Battle of Nicopolis - The Battle

The Battle

At daybreak on September 25, the combatants began to organize themselves under the banners of their leaders. At this point, Sigismund sent his Grand Marshal to Nevers to report that his scouts had sighted the Turkish vanguard and asked for the offensive to be postponed for two hours, when his scouts would have returned with intelligence as to the numbers and disposition of the enemy. Nevers summoned a hasty council of advisors, in which Coucy and Jean de Vienne, admiral of France and the eldest French knight on the crusade, advised obeying the wishes of the Hungarian king, which seemed wise to them. At this, D'Eu declared that Sigismund simply wished to hoard the battle honors for himself and declared his willingness to lead the charge. Coucy, who declared D'Eu's words to be a "presumption," asked for the council of Vienne, who noted, "When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must rule presumption." Vienne commented that if D'Eu wished to advance, the army must follow, but that it would be wiser to advance in concert with the Hungarians and other allies. D'Eu rejected any wait and the council fell into a fierce dispute, with the younger hawks charging that the elder knights were not prudent, but fearful. The argument seems to have been settled when D'Eu decided to advance.

D'Eu took control of the vanguard of the French knights, while Nevers and Coucy commanded the main body. The French knights, accompanied by their mounted archers, rode out with their backs to Nicopolis to meet the Turks, who were descending the hills to the south. The Knights Hospitaler, Germans and other allies stayed with the Hungarian forces under Sigismund. The subsequent events are obscured by conflicting accounts. Tuchman notes, "Out of the welter of different versions, a coherent account of the movements and fortunes of the battlefield is not to be had; there is only a tossing kaleidoscope."

The French charge crushed the untrained conscripts in the Turkish front line and advanced into the lines of trained infantry, though the knights came under heavy fire from archers and were hampered by rows of sharpened stakes designed to skewer the stomachs of their horses. Chroniclers write of horses impaled on stakes, riders dismounting, stakes being pulled up to allow horses through, and the eventual rout of the Turkish infantry, who fled behind the relative safety of the sipahis. Coucy and Vienne recommended that the French pause to reform their ranks, give themselves some rest and allow the Hungarians time to advance to a position where they could support the French. They were overruled by the younger knights who, having no idea of the size of the Turkish force, believed that they had just defeated Bayezid's entire army and insisted on pursuit.

The French knights thus continued up the hill, though accounts state that more than half were on foot by this point, either because they had been unhorsed by the lines of sharpened stakes or had dismounted to pull up stakes. Struggling in their heavy armor, they reached the plateau on the top of the slope, where they had expected to find fleeing Turkish forces, but instead found themselves facing a fresh corps of sipahis, whom Bayezid had kept in reserve. As the sipahis surged forward in the counterattack sounding trumpets, banging kettle drums and yelling "God is great!", the desperation of their situation was readily apparent to the French and some knights broke and fled back down the slope. The rest fought on "no frothing boar nor enraged wolf more fiercely," in the words of one contemporary chronicler. Admiral de Vienne, to whom was granted the honor as the eldest knight of carrying the French standard into battle, was wounded many times as he attempted to rally the morale of his countrymen, before being struck down dead. Other notable knights who were slain include Jean de Carrouges, Philippe de Bar and Odard de Chasseron. The Turks threatened to overwhelm Nevers and his bodyguard threw themselves to the ground in silent submission to plead for the life of their liege lord. Notwithstanding the declaration of jihad, the Turks were as interested in the riches that could be gained by ransoming noble captives as anyone else, and took Nevers prisoner. Seeing Nevers taken, the rest of the French yielded.

The timeline of events is hazy, but it appears that as the French were advancing up the slope, sipahis were sweeping down along the flanks in an envelopment. Accounts tell of the Hungarians and other nationalities in confused combat on the plain and of a stampede of riderless horses, which Tuchman speculates pulled free from their tethers, at the sight of which the Transylvanians and the Wallachians concluded that the day was lost and abandoned the field. Sigismund, the Master of Rhodes, and the Germans fought to prevent the envelopment with "unspeakable massacre" on both sides. At this point, a reinforcement of 1,500 Serbian knights under the command of Stefan Lazarević proved critical. Sigismund's force was overwhelmed. Convinced to flee, Sigismund and the Master managed to escape by fisherman's boat to the Venetian ships in the Danube. Hermann, a soldier in Sigismund's army led the force that allowed the escape and was later rewarded by being named a count. Bayezid and his ally Stefan Lazarevic recognized the Nikola II Gorjanski, Lazarevic's brother-in-law, fighting on Sigismund's side. A deal was made, and Sigismund's army surrendered, completing their defeat in detail.