A Distant Mirror (103 page)

Valentina’s removal occurred in April, the month of the crusade’s departure, and was not taken lightly by her adoring father. He threatened to send knights to defend his daughter’s honor, but his contemporaries believed he did more than that. For revenge upon France, he was said to have notified Bajazet of the crusaders’ plan of campaign and to have kept him closely informed of its progress. The charge against Gian Galeazzo was probably a product of French animosity and the search for someone to blame after the appalling dénouement, but it could also have been true. A Visconti did not shrink from revenge, especially not the man who had so coolly dispatched his uncle to prison and death.

It is not impossible that Coucy may have inadvertently revealed the crusaders’ plan of campaign to his host in Pavia. Gian Galeazzo was a strange, cheerless, secretive prince who would have concealed his paternal feelings. With regard to Genoa, however, Coucy’s intervention was successful; sovereignty was duly transferred to the King of France in the following November. Coucy, accompanied by Henri de Bar and their followers, left Milan in May for Venice, where he requisitioned a ship from the Venetian Senate on May 17 to take him across the Adriatic. He embarked on May 30 for Senj (Segna), a small port on the Croatian coast. Evidence is lacking of his route thereafter, but the choice of Senj would indicate that he and his party traveled to Buda by the most direct way, a journey of some 300 miles through wild, rugged, and dangerous country.

He reached the rendezvous before Nevers, who was in no hurry. Stopping along the upper Danube for receptions and festivities offered by German princes, Nevers and his gorgeous companions in green and gold did not reach even Vienna until June 24, a month behind the vanguard under D’Eu and Boucicaut. A fleet of seventy vessels with
cargo of wine, flour, hay, and other provisions was dispatched from Vienna down the Danube while Nevers enjoyed further festivities offered by his sister’s husband, Leopold IV, Duke of Austria. After borrowing from his brother-in-law the huge sum of 100,000 ducats, which took time to arrange, Nevers finally arrived in Buda at some time in July.

Sigismund welcomed his allies with joy not unmixed with apprehension. Although the Hungarian nobles had taken the cross with enthusiasm, their loyalty to him was not perfect, and he foresaw difficulties in the problem of a combined march and a coordinated strategy with the visitors. The French were not disposed to take advice, and the habits of pillage and brigandage, grown routine in the last fifty years of warfare, had already been exhibited on their march through Germany.

Strategy also had to be coordinated with the ardent crusader Philibert de Naillac, Grand Master of the Hospitalers, and with representatives of the Venetian fleet. The 44 ships of Venice, carrying the Hospitalers from Rhodes, sailed through the Aegean into the Sea of Marmora, and some of them continued into the Black Sea and up the Danube, without meeting hostile action. Inferior at sea, the Turks did not challenge them, nor did they in turn blockade the Turks in Asia, which suggests that Bajazet and a large part of his forces were already on the European side.

Conflict immediately marked the War Council at Buda. Sigismund advised waiting for the Turks to take the offensive and then giving battle when they reached his borders where he exercised control, thus avoiding the difficulties of a long march and the uncertainties to be encountered in the doubtful territory of the schismatics. He had led a campaign against the Turks in Wallachia in the previous year, as a result of which Bajazet had sent heralds to declare war and to announce his intention to be in Hungary before the end of May. The Sultan had boasted that after chasing Sigismund out of Hungary he would continue on to Italy, where he would plant his banners on the hills of Rome and feed his horse oats on the altar of St. Peter’s.

Now, by the end of July, he had not appeared. Reconnaissance parties sent out by Sigismund as far as the Hellespont showed no signs of the “Great Turk,” causing the French to declare him a coward who did not dare face them. Sigismund assured them the Sultan would come and it were better to let him extend himself in a long march rather than undertake it themselves. But with his reputation as something of a lightweight, Sigismund had neither the authority, the force of character, nor the prestige to make his advice prevail. The French insisted they would chase the Turks out of Europe wherever they were found,
and boasted that “if the sky were to fall they would uphold it on the points of their lances.”

