VIII
The crusade which ended in the disaster of Nicopolis is one of the most interesting events of the close of the Middle Ages, not only by reason of the historical importance of those who took part in it, but also because it was the last great international enterprise of feudal chivalry. It is the end of an epoch in the history of Europe. So widespread was the interest in Sigismund’s call to arms against the Osmanlis that there came to meet him at Buda in the spring of 1396 not only the French volunteers, but also scions of noble families from England, Scotland, Flanders, Lombardy, Savoy, Bohemia, and all parts of Germany and Austria. The English war in Normandy had ceased, Milan was supreme in northern Italy, and for the moment there was peace in the Holy Roman Empire. It was a favourable time to attract adventurers to unknown lands.
This expedition furnishes the most absorbing pages in the last portion of Froissart;[512] it is mentioned in more or less detail in a number of other French, Italian, German, and Latin chronicles. Several participants have left graphic accounts of the gathering of the chevaliers, the march down the Danube, the battle and its aftermath of massacre, the captivity and ransom of the prisoners. The archives of Dijon and Lille tell the cost of the fitting out of the French contingent and of the ransom of the prisoners. For this crowning event in Bayezid’s career, we have more source material than for any episode of Ottoman history until the fall of Constantinople.[513]
The French chevaliers numbered about a thousand. They were accompanied by six or seven thousand attendants and mercenaries. They gathered at Dijon, under the command of Jean de Nevers, the oldest son of Duke Philip of Burgundy, and grandson of King John, who had been captured in the battle of Poitiers. He was only twenty-two, and had just won his knighthood. The fact, though, that he was heir to Burgundy, and a prince of the royal blood, gave him the command. Philip charged the Sieur de Coucy, one of the boldest and most experienced warriors in France, to have an eye on the boy, and to guide the expedition with his counsel.[514]
Prominent among the French chevaliers were Philippe d’Artois, Constable of France, Henri and Philippe de Bar, cousins of the king, the Sieur de Coucy, Guillaume de la Trémouille, Jacques Bourbon de Vienne, admiral of France and prince of the royal blood, Boucicaut, marshal of France, the Sieur de Saint-Pol, and three Flemish princes who were the brothers of Jean de Nevers’s mother. The heir to the duchy of Bavaria was anxious to join the French chevaliers, but was restrained by the wise words of Duke Albert: ‘William, since you have the desire to travel and go to Hungary and Turkey, and carry arms against people and countries which have never done anything to us, and you have no reason for going there, except the vainglory of this world, let John of Burgundy and our cousins of France do their enterprises, and you do yours, and go into Friesland and conquer our inheritance ... and in doing this I shall help you.’[515]
The chevaliers travelled through Germany and Bohemia, and were hospitably received by the Duke of Austria. ‘On the way they spoke of Amorath-Bacquin[516] and admired little his power.’ When they reached ‘a city called Buda, the king made them a great reception and good cheer, and indeed he ought to have done so, for they had come far to see him and bear arms for him’.[517] At Buda they found the other chevaliers who had responded to the invitation of Sigismund, among whom were the Bastard of Savoy,[518] Frederick of Hohenzollern, grand prior of the Teutonic Order, Philibert de Naillac, grand master of Rhodes, with a contingent of chevaliers of Saint-John, the Elector Palatine, and John, Burgrave of Nürnberg, ancestor of the House of Brandenburg.[519] A scholarly biographer of Henry IV of England has recorded that he, as Count of Lancaster, was one of the participants in the Nicopolis expedition.[520] This error has found its way into one, at least, of our most reliable modern historians.[521] Although the successor of Richard II was not, as a matter of fact, at Nicopolis,[522] the blood of the Nicopolis crusaders is in the veins of the British royal house, as in that of practically every ruling family of Europe.
