Immediately on John’s return, he and other European Christian rulers began to make more or less combined movements against Murad. The influence of the pope was energetically used to make an alliance successful. The question was no longer one merely of defending a schismatic though Christian emperor, but of preserving the existence of great Catholic states. Nor were the means for offering a strong resistance to Turkish advance wanting. The crown of Hungary was worn by Ladislaus, the young king of Poland, who was crowned in 1440. Almost immediately after his accession, his army succeeded in defeating a Turkish detachment in Hungary. In the same year Scanderbeg--that is, Alexander Bey--at the head of a large body of Albanians, declared war on Murad. Though John on his return from Florence sent an embassy to the sultan to protest that he was a loyal vassal, he was only waiting for the ships and aid promised by the pope and by Western princes in order to join in a combined attack. Although the ships promised were long in arriving, the West was known to be full of anxiety, and preparations were being hurried forward. On New Year’s Day 1442, the pope again preached a Crusade and called on all Christian princes, and especially on Ladislaus, king of Poland and Hungary, to help in the defence of the three bulwarks of Christendom--Constantinople, Cyprus, and Rhodes.[136] Cardinal Julian was commissioned to advise Ladislaus, and the king was ordered to render every aid possible to him as the legate of Eugenius. George Brancovich of Serbia bound himself to aid the Hungarian king and for this purpose to send twenty-five thousand men and large sums of money, the produce of the Serbian mines. The combined army of Hungarians and Serbs, with the co-operation also of Scanderbeg, was placed in June under the command of John Corvinus Hunyadi, the waywode of Transylvania. Hunyadi had already distinguished himself as a brave and skilful leader against the Turks. In a short campaign of less than half a year, he had captured five strongholds north of the Danube, won as many battles, and had returned laden with booty and trophies of victory. In 1442, at the head of twelve thousand chosen cavalry, he chased the Turks out of Serbia and defeated in succession several armies. Christians from France, Italy, and Germany hastened to enrol themselves under his leadership. Not even before the terrible disaster at Nicopolis in 1396 had so powerful an army been gathered together to attack the common enemy as was now collected under Hunyadi. It represented all the force that the pope and Western Europe could muster, and the presence of Cardinal Julian gave it the sanction of an international army representing Christendom. Seldom have soldiers had more confidence in their leader, and apparently that confidence was well bestowed. [Sidenote: His victories.]