After more than four hundred years under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, Serbian people began to gather and organize an uprising. Revolted by the Ottoman retribution against Serbian leaders, known as the “Slaughter of the Knezes” in 1804, and encouraged by positive signals from Russia, the Serbian rebels organized the First Serbian Uprising (1804-1813), attacking Ottoman army in the territory of the then Serbia.
The liberation of Niš, as a strategically important location, was one of the main goals of the uprising. In spring 1809, around 16.000 Serbian soldiers approached Niš and prepared tactics for the attack. Voivode Stevan Sinđelić with his 4.000 rebels chose the most prominent point at the Čegar hill, 6 kilometers from the city.
A discord among voivodes and the absence of the expected help of the Russian army caused the Serbian rebels to hesitate with the beginning of the battle for theliberation of the city. At the same time, the Ottomans were getting help from the entire Balkans. All that drove the Ottomans to attack the positions at the Čegar hill on May 31, 1809.
The battle lasted the entire day, and the twice as many and better armed Ottomans did not succeed to crush the resistance of the Serbs until dusk. At the end of the day, military commander Hurshid Pasha sent new 4.000 soldiers through an underground passage that extended from the Fortress to the northwest part of Čegar; they managed to enter Sinđelić’s fortification. The Ottoman soldiers were so densely packed that the Serbian soldiers could not use either flintlocks orswords – the only weapons were their teeth.
Realizing that they stood no chance against such a large power, Sinđelić gave the order for the gunpowder magazine to be prepared. He gathered his fellow soldiers and released them from the rebels vow, giving them choice to leave Čegar. Not a single insurgent left him, they remained with him to defend the Serbian honortogether. Before the sunset, Sinđelić performs a heroic deed – he let as many Ottoman soldiers as possible to gather around him, took out his flintlock, fired in the gunpowder magazine and the entire fort, a large number of enemy soldiers, his fellow soldiers and he were blown to pieces. The explosion marked the end of the unequal fight.
