered. And let me tell you this, it really matters. Because Belgrade wasn't just another city that Mehmed decided to conquer because he was out taking a stroll in the neighborhood.

[00:02:17] Belgrade was one of the great strategic waterways into central Europe. The city sat at the meeting point of two rivers, the Danube and the Sava. If you've ever looked at a map of southeastern Europe, you'll immediately understand why this location was so important.

[00:02:36] Rivers were the highways of the medieval world. They moved merchants, food, armies, supplies, and occasionally enormous quantities of people who would have preferred not to be involved in whatever military adventure was currently underway. If you control the river junction, then guess what? You control an important transportation and military corridor.

[00:03:01] Control Belgrade and you have a much better position from which to threaten Hungary. And Hungary, ladies and gentlemen, was a very big deal. In 1456, Belgrade belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary. Its Hungarian name was Nandor Fah Havar, which I am grateful I don't have to say 20 times in this episode, and I apologize in advance to my Hungarian listeners.

[00:03:27] The fortress has been developed and strengthened over the preceding decades, and its defensive system included a fortified town, an upper castle, towers, and walls that took advantage of the surrounding terrain. However, this was not some miserable little collection of wooden huts surrounded by a ditch. Nope, this was a serious military obstacle.

[00:03:54] Now, as we've discussed previously, Mehmed had already taken Constantinople in 1453, and he was continuing a campaigning in the Balkans. Novo Berto had fallen in 1455. The Ottoman frontier was moving north, and Belgrade was sitting directly in its path. From Mehmed's perspective, capturing it made perfect strategic sense.

[00:04:22] The problem was that other people knew how to read maps as well, and one of those people was John Hunyadi. John Hunyadi was a Hungarian military commander, and by 1456, he had spent much of his adult life fighting against the Ottoman Empire. I did a special extra episode dedicated to John Hunyadi, and you will find a link to that in the show notes.

[00:04:50] John Hunyadi was experienced. He was resourceful and very, very familiar with the fact that the Ottoman armies were capable of ruining your entire week. Hunyadi had suffered defeats. He had won victories. He had fought campaigns that went well, and campaigns that went so badly that you could reasonably question whether anyone involved had even consulted a map.

[00:05:19] But he knew the enemy. He knew his Ottoman. He understood the importance of Belgrade, and he understood that losing the fortress would create an enormous problem for Hungary. Now, here's something important. You might imagine that with a massive Ottoman army approaching, the Hungarian kingdom would unite behind its most experienced commander and provide him with everything that he needed.

[00:05:48] That would be the sensible thing to do, the rational thing to do. But, as medieval politics we have observed repeatedly on this podcast, guess what? Medieval politics have a somewhat strained relationship with rationality and sensible behavior. Hungary at this time was divided by rivalries amongst powerful nobles and factions at court.

[00:06:16] Hunyadi could not simply summon a perfectly coordinated national army and then march south. He had to organize much of the relief effort himself and even at his own personal cost. The fortress was placed under the defense of men he could count on, including his brother-in-law and his eldest son.

[00:06:36] They would be responsible for holding Belgrade against the Ottomans while Hunyadi frantically tried to cobble together reinforcements. And then, we have our second major player in this entire scenario. John of Capistrano. Or, Giovanni di Capistrano if you prefer the Italian.

[00:07:00] Capistrano was an Italian friar, a preacher, former inquisitor, and an intensely committed religious campaigner. He was also well into his 70s, which, let me tell you, in the 15th century, if you made it to your 70s, well, that was an age when you were pretty much 120 by our standards.

[00:07:24] John Capistrano had been preaching a crusade against the Ottomans, and his message attracted large numbers of volunteers. Some of his followers were experienced fighters. However, many were not. A substantial portion of the force consisted of ordinary people, peasants, townsmen, and others, whose enthusiasm greatly exceeded their military training.

[00:07:51] Then came armed with weapons that would have made a professional soldier look at them and ask, Hey, are you guys certain that you want to do this? But, don't underestimate what that meant. Professional soldiers are essential, of course. However, armies also need numbers. They need people to fill the labor roles, food, transport, people who are willing to endure extraordinarily difficult hardship.

