The 168th episode of the History of the Germans delves into the transformative period of the Ottomans from Osman to the Battle of Nicopolis. It highlights how Osman, the son of an Anatolian warlord, laid the foundations for what would become one of the world’s greatest empires, despite starting as just one of many Turkic beys in a tumultuous landscape. The narrative explores the cultural and military strategies that enabled the Ottomans to expand, emphasizing their approach of gradual assimilation and religious tolerance as they conquered predominantly Christian lands. The episode also recounts the dramatic Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, where a coalition of European knights faced the formidable Ottoman forces, leading to a catastrophic defeat for the crusaders. As the episode unfolds, it illustrates the lasting impact of these events on the geopolitical landscape of Europe and the Ottoman Empire’s rise as a dominant power in the centuries to follow..
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TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 168 – The Ottomans, from Osman to Nicopolis, which is also episode 5 of Season 9 – The Reformation before the Reformation.
For over 400 years, ever since the battle on the Lechfeld in 955, Western Europeans did not have to fear an enemy on their eastern flank. It was in fact the other way around. Christian warriors had expanded relentlessly – southward in the crusades, trying to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim rule; northward, where crusaders and knightly orders converted pagan Slavs by fire and sword; and eastward, as German speaking settlers spread across Central Europe and the Balkans.
But then, on a clear September morning in 1396, that era of unchecked expansion came to a dramatic halt. Outside the city of Nikopol in Bulgaria, the mightiest knights and princes of Europe gathered, their breastplates and polished helmets blazing in the rising sun. Their battle-hardened horses, bred to crush enemies underfoot, shifted restlessly, sensing the tension of the moment. This was not a battle against pagan tribal warriors or the defence of a crusading castle far away from home and hearth. This was something altogether new.
Before them stood an army unlike any they had ever faced. To men like the Count of Nevers—soon to be known as John the Fearless of Burgundy—this strange, audacious enemy had it all wrong. Their horse regiments were made up of lightly armoured archers, no match for the tank-like knights, and – what height of foolishness, their centre where their leader was clearly visible wasn’t held by elite cavalry, but by the weakest of medieval military forces, their infantry. And, these soldiers weren’t even free men fighting for their honour, they were slaves.
That the great prince and warrior thought will be a walk in the park. Nevers demanded the honor of leading the charge himself, envisioning the glory of victory and with it the greatest prize of all, the union of the Orthodox and Roman church that the emperor of Constantinople had promised should they defeat this new foe, they called the Ottomans…..
But before we can ride with John the Fearless into the lines of Janissaries, I have to tell you again, and I am sorry about that, but again, the History of the Germans is advertising free, except for these brief little skids. And that is thanks to the immeasurable generosity of our patrons who have signed up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on historyofthegermans.com/support. And remember not to sign on using the Patreon app on your iPhone since Apple will now charge you an additional 30% for the privilege. If you want to avoid that, sign up using your trusty old home computer or go to Patreon.com using your internet browser. In the latter case just be careful you are not getting auto-redirected to the Patreon App.
And thanks so much to Mary Lee & Dan, Paul J., Robert B., Rokas V., Stefan S., Stuart S. and Tigram Z who have already taken the plunge and dodged the Apple bullet.
One last bit of housekeeping. The last two episodes I have been going on about a war of seven saints, a war many of you pointed out never happened. What did happen was a war of eight saints. I do apologise for dropping a Saint and accept the additional 10,000 years in purgatory this warrants..
With that, back to the show
Almost exactly a century before the knights of Christian Europe gazed upon the unfamiliar sight of turbaned riders and thousands of slave soldiers, a young man, the son of an Anatolian warlord visited his neighbour, the venerable Sheikh Edabali. The name of this young man was Osman. Having been fed and watered as an honoured guest, the young suitor had fallen asleep in Edabali’s garden and dreamt: quote
“From the bosom of Edebali rose the full moon and inclining towards the bosom of Osman it sank upon it, and was lost to sight.
