Savoyard crusade

The Savoyard crusade was a crusading expedition to the Balkans in 1366–67. It was born out of the same planning that led to the Alexandrian Crusade and was the brainchild of Pope Urban V. It was led by Count Amadeus VI of Savoy and directed against the growing Ottoman Empire in eastern Europe. Although intended as a collaboration with the Kingdom of Hungary and the Byzantine Empire, the crusade was diverted from its main purpose to attack the Second Bulgarian Empire. There the crusaders made small gains that they handed over to the Byzantines. It did take back some territory from the Ottomans in the vicinity of Constantinople and on Gallipoli but all these conquests were reversed within less than five years by the Turks.

Noting the greater attention paid to Bulgaria than to the Turks, historian Nicolae Iorga argued "it was not the same thing as a crusade, this expedition that better resembled an escapade."^[2][a] Still, the taking of Gallipoli, according to Oskar Halecki, was "the first success achieved by the Christians in their struggle for the defense of Europe, and at the same time the last great Christian victory [over the Turks] during all the fourteenth century."^[4]

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