25 September 1396
The French charge
At daybreak on 25 September Sigismund asks the French to wait two hours until his scouts return. Coucy and Jean de Vienne advise waiting, but the Count of Eu says Sigismund wants the honour of the battle for himself, and the French advance. Eu leads the vanguard, and John of Nevers and Coucy the main body. Sigismund stays behind with the Hungarians, the Germans and the Knights Hospitaller, with the Transylvanians and Mircea’s Wallachians on his wings.
The French and their mounted archers ride south with their backs to the town, up the slope toward the Ottomans coming down from the hills. Their charge scatters the akıncı light horsemen in front of the Ottoman line and reaches the azaps, foot soldiers and archers who stand behind rows of sharpened stakes. Arrows fall on the knights, horses are impaled on the stakes and many riders dismount to pull the stakes up, until the azaps break and flee behind the sipahis.
Knights charging at Nicopolis in a woodcut of 1540Wikimedia Commons, unknown engraver, Public domain (Nicopole1540.jpg)
Coucy and Vienne advise the French to halt, re-form and let the Hungarians come up. The younger knights believe they have beaten Bayezid’s whole army and insist on pursuing up the hill.
Sources
- Jean Froissart, Chronicles, book IV (about 1400).
- Michel Pintoin, Chronicle of the Monk of Saint-Denis (early 15th century).
- Johann Schiltberger, Reisebuch (about 1427).
- Aziz S. Atiya, The Crusade of Nicopolis (1934).
- David Nicolle, Nicopolis 1396: The Last Crusade (1999).
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