Composition of
crusader forces
From France, it was said about 2,000 knights and squires
joined, and were accompanied by 6,000 archers and foot soldiers drawn from the
best volunteer and mercenary companies. Totaling some 10,000 men. Next in
importance were the Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes, who were the standard
bearers of Christianity in the Levant since the decline of Constantinople and
Cyprus. Venice supplied a naval fleet for supporting action, while Hungarian
envoys encouraged German princes of the Rhineland, Bavaria, Saxony and other
parts of the empire to join. French heralds had proclaimed the crusade in
Poland, Bohemia, Navarre and Spain, from which individuals came to join.
The Italian city-states were too much engaged in their
customary violent rivalries to participate, and the widely reported and
acclaimed English participation never actually occurred. The report of 1000
English knights comes from contemporary Antonio Fiorentino, and was taken as
fact by historian Aziz S. Atiya and others following him. A thousand knights
would have actually amounted to "four to six thousand men and at least
twice as many horses", counting foot-soldiers and other retainers.
However, there are no records of financial arrangements being made in England
to send a force abroad, nor of any royal preparation needed to organize and
dispatch such a force. Reports of Henry of Bolingbroke or other "son of
the Duke of Lancaster" leading an English contingent must be false since
the presence of Henry and every other such son, as well as almost every other
significant noble in the land, is recorded at the king's wedding five months
after the crusade's departure. Atiya also thought that the invocation of St.
George as a war cry at Nicopolis signified the presence of English soldiers,
for whom George was a patron saint; but Froissart, who mentions this, claims
that the cry was made by the French knight Philippe d'Eu. Furthermore, there
was no collection of ransom money in England to pay for captives, as there was
in every other country that had sent men to the battle. Sporadic mention in
contemporary accounts of the presence of "English" may be attributed
to Knights Hospitaller of the English tongue subgrouping, who joined their
comrades for the crusade after leaving Rhodes (where the Hospitallers were
based at the time) and sailing up the Danube. Possible reasons for the English
absence include the increasing tension between the king and the Duke of
Gloucester, which may have convinced the two that they had best keep their
supporters close, and the antipathy caused by the long war between the English
and French, resulting in the English refusing to consider putting themselves
under a French-led crusade, regardless of the recently concluded peace.
Nevertheless, obviously inflated figures continue to be
repeated. These include 6-8,000 Hungarians, ~ 10,000 French, English and
Burgundian troops, ~ 10,000 Wallachians led by Mircea cel Batran (Mircea The
elder) the prince of Wallachia, ~ 6,000 Germans and nearly 15,000 Dutch,
Bohemian, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Bulgarian, Scottish and Swiss troops on the
land, with the naval support of Venice, Genoa and the Knights of St. John.
These result in a figure of about 47,000 - 49,000 in total; possibly up to
120,000 or 130,000 according to numerous sources, including the 15th-century
Ottoman historian Şükrullah who gives the figure of the Crusader army as
130,000 in his Behçetu't-Tevârih.
Composition of
Ottoman forces
Also estimated at about 20-25,000; but inflated figures continue
to be repeated of up to 60,000 according to numerous sources including the
15th-century Ottoman historian Şükrullah, who gives the figure of the Ottoman
army as 60,000 in his Behçetu't-Tevârih; alternately described as roughly half
of the Crusader army. The Ottoman force also included 1,500 Serbian heavy
cavalry knights under the command of Prince Stefan Lazarević, who was Sultan
Bayezid's vassal since the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, as well as his
brother-in-law after the Sultan married Stefan's sister, Princess Olivera
Despina, the daughter of Prince Lazar of Serbia (Stefan's father) who had
perished at Kosovo.
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