After that a goodly tree sprang forth, which grew in beauty and in strength, ever greater and greater.
Still did the embracing verdure of its boughs and branches cast an ampler and an ampler shade, until they canopied the extreme horizon of the three parts of the world. Under the tree stood four mountains, which he knew to be Caucasus, Atlas, Taurus, and Haemus.
These mountains were the four columns that seemed to support the dome of the foliage of the sacred tree with which the earth was now centred.
From the roots of the tree gushed forth four rivers, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Danube, and the Nile.
Tall ships and barks innumerable were on the waters.
The fields were heavy with harvest.
The mountain sides were clothed with forests.
Thence in exulting and fertilizing abundance sprang fountains and rivulets that gurgled through thickets of the cypress and the rose.
In the valleys glittered stately cities, with domes and cupolas, with pyramids and obelisks, with minarets and towers.
The Crescent shone on their summits: from their galleries sounded the Muezzin’s call to prayer.
That sound was mingled with the sweet voices of a thousand nightingales, and with the prattling of countless parrots of every hue.
Every kind of singing bird was there.
The winged multitude warbled and flitted around beneath the fresh living roof of the interlacing branches of the all-overarching tree; and every leaf of that tree was in shape like unto a scimitar.
Suddenly there arose a mighty wind, and turned the points of the sword-leaves towards the various cities of the world, but especially towards Constantinople.
That city, placed at the junction of two seas and two continents, seemed like a diamond set between two sapphires and two emeralds, to form the most precious stone in a ring of universal empire.
Osman thought that he was in the act of placing that visional ring on his finger, when he awoke” end quote
His host, the venerable Sheikh Edabali told Osman that this dream was a sign that he and his descendants would once rule one of the world’s greatest empires. And since he wanted to be along for the ride, Edabali joined the young man’s emerging confederation and gave him his daughter as his wife.
The rest is history. Under Osman’s successors all of this dream came true, maybe excluding the huge tree, the birdsong and the bountiful harvest.
But how did they manage?
When Osman took command of his father’s little warband, world domination was nowhere on the horizon, not even as a fictitious dream. Osman was just one of dozens of Turkic Beys in western Anatolia squeezed in between the Mongols who had taken over from the Seljuk Rum Sultanate and the Byzantine Empire in the west. The sea routes were dominated by Genoese and Venetian fleets and remnants of the crusader states and their chivalric orders still clung on to bits of the Middle East.
To understand Osman’s journey, we must go back to the origin story of the Turks in Anatolia.
The Turkic peoples first emerged in the vast expanses of Central Asia in the sixth century—a people of the steppe, kin to the fearsome Huns, Magyars, and Mongols. They were born to a life on horseback, their existence defined by the rhythm of the open plains and the wild gallop of their hardy steeds. Their composite bows—masterfully crafted from horn, wood, and sinew—were powerful weapons of astonishing range, allowing the Turks to shoot with lethal accuracy even in the chaos of a high-speed charge. Like phantoms, they would advance, release a deadly volley, and retreat before their enemies could react, only to return in relentless waves, wearing their opponents down before swooping in for the kill.
Over the centuries horse archers have bested the armies of the settled empires of Asia and Europe again and again. But once they had conquered these rich civilisations they faced a stark choice. Their military advantage was bound to the grasslands, their lean, swift horses dependent on the rich pastures of the steppe. And while their composite bows were marvels of engineering, they were also fragile. The glue that held the layers together could soften and lose its power in damp climates, leaving the Turks’ bows as vulnerable as they were fearsome.
One option was to return to their homelands, weighted down with spoils, and leave behind these fertile lands that promised permanence and power. Or, they could adapt to a settled life, integrating with the lands and cultures they had conquered.
The most successful of these horse archer empires did exactly that. They co-opted the existing elites into their empire, tasked them with the management of these complex societies, they recruited the engineers to develop their siege engines and used the artisans to design their palaces. Over time they mixed with existing population and created a new culture that combined elements of both.
