A lesser -known history of Romanians. When the first struggles with the Turks and the true reason from which they started

The first battle of Romanians and Turks was not the one from Rovine. It was, to say, the first great Ottoman invasion in the Wallachian territories, but not the first confrontation. In fact, the first conflicts between Romanians and Turks started from the control over Dobrogea, with attacks on both sides.

The Romanians' struggles with the photo Turks Radu Oltean/Mircea cel Mare and the fights with the Turks

Much of the general public knows that the first battle of the Romanians with the Turks was given to Rovine, in 1395. The soldiers of the famous Baiazid “Lightning” invaded Wallachia and suffered a heavy defeat in front of the army of the voivode Mircea cel Bătrân. As the nationalist literature also highlighted the cinema from the communist period, the mountain lord and a hypothetical peasant army, with people taken from the horns of the plow, defended their needs and the nation in the face of the Ottoman aggression.

Obviously, the same beletristic and cinematic sources indicated as the main reason for the invasion of the wealth of the country, which attracted the greed of the Turk, but also the desire of the mountain voivode not to obey the Ottoman rule. Partially true. In fact, as the documents show, but also the specialists, the first confrontations between Romanians and Ottomans took place much earlier. The invasion of 1395 was just the peak of a series of conflicts between Wallachians and Turks. In addition, the reasons for triggering the expedition were quite different. In fact, Baiazid organized, north of the Danube, a punitive expedition against Mircea cel Bătrân, after the mountain voivode took the Turks, under the nose, Dobrogea.

Hurricane aroused on the Balkans

In the fourteenth century, in Asia Minor, the germs of an empire that would assault Europe for several centuries were planted. The Osmali or Ottoman Turks created a military and expansionist state. They managed to impose themselves in many territories mastered by their “cousins”, the Selgizi Turks, conquering their emirates and sultanets. Later, the first sultans were also thrown over the Byzantine territories. Later, they continued the road to the west, to the gates of Europe. With a large army, well organized and hardened in the battles in Asia Minor, the Ottomans almost had no rival. The Ottoman infantry, well disciplined and indoctrinated in the spirit of Islam, completed perfectly with a strong anatolian cavalry, renowned spas. To these were added numerous irregular troops or light cavalry troops, which were ravaging and sowing terror in the territories targeted by the Ottomans.

When they arrived in the Balkans, the Ottomans gave a complex reality. To the south of the Danube, they were the peasants and kingdoms of the Bulgarians and Serbs, divided and ground by rivalries. To the north of the great river, was Valahia, an emerging voivodship who had managed to strengthen her power and independence in front of the powerful Kingdom of Hungary, in the immediate vicinity. When the Turks forced the gates of the Balkans, Wallachia or the Romanian Country, as it is known in the Romanian historiography, was led by a powerful and good householder, Mircea cel Bătrân, from the Bessarabian nation. The first target of the Ottomans, as it was natural, was the Serbian despot of Lazarus.

In 1389, the Ottoman soldiers, commanded by Sultan Murad I collide with the armies of the Serbian despot, Lazăr, in Kosovopolje (Câmpua Mierle). Although the Sultan dies in battle, his son, Baiazid takes control of the army and manages to achieve a decisive victory for the Ottomans. Baiazid will become a Sultan and will continue to conquer with an advantage that will bring him the nickname of the “lightning”. After leaving for Anatolia to defeat the coalition against the Ottomans, the emir of Karaman, Baiazid returns to the Balkans.

This time he kneels the Bulgarian peasants. Firuz Bei, the right hand of the Sultan, submits the Vidin Tsar. Later, the Sultan himself, is also heading to the Târnovo Tsar and transforms him into a peace. The Turks arrive close to the Danube. The prince of Wallachia and the King of Hungary were aware that the Ottomans would not stop at the Danube. He would probably not have attacked at the moment, but it would not have been long until the Sultan wanted new possessions, beyond the river.

