Stephen II, Ban of Bosnia : biography

Ban Stjepan II Kotromanić played [Venetia|Venice] and Hungary against each other, slowly ruling Bosnia more and more independently and soon initiated a conspiracy with some members of the Croatian and Hungarian nobility against his Hungarian Liege. In 1346 Zadar finally returned to Venice, and the Hungarian King, seeing that he had lost the war, made peace in 1348. Ban of Croatia Mladen II Šubić was greatly opposed to Stephen II’s policy, accusing him of treason and the relations between the two Bans worsened ever afterwards. Bosnian Ban Stephen II’s relations with [Venetia|Venice] started to improve, as the Bosnian Bishop Peregreen was a notable Venetian member of the Franciscan Order.

More wars against the Serbia

The Serbian Emperor Stefan Dušan was constantly demanding that Ban Stephen II of Kotroman return the Hum area to the Nemanjić dynasty, but Stephen II always refused.

Ban Stepen’s Bosnia was weaker than the Serbian Empire, so he asked Venice, as a mutual ally, to act as a mediator. Eventually the Serbian Emperor accepted a three-year non-aggression pact because he was busy with his conflicts with the Byzantine Empire. The Bosnian Ban immediately proceeded with war preparations and went to construct a fortress in the Hum land right near the river of Neretva. He also attempted to convince the Venetians to give him naval support in the case of war with the Tsar. The Venetians discouraged him from building a fort, but he constructed it anyway. The distant wars of Tsar Stefan Dušan gave Stephen II of Kotroman the chance to move first. In the Christmas of 1349 Bosnia’s Ban moved quickly, proceeding all the way across Konavli which he raided heavily until he reached the Bay of Kotor. Trebinje, Rudine and Gacko were razed during his military operations. Venice attempted to make another peace between the warring sides, but the Serbian emperor agreed only to stall his counterattack a little.

In October 1350, Tsar Stefan Dušan crossed the river of Drina with 50,000 horsemen and 30,000 Infantriers. Ban Stephen II of Kotroman did not have the strength to meet his army in open battle, so he decided to use a guerrilla tactic. Using trees he blockaded all major roads in Bosnia and slowly withdrew his forces to forests, mountains and forts that were easier to defend. He planned the defence of Bosnia, splitting his forces enough to defend every possible entryway into his realm. His plan soon fell to dust, as Tsar Dušan had bribed a number of his most trusted servants who crossed to the Serbian side.

Losing control over the conflict, Ban Stephen II was shocked. Not knowing what to do further, he retreated with his most trusted men to the most unreachable mountains of Bosnia. He no longer knew whom he could trust, so he regularly dismissed and recruited new men to serve him. His older daughter Jelisaveta hid from Dušan in Bosnia’s strongest fortification of Bobovac. Tsar Dušan’s forces easily defeated the scattered Bosnian squadrons and went on a campaign to slowly conquer Bosnia. Bobovac was besieged, but Dušan failed to seize it, so he ordered his armies to raid Bosnia. After he created a strong foothold of his forces in Bosnia, he sent a portion of his Army on raiding quests towards Cetina and the other to Croatia towards Krka, while he returned with the rest of his troops to Serbia to resolve new conflicts that the Byzantines stirred in Macedonia.

The failed siege of Bubovac and the retreat of Dušan from the main Army from Bosnia gave hope to Stephen II of Kotroman. Ban Stephen II therefore won the war, even though he lost all battles. This encouraged the Ban to refuse all suggestions from Dušan to share Hum as a common area as joint rulers. Dušan ordered his forces to retreat to Hum and keep only that. Ban Stephen II soon launched a military campaign to conquer all the territories that he had previously lost to Dušan. The Republic of Ragusa was enraged by the war over the Hum because it greatly damaged their trade, so, backed up by the Venetian Republic, Dubrovnik suggested a peace to Dušan that would constitute a marriage between the Emperor’s son King Uroš and Stephen II of Kotroman’s daughter Jelisaveta. The peace treaty also required the giving of the Hum area to Stephen II, but as a land of the Nemanjić. Stephen II had better plans for his daughter, so he refused the agreement. Ban Stephen gambled considering that a large multi-ethnic Empire ruled autocratically by one man could not succeed. He was eventually proved right, as he witnessed the first traces of demise of Dušan’s Tsardom and retook control over Bosnia.