Maritsa River, Battle of the 1371

Maritsa River, Battle of the (1371)

 

a battle that took place on September 26 on the Maritsa River (or at Cernomen, west of present-day Edirne) between the people’s militias of the Balkan peoples (Serbs, Bosnians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Wallachians, and others) on the one hand and the Ottoman Turks on the other.

The South Serbian feudal lords Ugljesa and his brother Vukasin tried to organize resistance to the Turkish invasion, but the army which they assembled, poorly led because it did not have a unified command, was attacked by the Turkish cavalry on the night of September 25 and was wiped out. The victory at the Maritsa River opened the road to the Balkans for the Turks, who took Western Thrace and a large part of Macedonia, Serbia, and Bulgaria.