Talk:Battle of Nicopolis

Comments

Was it a battle for Hungary?

But Hungary didn't make inquiries about this battle enough. Why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.111.185.112 (talk) 21:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Numbers

Hungarian military experience (according to history of ottoman-hungarian wars): Turks could win only with minimum 3X preponderance. Because: 1. they are/were smaller shorter people, the tallness and lenghts of arms were important in hand to hand combats, 2. their asian Turk metal/steel-technology was too backward to make similar advanced armours as european armours According to Spanish, Turkish and French history books ( are you sure? ), the Turkish army was much smaller than the Christian. The Ottoman Empire had not expanded large enought to gather such forces. There were mostly Turkish nomads who participated in the war. They were not more than 10,000 maximum! The Christian army managed to gather ah much larger army, which was 100,000. The reason why they were som many is because they were allied! 40,000 were Hungarians, 40,000 were French, and 20,000 were Wallachians.

Hungarian military experience: Turks could win only over 3X preponderance.

According to a British historian the composing armies at the battle of Nicopolis were not more then 6000 each. Who wrote those numbers down (104000 and 100000)?, its simply not true. References to this article are missing ,therefore the numbers in this article should be taken with a grain of salt.

There are references given at the bottom. It even says in the article that the numbers are most likely exaggerations, but nevertheless those are what the sources claim... Adam Bishop 16:01, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, sources claimed something like four million fo the First Crusade, as far as I can remember, and there were really about 100,000, including hangers-on. Ten to one or more is a usual ratio of claimed to actual combatants, if I recall correctly. Supersheep 10:00, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

According to Barbara Tuchman, no English nobility took part in this battle.

That's pretty amazing, according to this article, no English nobility took part in this battle! Adam Bishop 02:34, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

My searches about the Ottoman war machine show me that the Turkish army couldn't reach to 100,000 before the Fall of Constantinople because generally sources call Mehmet II's invasion army as the largest force that Ottomans gathered until that time. With respect; Deliogul 21:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Atiya is rather obsolote as a reference. If I have time, I will rewrite the article. 81.182.180.134 07:31, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The Christian army numbered 8000 (according to Mályusz)-25.000 (Rázsó) men (35.000 in the beginning of the campaign, but large forces was left in captured castles, p. e. 300 in Vidin). The Turkish army was about 35-40.000 men-strong (10.000 - Mályusz).

Hnag on a minute. The numbers according to Battle by R.G. Grant ISBN no. 1 4053 1100 2 claims that there were 16,000 Christians and 20,000 Ottomans.

And of course the Ottomans had expanded alot they fielded 80,000+ men only 60 years later, check out my maps at Byzantine-Ottoman wars which are sourced from the Oxford History of Byzantium and the Compact History of the Wolr by THE TIMES. Tourskin 13:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

60 years later, the army consist of too many merceneries. there were as almost as many christians as muslims, (especially venetians, serbians, although venice was at byzantine side, so many man came for looting constantinople and just looting, much of them are not paid). it is not the case for this battle. bayezit doesnot employ merceneries and turkomans in anatolia was against ottomans(infact bayezit was in war with other beghliks) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.179.138.117 (talk) 00:31, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

largest crusade?

The whole crusader force was only 25 000 men at best case. Atiya is an outdated source. In fact the whole article needs rewriting. 84.2.210.173 15:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, the numbers are wildly inflated. Sources tried to claim that the Poles and Lithuanians fielded over 3,000,000 men at Tannenberg. It's a medieval historian thing.

The Hungarian military historians nowadays are relatively sure, that the numbers of Ottoman troops were oversized again and again. Even in the 16th century, when the Ottoman Empire was more powerful than ever before (and later), the total strength of their armies attacking Hungary (Mohács, 1526) was ca. 60,000 troops (and not 100,000 or more). There is a new book about the decisive battle of the Hungarian-Ottoman wars between 1396 and 1526 – published only in Hungarian language -, which author’s opinion is, that the total number of the Ottoman forces by Nikopolis was about 40,000, with only 3,000 of janissaries. The strength of the crusaders could not be exactly reconstructed, but they were not more than 5-10,000 knights and other mounted soldier from France and Burgundy, 10-15,000 cavalry and infantry from Hungary and ca. 5,000 from Wallachia. The cited book is: Pálosfalvi, Tamás: Nikápolytól Mohácsig 1396-1526. Published by Zrínyi, Budapest, Hungary, 2005. sorry for bad english. regards. -g- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.133.86.84 (talk) 21:12, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

that is just funny, good day "Hungarian" historians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.179.138.117 (talk) 00:34, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

