oms to the Austrian
States, elevated Austria to be one of the first powers in Europe.
Ferdinand, thus strengthened sent ambassadors to Constantinople to
demand the restitution of Belgrade and other important towns which the
Turks still held in Hungary.

"Belgrade!" exclaimed the haughty sultan, when he heard the demand. "Go
tell your master that I am collecting troops and preparing for my
expedition. I will suspend at my neck the keys of my Hungarian
fortresses, and will bring them to that plain of Mohatz where Louis, by
the aid of Providence, found defeat and a grave. Let Ferdinand meet and
conquer me, and take them, after severing my head from my body! But if I
find him not there, I will seek him at Buda or follow him to Vienna."

Soon after this Solyman crossed the Danube with three hundred thousand
men, and advancing to Mohatz, encamped for several days upon the plain,
with all possible display or Oriental pomp and magnificence. Thus
proudly he threw down the gauntlet of defiance. But there was no
champion there to take it up. Striking his tents, and spreading his
banners to the breeze, in unimpeded march he ascended the Danube two
hundred miles from Belgrade to the city of Pest. And here his martial
bands made hill and vale reverberate the bugle blasts of victory. Pest,
the ancient capital of Hungary, rich in all the wealth of those days,
with a population of some sixty thousand, was situated on the left bank
of the river. Upon the opposite shore, connected by a fine bridge three
quarters of a mile in width, was the beautiful and opulent city of Buda.
In possession of these two maritime towns, then perhaps the most
important in Hungary, the Turks rioted for a few days in luxury and all
abominable outrage and indulgence, and then, leaving a strong garrison
to hold the fortresses, they continued their march. Pressing
resistlessly onward some hundred miles further, taking all the towns by
the way, on both sides of the Danube, they came to the city of Raab.

It seems incredible that there could have been such an unobstructed
march of the Turks, through the very heart of Hungary. But the Emperor
Charles V. was at that time in Italy, all engrossed in the fiercest
warfare there. Throughout the German empire the Catholics and the
Protestants were engaged in a conflict which absorbed all other
thoughts. And the Protestants resolutely refused to assist in repelling
the Turks while the sword of Catholic vengeance was suspen