This process repeated throughout history again and again, the Magyars in Hungary, the Bulgars, the Mongols in China, the Mamluks in Egypt and the Delhi Sultanate to name just a few.
One of these groups, a Turkic tribe called the Seljuks had gained a foothold in Mesopotamia which they expanded until in 1055 they were able to take over Baghdad, the capital of the Abassid Khalif, the leader of the Islamic world. They became the sultans, the protectors of the Khalif. And like other Turkic tribes before they integrated into their host culture, adopted Islam, learned Persian and built impressive mosques.
One subgroup of these Seljuk Turks then moved on further west into Byzantine Asia Minor. And they very much liked what they found there. An arid plateau with wonderful grassland for their horses and a climate that suited their composite bows. As they settled in, they ran up against the Byzantine empire who had ruled these lands for centuries. The conflict culminated in a great battle at Manzikert in 1071 where a huge Byzantine army was destroyed. This defeat triggered emperor Alexis Comnenus request for help to pope Urban II that kicked off the Crusades.
But neither Byzantine armies nor crusaders could now shift the Seljuks out of central Anatolia. They settled down and established their capital at Konya where they reigned as the Seljuk Sultans of Rum, Rum being the Turkish and Arabic word for Rome. In 1176 a last ditch attempt to remove the Seljuks and regain central Anatolia ended with the defeat at Myriokephalon.
If you remember, Barbarossa did defeat the Seljuks a few years later and took Konya in the third crusade, but that did not change anything as the emperor died a few weeks later and Konya returned to the Sultan.
When the Seljuks arrived in Anatolia, they numbered at absolute maximum about 500,000 whilst the population of Anatolia, once the richest part of the eastern empire was likely several million. Moreover, the Seljuks were Muslims whilst the population of Anatolia were overwhelmingly Christion, mostly orthodox but also Armenian and various smaller sects as well as a sizeable Jewish community.
And again, the classic steppe nomad pattern repeated itself. The Seljuks employed the local bureaucrats to run their new principality and allowed them to retain their religion and culture.
The Koran, like in fact the Bible, prohibits the forced conversion of unbelievers. And whilst the Christians did not aways adhere to that premise, Muslim conquerors in the pre-modern period by and large did. I very much doubt that was a function of some sort of moral superiority, but much rather down to the fact that the Muslim conquerors tended to be a comparatively small group in a sea of peoples adhering to a different religion. Tolerance was a necessity, not a choice. The same happened with the Normans of Sicily, coexistence of catholic, orthodox, Muslims and jews was the only viable option to build a sustainable political entity.
The Seljuk sultanate lasted 200 years and in this period transformed Christian Byzantine Asia Minor into Muslim Turkish Anatolia. Not by force but by a slow drip, drip of cultural infusion. As Muslim rulers they embarked on a huge building program, establishing Mosques and Madrassas in all the major cities. Sufi lodges called tekke appeared all over the countryside as did the Türbe. A Türbe is the tomb of a venerated person, a saint or sometimes just a very devout person of prominence.
Cut off from Constantinople Christian churches lacked educated priests and bishops and over time even the structures themselves deteriorated, partly from shortage of funds, general neglect and the frequent earthquakes. As churches collapsed, these Muslim structures took their place, impressing the population with their splendour and inviting them in.
And at the heart of this transformation was the magnetic figure of Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad —better known simply as Rumi. Born in the rich cultural crucible of Khorasan in Persia, Rumi was and is one of the world’s most celebrated poets, a Muslim jurist, and above all, a mystic whose influence would extend far beyond the lands of his birth.
Rumi believed that through music, dance, and poetry, one could come closer to the divine. His vision was that of unity—of the soul with God, of cultures with one another. This belief culminated in what would become known as the Mevlevi Order of the Whirling Dervishes. These dervishes, with their rhythmic, entrancing rotations and soulful melodies, were not merely performing rituals but embodying a path to transcendence, a surrender to the mysteries of the universe. And the people of Anatolia, weary of the divides that had marked their past, embraced this mystical vision of life.
The impact was profound. The Mevlevi Order Rumi founded spread across Anatolia, and with it, a new cultural synthesis emerged. Turkish language began to take root, blending with the linguistic traditions of those who had lived on this plateau for centuries. The kitchen transformed too, with Turkmen flavors—thick yogurts and the famous ayran drinks—joining Mediterranean tastes, creating a cuisine that balanced the settled with the nomadic. Within a few generations, the identity of Asia Minor shifted: it was no longer solely Byzantine Christian or entirely Turkmen. Instead, it had become its own thing, Turkish Anatolia.
This model of tolerance and gradual assimilation is what the Ottomans inherited from the Seljuk and that they will deploy across all the lands they will conquer.
If we compare the conquest and transformation of Anatolia with the conquest of Prussia by the Teutonic Knights we have discussed in episodes 130 following, we can see how the Turkish approach was much more sustainable. The forced conversions and aggressive immigration policies of the Teutonic Knights left the Prussian state susceptable to repeated uprisings and ultimately a defeat against a coalition of the locals and neighbours, something the Ottomans rarely experienced.
Despite all its achievements, the Seljuk Sultanate of Konya collapsed when the Mongols invaded in 1242, the same year they had appeared simultaneously in Poland and Hungary. The Sultanate broke down into dozens of small vassal principalities called the Beyliks.
To get away from the powerful Mongols, the beyliks moved westwards, infiltrating the ailing Byzantine empire. The power of the emperor in Constantinople had taken a devastating blow in 1204 when a western crusading army sacked the great city. In the wake of this crime, a Latin emperor reigned in Constantinople who spent most of his time fighting several Byzantine break-away principalities. Though the latin empire fell in 1262 and an orthodox emperor returned to the Blachernai Palace, the ancient realm was only a shadow of itself.
And it wasn’t set up to deal with these Turkish beys.
The Byzantines were used to fighting large, organised states much like themselves. It was all geared up for that one decisive battle. The emperors would muster an army, march to the area threatened by the Turks, offer battle, but nobody showed up. After a few weeks of marching back and forth the money ran out and the Byzantines returned to Constantinople. At which point the Turks returned and occupied the countryside and harassed the rich cities of western Anatolia. You do this a couple of times, and the urban population concludes that it made more sense submitting to the Beys who could provide safety and security rather than hoping for another Christian relief army.
And submission was made easy because the beys maintained the Seljuk policy of religious tolerance. Christian communities were allowed to retain their religion, their churches and bishops. Yes, they were second class citizens and had to pay a special tax levied on non-believers, but most cities along the shore of the Aegean were happy to take that if the alternative was constant low-level war, oppressive imperial taxes and in its wake – economic contraction.
Our man Osman was one of these Beys. His headquarters were in Söğüt, a small town, if not at the time just a village about 80 miles from Bursa and the sea of Marmara. His was neither the largest nor the richest of the Beyliks. So how did he end up founding an empire and all the other Beys disappeared down the Orcus of history?
The anonymous early ottoman writer whose chronicle is today preserved in the Bodlean library wrote about Osman’s success: quote “one must consider the following: that the sultanates of most other sultans came about through injustice towards their predecessors and by conquering, overpowering and subjugating the Muslims…But Osman Bey and his forefathers […] attacked the infidels in the borderlands with their swords, occupying themselves with Gaza and sustaining their communities with plunder” end quote.
This was long interpreted as Gaza, i.e., holy war being at the heart of Ottoman success. But one can also read it in another way. Osman was popular amongst the Turks of Anatolia, because he refrained from fighting other beyliks. So the other beys did not stop him recruiting their fighters to come along on his campaigns. And he was a successful general who provided great opportunities for plunder.
The empire builders of the steppe, the Genghis Khans and Tamarlanes of this world were exceptional power brokers. How do you think Genghis Khan conquered the largest empire that ever existed? Surely not with just the few hundred members of his own tribe. He found a way to attract diverse groups to his great conquests, some were Mongols, other were Turks and even settled peoples who preferred to ride with the conqueror than being conquered.
And Osman was no different, just on a smaller scale. Many of those willing to ride with him were fellow Anatolian Turks, veterans of internecine warfare between the various beys, but also Mongols unhappy with their leadership and Byzantine soldiers dismissed by or otherwise disaffected with the emperor in Constantinople.
In just a few years after Osman had taken over, his coalition had become so powerful, the emperor sent his one and only field army to crush the upstart. This time the Turks did not disappear into the woods. At the battle of Bapheus Osman’s forces routed the Byzantines. This victory cemented Osman’s reputation as a great warlord and attracted even more fighters from all across Asia Minor to join his banner. Over the next 30 years Osman and his equally gifted son Orhan used these forces to conquer the ancient province of Bithynia, once a heartland of the Byzantine empire. One by one its great cities fell to the Ottomans, Bursa in 1323, Nicea in 1331 and Nicomedia in 1337. Bursa became the first capital of the Ottoman state.
But this battle had a further impact as it set in motion a sequence of events that would accelerate the empire’s demise.
The emperor, Andronikus II had lost his last field army and like many of his predecessors had to reach out for western help. This time these helpers weren’t crusaders but an army of battle-hardened Catalan mercenaries, veterans of the wars between the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples.
Their leader was a man called Roger de Flor or Roger Blum, whose father had been a German, a falconer at the court of our old friend the emperor Frederick II. Andronikus II promised Roger gold and titles in abundance if he just got rid of that Turkish menace in western Anatolia.
Roger’s forces crossed over to Bithynia in 1304 in search of the Ottoman army. Osman saw the strength of this force and reverted back to type. He ran for the hills. The Catalans went here and there, always thinking that their foe would be around the next corner, but Osman never showed. Time went by and money ran out. The mercenaries did what mercenaries do and plundered the land, stealing indiscriminately from Muslims and Christians. The emperor protested. The mercenaries said, where is our money. The emperor said, do not worry, the cheque is in the post. The mercenaries believe the emperor needs a nudge and cross the Dardanelles and fortify Gallipoli. The emperor responds by having Roger de Flor murdered. The Catalans are now genuinely angry and besiege Constantinople. The Theodocian walls held, but that was the only good news. The Catalans devastated Thrace and finally cut out their own little place in the sun, the duchy of Athens.
The impact on the empire was devastating. The treasury was empty, Western Anatolia was lost for good, the European lands were in ruins. A sudden rush for Byzantine real estate ensued. The beys, the Bulgars, the Serbs, the Knights Hospitallers, the venetians, the Genoese they all got a piece of that once great state. For a while it looked as if the Serbs under their leader Stefan Dušan had picked up the biggest chunk, would take over the capital and make themselves the successors of Constantine.
It is testament to the incredible resilience of this mortally wounded empire that it did not collapse right away. But things went into another tailspin when in 1341 John V, a child of eight became emperor. As was tradition, a drawn-out civil war ensued. In this war both sides used the best mercenary fighters the levant had on offer, which happened to be the Ottoman cavalry. And as before, money ran out before the mercenaries could be packed off home. These Turkmen reacted to the unpaid bills and broken promises in exactly the same way as the Catalans. They moved into the defences left behind in Gallipoli. The emperor said, give it back. They said, where is the money. The emperor said, cheque is in the post.
This time the mercenaries did not march on Constantinople, instead they did something that would ultimately break the 1000 year old empire, in 1354 they offered Gallipoli to their true lord, Orhan, the son of Osman.
And with that the Ottomans gained a bridgehead on the European continent. And as luck would have it, the then undisputed strongman on the Balkans, Stefan Dusan died in 1355 leaving the door wide open for Ottoman conquest. Again, city after city fell to Orhan and his son Murad I.
And again, the Ottomans deployed their well-honed tactics to bring the population on side.
The first point of order was indeed that, order. Orhan and Murad insisted on the strictest of discipline in the ranks of their army. No burning, plundering or raping was allowed. Then the orthodox population was again permitted to retain their religion, customs, bishops etc. And finally, the Ottomans brought the kind of stability the inhabitants of the collapsing empire craved. For a century now various rulers within it had fought each other, raised oppressive taxes to defend the borders and had given the Venetians and Genoese trade concessions that made them immeasurably rich.
Under Orhan and his successors, taxes were manageable, the roads safe, borders secure and trade flourished.
The Ottomans now had a veritable state which meant military tactics had to change. Retreating into the steppe and wearing out an enemy was no longer an option. The ottomans had to get set up for decisive pitched battles.
Their new military structure was based on two pillars, Sipahis and Janissaries.
The Sipahi were a cavalry force paid through timars. A timar was a share in the income from an estate the soldier received in exchange for his military service. That sounds a bit like a medieval fief, but was nothing of that sort. Ownership of the timar remained with the state and could be re-assigned should the timar-holder fail to show or was otherwise unfit for the job. Timar holders were rotated between Anatolia and the new lands conquered on the European side to prevent the establishment of close nit aristocratic family groups as had happened in Europe. And in order to undermine the social status of timar holders, the sultans and their generals would regularly assign timars to slaves or peasants who had shown bravery in the field.
Each timar holder had to show up with specifically prescribed equipment, which included a horse, weapons, light armour and a squire. They were organised into districts of hundred riders under a commander who then reported upwards to the provincial governor. Both the commander and the governor were chosen on merit and were awarded Timars to maintain their office and as compensation for their service. And like the other timar holders, they could be and were regularly rotated around the empire to stop them getting entrenched.
The second pillar of the Ottoman army were the famous Janissaries. These were slave soldiers recruited from subjugated lands. In their first iteration they were put together using prisoners of war made during the conquests mainly in the Balkans. But as early as the late 14th century the main recruitment model was the devsirme or collection. That meant every five to 12 years each province on a rotating basis had to hand over one boy for every forty households.
These boys, most of them Christians, received military training, a thorough education and converted to Islam. They were the elite force and personal bodyguard of the Sultan. Janissaries fought on foot, initially armed with bows and swords, later with various forms of firearms. Though they were technically slaves, they received a salary of 2 akce per day, which means roughly 700 a year, which was fairly generous. To put that in context, the timar’s for a cavalry soldier yielded from 500 to 3,000 akce but that had to cover the cost of the equipment.
Slave soldiers were no Ottoman invention. Long before the Janissaries would make their indelible mark on Ottoman warfare, the practice of forging elite armies from men who had been taken as slaves was a well-established tradition across Asia. The Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad had their ghilman, while Egypt’s ruling dynasties had raised the famed Mamluks. This distinctive brand of soldier was bound not by tribal loyalties or regional ties but by the singular identity impressed upon them from a young age. Strangers to the local nobility and cut off from traditional kinship networks, they offered their loyalty not to their homeland or family, but to the commanders who had crafted them. If they felt attachment, it was for their fellow Janissaries who they had grown up with, trained with, lived with and fought with. Standing firm when other troops might falter, they fought with a resolve that came from knowing their brothers-in-arms would do the same.
On June 15, 1389 this new force was put to the test for the first time in an epic battle against the Serbs, a battle known as the battle on the Kosovo field.
The great Serbian leader Stefan Dusan had conquered large parts of Southestern Europe and had declared himself emperor of a multilingual and multiethnic realm that included not just Serbs but also Bulgars, Greeks and Albanians. But after his death in 1355 this empire declined and by 1389 had broken up into multiple territories, the largest of which was ruled by Lazar Hrebeljanović.
