Page:The Ballads of Marko Kraljević.djvu/33

 a supreme effort to stem the advancing tide. In alliance with Tvrtko, King of Bosnia, he won a victory over the Turks on Toplitza river in 1387. Encouraged by this success, the Bulgarians who had already been compelled to submit to Turkish over-lordship, threw off their allegiance, but in the course of the following year Amurath succeeded in crushing them once more, and turned about to deal with the Serbian foe. In the meantime the Serbs had rallied to Lazar's standard at Krushevatz, and on the 28th of June (O.S. June 15th), 1389, "Tsar" and Sultan met in bloody strife on the sun-parched plain of Kossovo. "In the battle of Kossovo," writes Gibbon, "the league and independence of the Sclavonian tribes was finally crushed . As the conqueror walked over the field, he observed that the greatest part of the slain consisted of beardless youths, and listened to the flattering reply of the vizier that age and wisdom would have taught them not to oppose his irresistible arms. But the sword of his janizaries could not save him from the dagger of despair: a Serbian soldier started from the crowd of dead bodies, and Amurath was pierced in the belly with a mortal wound." The struggle thus briefly described by the great historian was one of the decisive battles of the world. The South Slav barrier had broken down, and thereafter the Turkish storm-wave was destined to surge forward across Europe to break furiously at last against the walls of Vienna.