Chosen as spokesman for the allies (tending to confirm his position as “chief counselor”), Coucy rejected a defensive strategy. “Though the Sultan’s boasts be lies,” he said, “that should not keep us from doing deeds of arms and pursuing our enemies, for that is the purpose for which we came.” He said the crusaders were determined to seek out the enemy. His words were upheld by all the French and foreign allies present at the Council, although they aroused a fatal jealousy in Comte d’Eu, who felt that as Constable he should have taken precedence as spokesman.

Sigismund was forced to acquiesce; he could hardly, at this point, hang back. The march went forward, down the left bank of the Danube. Part of the Hungarian army veered out to the north to gather in the reluctant vassal forces of Wallachia and Transylvania. The main body of the allies followed the wide, flat, dreary river, where the only life was the flickering of water birds in the brown water and an occasional fisherman’s boat poking out from the reed-grown banks. The remainder of the Hungarians under King Sigismund brought up the rear. French indiscipline and debaucheries reportedly increased the farther they went. Suppers were served of the finest wines and richest foods, transported by boat. Knights and squires indulged themselves with prostitutes they had brought along, and their example encouraged the men in outrages upon the women of the countries through which they passed. The arrogance and frivolity of the French irritated their allies, causing continual conflicts. Pillage and maltreatment of the inhabitants grew unrestrained as they entered the schismatic lands, further alienating peoples already hostile to Hungary. Appalled by such conduct under the banner of the Virgin and in the cause of the cross, accompanying clerics pleaded for discipline and threatened the anger of God in vain. “They might as well,” wrote the Monk of St. Denis, “have talked to a deaf ass.”

The tale of French “wrongs, robberies, lubricities, and dishonest things,” told from hearsay, is long and explicit and has grown over the centuries. The Monk of St. Denis, basing his account of the crusade on what was told him by a survivor, vibrates with moral disapproval. He treats the French crusaders throughout with utmost scorn and reproach, denouncing them for immorality and blasphemy, for games of dice, “the father of cheating and lies,” and warning repeatedly of a dire outcome to punish their wickedness. Taking their cue from him, later historians waxed purple on the subject of a perpetual bacchanalia, of young knights spending whole days with their fallen women in shameful
pleasures, of soldiers drowned in wine. To know the truth is beyond our reach, for it must be remembered that even the contemporary accounts were written
ex post facto
when the natural reaction was to blame the tragedy of the crusade on the moral failure of the crusaders. Had they been victorious, would they have been charged with so many rich and lurid villainies?

At Orsova, where the Danube narrows through a defile called the Iron Gates, the expedition crossed over to the right bank. The crossing on pontoons and in boats took eight days, though not because the army numbered anything like the 100,000 sometimes suggested. For such a number to cross would have taken a month. Chroniclers habitually matched numbers to the awesomeness of the event. Like the Black Death, the Battle of Nicopolis was to shed so dark a shadow that some reports of the number of combatants range up to 400,000, with the chroniclers of each side giving the enemy twice as many as their own. The nearest to a firsthand figure is that given by the German Schiltberger, a participant, not a chronicler. The servant—or “runner,” as he calls himself—of a Bavarian noble, he was a boy of sixteen when captured by the Turks at Nicopolis, and wrote, or more likely dictated, his simple unadorned narrative from memory when he finally made his way home after thirty years in bondage to the Turks. He places the total Christian forces at 16,000. German historians of the 19th century arrived by various intricate processes at a figure of about 7,500 to 9,000 for the Christians and somewhere from 12,000 to 20,000 for the Turks. They note in passing the impossibility of feeding off the country men and horses in the scores, much less hundreds, of thousands. (Five hundred years later, on the same battleground in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, as pointed out by a recent student of the problem, the opposing forces numbered 8,000 Turks against some 10,000 Russians.)

Vidin, the western Bulgarian capital held under Turkish suzerainty, was the crusaders’ first conquest. Its native prince, having no great motive to fight for an alien conqueror against an overwhelming force of invaders, promptly surrendered, foiling the French of combat. Although the only bloodshed was the slaughter of Turkish officers of the garrison, the field of Vidin nevertheless served for the knighting of Nevers and 300 companions. They felt confirmed in confidence as they moved on; Turkish garrison forces were enough to hold the Bulgarians in vassalage but not enough to challenge the great Christian army.

