was delayed by Serbian despot Đurađ Branković, whose army occupied the mountain passes on the Serbian-Albanian border and by a Venetian attack on northern Albania. The Serbs had declined joining Hunyadi's forces following an earlier truce with the Turks. Branković's exact role is disputed. As a result, Skanderbeg ravaged and pillaged Branković's domains as punishment for deserting the Christian cause. Hunyadi decided not to wait for Skanderbeg and his reinforcements to open the battle. Battle The Crusaders, numbering 22,000-30,000 arrived at Kosovo Field (the site of the first Battle of Kosovo in 1389, between Serbs and Ottomans) having faced an Ottoman army of 40,000-60,000 men Sultan Murad personally commanded a large section of cannons and janissaries, while his son and would-be successor, 16-year-old Mehmed, who faced battle for the first time, led the Anatolian troops at the right wing. Hunyadi commanded the center of his army in the battle, while the Crusaders right wing was under the Wallachians. The Hungarians had long barrage cannons. Calculating that he would need more than 40,000 men to defeat the Ottomans, the Hungarian regent sought to join up with anti-Ottoman Albanian forces, possibly led by Skanderbeg. The Ottomans in their base at Sofia received word of the Crusader army's march route and subsequently began readying their men. Having failed to locate the main Ottoman army, whom he believed to still be at their capital in Edirne, Hunyadi was caught by surprise on 17 October when the Ottoman army appeared in front of his men at Kosovo Field. He constructed a tabor wagon fort at Plementina hill from which to fight the Ottomans, who built their own stockade in response. The battle opened when Hunyadi attacked the Ottoman flanks with mixed cavalry (light and heavy). The Turkish flanks, consisting of soldiers from Rumelia and Anatolia, were losing until Turkish light cavalry arrived to reinforce them. Cavalry skirmishing on the flanks of the stockades during the first two days and a Crusader night-time attack using their wagons and guns against the Sultan's central position on the night of 18/19 October produced much bloodshed but no conclusive results. The Christian flanks were subsequently routed and the survivors retreated back to Hunyadi's main force. On 19 October Murad II used his sipahi cavalry from Thessaly to envelop the cavalry on the Crusader left flank, along with a general assault all along the line to distract Hunyadi from the