The Battle of Gallipoli was fought in 1312, between the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 and Serbian Kingdom, against Turcopole

Turcopole

In the Crusades, turcopoles, turcoples, turcopoli or turcopoliers were locally recruited mounted archers employed by the Christian states of the Eastern Mediterranean.-History:...

s led by Halil Pasha.

The Turks were looting and pillaging the countryside. For two years Thrace

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

 was in the hands of Halil Pasha, the local inhabitants did not cultivate their lands at the time. Michael IX raised an army and confined the Turk army to the Gallipoli peninsula, he was aided by Serbian King Stefan Uroš II Milutin's cavalry numbering some 2000 Serbs or Cumans, and the Genoese prevented the Turks from escaping by sea. Halil himself and the Seljuqs were massacred. Few of the Tourkopoloi returned into Byzantine service.

Sources

• Bartusis, Mark, The Late Byzantine Army, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997)
• Nicol, Donald, The last centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453, (Cambridge University Press, 1993)