Siege Of Berat (1280–81)
Siege of Berat may refer to: * Siege of Berat (1280–1281), by Angevin forces against the Byzantine garrison * Siege of Berat (1455) The siege of Berat took place in July 1455 when the Albanian army of Skanderbeg besieged the fortress in the Albanian city of Berat, which was held by Ottoman forces. Background When Skanderbeg began his rebellion, Berat belonged to the Alban ...

Siege Of Berat (1280–1281)
The siege of Berat in Albania by the forces of the Angevin Kingdom of Sicily against the Byzantine garrison of the city took place in 1280–1281. Berat was a strategically important fortress, whose possession would allow the Angevins access to the heartlands of the Byzantine Empire. A Byzantine relief force arrived in spring 1281, and managed to ambush and capture the Angevin commander, Hugo de Sully. Thereupon, the Angevin army panicked and fled, suffering heavy losses in killed and wounded as it was attacked by the Byzantines. This defeat ended the threat of a land invasion of the Byzantine Empire, and along with the Sicilian Vespers marked the end of the Western threat to reconquer Byzantium. Background Ever since the Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (r. 1259–1282) recovered Constantinople from the Latin Empire in 1261, the restored Byzantine Empire faced the threat of a Latin crusade to reclaim the city. The antagonistic Greek Despotate of Epirus and the Latin state ...
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