The next objective, 75 miles farther on, was Rachowa (Oryekova), a strong fortress protected by a moat and a double ring of
walls. Determined on deeds of arms, the French hastened by a night march to reach it ahead of their allies and arrived at dawn just as the Turkish defenders came out to destroy the bridge over the moat. In a fierce fight, 500 men-at-arms including Coucy, D’Eu, Boucicaut, De la Marche, and Philippe de Bar gained the bridge but against vigorous resistance could make no further headway until Sigismund sent up reinforcements. Rather than allow others to share the honor of the fight, Boucicaut would have rejected the aid, but in spite of him the forces combined and reached the walls as night fell. Next morning, before combat could be renewed, the Bulgarian inhabitants arranged to surrender the town to Sigismund on condition that their goods and lives would be spared. Violating the surrender, the French put the town to pillage and massacre, claiming later that the place was taken by assault because their men-at-arms had already scaled the walls. A thousand prisoners, both Turkish and Bulgarian, were seized for ransom and the town left in flames. The Hungarians took the action as an insult to their King; the French charged the Hungarians with trying to rob them of their glory; Sigismund’s apprehensions were confirmed.

Leaving a garrison to hold Rachowa, the divided army moved on to Nicopolis, storming and seizing one or two forts and settlements on the way, but by-passing one citadel from which emissaries escaped to carry news of the Christian army to the Sultan.

Where was Bajazet? The question has been endlessly debated. Was he still in Asia or already on the march? He was to reach Nicopolis with a massive force within three weeks of the taking of Rachowa, too short a time, even given his reputation for speed, to have assembled and ferried an army across the straits. The allied fleet, which might have prevented his passage, engaged in no naval action. The likelihood is that Bajazet was already on the European side at the siege of Constantinople, where he learned of the crusaders’ plan of campaign—if he was not already informed by Gian Galeazzo—through intercepting correspondence between Sigismund and the Emperor Manuel. Breaking off the siege, he marched with the forces he had, gathering others at garrisons en route.

As the key to control of the lower Danube and communications with the interior, Nicopolis was essential to the crusaders, who quite rightly made it their strategic objective. They came within sight of the fortress high on its limestone cliff on September 12. A road ran along the narrow space between the river’s edge and the base of the cliff. On the inland side a ravine split the cliff into two heights dominating the lower town and descending steeply to the plain. Like the castle of Coucy, it was a site formed by nature for command. The so-called
fortress was actually two walled and fortified enclosures or towns, the larger one on the bluff and the smaller below, each containing military, civil, and religious buildings and in the larger one a bazaar or street of shops. The French had no difficulty recognizing an objective as formidable as Mahdia, even without the knowledge that it was well supplied with arms and provisions and commanded by a resolute Turkish governor, Dogan Bey. Convinced that the Sultan must come to the defense of so important a stronghold, the Governor was prepared to fight for time, and resist, if necessary, to the end.

The French had brought no catapults or other siege weapons, as they had brought none against Barbary. Funds had been invested in silks and velvet and gold embroidery, cargo space packed with wines and festive provisions. Why drag heavy machinery a thousand miles across Europe for use against a contemptible enemy? Something fundamental in the culture determined these choices.

Boucicaut made light of the lack of siege weapons. No matter, said he, ladders were easily made and, when used by men of courage, were worth more than any catapults. Knighthood’s zealot, Boucicaut at age twelve had served as the Duc de Bourbon’s page in the Normandy campaign, at sixteen was knighted at Roosebeke, at 24 held the lists at St. Ingelbert for thirty days, the most admired exploit of his generation. Two years later, in 1391, he was created Marshal. Unable to endure repose, he had gone twice to fight with the Teutonic Knights in Prussia and, afterward, to the East to ransom D’Eu in Cairo and visit Jerusalem. In honor of an episode in Tunisia when the Saracens were supposedly stopped from attack by the descent from Heaven of two beauteous women in white bearing a banner with a scarlet cross, he created an Order of the White Lady with the stated purpose of providing defenders of the gentle sex whenever needed. He was the epitome, not the norm, of chivalry, and could well have expressed (although the words are those of Jean de Beuil, a knight of the next century) what it was that inspired his kind in an age of personal combat: