Before Soliman quitted Pesth he had issued a proclamation to the effect that “Whosoever in Hungary should withhold obedience and subjection from the Count John of Zips, Wayvode of Transylvania, whom the Sultan had named king, had replaced in the sovereignty, and had engaged himself to uphold, should be punished and extirpated with fire and sword; but that those who should submit themselves should be stoutly protected, and maintained in the possession of their property and privileges.” On the 21st of September, Soliman with his main army crossed the Raab at Altenburg in Hungary, and on the same day his advanced corps of plunderers and destroyers under Michael Oglou, after spreading terror far and wide around them, reached the neighbourhood of Vienna. It may be questioned whether the main objects of the campaign were promoted by the employment of this force. As a scourge to the defenceless portion of an enemy’s country, none could be so effective; but though terror may paralyze the resistance of the scattered and the weak, cruelty serves to excite the indignation and organize the resistance of those beyond its immediate reach; and in the case of the Sackman cruelty was combined with a reckless treachery, which was laid to the account and affixed to the reputation of the general body of the invaders and their great leader, in some instances hardly with justice. Contemporary writers have exhausted their powers of language in describing the atrocities perpetrated by these marauders. We find, for example, in a rare pamphlet of the time,[2] the following: “At which time did the Sackman spread himself on every side, going before the Turkish army, destroying and burning everything, and carrying off into captivity much people, men and women, and even the children, of whom many they grievously maimed, and, as Turkish prisoners have declared, over 30,000 persons were by them carried off, and as has since been told, such as could not march were cruelly put to death. Thus have they wasted, destroyed, burnt, and plundered all in the land of Austria below Ens, and nearly to the water of Ens, but on the hither side of the Danube for the most part the land has escaped, for by reason of the river the Turk could do there but little harm; the towns also round about Vienna beyond Brück on the Leitha, have remained unconquered and unwasted by the Turk, but the open country wasted and burnt.” The irresistible pressure forward of the main army, the threats of the Sultan, and the merciless fury of the Sackman, produced their consequences in the prompt surrender of most of the places which were unprovided with garrisons and adequate defences. In this manner fell Fünfkirchen, Stahlweissenburg, and Pesth, without a blow, into the hands of the enemy. In Gran the inhabitants even refused to admit the garrison sent by Ferdinand for its occupation, and the Archbishop Paul Tomori so far forgot his honour and duty as to procure the surrender