Sigismund claimed to have been assured by Bayezid that the Osmanlis would invade Hungary in the spring of 1396. When there were no signs of an Ottoman invasion, the crusaders decided that, as Bayezid did not come to seek them, they had best take advantage of the summer months to go and find the arch-enemy of Christendom.[523] Arrangements had been made with Mircea, voïevode of Wallachia, to break with the Osmanlis and join the coalition. Manuel, who had been invited to co-operate with the invaders, prepared secretly to declare against Bayezid.[524]
According to the chronicles, the invasion of Bulgaria was rather a picnic than a serious military operation. This was true, at least, for the western chevaliers, who had brought with them wine and women in plenty. Their baggage contained all the luxuries to which they were accustomed at home. The French auxiliaries travelled from Buda to the Danube by way of Transylvania and Wallachia, crossing the Carpathians through the pass between Brassó (Karlstadt) and Sinaia.
The Hungarians, following the Danube, spread out into Serbia, pillaging and murdering the inoffensive Christian population more thoroughly than Ottoman akindjis would have done.[525] In spite of a lack of opposition, they persisted in acting as if they were in the enemy’s country. Widin surrendered without a struggle, and Orsova after five days.[526] In September, the armies joined before the fortress of Nicopolis, whose surrender to the Osmanlis three years before had marked the disappearance of Bulgarian independence. They were destined to go no farther.[527]
For sixteen days Sigismund and his allies encamped in front of Nicopolis without giving assault.[528] They had no idea of the whereabouts of Bayezid. It was believed among the French (whose ignorance of geography and of distances equalled ours of modern times) that Bayezid was in Egypt, gathering a great army of all the Moslem world to oppose the triumphant march of the crusaders. One reads in Froissart that Bayezid was ‘in Cairo in Babylonia [sic] with the sultan to get men’, that he left the sultan there and rallied his forces at Alexandria and Damascus, that ‘under the command and prayers of the khalif of Bagdad and Asia Minor’, whose mandate went forth ‘to Persia, to Media, and to Tarsus’, Bayezid received a ‘mass of Saracens and miscreants’, and that in his army were ‘people of Tartary, Persia, Media, Syria, Alexandria, and of many far-off countries of the miscreants’.[529]
Sigismund made a speech to the chevaliers from western and central Europe, in which he declared: ‘Let him come or not come, in the summer which will return, if it pleases God, we shall get through the kingdom of Armenia and shall pass the Bras Saint-George and shall go into Syria and shall get from the Saracens the gates of Jaffa and Beirut and several other [cities] to go down into Syria, and we shall go to conquer the city of Jerusalem and all the Holy Land. And if the Sultan, with all the strength he can muster, comes before us, we shall fight him, and there will be no going away without the battle, in God’s pleasure.’ Froissart naïvely adds immediately after his report of this speech: ‘But it turned out very much in another way.’[530]
It certainly did. Bayezid, who had been directing the siege of Constantinople, knew no more about the khalif and the sultan and the ‘far-off countries of the miscreants’ than did Froissart. Neither he nor his ancestors had ever had dealings with the Moslem princes of Asia. Persians, ‘Saracens’ and Egyptians were lacking in his army. He gathered together his trained warriors, called upon his Christian vassals for their quotas, and set forth over the well-known route to the Danube. From several recent campaigns, he and his soldiers were thoroughly familiar with the country through which they passed, and in which the people were less afraid of him than they were of the Christians who had come to deliver them. When, after two weeks’ march, he pitched his camp near Nicopolis, he was simply returning to a place where twice before the Ottoman arms had been victorious.
Sigismund was dismayed at the prompt appearance of Bayezid with an army which was reported to him in numbers varying from one hundred and twenty thousand to two hundred thousand. In spite of his brave words to the chevaliers, Sigismund knew the worth of the Osmanlis as fighting-men, and that they could not be brushed aside by a few impetuous cavalry charges. So he begged Jean de Nevers and his companions to consult with him, and to formulate a definite plan of action. He suggested, and won over to this opinion the Sieur de Coucy, who was the most experienced warrior among the chevaliers, that a reconnaissance be made first of all to determine Bayezid’s position and intentions. Then, if Bayezid was actually moving to the attack, or on the point of moving, it would be the part of wisdom for the westerners to allow the foot-soldiers of Hungary and the Wallachians to sustain the first attack. The valiant horsemen and western mercenaries should form a second line, whether it be in attack or defence.
