306 BATTLE OF 1396. 



cians, who inhabited the tract of country corres- 

 ponding to Moldavia, Transylvania, Wallachia, 

 and part of Hungary. 



Nicopolis is famous for the battle fought there 

 on the 28th September, 1396, in w^hich Sultan 

 Bajazet I. defeated a confederate army of one 

 hundred thousand Christians, under Sigismund, 

 King of Hungary. Sigismund, whose kingdom 

 was threatened by Bajazet, was aided by the 

 Emperor of the West, and had under his banners 

 the bravest knights of France and Germany. 

 His cause was that of the cross, and so powerfully 

 supported was he, that his followers proudly and 

 impiously boasted, that if the sky should fall, they 

 could uphold it with their lances ; and they even 

 began to calculate how soon they should visit 

 Constantinople, and deliver the holy sepulchre. 



I appears that the victory was due as much to 

 Bajazet's military talents, as to his good fortune. 

 The Christians had besieged Nicopolis, and Baja- 

 zet coming to its relief, contrived by a master- 

 piece of manoeuvring, to draw his impetuous and 

 unwary antagonists into an ambuscade, by which 

 means he gained a complete and decisive victory, 

 and was only prevented by a long and painful fit 



