These are the famous Janissaries, who will in time grow into a powerful standing army. The sultan's authority is enforced only by his small household of servants, recruited from slaves captured in war and from the 'devshirme', the periodic conscription of Christian youths from the Balkan countryside. The realm ruled by the Ottoman dynasty is not yet a centralized state in 1444. Further south, Skanderbeg leads Albania in revolt against the Ottomans, supported by Venice, which still dominates the seas. The lesser princes in between can survive only by playing the great powers off one another. Byzantium now lies exposed and Hungary has been forced on the defensive, but with the fortress of Belgrade, still serves as a strong bulwark against further Ottoman expansion. In Europe, the Ottomans have defeated the Crusaders in the Battle of Varna, killing Wladyslaw, the Polish and Hungarian king.
These Beys jockey for a position between the expanding power of the Ottomans on one side, and the Mamluk Empire of Egypt and Syria, still the strongest state in the Middle East, on the other.
In the east, Ottoman control has been reimposed in the aftermath of the Timurid invasion, but several beyliks remain independent. The Ottomans in 1444 are a regional power, in the process of securing control over Anatolia and the Balkans.
