The Battle of Nicopolis (1396)

After Kosovo the Ottomans took most of the Balkans and blockaded Constantinople. King Sigismund of Hungary appealed to Europe, and a great Crusader army of French, Burgundian and German knights gathered, supported by a Venetian fleet. In September 1396 it besieged the Danube fortress of Nicopolis.

Sultan Bayezid lifted his blockade of Constantinople and hurried north. On 25 September 1396 the French knights, ignoring Sigismund's advice to be cautious, charged first. They broke through the Ottoman front ranks and climbed the hill, but there met Bayezid's main force and were surrounded. The cavalry of the Serbian prince Stefan Lazarević, an Ottoman vassal, helped decide the end of the battle.

The Crusader army was routed and Sigismund escaped down the Danube by boat. John of Nevers, son of the Duke of Burgundy, was captured and released for a huge ransom. Nicopolis secured Ottoman rule in the Balkans, and Vidin, the last remnant of the Second Bulgarian Empire, passed to the Ottomans.