In 1354 Orhan, who had taken the title of
Sultan, sent troops across the Dardanelles to take the town of Gallipoli. Two
years later he moved several thousand of his people across the Straits and
settled them in Thrace. Next year he was able to advance inland and capture the
great fortress of Adrianople, which became his second capital. By the time of
his death in 1359 almost all Thrace was in his hands, and Constantinople was
isolated from its European possessions. His son and successor, Murad I, was
well able to carry on his predecessors’ work. His first action was to found the
corps of Janissaries from forcibly converted Christian slave-children sent to
him as tribute.
The expansion of the Ottoman Turks was not
unnoticed in the West. There seemed to be little danger as yet for the European
continent; for the great Serbian Empire seemed well able to check any advance.
But Constantinople itself was obviously threatened, and with it the commercial
interests of the Italians. The Greeks, however, were schismatic. The policy of
the Western Church was to insist on their submission to Rome before there could
be any question of sending them help. This form of moral blackmail was bound to
fail. Not only religious conviction but national pride and the memory of past
outrages made it impossible for the Greek people to agree to Latin
ecclesiastical domination, even if their rulers were ready to comply.
1366: Crusade of the Count of Savoy
In 1365 Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy, took
the Cross. Pope Urban VI had been busily preaching the Crusade on behalf of
Peter of Cyprus; and Amadeus had every intention of proceeding to the Holy
Land. But he was first cousin to the Byzantine Emperor John V, and he wished to
help him. The Pope gave him permission to begin his campaign by fighting
against the Turks, on condition that he secured the submission of the Greek
Church. The Venetians did their best to check his Crusade, fearing that it
might interfere with their commercial policy. They particularly did not wish
him to join Peter of Cyprus and were relieved when their rumours of Peter’s
treaty with Egypt determined him to concentrate on Byzantium. He assembled a
distinguished collection of knights, but from the outset he had difficulties
over finance. The expedition reached the Dardanelles in August 1366, and at
once laid siege to Gallipoli, which fell on 23 August. But instead of landing
in Thrace and attempting to clear the province of the Turks, Amadeus sailed on
to Constantinople. There he found that the Emperor had been treacherously
captured by the Bulgarian King, Shishman III; and all his energy was therefore
devoted to the rescue of his cousin, which was only achieved by an attack on
Shishman’s port of Varna. When John was rescued Amadeus found that he had spent
all his own money, as well as all the money that he had extorted locally and
borrowed from the Empress. He was obliged to return home. But first he made the
Emperor promise to bring his Church under Rome; and when the Patriarch of
Constantinople, Philotheus, came with a Greek knight to his galley to tell him
that the Greek people would depose the Emperor if he agreed, he kidnapped them
and took them with him to Italy. He returned home at the end of 1367. His
Crusade had been almost valueless. The Turks recaptured Gallipoli immediately
on his departure.
Under Murad the Ottoman Turks rapidly
increased their power. He reduced the western Anatolian emirs to subjection,
and advanced in Europe. After a victory over the Serbs on the Maritsa in 1371,
Bulgaria became a vassal-state and was soon entirely annexed. In 1389 a
decisive battle was fought between the Serbs and the Turks at Kossovo. Murad
was assassinated by a Serb just before the battle, but his troops, which vastly
outnumbered their opponents, were completely triumphant. The Turks were now
masters of the Balkans.
Though the Crusading energy of the West
was diverted in 1390 by a disastrous expedition led by Louis II, Duke of
Bourbon, against al-Mahdiya, near Tunis, it was clear that for the safety of
Christian Europe the Ottoman Turks must be checked. When in 1390 the Sultan
Bayezit annexed the Bulgarian town of Vidin on the Danube, whose prince had
acknowledged the suzerainty of Hungary, the Hungarian King, Sigismund of
Luxemburg, the brother of the Emperor Wenzel, appealed to all his
fellow-monarchs for help. Both the Roman Pope, Boniface IX, and the Avignonese
Pope, Benedict XIII, issued Bulls recommending a Crusade, while the aged
propagandist, Philip of Mezieres, wrote an open letter to Richard II of England
to bid him co-operate with Charles VI of France for the coming Crusade.
Sigismund’s German connections enabled him to find support in Germany. The
princes of Wallachia and Transylvania were sufficiently terrified of the
Turkish advance to join him, much as they hated the Hungarians. In the West the
Dukes of Burgundy, Orleans and Lancaster all announced their desire to help. In
March 1395 a Hungarian embassy, headed by the Archbishop of Gran, Nicholas of
Kanizsay, arrived at Venice to secure the promise of transport from the Doge.
