Their advances led to the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, where a western crusade met with disaster.
This brought them into conflict with the other Balkan Christian states, including Serbia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Wallachia, Moldavia and Albania. Over the next two years the Company was so successful against the Turks, and so rapacious in its treatment of Byzantine civilians, that the Byzantines became alarmed and had the Company’s leaders treacherously murdered. With Sultan Bayezid I captured, and dying in captivity the following year, the empire was thrown into a chaotic civil war between Bayezid’s sons, with order only being restored in 1413 when Mehmed I became Sultan.