References

I am sorry but I am gonna have to take drastic measures here and replace these biased Turkish sources which aren't even in English with these neutral ones:

• Philip Sherrard, Great Ages of Man Byzantium, Time-Life Books
• Madden, Thomas F. Crusades the Illustrated History. 1st ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan P, 2005
• Parker, Geoffrey. Compact History of the World. 4th ed. London: Times Books, 2005
• Mango, Cyril. The Oxford History of Byzantium. 1st ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2002
• Grant, R G. Battle a Visual Journey Through 5000 Years of Combat. London: Dorling Kindersley, 2005

And use real numbers, not 60,000 men by Sigismund, thats ridiculous. Besides I can't analyse these sources in Turkish, so its not fair.! I will give 24 hrs for a response before taking action here.Tourskin 13:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The fact that these sources are in Italian and Turkish doesn't make them invalid.

Try to be a bit more polyglot - the world doesn't only consist of the English language.

You'll realize that your horizons of knowledge and pool of resources will instantly become greater.

By the way, the source for the numbers of the Crusaders (including 60,000 Hungarians) is Italian, not Turkish:

http://www.maat.it/livello2/turchia-europa.htm#bayazedI

Regards. Flavius Belisarius 22:07, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

why do you trust Hungarian sources than, the other side of this battle is hungary, so how do you know they are not biased.

The Italians are missing

Sigismund returned back home on board of a Venetian ship, might I remind you.

The Republic of Venice and the Republic of Genoa were among the participants in the war, like the Spaniards, Swiss, and the Knights of St. John who were based in Rhodes (instead of Malta) back then. Not to mention the Poles, Bohemians and Scots.

The new figures are vastly incomplete.

Regards. Flavius Belisarius 13:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

You might not believe this, but I do agree with you there to some extent, but without good references I am afraid we can't prove it. If you feel so strongly, then I won't stop you from changing it back, but I must state my protest if you do so without any other references. I'll have a look on the web too. As you can see, I have referenced my work with very reliable sources. Also, remember that desertions took a toll on all.Tourskin 14:28, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I found your sources, these websites show numbers that you seem to support: http://www.geocities.com/nbulgaria/bulgaria/nicop396.htm http://atheism.about.com/b/a/258182.htm

I couldn't find anything else to confirm these. I wouldn't mind getting someone else with more knowledge on this matter or a third party/opinion/research. In the meantime, I am gonna try to contact Thomas F Madden, A professor who wrote this book: and ask.Tourskin 14:44, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Tourskin, I am concerned about your approach to sources. All the sources you have listed are meant to be introductions, or their scope is far too vast to be useful for such a specific battle. Madden's book is a good start but it is also meant to be an intro to the crusades in general; it is very short and doesn't say much about Nicopolis. And where are they getting their information from? Have you looked for any primary sources? I understand that foreign languages are a problem (I can't read Turkish either!), but you shouldn't discount research just because it isn't in English. I also wouldn't put my faith in random websites like geocities or about.com. It's great that you are trying to help, but I worry that the article might actually suffer in the end. Adam Bishop 15:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Very well then. Without trying to sound bitter, I can't really care anymore since you question my sources, and I can't defend them as well as I had hoped. By the way, I think the number of Ottoman Troops labelled as 20,000 should be changed too since this was suggested if the Crusaders numbered 16,000. Anyways, I was actually referencing Battle by R.G. Grant not geocites and in fact the figues that were preposed that I am opposing were from geocites. 100,000 on each side sounds like alot and the previous version of the article even said that the figures were exagerated. s for the Italians and the vast number of participants, remember that most only sent token forces in an effort to appease the Pope which would explain why my initial numbers were so much lower but I can't prove this so I think I iwll take my leave of this article for now until much more solid information can be found. Tourskin 17:39, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

16,000 is the total number of the Hungarian and French/Burgundian/English troops, not the total number of the Crusaders.

