Tags
A Distant Mirror, A Once and Future King, barbara tuchman, crusades, Field of Glory, Field of Glory II, Field of Glory II Medieval, fleetwood mac, France, Hundred Years War, Ottoman Empire, Sigismund
I have now, at long last, finished my reading of A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. Barbara Tuchman centers her book around the person of Enguerrand de Coucy, a member of the nobility and important personage during the time she writes about. In today’s language, Coucy would be an A-lister, but not A+. He was not a King nor a blood relative to one. His name was unknown to me until I picked up Tuchman’s book. Yet… Coucy was heavily involved (sometimes uniquely so) in the major events of his time.
Tuchman’s story-telling winds down after the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396. The battle of Christendom against the Ottomans put a quick end to the French-organized crusade intended to drive the Turks out of Europe. A+ listers, such as the future John, Duke of Burgundy, Philip of Artois, Count of Eu, and Boucicaut (a marshal of France) were captured while Jean de Vienne, Admiral of France, and other notables* were killed (along with thousands and thousands of regular people). Many others, Eu and Coucy included, died in captivity while waiting for their countrymen to arrange their ransom.
From the wargaming standpoint, this is an interesting battle. Embellishing upon Tuchman’s explanation, this is a case of too many cooks bespoiling a broth. Each of our A/A+-listers felt they should dictate strategy. Worse yet, most were, first and foremost, concerned about their own displays of gallantry, chivalry, and honor. Strategically, the French lords dismissed a defensive strategy so as to grab that greater glory. Operationally, they refused to consider and counter the movements of Bayezid’s Ottoman army, confident that no heathen army of any size would be a match for Christian knights. Tactically, they refused to heed the advice of King of Hungary (and future Holy Roman Emperor) Sigismund, who advised them not to waste their mounted knights against untrained Turkish cannon fodder.
It’s a scenario ripe for a half-a-dozen-or-so what-ifs.
Alas, the Battle of Nicopolis is not in my library of games; neither in the shipped “epic” scenarios for Field of Glory II: Medieval nor, yet, a user-made scenario. Given its import, maybe I should be waiting for the next DLC to see something about the Ottoman conquest of eastern Europe. As an aside, the relative paucity of user-made scenarios suggests to me that scenario creation, despite a very open and (mostly) accessible modding interface, is much more difficult than it would initially appear. Much more difficult, it would seem, than it was working with the original Field of Glory.
A bit of search-engining tells me that, in fact, still-active scenario creator stockwellpete did make a Nicopolis for the original FoG. I also notice that the (drop-box-based) availability of those old scenarios is no longer. This is just as well. When I picked up FoGII:Medieval, it was with the intent of forever severing my reliance on FoG for historical gaming. I am glad I was not tempted in this case.
As Lindsey Buckingham once (and twice) said, “I’m never going back again.”
Quick!
What FoGII:Medieval does have is something almost as interesting to me, now that I know what it all means.
![](https://ettubluto.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/mahdia1.jpg?w=1024)
Less than a decade before the disaster at Nicopolis, the French nobility had a dry run. France and England were struggling to find peace in the Hundred Years War and, during the lull, France was implored to join Genoa in a crusade to purge Muslim pirates from the Caribbean by seizing their stronghold in modern day Tunisia. While FoGII doesn’t support the armies necessary for the Nicopolis Crusade it does allow random scenarios based on the Barbary Crusade.
![](https://ettubluto.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/mahdia3.jpg?w=1024)
My quick take at a Barbary scenario with a Quick Battle produces something that feels relevant. With my French force I am facing (from a defensive position) a numerically superior Arab foe. My infantry in particular is outnumbered. Were I a French commander I would, nonetheless, have tremendous confidence in those mounted French knights, waiting to dominate the field. Granted they have this bad habit of charging off across the desert, breaking up my own force’s cohesion and leaving me exposed to that weaker but more numerous enemy. I won’t attempt to draw any deep conclusions with this battle as I’m quite sure there is no historical corollary. It was a nice find at just the right time.
A Distant King
At the same time I finished up A Distant Mirror, I am also just about finished reading A Once and Future King with my kid. Again it feels like dumb luck that led me to decide to read these two books at roughly the same time.
One of the last chapters of White’s book begins with an image of the aging lovers Lancelot and Guenevere sitting in a window, overlooking the English countryside. White uses that portrait to expound upon the Middle Ages and the misconceptions about it that we hold now, looking back (from the 1960s, but still…) Particularly he targets the idea that these were “dark ages” and the people of that time were unsophisticated, incompetent, or downright stupid. He does so by presenting brief illustrations of what the pair “might have seen” from their window.
He laughs at the idea that the “real” King Arthur might have lived circa 500 AD, at the fall of Rome, and further dismisses the idea that Sir Thomas Mallory might have been writing a contemporary story (Wars of the Roses, roughly). Instead, he places his story around about the beginning of Tuchman’s Distant Mirror, at the height of the chivalric ideals that she describes but before the black death which centers her work. In doing so, he writes of the “fictional” kings, dukes, popes, and barons that might nonetheless shed some light on Arthur and his times. With Tuchman’s history under my belt, I can understand that these fictional characters are the real deal. I even understand the name-drops of some of White’s more subtle jokes.
*One notable personage, assuming you subscribe to the Et tu Bluto history method, was Jean de Carrouges, who was killed on the field of battle. Only those of us who watched The Last Duel (or simply are better versed in their medieval history) perk up our ears at that.