Owing to a lack of coordination between commanders, the reinforcement of other detachments failed, although the numerically superior Ottomans lost thousands of troops in numerous attacks against the Serb positions. Eventually the rebels were overwhelmed and their positions were overrun; not wishing for his men to be captured and impaled, Sinđelić fired into his entrenchment's gun powder magazine resulting in an explosion that killed all the rebels and Ottoman troops in the vicinity. Afterward, Hurshid Pasha ordered that a tower be made from the skulls of Serbian revolutionaries—once complete, the ten-foot-high Skull Tower contained 952 Serbian skulls embedded on four sides in 14 rows.