Too late, in 1681, the court of Vienna attempted a conciliatory policy in Hungary. The spirit of rebellion had been aroused, and the offers of redress and justice made by the Emperor were distrusted as a veil for treachery, or despised as the confession of weakness. Tekeli defied the Emperor, and assumed the offensive even beyond the borders of Hungary. Neither was the Porte to be propitiated. In vain an Imperial Embassy to Constantinople sought a prolongation of the truce, which was on the point of expiring at the end of the stipulated twenty years. The demands of the Turks rose with the progress of their preparations. A principality for their ally, Count Tekeli, in Hungary; extension of territory, with the strongest border fortresses for themselves; a great war indemnity--such were the terms which implied a determination not to negotiate. The ambassador, Count Caprara, was compelled as a prisoner himself to witness the departure of the Turkish hosts for the frontier. At the end of the year 1682 the main body were drawn together at Adrianople. Mahomet IV. encouraged his troops by his countenance in the camp, and beguiled the tedium of winter quarters by his favourite pastime of hunting. The sport was carried on upon a gigantic scale with thirty thousand beaters, many of whom perished by exhaustion. "No doubt they have spoken ill of me, and God hath dealt them their reward," was the reasonable conjecture of the Sultan upon their fate. This mighty hunter, however, relieved his army of his presence when the spring of 1683 saw it finally set in motion for the Danube. Kara Mustapha was invested with complete command. Accounts vary as to the precise point where Mahomet left his army. The ambition of his Vizier perhaps was interested in removing so soon as possible from the field the Sultan, to whom the glory of success would have been necessarily ascribed. Similar motives had, according to M. de la Guillatière, caused others before this to keep the easily persuaded prince back from the camp, whither his first impulse would have led him.