The crusade finally reaches and lays siege to Nicopolis, the main Turkish stronghold on the Danube River.
While they wait for the well-stocked, well-fortified town to submit, Bayezid raises the siege of Constantinople and marches north at the head of one hundred and forty thousand men.
On September 25, the Sultan establishes his army on a hill several miles from Nicopolis.
Although Sigismund urges his allies to maintain a defensive position, the sizable French contingent, led by twenty-five-year-old John of Burgundy and the first cousin of King Charles VI of France, launches a brash charge up the hill, scattering the first lines of the Turkish cavalry and infantry and earning himself the nickname ‘John the Fearless.’ The French knights successfully penetrate the Turkish defenses but are ignorant of the standard Ottoman tactic of sacrificing its vanguard, and now confront a second cavalry contingent reinforced by a Serbian army.
By this time, the heavily armored Western knights are too exhausted to fight effectively.
Sigismund, whose sixteen thousand-strong main army had not participated in the initial attack, tries to rescue the knights, but his Wallachian and Transylvanian contingents unexpectedly desert and his Hungarian force is insufficient.
The Turks soon surround and slaughter most of the crusaders and push the remainder back to the Danube.
Thousands of crusaders perish—slain in battle, cut down in flight, or drowned in the Danube.
Although a small portion of the allied army, including Sigismund and other noble leaders, as well as Mircea and his men, escapes by ship, more than ten thousand battle survivors are captured and executed by Bayezid.
Many of their noble leaders are also taken prisoner (and are later ransomed).
