Battle of Kosovo (1448)

Second Battle of Kosovo
Part of the Ottoman wars in Europe and Ottoman-Hungarian Wars and Ottoman-Wallachian wars
An akinji defeating a Hungarian knight with a lasso.
Date 17–20 October 1448 (O.S.) (3 days) Location Kosovo Field, Serbian Despotate Result Ottoman victory
Belligerents
Ottoman Empire Karamanids[1]	Kingdom of Hungary Holy Roman Empire Kingdom of Bohemia Moldavia Grand Duchy of Lithuania[2] Wallachia[a]
Commanders and leaders
Murad II Prince Mehmed	John Hunyadi Franko Talovec † Michael Szilágyi
Strength
50,000–60,000[8][9]	31,000–47,000 (7,000 cavalry , 24,000–40,000 infantry)[10]
Casualties and losses
4,000–34,000[11][12][b]	6,000–17,000[11][12][b] 17,000 (9,000 Hungarians, 2,000 Mercenaries, 6,000 Wallachians)[5]

The Second Battle of Kosovo (Hungarian: második rigómezei csata, Turkish: İkinci Kosova Muharebesi) was a land battle between a Hungarian-led Crusader army and the Ottoman Empire at Kosovo field that took place from 17–20 October 1448. It was the culmination of a Hungarian offensive to avenge the defeat at the Battle of Varna four years earlier. In the three-day battle the Ottoman army under the command of Sultan Murad II defeated the Crusader army of regent John Hunyadi.

After the battle, the path was clear for the Turks to conquer Serbia and the other Balkan States, it also ended any hopes of saving Constantinople. The Hungarian kingdom no longer had the military and financial resources to mount an offensive against the Ottomans. With the end of the half-century-long Crusader threat to their European frontier, Murad's son Mehmed II was free to lay siege to Constantinople in 1453.

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