Battle of Ravnje
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Battle of Ravnje (Serbian Cyrillic: Битка код Равња) was fought in August 1813, between the Serbian rebels and Ottoman forces. The Serbian rebels were defeated by a strong Ottoman force commanded by French officers.[1] The rebels were forced to retreat. In the battle, two heroes of the First Serbian Uprising Zeka Buljubaša and Stojan Čupić perished along with all the men under his command.[2]
That battle also marked the collapse of the First Serbian Uprising. The Bosnian vizier Derendelija and Sulejma Pasha Skopljak, the commander of the Turkish cavalry, grouped most of the Turkish forces from Bosnia here, and persistently tried to break the Serbian defense and penetrate towards Šabac. The Turks also had numerous cavalry and artillery, and they were joined by French artillerymen and engineers who trained the Turks in handling new French cannons and digging lagoons to blow up insurgent fortifications.
The initial skirmishes with the Turks turned into bloody battles day and night with the arrival of the main Turkish forces. They lasted uninterruptedly for 17 days. With the roar of Turkish artillery, the attacks of the Turkish cavalry and infantry changed from day today. On several occasions, the Turks managed to penetrate certain parts of the trench, but the insurgents managed to throw them out again.
The Turks then, at the urging of French engineering officers, began digging lagoons, in order to get as close as possible to the trench.
The insurgent elders held a meeting and decided to leave Ravnje.
Zeka Buljubaša, and all (about 800) of his "naked" (hajduks) bravely perished protecting the retreat of the insurgent army from Ravnje.
The expression "Zasavica - a real slaughterhouse" has remained among the people since then.
Preparations[edit]
Supreme voivode Karađorđe established a defensive line in the west, which goes along the line Cer-Kitog-Ravnje on Zasavica. It also determined the Šabac field.
During August 1813, the insurgent forces in Mačva, led by Priest Mateja Nenadović, Stojan Čupić, Zeka Buljubaša and others, successfully held back the Turkish incursions that went along the Sava. The insurgents dug small trenches there and welcomed the Turkish army there. When Miloš Obrenović arrived there with the mine army and Petronije Šišo with his boys, the insurgents built and fortified a huge trench, between the Sava and Zasavica in Ravnje, which had 560 steps between the Sava and Zasavica in an extended line. Zeka Buljubasa and his men settled on the right-wing of the trench, and Petronije Šio next to him. Duke Sima Katic - Prekodrinac was the first to find himself on this trench. After him came Dukes Miloš Obrenović with the people of Rudnica, Archpriest Mateja with the people of Valjevo, Luka Lazarević, Stojan Čupić with the people of Macvan and Zeka Buljubaša with his naked people from Parašnica.
Battle[edit]
Thus, about 3,000 insurgents with about five cannons gathered on Ravna, while the Turkish army numbered about 15,000 people, led by Vizier Ali Pasha Derendelija and his deputy Sulejma Pasha Skopljak, the commander of the Turkish cavalry. Sulejma Pasha Skopljak led the cavalry in an attack on the trench but was wounded in the arm. Sources say that he was personally wounded by Miloš Obrenović.[3] In order to overcome the obstacle around the trench in the form of a trench, the Turkish commanders gave the infantry brandy, in order to encourage them to storm and fill the trench, and the rest of the infantry would enter the trench through the dead. The Turks, with the help of French engineers, also dug out the approximations of the trench. Vuk Karadžić states that the Turks got so close to the chance that they could fight with the Serbs with swords, scythes, and hooks and steal their flags.
On the seventeenth day of the fight, that is, on 17 September 1813, Zeka Buljubaša commanding In 1813, a brigade of 800-1000 soldiers including his men and famous megdandzija Petronije Šišo came on the battlefield with their Uskoks. They protected the retreat of Serb leaders and other surviving insurgents. While they had gunpowder, they defended the chain with rifles, and when they ran out of ammunition, they drew knives and thus attacked the Turks. They fought with the Turks, and in that hand-to-hand fight, all the freedom fighters died together with their commander, Zeka Buljubaša.
Consequences[edit]
Due to this confusion among the Turks, the Serbian dukes got rid of the remaining army. Milos Obrenovic barely escaped the Turks by tearing down the bridge on Modran behind him, Father Mateja saved himself by grabbing someone else's horse, while voivode Stojan Čupić swam across Zasavica with a sword in his mouth and reached Šabac via Preseka and Noćaj.
Upon his arrival in Šabac, Duke Miloš Obrenović verbally and sharply attacked Commander Sima Marković, who had 10,000 men under his command in Šabac, and for inexplicable reasons did not come to the aid of the insurgents in Ravnje, as well as those from Loznica and Lesnica. The next day, 18 September 1813, the Turks set out for Mitrovica and crossed the Modran and crossed the Sava towards Šabac. After this defeat, the days came when the living envied the dead because the Turks carried out unprecedented terror over the remaining insurgents and the population.
Monument[edit]
In Ravnje, in 1925, a monument was erected in the center of the village to these fighters, as well as to those who died in the wars of 1912-1918. On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the battle, a trench was made in 2013, next to the road to Zasavica, with a sculpture of Zeka Buljubasa in a tree and a memorial plaque.
Literature[edit]
- Dr. Miladin Stevanović: "Border Guards from the Drina", Večernje novosti, 23 December 2003 - 18 January 2005
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ Nenadović, Konstantin N. (1903). Život i dela velikog Đorđa Petrovića Kara-Đorđa Vrhovnog Vožda, oslobodioca i Vladara Srbije i život njegovi Vojvoda i junaka: Kao gradivo za Srbsku Istoriju od godine 1804 do 1813 i na dalje. Sloboda. p. 658. Search this book on
- ↑ Višnjić, Filip (1991). Kad se šćaše po zemlji Srbiji: sabrane pesme (in српски / srpski). Filip Višnjić. ISBN 978-86-7363-111-0. Search this book on
- ↑ Rudić, Srđan; Pavlović, Lela (2016). Srpska revolucija i obnova državnosti Srbije: Dvesta godina od Drugog srpskog ustanka [Serbian Revolution and Renewal of Serbian Statehood: Two Hundred Years since the Second Serbian Uprising]. Istorijski institut, Beograd; Međuopštinski istorijski arhiv, Čačak. pp. 57–. ISBN 978-86-7743-116-7. Search this book on
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