[00:08:21] John Capistrano could inspire, and this inspiration would cause people to show up. And John Hunyadi knew how to organize and fight. They were two very different men, with different responsibilities and different approaches. But in the summer of 1456, they were working towards the same objective, keep Belgrade out of Mehmed's hands.

[00:08:48] And this brings us to the central irony of the entire story. Mehmed was approaching Belgrade with the military resources of an expanding empire. His opponents were assembling a coalition that was, frankly, a logistical nightmare. And somehow, that coalition was about to give him one of the worst surprises of his career.

[00:09:13] Before we start throwing cannonballs at Belgrade, I want to do something long-time listeners of this podcast will certainly appreciate. We are going to examine the order of battle on both sides. Because I think it's important to understand not just who won and who lost, but who these men actually were, how they were equipped, and what kind of army each commander brought to the field.

[00:09:40] And in this case, the contrast between the two sides is absolutely fascinating. On the one side, we have Mehmed II, commanding the military resources of an expanding empire. On the other side, we have John Hunyadi, trying to assemble a relief force from professional soldiers, noble cavalry, mercenaries, and religious volunteers.

[00:10:06] One side has an impressive imperial siege train with advanced technology. The other side has a 70-year-old friar recruiting peasants. And somehow, this all will become a serious military contest. So, let's start with the Ottoman army, Mehmed's order of battle. How many men exactly did Mehmed bring with him to Belgrade?

[00:10:34] Well, if you believe some of the more enthusiastic medieval sources, then Sultan Mehmed arrived with something approaching 200,000 soldiers. Which, I believe, is a pretty much impressive number. However, if he really did have with him 200,000 soldiers, I'm here to tell you that I'm not entirely sure that the logistics would have worked out for that. Here's the brutal truth. Armies have to eat.

[00:11:04] Horses have to eat. And transporting food, fodder, ammunition, tents, and everything else necessary to keep an enormous army functioning. Well, guess what? That's not a minor inconvenience. It is a massively expensive undertaking. Modern estimates by contemporary scholars are generally much more on the conservative side.

[00:11:29] For our purposes, I think a good number that Mehmed may have had with him at Belgrade may have been anything between 40,000 to 60,000 Ottoman troops. Now, this gives us a reasonable working figure with the resources that Mehmed had available to him. Now, we don't exactly possess a reliable unit by subunit breakdown, kind of like we did with the siege of Constantinople.

[00:11:58] However, what I can do, based on the sources that I've researched, is take a really good stab at it. First of all, let's start off with our favorite sources, the Janissaries. These were the sultan's elite infantry, the professional troops of the Ottoman household establishment. By the middle of the 15th century, they were among the most competent components of the Ottoman military.

[00:12:25] They were the most well-trained, the most well-disciplined, lavishly equipped and seriously paid, and they trained and trained and trained for combat year-round. They used a variety of weapons, mainly including composite bows, crossbows, spears, lances, axes, swords, and, with increasing frequency, specialized units involving gunpowder, cannons, and firearms.

[00:12:55] Now, don't picture every Janissary marching around with a musket like in the video games. We're still very much stuck in the middle of the 15th century. Gunpowder weapons were developing rapidly. However, the Janissary bow and traditional close combat weapons remain their mainstay. The Janissaries formed the dependable infantry corps around the sultan's position when his headquarter tent was pitched.

[00:13:24] They marched with the sultan as a close personal bodyguard. And when the time came to assault Belgrade, these were precisely the kind of troops Mehmed wanted to lead or reinforce his attack. Now, how many infantry Janissaries were actually present at the Battle of Belgrade? One thing we have to keep in mind, that although the Ottoman Empire probably appeared very large on paper,

[00:13:50] However, it was, by our standards, a somewhat underfunded and even could be considered poor empire. The same thing with the Ottoman Empire's neighbors. We tend to look at these maps and think, wow, Hungary looks pretty big. They must have had a giant army and a lot of money and a lot of gold. However, that was simply not the case. And I plan on diving into these logistics, economics, and cultural forces at another time.

