And yet, despite their danger, the people of Germany remained supine.  Hungary had valiantly defended itself against the Turks ten years before, without aid from the German empire.  It looked now as if Belgrade might be left to its fate.  The brave John Hunyades and his faithful Hungarians were the only bulwarks of Europe against the foe, for the people seemed incapable of seeing a danger a thousand miles away.  The pope and his legate John Capistrano, general of the Capuchins, were the only aids to the valiant Hunyades in his vigorous defence.  They preached a crusade, but with little success.  Capistrano traversed Germany, eloquently calling the people to arms against the barbarians.  The result was similar to that on previous occasions, the real offenders were neglected, the innocent suffered.  The people, instead of arming against the Turks, turned against the Jews, and murdered them by thousands.  Whatever happened in Europe,—­a plague, an invasion, a famine, a financial strait,—­that unhappy people were in some way held responsible, and mediaeval Europe seemed to think it could, at any time, check the frightful career of a comet or ward off pestilence by slaughtering a few thousands of Jews.  It cannot be said that it worked well on this occasion; the Jews died, but the Turks surrounded Belgrade still.

Capistrano found no military ardor in Germany, in princes or people.  The princes contented themselves with ordering prayers and ringing the Turkish bells, as they were called.  The people were as supine as their princes.  He did, however, succeed, by the aid of his earnest eloquence, in gathering a force of a few thousands of peasants, priests, scholars, and the like; a motley host who were chiefly armed with iron flails and pitchforks, but who followed him with an enthusiasm equal to his own.  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.  He was willing that they should aid him in repelling the furious attacks of the Turks, but to his trained eyes an attack on the well-intrenched camp of the enemy would have been simple madness, and he sternly forbade any such suicidal course, even threatening death to whoever should attempt it.