Mehmed had ordered his general, Suleiman Pasha,…

Christian I of Denmark had inherited the Duchy of Schleswig, a Danish fief, when the Holstein-Rendsburg line of the Schauenburg counts became extinct in 1459 with the death of his uncle Adolf VIII of Holstein-Rendsburg (and in personal union as Adolf I Duke of Schleswig).

Through the Treaty of Ribe (1460) Christian had been elected Count of Holstein-Rendsburg, then still a Saxe-Lauenburgian subfief within the Holy Roman Empire.

Lauenburg's liege lord Emperor Frederick III in 1474 elevates Christian I as Count of Holstein-Rendsburg to Duke of Holstein, thus becoming an immediate imperial (reichsunmittelbar) vassal.

Both Holstein and Schleswig are ruled from 1474 by the Danish crown.

The envoys of Matthias and Casimir IV sign a peace treaty in February 1474 and a three-year truce between Matthias and Vladislaus Jagiellon is also declared.

Within a month, however, Vladislaus enters into an alliance with Emperor Frederick and Casimir IV joins them.

Casimir IV and Vladislaus invade Silesia and lay siege to Matthias in Breslau (now Wrocław in Poland) in October.

He prevents the besiegers from accumulating provisions, forcing them to raise the siege.

Hereafter the Silesian Estates willingly elect Matthias's new candidate Stephen Zápolya as captain-general.

The Moravian Estates elect Ctibor Tovačovský as captain-general.

Matthias confirms this decision, although Tovačovský had been Vladislaus Jagiellon's partisan.

Stephen is hoping to gain support from the West, and more specifically from the Pope.

Fearing a new Ottoman invasion, he swears fealty to Matthias Corvinus of the Hungarian Kingdom on August 15, 1474.

However, the help that he receives is modest in numbers.

Matthias sends eighteen hundred Hungarians under the command of Blaise Magyar, while Casimir IV of Poland sends two thousand horsemen.

Stephen recruits five thousand Székely soldiers.

The Moldavian army consists of twenty cannon; light cavalry (Călăraşi); elite, heavy cavalry—named Viteji, Curteni, and Boyars—and professional foot soldiers.

The army reaches a strength of up to forty thousand, of whom ten thousand to fifteen thousand comprise the standing army.

The remainder consists of thirty thousand peasants armed with maces, bows, and other homemade weapons.

They are recruited into Oastea Mare (the Great Army), into which all able-bodied free men over the age of fourteen are conscripted.

The invading army enters Moldavia in December 1474.

In order to fatigue the Ottomans, Stephen had instituted a policy of scorched earth and poisoned waters.

Troops who specialize in setting ambushes harass the advancing Ottomans.

The population and livestock are evacuated to the north of the country into the mountains.

Ali Bey Mihaloğlu, Bey of Smederevo, pillages eastern parts of Hungary, destroys Várad, and takes sixteen thousand prisoners with him in January 1474.

Laiotă takes the Wallachian throne in the spring of 1474 for the second time; in June, he decides to betray his mentor by submitting to Mehmed.

Stephen now invests his support in a new candidate, named Ţepeluş (little spear), but his reign is even shorter, as it only lasts a few weeks after being defeated by Laiotă in battle on October 5.

Two weeks later, Stephen returns to Wallachia and forces Laiotă to flee.

Mehmed, tired of what transpires in Wallachia, gives Stephen an ultimatum to forfeit Chilia to the Porte, to abolish his aggressive policy in Wallachia, and to come to Constantinople with his delayed homage.

The prince refuses and in November 1474 writes to the Pope to warn him of further Ottoman expansion, and to ask him for support.

…Suleiman marches towards Moldavia by crossing the frozen Danube on foot.

His first stop is Wallachia, which he enters via Vidin and Nicopolis.

His army rests in Wallachia for two weeks, and is later met by a Wallachian contingent of seventeen thousand under Basarab Laiotă, who has changed sides to join the Ottomans.

Giuliano da Maiano, working in the architectural tradition of Filippo Brunelleschi and Michelozzi Michelozzo, designs the Cathedral of Faenza, begun in 1474.

Benedetto da Maiano executes a notable portrait bust of Pietro Mellini, who has commissioned Benedetto's masterpiece, the marble reliefs for the pulpit of Santa Croce in Florence.

These narrative reliefs clearly indicate the influence of Desiderio da Settignano, Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Antonio Rossellino, and the classic sculpture of the Roman Empire.