As our Serbian neighbors have just celebrated the #Vidovdan I am thinking the closest parallel historical event for Romanians was the Battle of White Valley (Valea Alba) in my native county of Neamț on July 26th 1476...

when a 12-15,000 Moldavian army led by Stephen the Great made a heroic stand to an Ottoman force >6x larger led by Mehmet II the Conquerer. Ottoman losses seem to have been at least 2x bigger, but more than 1/2 of Moldavia's best & bravest died then on the field, too.

Ottoman invasion was preceded by a Crimean Tatar raid which forced Stephen to allow most of his yeoman troops to go protect their families. Tatars would be defeated on their way back by these Moldavian contingents.

In the meantime the main Ottoman force was advancing on the Siret river valley toward the capital Suceava. Stephen used the Scythian tactic of burning everything in the front of advancing army, depriving it of ability to supply itself as well as hit & run attacks.

Mehmet had to slow his advance to a few miles per day in order to allow supplies to come from the Danube & Wallachia. Prince Basarab III the Black (Laiotă) had joined with 12,000men, despite having come to power with Stephen's help in March 1475. https://twitter.com/Iulian68/status/1225882280838782980

Stephen chose the battle place in a wooded valley 90km S of Suceava where he prepared a redoubt using Hussite wagons. His opening action was a 4000 light cavalry hit & feign retreat charge that attracted the similar Akindji troops into the valley where they were badly mauled...

by firearm & arrow fire from the wooded hills on both sides.

Mehmet then dispatched his Janissaries on a wide front trying to clear the Moldavians on the flanks as well. This also led to heavy losses $ a loss of momentum by the time the redoubt was reached.

In order to regain momentum the Sipahi heavy cavalry was sent & Mehmet himself entered the fray to embolden the exhausted Jannisaries. Fight for the redoubt went on bitterly into the evening when Stephen was supposedly forced by his men to disengage & flee.

A 1000 Moldavian contingent remained to man the redoubt to protect the retreat. They fought into the night with 800 of them surrendering in the early morning surrounded by 10's of thous of enemies.

Despite victory on the field Mehmet was unable to conquer neither the nearby fortress of Neamț nor the capital of Suceava. Plague hit the invading army & news that Hungarian troops were coming forced Mehmed to order the retreat. Stephen went into pursuit harrasing them.

Final battle happened near the Danube when Hungarian, Serbian & Transylvanian Vlach contingents led by Transylvanian voievod Pongrác Dengelegi & Vlad Dracula forced Mehmet to flee the battle field leaving some of the prisoners & plunder behind. https://twitter.com/Iulian68/status/1253787116246622209

In the end the Hungarian-Moldavian coalition won a significant victory. Wallachia would be restored unfortunately just briefly to Dracula.

Mehmet II would not attempt any more significant attacks against Moldavia or Hungary till his death 5 years later.