[00:14:18] But pinning a number of Janissaries with Mehmed II and his campaign into Belgrade, Believe it or not, I believe that he had no more and no less than 5,000 to 7,000 Janissaries. A far cry from what some of the earlier sources said where he had as much as 25,000. I think there couldn't have been any more than 15,000 Janissaries total in the empire as a whole.

[00:14:45] And this doesn't count the Janissaries who are left behind to guard frontier fortresses. So, I'm going to put the number of Janissaries, conservatively speaking, between maybe 6,000 or 8,000. 8,000 at the very most at the Siege of Belgrade. Now that covered the Janissaries. Next, we have the famous Sepahi Infantry.

[00:15:09] The Sepahi Infantry were cavalrymen, and these people came from the provinces of the Ottoman Empire. They were mounted soldiers whose military obligations were connected to a complicated land, revenue, and lease grant under the Ottoman Timar system. These men would form a major part of the empire's mounted strength. They would be what we would consider a mix of light cavalry and heavy cavalry soldiers.

[00:15:40] Some were heavily equipped carrying lances, swords, and protective armor. Others were used for more scouting purposes. Their purpose was to provide mobility, fight enemy cavalry, screen the army, protect its flanks, and exploit opportunities in battle. As the Ottoman army drew close, these mounted forces would fan out and cause all manner of havoc.

[00:16:04] They hailed from all over the empire, from the European side of the empire to the Anatolian side. We estimate that Mehmed II probably had 10,000 to 14,000 Sepahi cavalrymen with him on this expedition. Next would come to a deeper distinction within the Ottoman order of battle. You had two different kind of factions within the Ottoman army.

[00:16:34] You had the troops that came from Anatolia. They are also known as Asia Minor troops. And you also had troops that held from the European side of the empire. These were called Rumelian troops. These were geographical military groupings, not two identical regiments with matching uniforms. Each could include different kind of troops, especially cavalry and provincial forces.

[00:17:02] During the siege, Mehmed positioned his Rumelian and Anatolian formations on opposite sides of his central command, according to our traditional reconstructions. In other words, he was organizing the army around a substantial center, protected by his household troops, with provincial formations occupying the wings. Then we have the infantry who weren't janissaries.

[00:17:31] The Ottoman military could draw upon provincial foot soldiers from all over the Freakin place. These were described as Azabs. These Azabs infantry were not the elite household infantry. The Azabs were varied in their equipment and experience, but they could serve in very difficult and dangerous roles. They might help to protect positions, support the siege, or take part in assaults.

[00:17:59] And believe me, being ordered to approach a fortified wall while the defenders are throwing everything imaginable at you is not exactly a desirable assignment. We estimate that Mehmed probably had between 5,000 and 9,000 Azab infantrymen. If you remember the episode that we did on Constantinople, the five-part series, the Azab infantry would play a vital part in wearing down the Theodosian walls.

[00:18:28] But the Ottomans didn't just have infantry and cavalry, they also had some other stuff up their sleeve. And this was going to be absolutely central to the siege, artillery. Mehmed had brought a major siege train with him to Belgrade. Large bombards, smaller cannons, ammunition, engineers, and the specialists necessary to operate them.

[00:18:54] The Ottoman artillery establishment was growing quite sophisticated for its time, employing experienced gunners and technical personnel from different backgrounds all over the known world at the time. Some accounts claim that there were approximately 300 guns. More specific historians, however, are listing the guns to around 22 very large cannons,

[00:19:21] seven mortars, and roughly 140 smaller pieces of various calibers and sizes. Now, I would treat any exact total cautiously, because sources and historians don't always count different types of artillery consistently. But there is no doubt about it whatsoever. Mehmed possessed a formidable concentration of gunpowder weapons,

[00:19:46] and he intended to use them to knock holes in Belgrade's defenses. Finally, we have the Ottoman fleet. More than simply a coalition of boats, these vessels were essential to Mehmed's operational plan. They could carry troops, move supplies, support the siege, and, more importantly, vitally, block access to Belgrade along the Danube River.

