the crusader goals, though lacking details of planning, were to expel the Turks from the Balkans and then go to the aid of Constantinople, cross the Hellespont, and march through Turkey and Syria to liberate Palestine and the Holy Sepulchre, before returning in triumph to Europe by sea. Arrangements were made for a fleet of Venetian vessels to blockade the Turks in the Sea of Marmara and for the Venetians to sail up the Danube to meet the crusaders in Wallachia in July. Coucy was not with the crusader body as it traveled, having been detached on a diplomatic mission to Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the Duke of Milan. Furious at French political maneuvering that had removed Genoa from his influence, Gian Galeazzo had been attempting to stop the transfer of Genoese sovereignty to France and Coucy was dispatched to warn him that France would consider further interference a hostile act. The quarrel was more than political. Valentina Visconti, the wife of the Duke of Orleans and Gian Galeazzo's beloved daughter, had been exiled from Paris due to the machinations of Queen Isabeau the same month as the departure of the crusade. The Duke of Milan threatened to send knights to defend his daughter's honor but, in the wake of the disaster at Nicopolis, it was widely believed that he had relayed intelligence to Bayezid I of crusader troop movements. There is no firm evidence of this and it is likely that Gian Galeazzo became a scapegoat after the fact due to the existing animosity with France, though there remains the possibility that the Duke of Milan, who had murdered his own uncle to ensure his own power, did in fact betray the crusaders. Coucy, his diplomatic mission complete and accompanied by Henry of Bar and their followers, left Milan for Venice, from where he requisitioned a ship on 17 May to take him across the Adriatic Sea, landing in the Croatian port of Senj on 30 May before making his way overland to the rendezvous in Buda. Croatian forces led by Ban Nicholas II Garai moved towards Buda from the coastal town of Nin in June, following a session of the Croatian Parliament, and joined the royal Hungarian army led by Sigismund. Coucy arrived well before Nevers, who had stopped in the upper Danube for receptions and festivities thrown by German princes. Nevers did not arrive in Vienna until 24