Siege of Shkodra 1478
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate. Wikidata lists more than one location for this battle; the first is shown.
Key facts
| Year | 1478 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Medieval (500–1499) | derived from year |
| Location | Albania | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | First Ottoman–Venetian War | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Ottoman Empire, Principality of Zeta, Republic of Venice | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 42.0465, 19.4935 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The siege of Shkodra (Albanian: Rrethimi i Shkodrës) took place from May 1478 to April 1479 as a confrontation between the Ottoman Empire and the Venetians together with the League of Lezhë and other Albanians at Shkodra (Scutari in Italian) and its Rozafa Castle during the First Ottoman-Venetian War (1463–1479). Ottoman historian Franz Babinger called the siege "one of the most remarkable episodes in the struggle between the West and the Crescent".
A small force of approximately 1,600 Albanian and Italian men and a much smaller number of women faced a massive Ottoman force containing artillery cast on site and an army reported (though widely disputed) to have been as many as 350,000 in number. The campaign was so important to Mehmed the Conqueror that he came personally to ensure triumph. After nineteen days of bombarding the castle walls, the Ottomans launched five successive general attacks which all ended in victory for the besieged. With dwindling resources, Mehmed attacked and defeated the smaller surrounding fortresses of Žabljak Crnojevića, Drisht, and Lezha, left a siege force to starve Shkodra into surrender, and returned to Constantinople.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Shkodra (revision 1376891272), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
- Siege of Shkodra (1474) 1474 · 0 km
- Siege of Scutari (1912–1913) 1912 · 2 km
- Battle of Deçiq 1911 · 37 km
- Battle of Antivari 1914 · 37 km
- Battle of Fundina 1876 · 46 km
- Battle of Albulena 1457 · 53 km
Other battles of the First Ottoman–Venetian War
- Siege of Corinth (1463) 1463
- Siege of Mytilene (1464) 1464
- Siege of Negroponte (1470) 1470
- Siege of Shkodra (1474) 1474
- Battle of Isonzo (1477) 1477
All 6 battles of the First Ottoman–Venetian War →
Browse more: battles in Albania · Europe · Medieval battles