This band set out for Jerusalem in pious rapture that the soldiers of God had been given victory and had been supplied by the God of Battles with money for the journey! Blinded with superstition, they measure themselves to us by what they did. Albert of Aix tells us that they found a goose "filled with the Holy Ghost," which they made leader in equal authority with a goat not less filled with the same Spirit (_et capellam non minus eodem repletam_)! Fear of such maniacs closed the gates of Hungarian cities. The city now known among Germans as Ungarish-Altenburg, situated in the marshy embouchure of the Leytha, was attacked by them by means of a causeway made of the trunks of trees. Ladders were built, and walls, defended by darts, arrows, and boiling oil, were almost scaled and won, when the breaking of ladders caused a panic and the plain was soon covered by fugitives who had, like all panicky soldiers, thrown away their arms. Multitudes of these were butchered without resistance while others died hopelessly mired in the marshes. [Sidenote: _Horrors of the March_] Surely these are enough to show the horrors of such marches in the name of Christ. A sentence may express the fate of those who survived. The Bulgarians almost finished what the Huns began. The Greeks received the news with joy. [Sidenote: _Forget Their Lessons_] At length Peter and Walter, between them, could muster an army of one hundred thousand men, when the re-enforcements from Italian cities were counted. Still under the walls of Constantinople it was not long before they forgot the lessons of their defeats and began again to rob and murder. Alexius soon found it expedient to ferry them across the Bosporus. The subjects of Alexius suffered worse than the Turks at first. Anna Comnena, perhaps prejudiced, yet quoted by Michaud, declares that the Normans in Peter's army when near Nicea, chopped children to pieces, stuck others on spits, and harried old people. The Germans, stung by Norman gibes, took a fort in the mountain near Nicea, killed the garrison and there met the attack of the Turks only to be slain by the sword. Their commander purchased his life by apostasy and a treasonable oath. [Sidenote: _Cruelties of Crusaders_] Once again the army sets forward, against the protest of the Penniless Walter, but by his forced consent. Once again they meet the reward of ignorance and undisciplined courage. [Sidenote: _Walter Killed at Nicea_] The ruler of Nicea, concealing a part of his army in the woods, waited for the Crusaders at the foot of a hill. The Turks pretended flight, but suddenly turned, surrounded the Crusaders on all sides, routed them, and slew them with dreadful carnage. Walter died of seven arrow wounds. The whole army found refuge in a castle close to the sea. The Chronicler says, "Their monument was a heap of bones piled upon the plain of Nicea." [Sidenote: _Turkish Contempt for Crusaders_]