By 1380 Ottoman forces had defeated all the buffer states that stood between them and Lazar’s principality. A final showdown with the sultans was inevitable. Lazar had several years to prepare and by June 1389 the time for the decisive battle had come.
Lazar gathered all his forces and all his allies near Pristina on the field of Kosovo and squared up to sultan Murad I and his son Bayazid, the Thunderbolt.
How exactly this battle unfolded is overlaid with so much nationalist narrative that I will not even try to break it down. Bottom line is that the Turks won. Both commanders, the sultan Murat I and prince Lazar perished. Serbian lore has it that the sultan was killed by a nobleman called Milos Obilic, but Turkish sources have him losing his life in pursuit of Bosnian troops.
And again, the Turks were magnanimous in victory. Contrary to the commonly told story they did not dissolve the Serbian state. They left Lazar’s descendants in charge of what became known as the Despotate of Serbia, a client state of the Ottomans, but one where orthodox Christians could retain their patriarchs and way of life. Some sources even claim that Serbia enjoyed a cultural and economic renaissance under Ottoman rule.
At the next great battle, on September 25, 1396 Lazar’s son, Stefan Lazarevic was standing alongside his father’s foe, sultan Bayazid I when they surveyed the grand European army that had gathered outside Nikopol on the Hungarian border.
This was the first time a western European army went toe to toe with a Turkish force.
But before we talk about the actual battle, let’s talk about why we suddenly find French princes, Burgundian dukes and German nobles in a muddy Balkan field.
After the battle of the Kosovo, the situation for Constantinople had become completely untenable. They were surrounded on all sides by the Ottoman Turks. And likewise, the Ottoman Turks could not feel completely in control of their recently acquired empire when there was still a Byzantine emperor behind the mighty Theodosian walls who could attack their rear at any time. The situation needed to be resolved one way or another. In 1395 Ottoman forces began the siege of Constantinople.
The Byzantine empire had exhausted all its military and economic resources, but it still held one last trump card. Ever since the Eastern and Western churches had parted way in 1054 it had been a papal ambition to rejoin the two parts of Christ’s body. And that desire was even stronger now when there were two popes competing for supremacy of the western church.
The emperor Manuel II Paleologos knew this and made an offer to the Roman pope Boniface IX he could not refuse. If the bishop of Rome was to preach a crusade to free Constantinople, then he, emperor Manuel II would bring the orthodox church under Roman obedience. Even though all the diamonds on Manuel’s crown had been replaced by Swarovski diamonds, this was a prize that would confer immeasurable prestige on both the pope who achieved it and the military commanders who defeated the Turks.
And the timing was almost ideal. Because right around that time the French had subtracted their obedience from the obstinate pope Benedict XIII in Avignon, paving the way for a crusade to be preached even in the lands not following the Roman pope.
The call for a crusade was picked up enthusiastically. After 50 years of conflict between France and England and endless feuds in the Italy and the empire, Europe’s elite, the knights, dukes and princes knew only one way of life, and that was sticking swords into other people in the best possible chivalric taste. Echoing in their minds were the stirring words of the blind King of Bohemia: “take me to the place where the noise of the battle is the loudest that I may strike one last stroke with my sword”
And in 1396 there weren’t as many options to go to war as their used to be. The Hundred Years’ war had gone into a temporary hiatus as the two kings were negotiating peace and marriage. The Prussian Reizen were less popular now that the Lithuanians had stopped being pagan. So, a crusade down to the Balkans sounded exactly what the doctor ordered.
The crusading army gathered in Buda. It comprised the host, king Sigismund of Hungary, the second son of emperor Karl IV, his Hungarian magnates and German nobles, the constable and the marshal of France, Lord Enguerrand de Coucy who fans of Barbara Tuchman’s distant mirror might remember, Ivan Stratismir, the tsar of Bulgaria, Mircea the elder the Voivode of Walachia and father of Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula, the head of the knights hospitaller and most noble amongst them, John the count of Nevers and future duke of Burgundy. The army was also supported by Genoese and Venetian fleets. Estimates range from 17 to 20,000 troops.
