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By Root 1290 0

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