Battle of Nicopolis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Background 2 Preparations 3 Siege of Nicopolis 4 The battle 5 Aftermath 6 References

Battle of Nicopolis
Part of the Ottoman wars in Europe
Battle of Nicopolis by Jean Froissart, 1398
Date September 25, 1396 Location Nicopolis Result Ottoman victory
Combatants
Ottoman Empire	Kingdom of Hungary, France, Wallachia
Commanders
Bayezid I	Sigismund of Hungary, John of Nevers #, Mircea the Elder
Strength
About 100,000	About 100,000
Casualties
About 35,000	About 35,000

Ottoman-Hungarian Wars
Nicopolis – Varna – Kosovo – Belgrade – Mohács

Crusades
First – People's – German – 1101 – Second – Third – Fourth – Albigensian – Children's – Fifth – Sixth – Seventh – Shepherds' – Eighth – Ninth – Aragonese – Alexandrian – Nicopolis – Northern – Hussite – Varna – Otranto

The Battle of Nicopolis (Bulgarian: Битка при Никопол, Bitka pri Nikopol; Turkish: Niğbolu Savaşı, Hungarian: Nikápolyi Csata, Romanian:Bătălia de la Nicopole) took place on September 25, 1396, between a French–Hungarian alliance and the Ottoman Empire, near the Danubian fortress of Nicopolis (Nikopol, Bulgaria). It is often referred to as the crusade of Nicopolis, and was last large-scale "crusade" of the Middle Ages. The battle is sometimes dated to September 28.

[edit] Background

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 — his temporary capital — 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.

[edit] Preparations

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 1,000 men. There were also about 6,000 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 the Elder, the Prince of Wallachia, also participated with a contingent in the Crusading army. His principality now constituted the border between Christendom and Islam. Wallachia (like Moldavia) was familiar with Ottoman battle stratagems, as Mircea had inflicted several blows to the same Bayezid at the Battle of Karanovasa, the Battle of Rovine and the battles over the Principality of Karvuna in 1395. 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 carrying out his own reconnaissance mission, asked for the command of the Crusade forces and the right to be the first to attack. Sigismund willingly consented, but the proposal was dismissed by Jean de Nevers and other Western knights, who rejected any change in traditional tactics (de Nevers himself aimed for 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 Rahovo (Oryahovo) was sacked, its inhabitants killed or taken prisoner.

[edit] Siege of Nicopolis

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.

[edit] The battle

On the 25th both sides prepared for battle. Before the battle began, the prisoners from Rahovo 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.

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; army of Hermann II of Cilli helped him to reach a Venetian ship.

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 army surrendered.

[edit] Aftermath

On September 26, Bayezid ordered three thousand prisoners to be killed, in retaliation for the killing of the prisoners from Rahovo. 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 and Moreas in 1460 (that bringing the final end of the Greek resistance in the Balkans), but western Europe did not organize another expedition against the Ottomans until the Renaissance.

[edit] References

• 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.