The chevaliers were furious at this suggestion. Philippe d’Artois, Comte d’Eu and Grand Constable of France, who knew Sigismund best from longer association with him, suspected him of an attempt to rob the chevaliers of the glory of defeating Bayezid. ‘Yes, yes,’ he cried, ‘the king of Hungary wants to have the flower of the day and the honour. We have the advance-guard, and already has he given it to us. So he wants to take it away from us and have the first battle. Whoever believes in this, I shall not.’ Then turning to the chevalier who carried his banner, he called out, ‘Forward banner, in the name of God and of Saint George, for they will see me to-day a good chevalier’.[531] This action was contagious. Without knowing where the enemy was, without thinking where or how far they were going, without waiting to agree upon a concerted action with the bulk of their army, the French, German, and English noblemen rushed forward to make the last charge of European chivalry against the followers of Mohammed.
The outposts of Bayezid, taken by surprise, were cut down. The Osmanlis who surrendered were massacred without mercy. Imagining that they were winning a great victory, and that they were breaking through the only obstacle between them and the Holy Sepulchre, the chevaliers rode to death and disgrace. In the picturesque language of Rabbi Joseph, ‘they said “Aha! aha!”. But their joy was quickly gone, for the horsemen of Bayezid and his hosts and chariots came against them, in battle array, like the moon when she is new.’[532]
The chevaliers had put all their strength of man and horse into the charge. Their swords ran blood. They thought the day was theirs, when suddenly they found themselves confronting the army of Bayezid. As was his invariable custom, Bayezid had sent out to meet the attack of the chevaliers, when he heard that they had commenced the battle, his worthless untrained levies to be cut down by the enemy and exhaust their strength. With deliberation he drew his trusted divisions in battle array in an advantageous position, which he had ample time to choose. His soldiers were intact and fresh. The Ottoman bowmen aimed their arrows at the horses of the chevaliers. Unhorsed and quickly surrounded by sixty thousand soldiers, there was nothing for the proudest warriors in Europe to do but surrender to the foe whom they had despised.
As far as the chevaliers were concerned, the battle was over in three hours. Jacques Bourbon, admiral of France, lay on the field with the banner of Notre-Dame clasped tightly in his hands. Guy de la Trémouille, Philippe de Bar, and others of the noblest blood of France, Flanders, Bavaria, and Savoy were killed in the charge. But the greater part of the high-born auxiliaries of Sigismund were prisoners in the camp of Bayezid. So handsomely were they accoutred that the Osmanlis believed them all to be princes of the Occident, and saved them for Bayezid to determine their fate.[533]
When Sigismund learned that the chevaliers had disregarded his advice, and had already ridden forth to find the army of Bayezid, he was greatly worried, for he knew the tactics of Bayezid, and feared the worst. He said to the grand master of Rhodes, ‘We shall lose the day through the great pride and folly of these French: if they had only believed me, we had forces in plenty to fight our enemies’.[534]
From a comparison of the chronicles, one does not get a clear idea of what happened after the failure of the assault of the chevaliers. A battle in which the bulk of the forces on either side were engaged undoubtedly followed. But it is impossible to state whether Sigismund followed up the way opened for him through the Ottoman lines by the French charge, or whether the Hungarians and their auxiliaries were on the defensive. Froissart and Morosini infer that Sigismund did not attempt to fight after the failure of the chevaliers, and it was believed in western Europe that the disaster of Nicopolis was due to the failure of Sigismund to support the chevaliers rather than to their own folly. The Hungarians and their king were bitterly denounced by the French survivors.[535] On the other hand, Schiltberger, who took part in the battle, declares that the king of Hungary was advancing in force, and that Bayezid was preparing to retreat, when the Osmanlis received sudden and substantial support from the krai of Serbia.[536]
The Serbians were so completely under Ottoman control after the battle of Kossova, that they made no attempt to throw off the yoke of Bayezid.[537] In Asia Minor as in the Balkan peninsula, against the Karamanians and Tartars as against the crusaders, at Nicopolis as at Angora, the Serbian auxiliaries were faithful supporters of Bayezid. Nicopolis was certainly won with the aid of the Christians of the Balkan peninsula. It was not only the Serbian reinforcements which won the day for the Osmanlis. As soon as Mircea of Wallachia saw how the battle was going, he quickly withdrew from the field, and got his forces across the Danube before the panic started.
