4. • Murad I, (born 1326?—died June 20/28 or Aug. 28, 1389, Kosovo),
Ottoman sultan who ruled from 1360 to 1389. Murad’s reign
witnessed rapid Ottoman expansion in Anatolia and the Balkans and
the emergence of new forms of government and administration to
consolidate Ottoman rule in these areas. Murad I (Ottoman Turkish:
اول مراد ;Turkish: I. Murad, Murad-ı Hüdavendigâr (nicknamed
Hüdavendigâr, from Persian: خداوندگار, Khodāvandgār, "the devotee
of God" – but meaning "sovereign" in this context); 29 June 1326 – 15
June 1389) was the Ottoman Sultan . He was a son of Orhan and the
Valide Nilüfer Hatun.
5. • Murad ascended the throne in succession to his father, Orhan. Shortly
after Murad’s accession, his forces penetrated western Thrace and
took Adrianople and Philipp polis and forced the Byzantine emperor
John V Palaeologus to become a vassal. Adrianople was renamed
Edirne, and it became Murad’s capital. In 1366 a crusade commanded
by Amadeus VI of Savoy rescued the Byzantines and occupied
Gallipoli on the Dardanelles, but the Turks recaptured the town the
next year. In 1371 Murad crushed a coalition of southern Serbian
princes at Charwomen in the Battle of the Maritsa River, took the
Macedonian towns of Dráma, Kavála, and Seres (Sérrai), and won a
significant victory over a Bulgarian-Serbian coalition at Samakow (now
Samokovo).
6. • These victories brought large territories under direct Ottoman rule
and made the princes of northern Serbia and Bulgaria, as well as the
Byzantine emperor, Murad’s vassal.
• In the 1380s Murad resumed his offensive in the west. Sofia was
taken in 1385 and Niš in 1386. Meanwhile, in Anatolia, Murad had
extended his power as far as Tokat and consolidated his authority in
Ankara. Through marriage, purchase, and conquest he also acquired
territories from the principalities of Germiyan, Tekke, and Hamid. A
coalition of Turkmen principalities led by the Karaman was formed to
stem Ottoman expansion, but it was defeated at Konya (1386).
7. • In 1387 or 1388 a coalition of northern Serbian princes and Bosnians
stopped the Ottomans at Pločnik, but in 1389 Murad and his son
Bayezid (later Bayezid I) defeated them at the first Battle of Kosovo,
although Murad was killed by a Serbian noble who pretended to
defect to the Ottoman camp. Under Murad I the seeds of some of the
basic Ottoman imperial institutions were sown. The administrative
military offices of kaziasker (military judge), beylerbeyi (commander
in chief), and grand vizier (chief minister) crystallized and were
granted to persons outside the family of Osman I, founder of the
dynasty. The origins of the Janissary corps (elite forces) and the
devşirme (child-levy) system through which the Janissaries were
recruited are also traced to Murad’s reign.
8. wars
Murad fought against the powerful beylik of Karaman in Anatolia and
against the Serbs, Albanians, Bulgarians and Hungarians in Europe. In
particular, a Serb expedition to expel the Turks from Adrianople led by
the Serbian brothers King Vukašin and Despot Uglješa, was defeated on
September 26, 1371, by Murad's capable second lieutenant Lala Şâhin
Paşa, the first governor (beylerbey) of Rumeli. In 1385, Sofia fell to the
Ottomans. In 1386 Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović defeated an Ottoman
force at the Battle of Pločnik. The Ottoman army suffered heavy
casualties, and was unable to capture Niš on the way back.
9. Battle of Kosovo
• Kosovo also spelled Kossovo, (June 28 [June 15, Old Style], 1389),
battle fought at Kosovo Polje ("Field of the Blackbirds"; now in
Kosovo) between the armies of the Serbian prince Lazar and the
Turkish forces of the Ottoman sultan Murad I (reigned 1360–89) that
left both leaders killed and ended in a Turkish victory, the collapse of
Serbia, and the complete encirclement of the crumbling Byzantine
Empire by Turkish armies. Under Sultan Murad’s rule the Turks had
been expanding their rule from Anatolia into the Balkans, where the
Serb Empire was potentially their strongest opponent. At the Battle of
Maritsa in 1371 the Serbs suffered a severe defeat that fragmented
their empire into rival princedoms.
10. • Murad resumed his campaigns against the Serbs in the 1380s. In the
summer of 1389 he halted at Kosovo, from where he had options to
attack Serbia or Macedonia. While Murad consulted with his
commanders, Lazar mustered all his forces in alliance with Vuk
Branković, a Serbian noble, and advanced on Kosovo. Lazar’s army is
thought to have been less than half the size of Murad’s force. The
battle began with Ottoman archers bombarding the advancing
Serbian cavalry, which blunted their impact on the Turkish lines.
However, inroads had been made and the Serbian charge was
followed up by heavily armored knights. Fearing that the Serbians
might break through, the Turks counterattacked, routing the Serbian
infantry.
11. • Some records claim that Lazar was captured and executed; others
claim that he was deserted by the jealous Brankovi? and fought
valiantly until hacked to death. Murad is thought to have been killed
by a Serbian knight, Miloš Obilić, in the immediate aftermath of the
battle. Although both sides suffered huge losses, the Ottomans
possessed the resources to raise another army and Serbia became
part of the Ottoman Empire.
12. • In the wake of these marriages, Stefan Lazarevic became a loyal ally of
Bayezid, going on to contribute significant forces to many of Bayezid’s
future military engagements, including the battle of Nilopolis.
Eventually the Serbian Despotate would, on numerous occasions,
attempt to defeat the Ottomans in conjunction with the Hungarians
until its final defeat in 1459. Turkish armor during battles of Marcia
and Kosovo.
13. Serbia `defeated' at the battle of Kosovo
• In 1459 the last vestiges of Serbian independence were finally snuffed
out. In the centuries that followed, though, the myth of Kosovo and
the great "defeat" began to grow, only to crystallise in the writings of
19th- century scholars and artists.
• Today there are those who believe that "bad history" has played a
major role in shaping the Serbian worldview which in turn has played
its part in shaping modern Balkan politics. And, who knows, as a
result British pilots and soldiers may soon be fighting their very own
battle of Kosovo.
• Tim Judah is the author of `The Serbs: history, myth and the
destruction of Yugoslavia'
14. Aftermath
• Both armies were broken by the battle. Both leaders Lazar and Murad
lost their armies retreated from the battlefield. Murad’s son Bayezid
strangled his younger brother Yakub Celebi upon hearing that their
father had died. Thus becoming the sole heir to the Ottoman throne.
The Serbs were left with too few men to defend their lands
effectively, while the Turks had many more troops in the East.
Consequently , the Serbs principalities that were not already
Ottoman vassals became so in the following years, yielding one by
one. Furthermore, in response to Ottoman pressure, some Serbian
noblemen wed their daughters ,including the daughter of Prince Lazar
to Bayezid.
