At the time of this fearful invasion Ladislaus was on a visit
to Buda, one of the capitals of Hungary, on the Danube, but about three
hundred miles above Belgrade. The young monarch, with his favorite,
Cilli, fled ingloriously to Vienna, leaving Hunniades to breast as he
could the Turkish hosts. But Hunniades was, fortunately, equal to the
emergence.
A Franciscan monk, John Capistrun, endowed with the eloquence of Peter
the Hermit, traversed Germany, displaying the cross and rousing
Christians to defend Europe from the infidels. He soon collected a
motley mass of forty thousand men, rustics, priests, students, soldiers,
unarmed, undisciplined, a rabble rout, who followed him to the
rendezvous where Hunniades had succeeded in collecting a large force of
the bold barons and steel-clad warriors of Hungary. The experienced
chief gladly received this heterogeneous mass, and soon armed them,
brought them into the ranks and subjected them to the severe discipline
of military drill.
At the head of this band, which was inspired with zeal equal to that of
the Turk, the brave Hunniades, in a fleet of boats, descended the
Danube. The river in front of Belgrade was covered with the flotilla of
the Turks.
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