The "16,000" figure does not include the 10,000 Wallachians, 6,000 Germans and 15,000 Bohemians, Poles, Italians (from Genoa, Venice and territories of Italy under the Holy Roman Empire), Spaniards (Holy Roman Empire), Swiss, Scots and the Knights of St. John (who were back then based in Rhodes). Flavius Belisarius 01:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Alright - but why has the number of Ottoman troops been lowered to 20,000 again. I now I added that in but it doesn't make sense if what you say is correct. The Ottomans suffered heavier losses than the Christians so why do they have less men, that would mean that they would have been wiped out. I'm getting rid of 20,000. If you say that the Crusader force was more than 16,000 than the Ottomans would have been more than 20,000 too. Tourskin 10:13, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Again the no. 20,000 has emerged yet none have discussed this change. There is no references that point to this dismally low number. Considering that Bayezid took an army from a siege of Constantinople it would be safe to assume that the army was large. Indeed, Bayezid some 6 years later was able to field some 85,000 troops according to Battle of Ankara article and I know we aren't suppose to source from wikipedi but this number (85,000) was sourced from an external source. So if Bayezid had 85,000 men in 1402 after the costly Nicopolis, then he must have had at least 100,000 then. Tourskin 20:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

"In fact the Crusaders probably numbered some 16,000 men. Traditional Turkish sources give the number of Ottoman troops as 10,000 but when their Balkans vassals were included they may have numbered around 15,000. One thing is clear, the forces that eventually faced each other outside Nicopolis were similar in number." David Nicolle, Nicopolis 1396: The Last Crusade, p. 37 Lysandros 00:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, new point - why does it say that teh Ottomans had half the numbers of the crusader force? Tourskin 19:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Hahaha... in serb wikipedia missing that Serbia fight together with ottomans against the Christian powers!

That might be true, Serbs usually helped to Ottomans by sending heavy cavalry, and Ottoman aristocracy consists of more Serbs then Turks when its rise of power. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.179.138.210 (talk) 01:34, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Tuchman?

Is Tuchman really a more credible source than the ones that were already cited? (Is she really a credible source for anything?) Adam Bishop (talk) 12:52, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, those were rhetorical questions to which the answers are, of course, "no." BanyanTree, I've reverted your recent edits, although I assume you'll want a better explanation. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:35, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It's like you're reading my mind. I'll give you 24 hours to explain before I revert. And this better be a doozy if you're drawing the credibility line at Tuchman rather than "a Visual Journey Through 5000 Years of Combat", "Crusades the Illustrated History" or the apparently random websites currently being used as footnotes. I'm pretty sure that Wikipedia:Verifiability would justify an immediate reversion of the removal of new cited information, but I'll be nice today. - BanyanTree 14:41, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, Tuchman is no historian; if you want to use her casualty numbers, you might as well be making up your own. But you're right, some of the other sources are equally useless (not all though; and even if the Illustrated History is not the best, at least the author is a reputable scholar). If the reasoning is that you would like to replace terrible references with other terrible references I suppose I can't have any objection. Perhaps it doesn't matter anyway since this article has already been hijacked by various nationalists. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:58, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed that. Though I do take solace in noting that Tuchman's observation that each side insists that the enemy outnumbered them 2 to 1 holds true for both the 15th century Turkish source prominently used in this article and 19th century German source she settles on, even though they're nearly an order of magnitude different. While I don't doubt that Tuchman has a number of errors, perhaps even at a higher rate than typical of works written by historians with doctorates, I think I'll take my chances with Tuchman's account and trust that somebody will wander by and fix points as needed. That said, if you can disprove Tuchman's assertion that the presence of an official English delegation in the crusade was imaginary, I'd be happy to take the rest of your argument at face value. - BanyanTree 22:53, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I can't disprove or prove that...but why that, specifically? Adam Bishop (talk) 04:14, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

It seems to be the most contentious bit of the content I added, with the article as I found it stating explicitly that England participated, and Tuchman spends an abnormally large amount of time in the book explaining why multiple historical accounts of English crusaders are imaginary. She clearly put a lot of thought into her argument and proving her wrong on this point would easily cast doubt on her sources and methods as a whole, which I don't think is true of other details she describes. - BanyanTree 04:56, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, well if she is right, then we should also be able to reference more reputable sources. If no one else says so, then she is a perfectly valid reference by Wikipedia standards, for what that's worth. Might as well revert my reversion. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:36, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

That's true, but isn't it the way of Wikipedia that some yahoo whose sole exposure to a topic is from a 30 year old work of popular history wanders into an article and is too lazy to find high-credibility sources? We can always hope that someone will wander by and fix and qualify any dubious assertions with references. In any case, reverted, and now I should be preparing myself for the "at least 100,000 combatants" folks, who I've undoubtedly enraged by moving the high estimates off the infobox - BanyanTree 09:36, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok, a trip to the library allowed me to look at England and the Crusades by Christopher Tyerman; Nicopolis is on pp. 300-301, and he says the English probably weren't really there. Tyerman points to an article by Charles L. Tipton, "The English at Nicopolis" (Speculum 37 (1962)), which I can bring up on JSTOR when I have a chance. The original claim that the English had 1000 soldiers among the French forces seems to come from Aziz s. Atiya's book about Nicopolis, which gets it from the contemporary chronicles, who were apparently mistaken. I haven't read this particular passage in Tuchman, but it seems reasonable to assume that she got her info from Tipton. Does she have any notes or bibliography? Adam Bishop (talk) 03:25, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

