his frontier to the Drave.[85] Thus the appeal of the Sclavonic princes, Serbian and Bulgarian, who felt themselves powerless to repel the Turks, not only roused the Bosnian King to a sense of his own impending danger, but flattered his ambition. He hastened to respond to the appeal, by gathering an army of 30,000 men and advancing in person against the Infidel. For a moment that fatal spell of isolation which had held Bosnia so long aloof from the fortunes of neighbouring and kindred people is broken through, and she stands forth against the Turks at the head of a great confederacy of the Southern Sclaves, whose members were scattered from Silistria to Durazzo, and from Thessalonica to Belgrade. Joining his forces to the Serbian host collected by the ill-starred Knez Lazar, King Tvartko took advantage of the absence of Sultan Amurath in Asia, to fall upon his army near Pločnik on the Toplica, and inflicted on it such an annihilating defeat that scarce a fifth escaped the sword or captivity. Amurath was furious, and hurried from Asia to avenge the disaster. Tirnovo fell, and the sight of a captive Czar struck terror into the Bulgarians. Tvartko despatched an army under his brave General, Vlatko Hranić, to the aid of the Sclavonic confederates, and for the last time Bosniac, Serb, Croat, and Bulgarian, joined their forces against the Infidel. Only two years after the rout of Pločnik, on June 15, St. Vitus’ day, 1389, on the ill-omened field of Kóssovo was fought one of the great battles of the world, decisive even in its indecisiveness.