merchants thought of the violence done to their trading rights at Novgorod; and the empire felt jealous of the rival sovereignty, owning neither Pope nor Kaiser, which threatened to make the late Emperor’s fatuous monogram more illusory than ever.[107] Taking advantage of this latent hostility, Alexander was able to bring about an offensive alliance between himself and the Order, into which also entered the sovereign ecclesiastics of Riga, Revel, Dorpat, Oesel, and Pilten. This new phase of the struggle was heralded by the arrest of 200 Russian merchants at Dorpat, a belated reprisal for the affair of Novgorod. Ivan dispatched towards the Livlandish border an army of Moskovites and Pskovians, computed to have been 40,000 strong. Against this array von Plettenberg could only bring into action, at a locality 10 verstas from Izborsk, a force of 4000 knights and some irregulars. The Germans, however, were well supplied with artillery, and the noise, perhaps more than the execution, of their fire-belching implements of war caused a panic among the Russians, who fled in confusion. And here it may be remarked that the Russian warriors of that period were somewhat liable to these sudden stampedes; as a contemporary observer neatly remarks, “They make the first charge on the enemy with great impetuosity, but their valour does not seem to hold out very long, for they seem as if they would give a hint to the enemy, as much as to say, ‘if you do not flee, we must.’”[108] Without straining a point it may be assumed that this liability to panic was in some measure due to the superstitious coddling of their religion, which depicted angels and saints and Bogoroditzas as ready, on suitable occasions, to interfere with effect on their behalf; consequently if the enemy stood his ground for any length of time the disheartened warriors experienced an uneasy _lama sabacthani_ feeling that all was not well with them in the desired quarter, and demoralisation ensued. The stubbornly contested field of Koulikovo scarcely furnishes the exception which “proves the rule,” as on that occasion the Metropolitan had announced that victory would only be attained after much fighting.[109] This ignominious collapse left Pskov to receive the full fury of von Plettenberg’s attack, and the citizens in desperation prepared to make a more creditable stand behind their walls than they had done in the field. But the threatened blow did not fall; a pestilence of some severity broke out among the “iron men,” and the army of the Order was obliged to return to quarters.