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.