Military career of Stephen the Great

The military career of Stephen the Great spanned for nearly 50 years. Stephen the Great commanded the Moldavian military forces for the first time as a co-commander, alongside his father Bogdan II in 1450, then as a Voivode of Moldavia from 1457 until his death in 1504. His most famous victory took place at the Battle of Vaslui on 10 January 1475, against the Ottoman army of Hadım Suleiman Pasha, earning him the title Athleta Christi ("Champion of Christ") from Pope Sixtus IV. Ottoman defeat at Vaslui was described by contemporaries as "the greatest suffered by an Ottoman army in its history". Stephen's victory boosted the morale of numerous leaders of the Christian European states, as it shattered the Ottoman Empire's reputation of invincibility.

Stephen's leaderships allowed him to muster up to 55,000 troops, mainly consisting of peasants. Stephen is traditionally believed to have taken part in 36 battles, out of which 34 were victories. Other sources estimate Stephen's record at 44–46 victories in battles. He's considered a national hero in both Romania and Moldova, earning him canonisation by the Romanian Orthodox Church.

An anonymous chronicler gave the following impression of Stephen as a military leader and his resilient character:

Master of the craft of war, he went wherever he was needed so that seeing him his men would not disperse and for that reason there was seldom a war that he did not win. And when others defeated him, he did not lose hope, for, when vanquished, he would rise above his vanquishers.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.