Battle of Nicopolis

In 1396 a large crusader army marched down the Danube to push the Ottomans out of the Balkans and besieged the fortress of Nicopolis. Sultan Bayezid I came north from the siege of Constantinople to meet them. King Sigismund of Hungary wanted his Wallachian and Hungarian troops to take the first blow, but the French knights, eager for glory, charged ahead and scattered the first Ottoman line. They were then caught by the Sultan's reserves, and the rest of the crusaders were routed. Bayezid had many of his prisoners executed.

Most contemporary accounts come from the crusaders' side, and chroniclers blamed French arrogance for the defeat. Modern historians stress that the crusade was poorly coordinated, that the Ottomans were prepared, and that the crusaders may have been outnumbered. The numbers vary wildly, and the old figure of over 100,000 crusaders is now considered a considerable exaggeration. Nicopolis left the Ottomans free to consolidate their hold on the Balkans, which was interrupted only briefly by Timur at Ankara in 1402, and a later crusade ended at Varna in 1444. The ransom for the Burgundian prisoners was raised by Duke Philip the Bold.