How scholarly and impressive! She notes in her general credits for the chapter that "Tipton contributes an original and valuable investigation of the supposed English role" and specifically for the footnote "349 SUPPOSED ENGLISH PARTICIPATION: The evidence refuting it has been effectively presented by Tipton, leading to his conclusion, 'No Englishman whatsoever can be identified as positively among the crusading army,' 533." The bibliographic reference is to the 1962 Speculum article. I don't reference work that I haven't actually read, but I'll see if I can figure out how to find a copy of this article and add it.

On a side note, Tuchman asserts, "Atiya's Nicopolis, usually cited (by English-speaking historians) as the standard work, supposedly draws on an impressive bibliography of Turkish sources, but little evidence of this appears in the text. With minor exceptions, not all of them accurate, this book is not much more than a reworking of Delaville." Delaville meaning Delaville de Roux, J., La France en Orient au XIV siécle: expéditions du Maréchal Boucicaut, vol 1, Paris, 1886. - BanyanTree 04:14, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, okay. I thought you were saying she concluded that herself, but this makes more sense. Atiya's book is pretty out of date now; it was published in the 30s but it was republished in the 70s so I guess it must have had some renewed popularity. Delaville is of course even more out of date! There is a more recent article about Boucicaut, but I can't remember who wrote it... Adam Bishop (talk) 04:43, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I personaly think that Tuchman's numbers are 'extremely' minimalist, even more minimalist than Nicolle's estimation (Crusaders:16,000, Ottomans:15,000 - which is more reasonable). Lysandros (talk) 12:04, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Now that I've read the Tipton article and the page in A Distant Mirror, I can see that Tipton is obviously her source. (It wasn't immediately apparent until I realized there are footnotes, of a kind, at the end of the book.) Tuchman's last sentence speculating on the reasons for the absence of the English isn't in Tipton though; actually it's almost the opposite of what Tipton says. Oh well. I'll add the Tipton stuff to the article when I get a chance. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:01, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

"reluctant vassals"

The phrasing "reluctant vassals" to describe the relationship between Transylvania and Hungary has been disputed. This is explicit in the citation source given for that paragraph, namely Tuchman page 553: "Part of the Hungarian army veered out to the north to gather in the reluctant vassal forces of Wallachia and Transylvania." It is quite possible that Tuchman's book, which is after all a general source for the century, condensed this point into an inaccuracy. In that case, it should be easy to find a source explaining the relationship between Transylvania and Hungary more accurately, and hopefully further explain the political tension that Tuchman alludes to but doesn't fully explain in her work. In the meantime, removal of this phrasing without a backing citation is prohibited by all manner of Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Thanks, BanyanTree 14:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

It's easy to consider the stance of Transylvania. It belong to the hungarian parliament. Medieval Hungarian parliament had supremacy over kingship. Transylvanians had segment in Hungarian parliament, the decisions and laws of the parliament were unarguable in the country. --Celebration1981 (talk) 15:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Terrain

I tried to add coordinates for the battle site, but have my doubts about the correctness of the battle map considering the local terrain. See my remarks on the talk page of the file on commons [1]. I'd welcome your comments. Preslav (talk) 06:14, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Mistaken Chronicler?

Curious, this from the article: Chronicler Jean Froissart would declare. "Since the Battle of Roncesvalles when [all] twelve peers of France were slain, Christendom received not so great a damage." As we know, that Battle was Christian against Basques (also Christian). But I have read that many think that battle was a Christian v. Muslim encounter, so perhaps that explains the confusion. Cutugno (talk) 01:14, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

That would seem to be a logical conclusion, though someone who knows more about how Roncesvalle was perceived in 14th century France would have to confirm it. - BanyanTree 07:31, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

He was probably alluding to the Chanson de Roland; I don't know if he knew who the original enemy was at Roncesvalles. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:10, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Catholics, not just Christians

I don't know how many thousands of times, the name "Catholic" is used, when a negative thing happened. The persons that fought in this battle against Islam weren't just Christians. They were Catholics and this fact must showed. Whitout Roman Catholicism , Christianism would be over more than one thousand years ago, by Islam.Agre22 (talk) 00:29, 25 September 2009 (UTC)agre22