[00:20:14] Accounts often describe around 200 to 300 Ottoman vessels, although I tend to think that number is a little bit inflated. So, that's the Ottoman force. A large army, elite infantry, provincial cavalry, supporting infantry, a substantial artillery train, and a river fleet of boats that were mainly powered by oars. Not a bad collection of military resources.

[00:20:42] And certainly, not something I would ever want to see arriving outside of my door if I was living in the mid-15th century. Now, let's turn to the other side. And here's where things are going to become very interesting. Because the Christian forces were not one single army sitting along Belgrade waiting for Mehmed to arrive. There were several distinct components.

[00:21:09] First, let's take a look at the fortress garrison itself. Belgrade was defended by troops under a capable Hungarian commander. Some popular accounts placed the garrison between 5,000 to 7,000 men. However, I think the actual number would have been just over 2,000. Now, there is a substantial disagreement with these numbers that are worth acknowledging right here.

[00:21:40] However, whatever the number, and again, my own bias account is it was probably just over 2,000, is that the garrison of the fort at Belgrade had an enormous responsibility. They were going to be the soldiers who had to hold the walls while the Ottoman artillery battered the fortress. They included experienced defenders and men equipped for fighting from fortified positions.

[00:22:06] And in siege warfare, that's a particular kind of combat. You need soldiers who can man walls, operate missiles, defend breaches, and fight within confined spaces. A heavily armored cavalryman is a wonderful thing to have if you're in an open field somewhere. However, he and his horse are somewhat useless when the immediate problem is stopping 50 men from climbing through a hole in a wall.

[00:22:34] Next, we have Hunyadi's own field force. These were the more experienced troops who formed the professional corps and backbone of the relief army. Hunyadi had seasoned soldiers, mercenaries, mounted retainers, and noble cavalry. Some estimates put his field relief force at around 10,000 men, although the exact figure is somewhat disputed. However, I have no problem leaning towards this 10,000 figure.

[00:23:04] His cavalry component, however, was particularly important. Hungarian warfare in this period of time included armored noble horsemen, as well as lighter mounted troops. Hunyadi had also spent years, and I mean a long time up till this point, fighting the Ottoman Empire. Hunyadi was familiar with their methods and tactics. And he knew that a relief army had to do more than simply arrive outside the city

[00:23:33] and announce that everyone should please, please stop fighting already. A relief army needed to be able to maneuver, protect itself, coordinate with the defenders, and strike where it could do most damage. Then we come to the largest and least conventional component of the Christian effort, the crusaders who were recruited by John of Capistrano. And boy, what a collection of humanity this must have been.

[00:24:02] Peasants, craftsmen, townsmen, religious volunteers, you name it. Men who had answered the call to fight the Ottoman Empire, but who did not necessarily possess much military training. Some were equipped with proper weapons. Others carried bows, crossbows, early firearms, swords, clubs, or whatever they could grab along the way.

[00:24:25] And yes, some descriptions mention agricultural tools pressed into service and sharpened as weapons. Which is a rather alarming thought. Imagine showing up to fight the Ottoman army, carrying something you were used to harvesting crops with a few weeks earlier. But we shouldn't dismiss these men as completely useless. Not all of them were unarmed peasants.

[00:24:50] Some did have experience in the military and brought some effective weapons along with them. Collectively, they provided numbers. And this was the real kicker. Manpower and an overwhelming, extraordinary determination to win. Estimates of Capistrano's crusading force vary considerably. For our purposes, I think that if we pin them in the neighborhood of 20,000 to 30,000 volunteers,

[00:25:20] that's going to give us a sense of the scale that is reported in historical scholarship. However, I just want you to know, listeners, that the actual number, well, it can vary according to who you're talking to. So, here is the crucial distinction. Hunyadi's professional soldiers and Capistrano's crusaders were not interchangeable. The professional troops had training, organization, and military experience.

[00:25:49] The volunteers had the zeal of crusading strength, religious enthusiasm, but their quality varied enormously. So, Hunyadi faced a very difficult command problem right off the bat. How do you combine these different forces into something capable of confronting the Ottoman military? Well, as we'll discover, he didn't always manage to control them.

