Zapolya, supported by the money of some Polish nobles, and by some bands of Turkish freebooters, pushed forward early in April into Hungary at the head of about 2000 men, summoning on all sides the inhabitants to his support. Near Kaschan, however, he was attacked and completely routed by the Austrian commander Da Rewa. Meanwhile the Turkish army advanced without other hindrance than heavy rains and the natural difficulties of the passes of the Balkan, and by the end of June had effected the passage of the rivers of Servia, and had crossed the Hungarian frontier. Before the main body marched a terrible advanced guard of 30,000 men, spreading desolation in every direction. Their leader was a man worthy of such command of bloodthirsty barbarians, the terrible Mihal Oglou, whose ancestor, Kose Mihal, or Michael of the Pointed Beard, derived his origin from the imperial race of the Palæologi, and on the female side was related to the royal houses of France and Savoy. His descendants were hereditary leaders of those wild and terrible bands of horsemen called by the Turks “Akindschi,” _i. e._ “hither streaming,” or “overflowing;” by the Italians, “Guastadori,” the spoilers; by the French, “Faucheurs” and “Ecorcheurs,” mowers and flayers; but by the Germans universally “Sackman,” possibly because they filled their own sacks with plunder, or emptied those of other people. Whether this explanation be correct or not, it is certain that the name long retained its terrors in Austria, and that down to the beginning of the eighteenth century mothers used it to frighten their unruly children.