Page:Destruction of the Greek Empire.djvu/169

WESTEEN ARMIES DEFEATED AT NICOPOLIS 135 thousand — and possibly a hundred thousand — men, and en- camped at Nicopolis. The elite of several nations were Battle of present, but those of the highest rank were the French ib9^° knights. When they heard of the approach of the enemy, they refused to listen to the prudent counsels of the Hun- garians and, with the contempt which so often characterised the Western knights for the Turkish foe, they joined battle confident of success. Bajazed, as soon as he had learned the presence of the combined Christian armies, marched through Philippopolis, crossed the Balkans, made for the Danube, and then waited for attack. In the battle which ensued (1396), Europe received its first lesson on the prowess of the Turks, and especially of the Janissaries. The Christian army, with rash daring, broke through the line of its enemies, cut down all who resisted them, and rushed on irresistible to the very rearguard of the Turks, many of whom either retreated or sought refuge in flight. When the French knights saw that the Turks ran, they followed, and filled the battlefield with dead and dying. But they made the old military blunder, and it led to the same old result. The archers, who always constituted the most effective Turkish arm, employed the stratagem of running away in order to throw their pursuers into disorder. Then they turned and made a stand. As they did so, the Janissaries, ' Christians of origin, from many Christian nations,' as Ducas bewails, came out of the place where they had been concealed, surprised and cut to pieces Frenchmen, Italians, and Hungarians. The pursuers were soon the pursued. The Turks chased them to the Danube, into which many of the fugitives threw themselves. The defeat was complete. Sigismund saved himself in a small boat, with which he crossed the river, and found his way, after long wandering, to Constantinople. The duke of Burgundy and twenty-four noblemen who were captured were sent to Brousa to be held for ransom. The remaining Burgundians, to the number of three hundred, who escaped massacre, and refused to save