[00:26:15] And that would become one of the very first remarkable parts of the entire battle. Finally, we come to the river forces. Hunyadi organized armed vessels to challenge the Ottoman naval blockade, while boats associated with Belgrade's defenders could support the operation. And these vessels would play a decisive role. Because, no matter how impressive Mehmed's army looked on land,

[00:26:43] the Ottoman siege depended partly on controlling the waterways. If Hunyadi could break the blockade, then he stood a really good chance of changing the overall strategic outcome. So, the big question is, who had the advantage? Well, let's compare the two sides. Mehmed probably had something like 40,000 to 60,000 men, along with a powerful artillery train,

[00:27:12] a substantial river force. The defenders of Belgrade had a much smaller fortress garrison. Hunyadi's experienced relief troops and a large but unevenly trained body of crusading volunteers, the total of which, on the Belgrade side, could have been anywhere between 40,000 and 50,000 strong, spread out across several dozen miles. Depending on which estimate you accept,

[00:27:40] the combined Christian forces may have amounted to several tens of thousands of men. But, they were not all in one place, as I just said. They were not all equally trained, and they were not all under one perfectly functioning command structure. Which is why comparing the totals alone can be a bit misleading. The Ottoman army had a clear advantage in siege artillery, organization, and the ability to concentrate its forces.

[00:28:09] The defenders had strong fortifications, an experienced commander, access to local waterways, and a large body of volunteers who were determined to resist. Mehmed's task was to break the fortress. Hunyadi's task was to keep it alive long enough to make that impossible. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we have our armies. We have our commanders. We have our weapons.

[00:28:38] And we have one of the most strategically important fortresses in southeastern Europe. Now, all we need is for approximately 40,000 to 60,000 Ottomans to show up and start shooting at it. Which, unfortunately, for the people of Belgrade, is exactly what happened next. By the end of June 1456, Mehmed's Ottoman Empire arrived outside the walls of Belgrade.

[00:29:07] The siege is generally dated from July 4th, when the very first bombardment began. By the end of June 1456, Ottoman forces were appearing outside Belgrade. The siege is generally dated from July 4th, when Mehmed arrived with most of his army. So, exactly how large was his army when he arrived at Belgrade? Well, nobody can really agree.

[00:29:35] Contemporary and later accounts offer enormous figures, as I previously said. However, we want to be a little bit cautious. And what I'm going to do right now is just kind of focus on the bad news for the defenders. Because, if Sultan Mehmed had demonstrated one thing at Constantinople, it was that he understood the destructive possibilities of gunpowder artillery.

[00:30:02] Now, a medieval fortress could be an extraordinarily defensive structure. High walls, strong towers, protected gates, multiple defensive positions. Against traditional siege equipment, these things could be extremely effective for the defenders and costly for the attackers. But, the 15th century was beginning to change the rules. Large cannons could be used to batter masonry repeatedly,

[00:30:32] break open stones, cause cracks to appear, bring down towers, and eventually create breaches that infantry could pour through. And Mehmed had come prepared to do exactly that. The Ottoman army established positions around the city, fanned out to protect their flanks. While the Ottoman vessels along the riverway began to go up and down, attempting to establish control.

[00:30:59] Now, this naval element was crucial. If you can bombard a fortress from land and prevent food, supplies, and reinforcements from arriving by river, well then guess what? You don't really have to storm the walls immediately. You can isolate the defenders. You can exhaust them. You can make every day inside the fortress more miserable than the last. And then, when it's finally time to send your men over the wall,

[00:31:27] that's whenever you launch your attack. It was a perfectly reasonable plan. There was just one problem. John Hunyadi was bearing down on Mehmed II's position, and he was bringing some boats of his own. Let's jump ahead now to July 14th. For roughly 10 days, the fortress of Belgrade had been under constant Ottoman bombardment. The defenders were being worn down,

[00:31:55] and the Ottoman blockade threatened to cut them off from help. Hunyadi's relief force, however, was beginning to approach. And the first major obstacle wasn't the Ottoman army on land. It was the Ottoman naval fleet on the Danube River. Now, when I say fleet, I don't want you to imagine two modern navies maneuvering with aircraft carriers around the Mediterranean. What was on the river were river vessels, galleys,

