File talk:Battle of Nicopole battle map 1396.jpg

source?

Does anyone know what source text/illustration this is based on? The descriptions of the battle seem way too confused to come up with a tidy battle map. - BanyanTree 05:25, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Terrain

I'm having difficulty fitting the map into the local terrain. I visit Nikopol regularly: it lies in a steep valley perpendicular to the Danube. The banks of the Danube rise almost straight from the river (on the eastern side of Nikopol there isn't even space for a road) and are too steep to climb by horse or even on foot, so the battle can't have taken place there. Instead, the charge by the French knights might have taken place up one of the sides of the valley, which means the battle was fought in an East-West direction, not North-South as shown on the map. Another possibility is that it was fought down the lenght of the valley (along the present road, for instance), but then there wouldn't be space for the broad battle formations shown on the map. See [1] for an impression of local terrain. Preslav (talk) 06:04, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I have my own doubts about the map, as seen in the previous section above.

Tuchman (559) describes the orientation thusly: "With their backs to the fortress and the town, the French knights on their war-horses ... rode forward with their mounted archers toward the enemy coming down from the hills ahead." While historical accounts of this battle are questionable at best, I would guess that the East-West orientation fits the terrain you describe. There may be a more scholarly source somewhere that gives a better sense of the layout of the battle. - BanyanTree 03:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)