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The Battle of Varna (1444)
The battle on the Black Sea coast in which Murad II defeated the Crusader army of King Władysław III of Poland and Hungary, who was killed.
In the summer of 1444 Sultan Murad II made a ten-year peace with Hungary, then handed the throne to his twelve-year-old son Mehmed and retired. The papal legate Cardinal Cesarini argued that a treaty made with infidels was not binding and persuaded King Władysław III to break it. A Crusader army of Hungarian, Polish and Wallachian troops entered the Balkans under John Hunyadi.
As danger grew, Murad II returned to lead the army. On 10 November 1444 the armies met near Varna; according to tradition, Murad had the broken treaty fixed to the tip of a lance. In the middle of the battle the young king charged the sultan's centre with his cavalry and was killed among the Janissaries, and the Crusader army fell apart.
Hunyadi escaped, but most of the Crusader army was destroyed. Varna was the last great crusade organised to drive the Ottomans out of the Balkans, and nine years later Mehmed the Conqueror took Constantinople. The Poles remember the king, killed at twenty, as Władysław Warneńczyk, "of Varna".
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Updated: November 11, 2026