On May 29, 1453, Europe experienced one of her darkest hours. Constantinople, the capital of Christian Byzantium, fell to the Ottoman Turks. The conquerors took cruel and barbaric advantage of the survivors, many of whom were monks and nuns. The world-famous church Hagia Sophia became the scene of a bloody orgy, after which horses were stabled in the cathedral.

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In Hungary, the fall of Byzantium was considered especially grave news. It was clear that the sultan’s next move would be against them.

In December 1455, the young Sultan Mehmet II began making plans for the capture of Belgrade (then known as Nandorfehervák). He believed that once Belgrade fell he would have little trouble with the Hungarians. He would ‘be in Buda [the Hungarian capital], eating [his] evening meals in peace in two months,’ he was quoted as saying. The sultan ordered his army to assemble at Edirne in order to be ready for a campaign in the spring of 1456.

When the 16-year-old king of Hungary, Ladislas Posthumus, heard of the Turkish plans to seize Belgrade, he and his court, accompanied by his uncle Count Ulrich Cilli, bán (viceroy) of Croatia and one of Hunyadi’s lifelong enemies, fled Buda for the safety of Vienna.

In those trying days only the new pope, Calixtus III, who called Hungary the ‘Shield of Christianity,’ did everything in his power to come to Hunyadi’s aid. He sent a Franciscan monk, John of Capistrano, to arouse the people of Hungary. An impassioned orator, John succeeded in recruiting thousands from all walks of society to fight the infidels.

The sultan’s army arrived at Belgrade weeks earlier than Hunyadi and his brother-in-law Mihaly Szilagyi, the commander of the city, had expected. When Hunyadi’s army and Capistrano’s Crusaders arrived, the city’s garrison numbered only 6,000 troops.

It has been estimated that the Ottoman army had anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 men, but most historians agree that the lower number would be the more accurate figure. At any rate, that force surpassed by far anything the Hungarians had seen in the past. The Turks’ white tents appeared like ‘freshly fallen snow,’ one observer remarked.

The mainstay of Mehmet’s army consisted, as always, of the fearsome Janissaries. It also included more than 300 cannons, of which 22 were of huge size. The Turkish fleet at Belgrade probably had 200 ships.

Hunyadi’s personal army consisted of about 10,000 well-armed, well-trained veterans, most of them light cavalrymen. The crowd of Crusaders probably came to about 30,000 soldiers. Altogether, his army numbered about 60,000 to 75,000, depending upon which source one considers. Most of those troops, with the exception of Hunyadi’s personal army, were peasant levies. As one eyewitness reported, only commoners joined the Crusaders from villages and towns of Hungary. Additional volunteers, however, also came from Germany, Poland, Bohemia and Austria.

When Hunyadi arrived at the city in early July 1456, he found it already encircled by the Ottoman army while the Turkish navy lay astride the Danube River. His first task was to break the naval blockade, which he succeeded in doing on July 14, sinking three large Ottoman galleys and capturing four large vessels and 20 smaller ones. That done, Hunyadi could transport his troops and much-needed food into the city.

Meanwhile, Turkish heavy artillery bombardments breached Belgrade’s walls in several places and rubble filled up the trenches. On July 21, Mehmet ordered an all-out assault, which began at sundown and continued all night. The Janissaries led the attack, and the ferocity of their charge carried them within the walls. Hunyadi, however, directed the defense with great resourcefulness. He ordered the defenders to throw tarred wood, sulfur-saturated blankets, sides of bacon and other flammable material into the moat, and then set it afire. Soon a wall of flames separated the Janissaries fighting in the city from their comrades outside the walls. Those caught in the moat were burned to death or seriously injured, and the Janissaries remaining inside the city were massacred by Hunyadi’s troops. On the morning of the 22nd, a lull in the fighting set in, allowing more reinforcements to cross the river and relieve Belgrade’s defenders.

The next day, while the Turks were burying their dead, something unexpected happened. Despite Hunyadi’s orders to the defenders not to go outside the walls, some of the Crusader units crept out from demolished ramparts, took up positions across from the Turkish line, and began harassing enemy soldiers, yelling and shooting arrows at them. Some Turkish spahis (provincial cavalry) stationed nearby tried to disperse the harassing force, but without success. Then some more Crusaders joined those outside the wall. What began as an isolated incident quickly escalated into a full-scale battle.

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