Battle of Nicopolis
The
Battle of Nicopolis (modern
Nikopol, Bulgaria) took place on
September 25,
1396, between a
French-
Hungarian alliance and the
Ottoman Empire. It is often referred to as the
crusade of Nicopolis, and was both the largest and last large-scale "
crusade" of the
Middle Ages. The battle is sometimes dated to September 28.
There were many minor crusades in the
14th century, undertaken by individual kings or knights. Most recently there had been a failed crusade against
Tunisia in
1390, and there was
ongoing warfare in northern Europe along the
Baltic coast. After their victory at the
Battle of Kosovo in
1389, the Ottomans had conquered most of the
Balkans, and had reduced the
Byzantine Empire to the area immediately around
Constantinople, which they then proceeded to besiege.
In
1393 the
Bulgarian tsar
Ivan Shishman had lost Nicopolis â€" his temporary capital â€" to the Ottomans, while his brother,
Ivan Stratsimir, still held
Vidin but had been reduced to an Ottoman vassal. In the eyes of the Bulgarian
boyars, despots and other independent Balkan rulers, this was a great chance to reverse the course of the Ottoman invasion and free the Balkans from Islamic rule. In addition, the frontline between Islam and Christianity had been moving slowly towards the Kingdom of Hungary. The
Kingdom of Hungary was now the frontier between the two religions in Eastern Europe, and the Hungarians were in danger of being attacked themselves.
Venice also feared that the Ottomans would reduce their control of the
Adriatic.
In
1394,
Pope Boniface IX proclaimed a new crusade against the Turks, although by this time the
Western Schism had split the papacy in two, with rival popes at
Avignon and
Rome, and the days when a pope had the authority to call a crusade were long past. Nevertheless,
England and
France were now at an intermission in the
Hundred Years' War, and
Richard II and
Charles VI were willing to work together to finance a crusade. French negotiations for a joint crusade with
Sigismund, the
King of Hungary, had been underway since
1393.
The plan was for
John of Gaunt,
Louis of Orleans, and
Philip the Bold of Burgundy to leave in
1395, with Charles and Richard following them the next year. By the beginning of 1396 these plans had been abandoned. Instead,
John of Nevers led a force of approximately 10,000
Burgundians, mostly cavalry, with an English contingent of about 1000 men. There were also about 6000 men from the
Palatinate,
Bavaria, and
Nuremberg. Sigismund had the largest force by far, about 60,000 men. The French forces set off from
Montbéliard in April of 1396, arrived in
Vienna in May and June, and met with Sigismund in
Buda in July.
Although he was
Orthodox,
Mircea cel Batran, the
Prince of
Wallachia also participated with a contingent to the Crusaders army. Mirceas principality now constituted the border between Christianity and the continuous expanding Islam. For Wallachia and Moldavia, the vicinity of the Ottoman Empire, had caused their armies to adapt to the Ottoman system of warfare. Mircea was not stranger to Ottoman tactics and type of warfare: one year earlier, in
1395, he had inflicted several blows to the same Bayezid at the
Battle of Rovine and the
Battle for Dobrogea.
Johann Schiltberger, a
Bavarian crusader who fell prisoner at Nicopole, would later describe the battle in his memoirs the conflict raised by the disagreement on choosing between two different warfare tactics: that of the Crusaders army, with its bulk of forces constituted by the slow, typical western,
heavy cavalry, and that of Mircea, who prior to the battle asked Sigismund to execute a
reconnaissance mission, to evaluate the enemies' status, and to conclude the optimal strategy. Sigismund agreed, and Mircea with a Wallachian light-cavalry party, after making a reconnaissance mission on his own, asked for the command of the crusaders forces, and the right to be the first to attack. Sigismund willingly consented, but the proposal was dismissed by
Jean de Nevers. For the French and Hungarian knights, ignorant of Ottoman tactics, this was unacceptable: they had come to fight, and plunder, and refused to wait. Jean de Nevers refused to cede the honour to be the first to attack, as he traveled a great distance, and had spent much money in the expedition. De Nevers took the command of the combined force, now numbering about 100,000, and marched south towards Nicopolis. The countryside was plundered along the way by the French, and the city of
Rahova was sacked, its inhabitants killed or taken prisoner.
