The Battle of Varna: A Crusading Expedition and a King’s Death

On 10 November 1444, crusaders led by Władysław, king of Poland and Hungary, fought an Ottoman army commanded by Murad II near Varna on the Black Sea coast of present-day Bulgaria. The king was killed, and the expeditionary army retreated in defeat. Known as Władysław III in Poland and Ulászló I in Hungary, the two regnal numbers refer to the same ruler.

The expedition arose from Ottoman expansion into the Balkans and prolonged warfare on Hungary’s southern frontier. Earlier victories by John Hunyadi strengthened the confidence of the papacy and its allies in launching an offensive. Pope Eugenius IV supported the crusade, papal legate Giuliano Cesarini helped organize it, and Hunyadi held principal military command. A shared religious banner, however, did not remove differences among the participating states’ interests.

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The “Long Campaign” of 1443 and early 1444 penetrated deep into the Balkans but was checked by defended mountain passes and winter conditions. Peace negotiations followed. The Serbian ruler George Branković was particularly eager to recover lost territories. Arrangements favorable to him did not necessarily suit those advocating a renewed advance. The treaty, oaths, and resumption of hostilities in 1444 have consequently remained disputed subjects of historical interpretation.

The Ottomans likewise faced pressure on eastern and western fronts. The Karamanid principality in Anatolia tied down their forces, and Murad temporarily abdicated in favor of the young Mehmed II. The crusading leaders hoped to exploit this opportunity by combining a land offensive with a naval blockade, separating Ottoman territories in Europe from their sources of troops in Asia.

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In the autumn of 1444, the expeditionary army crossed the Danube at Orșova, passed through Vidin, and continued eastward after an unsuccessful siege of Nicopolis, reaching the Black Sea coast in early November. The army comprised forces from different lords and regions. Although Poland shared a monarch with Hungary, its main domestic concerns did not coincide with Hungary’s frontier strategy. The Polish contingents in the expedition cannot simply be equated with a nationwide mobilization.

Papal, Venetian, and Burgundian ships failed to prevent Murad and his army from crossing the straits. Murad resumed command in the field and brought his forces to Varna. Accounts differ over who assisted the crossing and the details of payment. The established military outcome is that the blockade failed, leaving the expeditionary army to confront the main Ottoman force on land.

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The crusading army did not collapse across the battlefield from the outset. Antoche’s comparison of several accounts indicates that troops commanded by Hunyadi drove back the Ottoman flanks, and these local successes briefly favored the expeditionary army. Murad’s guards and the central position, however, remained intact.

Władysław then led his mounted retinue against the central position where the sultan stood. The attack failed, and the king was killed, marking a turning point. The expeditionary army subsequently lost cohesion, while Ottoman forces regrouped and pursued it. Historians’ accounts differ over the king’s reasons for charging and who killed him.

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Cesarini also failed to survive, while Hunyadi escaped the battlefield. Losses at the center of royal power and among the military leadership made the defeat more than a tactical setback. The Ottomans retained their seriously threatened position in the Balkans. Hunyadi continued his anti-Ottoman activities afterward and fought again at Kosovo in 1448.

Comparing contemporary correspondence with later biographies, Pálosfalvi notes that in a letter to the pope in 1445 Hunyadi complained that neighboring rulers had failed to provide promised assistance. This is not enough, however, to establish that Skanderbeg had already developed an organized system of joint military operations with him in 1444.

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The battle’s effects also extended into Dobrudja, through which the armies marched and retreated. Antov’s regional study cites the account of the participant Andreas de Palatio: the defeated men passed through country where food, water, and guides were difficult to find. The study also cautions that this desolation cannot all be attributed to one day’s fighting at Varna. Decades of earlier conquest, conflict, and outward migration had already caused damage.

In 1445 a further expedition along the Danube continued attacking castles and was accompanied by the migration of Bulgarian Christians to Wallachia. War thus changed not only armies’ positions but also village populations and relationships of frontier rule.

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