Whether the action of Mircea was actuated by treasonable motives or not is open to debate. He may have honestly believed that it was a case of sauve qui peut. If so, his action was not more reprehensible than that of Sigismund himself. The future Holy Roman Emperor, who was to play so important a part in the history of Europe during the early decades of the fifteenth century, forgot his bold words of the previous week: ‘And if the Sultan, with all the strength he can muster, comes before us, we shall fight him, and there will be no going away without the battle, in God’s pleasure.’ Sigismund and the grand master of Rhodes hurried to the Danube, got away in a small boat,[538] and boarded one of the galleys of Monicego, the Venetian admiral. Abandoning his army and his allies to their fate, the king of Hungary sailed for home. He had the shame, if he felt it at all, when passing through the Dardanelles, of seeing the chevaliers and other prisoners of Nicopolis paraded before his eyes. One of these prisoners wrote: ‘The Osmanlis took us out of the tower of Gallipoli, and led us to the sea, and one after the other they abused the king of Hungary as he passed, and mocked him, and called to him to come out of the boat and deliver his people: and this they did to make fun of him, and skirmished a long time with each other on the sea. But they did not do him any harm, and so he went away.’[539]
Sigismund went to Modon, and then back to Hungary. This was the king who had boasted that he would not only turn the Osmanlis out of Europe, but that he had enough lances to support the sky, should it fall upon his army.[540] Although his manhood had been put to the test, and had been found wanting, he was saved to play a great, if unenviable, part in the closing events of the Middle Ages.[541]
After Sigismund’s escape, his great army, which was to redeem the Holy Sepulchre, fled before the Osmanlis. Those who were not killed, or drowned in the Danube, retreated through Wallachia. Froissart describes graphically the hardships of the French, German, English, Scotch, Bohemian, and Flemish crusaders in their painful march across the Carpathian Mountains. The chevaliers could secure a bare sustenance. Their pages and men-at-arms were stripped of their clothes and beaten by the peasants. It was not until they got into western Hungary that they felt themselves safe.[542]
On the day following the battle of Nicopolis, Bayezid rode from his camp to inspect the battle-field.[543] Orders had been given that the bodies of the nobles who had fallen be put in a place apart from the common dead, so that the identity of those who had lost their lives might be ascertained. An especial search for the body of Sigismund was ordered. The Hungarian king was not among the captives: it did not occur to Bayezid that he had fled. When Bayezid saw how heavy had been his casualties, and learned the story of the massacre of prisoners by the chevaliers after they had ridden through the Ottoman outposts, he could not control his anger. A general massacre of the prisoners was ordered.
Only because Bayezid hoped for a great ransom for the grandson of the French king was Jean de Nevers saved. There was in the suite of the Comte de Nevers a Picard chevalier who knew a little Turkish. Through him Jean was able to communicate with Bayezid, and to save twenty-four chevaliers who would bring heavy ransom. Among these were the Comte d’Eu, the Comte de la Marche, the Sieur de Coucy, Henri de Bar, and Boucicaut. But they were all forced to stand beside Bayezid and watch the massacre of their companions.
Because of his youth, for none under twenty years was killed, Schiltberger was spared to leave a description of this terrible massacre. ‘Then I saw the lord Hannsen Greiff, who was a noble of Bavaria, and four others, bound with the same cord. When he saw the great revenge that was taking place, he cried with a loud voice, and consoled the horse- and foot-soldiers who were standing there to die. “Stand firm”, he said, “when our blood this day is spilt for the Christian faith, and we by God’s help shall become the children of Heaven.” He knelt, and was beheaded together with his companions. Blood was spilled from morning until vespers, and when the king’s counsellors saw that so much blood was spilled and that still it did not stop, they rose and fell upon their knees before the king, and entreated him for the sake of God that he would forget his rage, that he might not draw down upon himself the vengeance of God, as enough blood was already spilled. He consented, and ordered that they should stop, and that the rest of the people should be brought together, and from them he took his share, and left the rest to his people who had made them prisoners. The people that were killed on that day were reckoned at ten thousand men.’[544]
So ended the last crusade.