King of Poland (1434–1444) and Hungary (1440–1444), a young crusader-king killed leading a Christian army against the Ottomans at the Battle of Varna.
Władysław III was king of Poland from 1434 and king of Hungary from 1440, a young Jagiellon monarch who became the great hope of a Christian crusade against the advancing Ottoman Turks. The son of Władysław II Jagiełło, he came to the Polish throne as a boy of nine and was later elected to the embattled Hungarian crown as well.
Drawn into the war against the Ottomans on the Balkan frontier, he led a crusading army into Bulgaria in 1444 in violation of a recent truce, and met Sultan Murad II at Varna on the Black Sea. There, in a reckless charge at the sultan himself, the twenty-year-old king was killed and his army destroyed — a catastrophe that ended the last great medieval crusade and earned him the name "Władysław of Varna".
Władysław was born in 1424, the elder son of the aged Władysław II Jagiełło, the Lithuanian grand duke who had become king of Poland and founded the Jagiellonian dynasty. On his father's death in 1434 the nine-year-old boy was crowned king of Poland, the realm governed for years by a regency dominated by the powerful bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki.
In 1440, with the Ottoman threat pressing on Hungary, the Hungarian magnates elected the young Polish king to their vacant throne as well, hoping his combined strength could turn back the Turks.
Władysław III is remembered as a brave, devout, and idealistic young king, fired by the crusading spirit and the ambition to be the champion of Christendom against the Ottomans — but also as impetuous and easily led, whose courage outran his judgement. The influence of the papal legate Cardinal Cesarini and the crusading enthusiasm of his age pushed him toward a fatal boldness.
That combination of piety, valour, and recklessness defined his end. Persuaded to break the recently sworn truce with the sultan in the hope of a decisive victory, and then, at Varna, to fling himself in a headlong charge at the Ottoman lines, he embodied both the noblest and the most self-destructive impulses of the late crusading ideal. He is remembered as a gallant youth whose rashness cost him his life and Christendom its last great chance to check the Ottomans in the Balkans.
As king of Hungary, Władysław was drawn into the war against the Ottomans, and in 1443 a Christian campaign under the great general John Hunyadi won successes in the Balkans, leading to a favourable truce with Sultan Murad II at Szeged in 1444. But, urged on by the papal legate and the promise of a crusade, Władysław broke the truce and marched south toward the Black Sea coast to link up with a promised fleet.
At Varna on 10 November 1444 the crusaders met Murad's army. The battle was hard-fought, but when Władysław led an impetuous charge directly at the sultan's guard, he was cut down and killed. His death broke the Christian army, which was routed, and ended the crusade in disaster.
Władysław III was killed at Varna at the age of twenty; his body was never recovered, giving rise to legends that he had survived. His death left both his kingdoms without a ruler: Poland endured a three-year interregnum before his younger brother Casimir IV took the throne.
Władysław of Varna is remembered as the crusader-king whose death marked the failure of the last great effort to drive the Ottomans from the Balkans. The catastrophe at Varna confirmed Ottoman dominance in south-eastern Europe and helped seal the fate of Constantinople, which fell nine years later. In Poland his death opened the way for his brother Casimir IV, under whom the Jagiellonian dynasty reached the height of its power.