The Battle of Kosovo is the 1389 battle on the Field of Blackbirds, in Kosovo, on Saint Vitus’ Day, between the Serbian kingdom and the Ottomans (“the torcos”). Companions won it, and from that day the timeline of Uchronic Paris diverged from history: “that is where things began to change”.
| Type | Event |
| Date | 1389, Saint Vitus’ Day |
| Spanish entry | Batalla de Kosovo |
The field and the day
Only the field’s name is recorded: the field of the black birds, of blackbirds. The date, Saint Vitus’ Day (also heard as “the date of sambito”), named it the Battle of Saint Vitus.
History as it was
“There are traitors among the Serbs who allowed the torcos to win”, and “the Serbian kingdom… falls before the torcos”. The fallen are Orthodox Christians sacrificing themselves against the Ottoman Empire. The fighters had studied earlier defeats: “this was the battle where the Byzantines were and lost”.
Legacy
“Still today” the date is “the war cry of all Bosnian Serbs”, carried by Serbs and Bosnian Serbs. It was deliberately chosen for the archduke’s assassination in 1914: “that is why they did that on that date”.
The hinge
Some companions “have to do directly with it”. Offered the choice “to sacrifice themselves or try to win the fight on the date of sambito”, “they won the battle… they won Kosovo”. It is the event of greatest leverage in the archive.
Conflicting accounts
- The Serbs fell through treason; the companions “won Kosovo”.
- Another passage says they tried to win without changing the result.
- Whether the victory reversed the kingdom’s fall, was local within a general defeat, or changed something else is not fixed.
Open questions
- No traitor or commander is named.
- How the companions reached 1389, and under what law the choice was offered.
- Which battle “the Byzantines were in and lost”, and who studied it.
- The battle’s terrain, forces and duration.
- The archive’s term for the class of earlier battles is unrecoverable.