This formidable force, the flower of European chivalry saw itself facing an Ottoman army of similar, maybe even smaller size. When the Turks moved into view, John of Nevers, insisted to charge them immediately. The seasoned Balkan rulers who had encountered the Turks before tried to dissuade him. King Sigismund demanded he postpones the attack for two hours so that his scouts could report back the exact size and position of the enemy.
But nothing can sway the mind of a 25 year old who has been born with a golden spoon in his mouth – the size of a spade. Nevers insisted and his knights, all shiny and full of vigour charged at the enemy. As they thundered down the field, the Ottoman cavalry on their swift horses shot one arrow after another into the mass of riders who could not retaliate in any way. Meanwhile the Janissaries also discharged their bows and arrows rained on the Burgundians and French.
If you have ever seen a phalanx of riders come at you, you will know that the only sensible reaction for anyone on foot is to run. That is why we have mounted police at demonstrations. But that is not what happened at Nikopol.
The Janissaries were positioned on top of a hill and organised in five to seven rows. As the knights crashed into the front row of Ottoman infantry, the line held and the janissaries killed the horses with sharpened sticks. The unhorsed knights should they have survived fought on on foot. Meanwhile the Ottoman cavalry had regrouped and attacked the flanks.
At that point the Hungarians, Germans and Balkan allies joined the fray, but got dispersed between attacking Turks and retreating Frenchmen.
The initial attack force had finally managed to push the Janissaries back when 1,500 Serbs under Stefan Lazarevic appeared. That is when the Burgundians and French surrendered. Sigismund realised that there was nothing left to do and he fled in a fishing boat up the Danube.
The battle was a catastrophic defeat for the crusaders. Thousands had perished, the richest had been taken hostage to be released against huge ransom payments. The remaining Balkan statelets fell under Ottoman rule. Sigismund could barely hold the Hungarian frontier. But the hero of the battle, the great tactician John of Nevers was given the honorific epithet “the fearless” for his chivalric madness.
Sultan Bayazed returned to his siege of Constantinople.
This should be by all accounts be the end of the empire of Constantinople that had lasted a 1000 years already. But the Byzantines were given another 50 year lease of life by someone who nobody expected – Timur or Tamarlane. This new ruler of the Steppe Nomads had come down through Persia and Iraq, had sacked Baghdad in 1401 where he left one of his much admired pyramid of human skulls and in 1402 he appeared in Anatolia. Bayazid rode out to meet him and was comprehensively beaten at the battle of Ankara. The victor of Nikopol ended his life in a metal cage Timur had devised for him. His sultanate was dismantled and split between two of his sons. It would take 30 years before the next great Ottoman sultan Mehmed I was able to stitch the Ottoman empire back together again.
From then on the combination of superior military infrastructure and tactics combined with a well-honed system to integrate newly subjugated populations into the empire made the Ottomans an irresistible force will that dominate imperial and central European politics all the way into the 18th century. The fear of Turkish tents rising up outside Vienna will occupy the mind of emperors for the next centuries and is one of the reasons the reformation of 1525 could proceed largely unchecked.
But for now Timur has given europe a 30 year breather, enough to sort out the great schism and deal with the Hussite revolt. How that happened we will get to soon.
But before we get there we still have to do one more of these background episodes. Next week we will spend some more time with the man who we have just seen running away from the field of Nikopol, Sigismund, king of Hungary, soon to be king of the Romans and convener of the council of Constance. I hope you will join us again.
And just before I go, remember today, October 31st is the last day you can sign up on the Patreon app without incurring a 30% Apple surcharge. If you want to avoid that, use the Patreon website at patreon.com/historyofthegermans or go to my website, historyofthegermans.com/support.
