Attack of the Ottoman Turks on Moldavia

In the fourteenth century, the Ottomans of Asia Minor attacked the Balkan Peninsula. Wallachia had fallen under Ottoman control, while Moldavia had become an appanage of the great Jagellon dynasty of Poland-Lithuania.

In January 1475 a huge Ottoman army invades Moldavia. Stephen the Great engages the Turks south of Vaslui in a swampy area surrounded by forest. The Ottoman troops, led by Sultan Mehmet II, are trounced by the numerically inferior Moldavians.

In 1484, new Turkish attack on Moldavia. Moldavia’s seashore and southern defenses crumble. In 1538, the Ottoman Empire invaded Moldavia and Sultan Suleiman I crushes the Moldavian army and seizes Suceava.

The Turks, who practiced the Islamic religion, allowed Romanian princess to continue rule their territories. But the princesses were forced to pay tributes every year to the Ottoman sultan..

In 1600 Wallachia and Moldavia were briefly united with Transylvania under Mihai Viteazul at Alba Iulia. In order to fight Ottoman rule, he joined forces in 1594 with the ruling princess of Moldavia and Transylvania against the Turks, attacking strongholds and massacring Turks.
Attack of the Ottoman Turks on Moldavia