[00:32:24] arm boats, and smaller craft confined to operating in little waterways. They didn't make them, however, any less dangerous. Fighting aboard wooden vessels at this day and age at close range could become an absolute nightmare. Ships were capable of ramming, grappling one another. Men could board enemy vessels and engage in brutal hand-to-hand bloody fighting. Arrows, gunfire, and other weapons

[00:32:53] could turn the decks into scenes of extraordinarily awful carnage and violence. And, of course, there was the dangers of the river itself. Because, if things go badly enough, you get to fight for your life while trying not to drown. Wonderful. Hunyadi organized an attack against the Ottoman blockade, coordinating with the defenders at Belgrade. The result was a very, very fierce battle. Christian vessels on the river

[00:33:23] attacked the Ottoman ships, while boats from the fortress joined in the fight. And, against the odds, despite the Ottoman siege and blockade, the river blockade was beginning to break. And, by the end of the day, it was completely broken and Hunyadi had broken through the river. This was a major victory for the defenders. Not because it ended the siege. It didn't. Mehmed still had a powerful army

[00:33:53] outside of Belgrade and his artillery had never relented their relentless pounding of the defenses. But, the naval victory changed the equation. Supplies could now reach the fortress. Reinforcements could enter. Hunyadi himself could now join the defense. And, perhaps more importantly, the men inside Belgrade now knew that they had not been abandoned.

[00:34:22] Imagine what that must have felt like. You've spent days listening to Ottoman cannons batter the walls around you. You've heard the stories. You've heard what it was like for the citizens of Constantinople when the Ottomans came roaring in when the Theodosian walls collapsed. You know that Mehmed II is outside your fort with a massive army. You know that if the fortress falls, the consequences for you personally are likely to be

[00:34:52] very unpleasant. And then, you hear that Hunyadi has broken through. Suddenly, the situation doesn't seem quite so hopeless. Now, let's imagine for a moment that you're Mehmed. You've brought an army to capture a fortress. You've established a blockade. You've begun reducing the walls. And then, your enemy shows up and smashes a hole through the naval part of your plan. That's irritating.

[00:35:21] But Mehmed was not about to abandon the campaign. Not yet. He still had the advantage in artillery. And, guess what? He intended to use it. So, there you have it. July 14th, 1456. Hunyadi has done what the defenders desperately needed him to do. He has smashed through the Ottoman blockade on the Danube. For the men inside Belgrade, this was a lifeline. Reinforcements

[00:35:50] can get through. Supplies can move in. The fortress is no longer completely cut off from the outside world. But, believe me, and let's be clear about one thing, Hunyadi had won a naval battle, but he had not yet beaten the Ottomans on the field of battle. Look beyond the river towards the Ottoman encampments. Mehmed is still there, his giant headquarter tent with all of its colors, flags, and pendants flying in the air. His army

[00:36:20] is still there. Concentric circles of Ottoman cannonade and artillery pointed at the fort, firing volley after volley. The guns have been tearing apart Belgrade's walls, and they have not suddenly vanished or disappeared. The Sultan did not come all this way to shrug his shoulders, pack up his tent, and go home. In fact, the worst of the fighting was still ahead. Every day, the bombardment continued, the breaches

[00:36:49] grew wider. Every night, the defenders had to wonder whether the next assault will come before dawn. Inside the Ottoman camp, Mehmed has a decision to make. How much longer does he batter the walls before ordering his men to make a breach? We are going to stop right here, with Hunyadi inside the fortress, the Danube open, and the Ottoman artillery still pounding away outside.

[00:37:18] Because next time, Mehmed is about to make his move. The Janissaries will go forward, the defenses will be pushed to the breaking point, and what happens after that will turn the siege into one of the most extraordinary military confrontations of the 15th century. The river battle was over, however, the battle for Belgrade was barely even beginning. Thanks for listening to the Ottoman Empire podcast,

[00:37:48] and I'll see you all next time with part two.