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]