The first fight between Romanians and Turks. Mircea steals Dobrogea from under the Ottoman's nose

Wallachia was the first in the way of the Turks. Prince Mircea, a powerful voivode who had managed to centralize the state and submit to its authority, the boyars, was trying to prepare to cope with the Ottomans. First it strengthens relationships with Hungarians. In addition, he approaches his neighbors, Moldovans. Through the voivode of Moldova, Peter I, Mircea is looking for friendship and alliance with the Poles.

Being an energetic prince, Mircea has spread the borders of his country more than his ancestors. He was drowned with the territories, precisely to make a defensive area against the Ottoman danger. As the best defense is the attack, taking advantage of the fact that Sișman and Despot Dobrogei, Ivanco, fought south of the Danube with the soldiers of the great Candarli Ali Pasa, Mircea passes the Danube and occupies Silistra, but also other cities from the south of the great river. The great vizier manages to submit to Sișman but also kill Ivanco. Moreover, the Ottoman soldiers drive away the Wallachian garrisons in the southern Danube cities. “After the Siştov was taken, the vizier started with his army against those cities and castles, which before the Transalpini Vlachs had occupied the Danube in Bulgaria. Without weight he took them all, and the garrisons were taken in captivity.”wrote Leunclavius. Mircea is waiting for the great vizier Candarli Ali Pasa to withdraw and attack all the Ottoman garrisons. The great prince of Wallachia manages to conquer, beneath the nose of the Turks, the whole of Dobroge, stretching his mastery “to the great sea.”

“However, taking into account the narrative of the Turkish chronicles and the fact that immediately after these events Dobrogea and Silistra begin to emerge in Mircea's control, it is easy to explain how things happened. Ivanco disappears in these circumstances, it is likely to have lost in battle. Mircea has conquered Dobrogea from the Turks, starting in 1388, then full in the following year ”stated the historian PP Panaitescu, in “Mircea cel Bătrân”.

Angry at the boldness of the Wallachian, the Ottomans send a punitive expedition to the north of the Danube. In fact, the first Ottoman invasion in the Romanian Country, most likely takes place in 1388-1389. At the same time, the first great Romanian victory against the Turks, as the chronicles say, was registered. The army sent by Sultan Murad was shattered. In other words, the first Romanian victory against the Ottomans was not in Rovine. The first confrontations and the first victories took place in 1388, seven years earlier. “Probably, the first confrontations with the Ottomans took place in 1388, for the rule of Dobrogea, which led to a first Ottoman campaign north of the Danube, won by Mircea, a Bulgarian chronicle writing that the Vlachs crushed the Turks, they drowning almost all in the Danube.”says the historian Andrei Pogăciaș in the article “Wars of Mircea cel Bătrân”, in Historia magazine.

Wallachii, Ghimpes in the Ottoman Coast

It was a huge affront brought to the Sultan. However, the Ottoman soldiers were fighting the despot of Serbia. Mircea did not send troops to the aid of Tsar Lazăr because he was probably busy to strengthen his conquest in Dobrogea. Immediately after the Battle of Kosovo, a new incident between Romanians and Turks is coming. The Ottoman army who had just conquered the Vidin Tsar, commanded by Firuz Bei, passed the Danube and robbed the south of the Romanian Country.

The Ottoman contingents defeated all the Wallachian detachments that tried to stop them. Subsequently, the Ottoman troops returned south of the Danube, with rich prey and many slaves, say the chronicles. Mircea cel Bătrân, as reprisals, passes the Danube, in the Ottoman territories and attacks, in October 1394 the camp of the Karînovasî. The Wallachian cavalry made a real slaughter, and in the Ottoman chronicles. In addition, Mircea sent troops to the aid of Sișman. For the new Sultan, Baiazid, what the Wallachian Prince had done was already too much.

The fact that the Ottomans recognized the military force of the Wallachians, proven in the battles of 1388-1393, is demonstrated by the fact that the Sultan himself starts in front of his troops in the Wallachia campaign. In other words, the battle of Rovine, was the fruit of an expedition of punishment directed by the Ottomans against the Wallachians. The latter defeated the Ottomans on several occasions and represented a ginger in the coast of the sultan's mastery.