Wednesday 5 April 2017

WI: The Ottomans are defeated at the Battle of Nicopolis?


In 1396, the penultimate true crusade against the Muslims had crossed the Danube and was on course to clearing the Turks out of Bulgaria, which they had conquered from the native Orthodox Shishman dynasty only three years prior. The crusader army - a mixture of Germans, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Croats and Italians with a supporting contingent from Wallachia (modern-day southern Romania) and Bulgarian exiles led by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund - had taken the fortified towns of Vidin and Oryahovo without much of a fight, though that did not stop the especially reckless and bloodthirsty French contingent from massacring the unfortunate inhabitants of the latter, when they reached and laid siege to Nicopolis. Due to its stronger walls and their lack of siege engines, the crusaders could not take Nicopolis by storm, and while they were trying to starve the city into surrender an Ottoman relief force (including a contingent of Christian Serbs, whose ruler Stefan Lazarevic was a Turkish vassal) led by Sultan Bayezid I emerged to their south.

After learning of the Ottoman approach, Sigismund called a war council to form up the crusaders' battle plan. With the support of other senior commanders such as Lord Enguerrand of Coucy, he advocated sending the Wallachian contingent in first to combat the lightly-equipped Turkish vanguard, after which the French knights would follow them to smash through the weakened Turkish center and his own forces would keep the Turks on the flanks occupied. The plan was rejected by the younger French commanders, chiefly Count Philip of Eu and Count Jean of Nevers (the future Duke of Burgundy), who believed that having to follow the Wallachian infantry into battle would be an insult to men of their noble stature. In the resulting battle, the French launched into a reckless charge that went through the Turkish infantry, lines of stakes, and up a hill - only to be countered and crushed by the Sultan's reserves. The Wallachians, believing the battle to be lost, retreated, and the rest of the crusader army was promptly crushed.

But what if...the crusaders had prevailed instead? Perhaps the French crusaders exhibit better discipline, and D'Eu & Nevers calm down enough to accept Sigismund's battle plans. The Wallachians engage the Turks first, trading volleys of arrows and battling the Turkish infantry to soften up their lines before the French charge in to break through the Turkish center. When they advance up the hills to face the Turk reserve, the crusaders are better prepared and organized - instead of facing just the exhausted and (thanks to the Turkish stake traps) mostly dismounted French knights, the Turks are forced to face the entire crusader army - and win the day. Bayezid, who personally commanded the Turkish reserve, is killed and his forces routed utterly.

So what happens? Well, for starters, Bulgaria will be freed from Turkish control. Sigismund recognized the claim of Prince Fruzhin, the second son of the last Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Shishman (the eldest son, Alexander had accepted Ottoman rule and converted to Islam), to the Bulgarian throne and would have proclaimed him the Tsar of the Third Bulgarian Empire. From Bulgaria, the crusaders will surely try to expel the Turks from the Balkans in their entirety. That means battling through Macedonia and Thessaly, an endeavor in which they might be joined by the opportunistic Byzantine Empire if the latter feels that closing off the Gallipoli straits and fighting the Turks in the field once more is worth the risk of losing what remains of their lands. The best-case scenario for the Christians is that they succeed in evicting the Turks from the Balkans entirely, the Byzantines regain Thrace, and most of Macedonia becomes a new crusader kingdom likely ruled by D'Eu or one of the German, Hungarian or Croat nobles in Sigismund's service.

The Turks on the other hand, may or may not pull together in time to face off with the crusader threat. Bayezid I had two sons of age to succeed him by the time of Nicopolis: Prince Suleiman, the elder, and Prince Isa, the second son. (he had many more sons but the third-oldest of them and his eventual successor in real life, Prince Mehmed, was only 7 at the time of Nicopolis) Historically, when Bayezid was taken prisoner by the Timurid Empire and the Ottoman sultanate thrown into chaos in 1402, his sons clashed with one another for the throne; here, if Suleiman and Isa fight one another while the crusaders are still bearing down on them, an Ottoman defeat is all but guaranteed and Isa, being based in Anatolia and thus further away from the crusaders, will most likely win. If either brother rallies behind the other however, they have a chance at averting disaster and containing the Christian advance to just Bulgaria.

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