The ambassadors then proceeded to Lyons, where they were welcomed lavishly by
the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Bold, who promised them his enthusiastic
support. After visiting Dijon, to pay their respects to the Duchess, Margaret
of Flanders, they went to Bordeaux to meet the King of England’s uncle, John of
Lancaster, who undertook to arrange for an English contingent. From Bordeaux
they journeyed to Paris. The French King, Charles VI, was suffering from a bout
of madness, but his regents offered to encourage the French nobility to join
the Crusade. A great international army for the rescue of Christendom began to
assemble. To finance it, the Burgundian Duke raised special taxes that brought
in the huge sum of 700,000 gold francs. Individual French nobles added their
own contributions. Guy VI, Count of La Tremouille, provided 24,000 francs. The
French and Burgundian lords agreed to accept the leadership of the Duke of
Burgundy’s eldest son, John, Count of Nevers, a lively young man of
twenty-four.
1396: Crusade of Nicopolis
While the Hungarian ambassadors hurried
back to Buda to tell King Sigismund of their success and to advise him to
continue his preparations, the Duke of Burgundy issued careful ordinances for
the organization and behaviour of the Franco-Burgundian troops. They were
summoned to assemble at Dijon on 20 April 1396. John of Nevers was to be in
command, but in view of his youth an advisory council was formed of Philip, son
of the Duke of Bar, Guy of La Tremoille, and his brother William, the Admiral
John of Vienne, and Odard, lord of Chasseron. At the end of the month an army
of ten thousand men set out to march through Germany to Buda. On its way it was
joined by six thousand Germans, headed by the Count Palatine Rupert, son of
Rupert III of Wittelsbach, and Eberhard, Count of Katznellenbogen. Close behind
there followed a thousand English fighting men, under King Richard’s
half-brother, John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon.
The Western armies reached Buda about the
end of July. There they found King Sigismund waiting with a force of some sixty
thousand men. His vassal Mircea, voyevod of Wallachia, had joined him with
another ten thousand men; and about thirteen thousand adventurers came in from
Poland, Bohemia, Italy and Spain. The united army of close on a hundred
thousand soldiers was the largest that had ever yet taken the field against the
infidel. Meanwhile a fleet manned by the knights of the Hospital, under the
Grand Master, Philibert of Naillac, and by Venetians and Genoese, penetrated
into the Black Sea and lay off the mouth of the Danube.
The Ottoman Sultan on his side had not
been idle. When news reached him that the Crusade had assembled in Hungary,
Bayezit was laying siege to Constantinople. He at once summoned all his
available troops and marched northward to the Danube. His army was estimated as
numbering rather more than a hundred thousand.
Three centuries of experience had taught
the Western knights nothing. When the plan of campaign was discussed at Buda
King Sigismund advised a defensive strategy. He knew the strength of the enemy.
It would be better, he thought, to lure the Turks into Hungary and attack them
there from prepared positions. Like the Byzantine Emperors during the earlier
Crusades, Sigismund believed that the safety of Christendom depended on the
preservation of his own kingdom; but, like the earlier Crusaders, his allies
envisaged a great offensive. The Turks would be overwhelmed and the Christian
armies would advance triumphantly through Anatolia to Syria and the Holy City
itself. So vehement were they that Sigismund gave way. Early in August the
united host set out down the left bank of the Danube, as far as Orsova, by the
Iron Gates, and there it crossed into the Sultan’s dominions.
Eight days were spent in ferrying the army
across the river. It then marched along the south bank to the town of Vidin.
The lord of Vidin was a Bulgarian prince, John-Srachimir; but he was vassal to
the Sultan, who kept a small Turkish garrison there. On the arrival of the
Christians John-Srachimir joined them and opened the gates. The Turks were
massacred. The next town down the river was Rahova, a strong fortress with a
moat and a double enceinte, and a large Turkish garrison. The more vehement
French knights, led by Philip of Artois, Count of Eu, and John le Meingre,
better known as Marshal Boucicaut, at once rushed to the attack and would have
been annihilated had not Sigismund brought up his Hungarians. The garrison
could not hold out for long against the whole Christian army. It was stormed,
and the whole population, many of whom were Bulgarian Christians, were put to
the sword, except for a thousand wealthier folk who were held for ransom.
