With this shadow of an army he joined Hunyades, and the combined force
made its way in boats down the Danube into the heart of Hungary, and
approached the frontier fortress which Mahomet II. was besieging with a
host of one hundred and sixty thousand men, and which its defender, the
brother-in-law of John Hunyades, had nearly given up for lost.
On came the flotilla,--the peasants with their flails and forks and
Hunyades with his trained soldiers,--and attacked the Turkish fleet with
such furious energy that it was defeated and dispersed, and the allied
forces made their way into the beleaguered city. Capistrano and his
followers were full of enthusiasm. He was a second Peter the Hermit,
his peasant horde were crusaders, fierce against the infidels,
disdaining death in God's cause; neither leader nor followers had a
grain of military knowledge or experience, but they had, what is
sometimes better, courage and enthusiasm.
John Hunyades _had_ military experience, and looked with cold disfavor
on the burning and blind zeal of his new recruits.
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