On this day in 1396, a great battle took place near Nikopolje in present-day Bulgaria, where a united Christian army met the advancing Ottoman army.
This army was led by King Sigismund, and the right wing was secured by Croatian Ban Lacković and Croatian nobleman Nikola Gorjanski.
On the left wing of the army was Herman of Celje.
The Ottomans at that time were on a violent rise under the leadership of Sultan Bayezid I, who had the nickname Lightning.
The bloody Battle of Nikopolje, in which the Christian knights tried to break the attacking blade of the Ottomans, took place on September 25, 1396. They failed to do so, so the battle turned into a terrible massacre of Christian forces. Only a small fraction of Christians managed to survive, and most were either killed on the battlefield or later executed in captivity.
There were also vassal "Christians" on the side of the Muslim forces, such as the Serbian despot Stefan Lazarević with 5,000 Serbian armored cavalry. He was the son of the Serbian prince Lazar, who was killed by the Turks in Kosovo Polje (later he turned his back on the Turks as well). Vassalism (servitude to the opponent) is a term known to Serbian history in many battles such as Nikopolje, Marica, Kosovo and others.
The terrible defeat at Nikopolje enabled the Turks to quickly penetrate into Central Europe and northern Croatia, especially into the area of today's Slavonia and Hungary all the way to Slovenia. Constantinople remained under siege, so 50 years later it would fall into Muslim hands and remain so to this day. The Sultan intended to conquer Constantinople, the largest city in Europe at the time and the seat of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. He started the siege of that city, and the Byzantine emperor Manuel II. The paleologist called for help from Christians in western Europe.
The battle took place near the city of Nikopol on the Danube (today Nikopol in Bulgaria). The Christian army was so thoroughly defeated that its commander, King Sigismund of Luxembourg, barely escaped alive, with the help of Count Herman of Celje.
King Sigismund was so grateful to Herman of Celje that he saved his life, that he gave him the entire Croatian Zagorje. In this way, Herman was able to add the title "Count of Zagorje" to his title. In fact, the same King Sigismund married Herman's daughter Barbara of Celje.
The fate of the heroes of that battle is interesting: Sultan Bayezid died a few years later as a prisoner in a Mongolian cage (the Mongols then saved Europe by oppressing Turkey from Asia), the Croatian ban was beheaded by King Sigismund at the bloody Križevci Council because he opposed his to the violent government, the Vlach duke Mirca became a national hero because of his resistance to the Turks, but in Europe he is better known as the grandfather of the infamous Count Dracula. Serbian prince Stefan Lazarević turned his back on the Turks and became a Hungarian vassal.
