A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [362]
Sigismund convened a council of war. He proposed that the Wallachian foot soldiers should be sent forward to meet the enemy’s vanguard, which was customarily a rabble of rough conscripts whom the Turks sent ahead of their main force for purposes of pillage. In battle they were exposed to the brunt of opponents’ attack in order to tire them. They were not worthy, Sigismund said, of the combat of knights. When the shock of contact had been absorbed by the common soldiers, French chivalry, forming the crusaders’ front line, could enter battle in full and fresh strength. The Hungarians and allies would follow to support their attack and keep the sipahis, or Turkish cavalry, from dashing in upon their flanks. The honor and glory of battle, Sigismund is supposed to have concluded, did not lie in the first blows but in the last—in those blows that finished the combat and decided the victory.
D’Eu furiously objected. French knights had not come so far, he said, to be preceded into battle by a miserable peasant militia more accustomed to flee than to fight. The knight’s custom was not to follow, but to lead and to encourage others by his example. “To take up the rear is to dishonor us and expose us to the contempt of all.” Moreover, as Constable, he claimed the front place; anyone ahead of him would do him a mortal insult—an obvious reference to Coucy. Boucicaut supported him warmly; Nevers, in the belief that Turkish sabers and scimitars could not resist the lances and swords of France, was easily persuaded along with the younger hotheads of his suite. Sigismund departed to make his own battle plan.
Apparently within hours—the accounts are confused—he sent back a message that Bajazet was now within six hours’ march of Nicopolis. The crusaders, said to be carousing at dinner and befuddled with wine, rose in disorder, some scorning the report, some in panic, some hastily arming. All the flaws and dissensions of the campaign came to a head in an atrocious act. Supposedly for lack of guards to spare, the prisoners of Rachowa were massacred, perhaps with less compunction because they were schismatics and infidels. No chronicler mentions who gave the order, although the Monk of St. Denis and others recognized it as an act of “barbarism.”
At daybreak, as ranks were forming under the banners of the leaders, Sigismund, in a last effort, sent his Grand Marshal to report that only the Turkish vanguard had been sighted and to plead against a hasty offensive without knowledge of how near or how numerous was the Sultan’s main force. Scouts had been sent out and would return within two hours with the information necessary for a plan of battle. The crusaders could rest assured, said the Marshal, that if they waited they were in no danger of being surrounded. “Sirs, do as I advise, for these are the orders of the King of Hungary and his council.”
Nevers, hastily summoning his own council, asked for the opinion of Coucy and Vienne, who advised obeying the King of Hungary’s desire, which seemed to them wise. “He has the right to tell us what he wants us to do,” Coucy said. D’Eu burst out, “Yes, yes, the King of Hungary wishes to have the flower and honor of battle.” That was his reason and no other. “We are the vanguard. He granted it to us and now wants to take it back. Those who want to may believe him. I do not.” Seizing his banner, he cried, “Forward, in the name of God and St. George, you shall see me today a valorous knight!”
This speech by the brainless Constable, a third choice for that office, was declared a “presumption” by Coucy. He asked for the comment of Vienne, who, as eldest knight, carried the sovereign banner of the crusade. “When truth and reason cannot be heard,” replied the Admiral, “then must presumption rule.” If the Constable wished to fight, he said, the army must follow, but it would be stronger if it advanced in unity with the Hungarian and