The city was well-defended and well-supplied, and the crusaders had brought no
siege machines with them. Nevertheless they remained, waiting for the Ottomans to come to its relief. The
Ottoman sultan Bayezid I, already occupied with his own siege at Constantinople, gathered his army and marched to Nicopolis. His ally
Stefan Lazarevic of
Serbia joined him on the way, and they arrived on September 24, with about 104,000 men. The numbers are probably exaggerated on both sides, but the point is clear: the armies were approximately equal in number.Bayezid I was warned by
Gian Galeazzo Visconti about the crusaders' troops movements.
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Battle Map |
On the 25th both sides prepared for battle. Before the battle began, the prisoners from Rahova were killed by the French, for unknown reasons. The French and English formed the
vanguard, while Sigismund divided his troops into three: he commanded the centre himself, the
Transylvanians formed the right wing, and the
Wallachians under
Mircea cel Bătrân formed the left. Bayezid formed his lines with a vanguard of cavalry protected by a line of stakes, a main line of archers and
Janissaries, and the main body of Ottomans and Serbians hidden behind hills some distance away.
The French, mostly clad in superior armour uniforms, charged toward the Ottoman vanguard, but realized they would have to dismount when they reached the line of stakes. They did so, and began to remove the stakes, while under fire from the Ottoman archers. When this was accomplished, the unarmoured Ottoman infantry met the now horseless but well-armoured knights, and the French were victorious, killing about 10,000 men. The French rushed forward to attack the cavalry and were again successful, killing about 5000. Although they were still without their horses, the French pursued the fleeing Ottomans all the way back to the hill. Upon reaching the top, the now exhausted French discovered the main Ottoman army awaiting them. In the ensuing fight, the French were completely defeated.
Jean de Vienne,
admiral of France, was killed, although he is described as having defended the French standard six times before he was finally killed.
John of Nevers,
Enguerrand VII de Coucy and
Jean Le Maingre,
marshal of France, were captured.
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Bayezid and Sigismund |
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The execution of the prisoners in retaliation for Rahova |
Meanwhile, the riderless horses made their way back to Sigismund's camp. Sigismund came to the aid of the French, and met Bayezid's force on the hill. The battle was about evenly matched until the Serbians arrived. Sigismund was persuaded by his companions to retreat; he was able to reach a Venetian ship, which carried him to safety. Sigismund said of the French: "If only they had listened to me. We had men in plenty to fight our enemies." In the late afternoon Stefan Lazarevic led the charge of the Ottoman left wing and encircled the undefended wings of Sigismund's troops. Bayezid and his vassal and brother-in-law
Stefan Visoki immediately recognized the well known mask of another brother-in-law,
Nikola II Gorjanski, fighting on
Sigismund's side. A deal was made, and Sigismund surrendered.
On
September 26, Bayezid ordered three thousand prisoners to be killed, in retaliation for the killing of the prisoners from
Rahova. He was also angry that he had lost so many men, about 35 000, especially in the early stages of the battle, despite his overall victory. He kept the younger prisoners for his own army. Those who escaped eventually returned home, although many were impoverished on the way; Sigismund himself was allowed to escape with Nikola Gorjanski and Hermann of Cilli, and he took the sea route home through the Black Sea, the Aegean, and the Mediterranean, suspecting the Wallachians of treachery. Charles VI was informed of the defeat on
Christmas.
The knights of Western Europe soon lost their enthusiasm for crusading. Fighting would continue in
Spain and the
Mediterranean, and among the pagans of northern Europe, but no new expedition was launched from the west after this defeat. England and France soon renewed their war. Wallachia continued its stance against the Ottomans, having stopped another expedition in the next year, 1397, and in 1400 yet another expedition of the Ottomans. The defeat of Sultan Beyazid I by
Timur Lenk (Tamerlane) at Ankara in the summer of 1402 opened a period of anarchy in the Ottoman Empire and Mircea took advantage of it to organize together with the Kingdom of Hungary a campaign against the Turks. The Hungarians and
Poles were defeated at the
Battle of Varna in
1444, and Constantinople finally
fell in
1453, but western Europe did not organize another expedition against the Ottomans until the
Renaissance.
* Aziz S. Atiya,
The Crusades in the Later Middle Ages. New York, 1965.
* Aziz S. Atiya,
The Crusade of Nicopolis. New York, 1978.
*
Norman Housley, ed.,
Documents on the Later Crusades, 1274-1580. New York, 1996.
* Jonathan Riley-Smith,
The Oxford History of the Crusades. Oxford, 1995.
*
Froissart's Chronicles Book IV 1389-1400
* Johann Schiltberger journal
fragment online*
Files of the Romanian Military History, vol.I, Editura militară, Bucureşti.
