25 September 1396
The Serbs and the rout
The sipahis close around Sigismund’s main body, and riderless horses run back through the crusader lines. At the sight of them the Transylvanians and Mircea’s Wallachians take the day for lost and leave the field. Sigismund, the Master of the Hospitallers and the Germans fight on against the encircling sipahis, with heavy losses on both sides.
Stefan Lazarević then charges with his Serbian heavy horsemen into the Hungarian centre, where the troops of Nicholas Garai hold the royal banner. Schiltberger, who fights on the Hungarian side, writes that the Serbs bring the king’s banner down, and the Hungarian army breaks.
Stefan Lazarević as despot in a fresco of his monastery of Manasija, 1415–1418Wikimedia Commons, unknown painter, Public domain (Esteban Lazarević.jpg)
Count Hermann of Cilli covers the king’s escape, and Sigismund and the Master of the Hospitallers reach the Venetian ships in a fishing boat. Many of the fugitives drown in the Danube. Boats sink under the men climbing aboard, and those on board push away the men in the water.
Sources
- Johann Schiltberger, Reisebuch (about 1427).
- Konstantin the Philosopher, Life of Despot Stefan Lazarević (1431).
- Marko Šuica, “The Battle of Nicopolis in the work of Constantine the Philosopher”, Istorijski časopis 58 (2009), 109–124.
- Aziz S. Atiya, The Crusade of Nicopolis (1934).
- Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (1978).
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