From Rahova the army moved on to
Nicopolis. This was the chief Turkish stronghold on the Danube, situated where
the main road from central Bulgaria came to the river. It was built beside the
river on a hill whose steep slopes were crowned with two lines of formidable
walls. The Crusaders had come without machines for siege-warfare. The
Westerners had not realized the need for them; and Sigismund had prepared only
for defensive action. When the ladders hastily erected by the French and the
mines dug by Hungarian engineers proved quite inadequate, the army sat down to
starve the city into surrender. In this they were aided by the arrival of the
Hospitaller fleet, which sailed up the Danube and anchored off the walls on 10
September. But Nicopolis was well stocked with provisions; and the Turkish
Governor, Dogan Bey, who had learned of the fate of his compatriots at Vidin
and Rahova, had no intention of surrendering.
1396: The Battle of Nicopolis
The delay was fatal to the morale of the
Christian army. The Western knights amused themselves in gambling and drinking
and all forms of debauchery. The few soldiers who dared to suggest that the
Turks were formidable foes had their ears cut off, by order of Marshal
Boucicaut, as a punishment for defeatism. There were quarrels between the
various contingents, while Sigismund’s Transylvanian vassals and Wallachian
allies began to talk of desertion.
When the Crusade had passed a fortnight
before Nicopolis, news came that the Turks were approaching. The Sultan’s army
had moved swiftly up from Thrace. It was lightly armed; its cavalry was far
more mobile than the Frankish; its archers were superbly trained; and it had
the profound advantage of perfect discipline and obedience to the sole command
of the Sultan, who was himself a man of exceptional ability. He had sent some
troops ahead, which were defeated in one of the Balkan passes by a French
contingent led by the Lord of Coucy; but the jealousy of Marshal Boucicaut, who
accused Coucy of trying to steal from John of Nevers the honours of victory,
prevented any further attempts to stem the Turkish advance. Meanwhile the
knights decided to kill the captives taken at Rahova.
On Monday, 25 September 1396, the vanguard
of the Turkish army came into sight, and camped in the hills some three miles
from the Christians. Next morning before sunrise Sigismund visited all his
fellow-commanders and begged them to remain on the defensive. Though he told
them frankly that he could not trust his Transylvanians and the Wallachians,
only Coucy and John of Vienne supported him. The other leaders were determined
to force a battle at once. Sigismund weakly gave way. He drew up his own army
in three divisions, with his own Hungarian troops in the centre, the
Wallachians on the left and the Transylvanians on the right. The vanguard was
composed of all the Westerners, under John of Nevers.
When morning broke, all that could be seen
of the Turkish army was a division of light irregular cavalry, just over the
slope of the hill. Behind it, protected by a line of stakes, was the Turkish
infantry, with the regiment of archers. The main body of
sipahi
cavalry,
commanded by the Sultan in person, lay hidden by the crest of the hill. A
division of Serbian cavalry, under the Prince Stephen Lazarovic, a loyal vassal
of the Sultan’s, was on his left.
The battle, like the preceding strategy,
showed that the Crusaders had learned nothing in all the centuries. The Western
knights in the van did not wait to tell Sigismund of their plans. In high,
confident enthusiasm they charged up the hill, scattering the light Turkish
horsemen before them. While the Turks regrouped behind their own infantry, the
knights found themselves held up by the stakes. At once they dismounted and
continued the charge on foot, pulling out the stakes as they advanced. Such was
their impetus that the Turkish infantry also was scattered. Some of the Turks
were able to retire behind the regrouped cavalry, but many more were slain or
driven down into the plain. But when the Crusaders, triumphant but exhausted,
hastened on and reached the hill-top they found themselves face to face with
the Sultan’s
sipahis
and the Serbs. The attack of these fresh troops
took them by surprise. On foot, tired and thirsty, and weighed down by their
heavy armour, they were soon flung into disorder, and their victory was turned
into a rout. Few of the knights survived the slaughter. Amongst those that
perished were William of La Tremoille and his son, Philip, John of Cadzaud,
Admiral of Flanders, and the Grand Prior of the Teutonic Knights. John of
Vienne, Grand Admiral of France, fell clutching the great banner of Notre Dame
entrusted to his care. John of Nevers only was spared because his attendants
cried out who he was and persuaded him to surrender. With him were taken the
Counts of Eu and La Marche, Guy of La Tremouille, Enguerrand of Coucy and
Marshal Boucicaut.