at duty. He might easily and
properly feel himself competent to be the prophet of God in denouncing
the sluggish and the time-serving. But to accept military command
without experience of war except as an observer, and to lead an
untrained and unprepared mob from Western Europe to Palestine through
difficulties of which, as a pilgrim, he had had experience, connotes
insanity, or, at the best, "zeal without knowledge."

[Sidenote: _Wore Old Cassock_]

[Sidenote: _Walter the Penniless_]

He did not assume a new uniform. He wore his old one. It was still his
coarse woolen cassock, his hood, his sandals, and his rope, and he rode
the same old mule with which his wanderings began. His army was not less
than eighty thousand strong. But the camp followers were almost as many,
made up of old men, women, and children. Peter's crazy faith promised
food to all. They had joined him from Northern France, and as he
approached Germany great numbers from Southern and Central France
swelled his ranks. A gleam of sense appears in the division of his
rabble into two bands, one to be led by himself; the other by Walter
the Penniless, who appears, from some points of view, like a twin of
Peter. Historians have little to say of Walter's origin. Some say he was
of gentle birth and had exchanged his all for his title of "Penniless;"
others that Walter was not put in command until his uncle died. The only
certain thing seems to be that his poverty and enthusiasm were equal to
those of his followers.

[Sidenote: _France Helps Crusaders_]

All goes well while the Crusaders march through loyal and liberal
France. Help was literally poured into their laps; nor did the Germans,
from the earliest historic days easily touched by noble sentiments, fail
to respond both to the plea for the Holy Land and for practical
sympathy. The Rhine people smoothed the pilgrims' way. They were,
however, to meet trouble on the banks of the Danube.

[Sidenote: _Western Christendom Disordered_]

[Sidenote: _Rumors of Cannibalism_]

The expectation that the end of the world was to come about the year
1000 was, for a century before that date, well-nigh universal and
dominant. As that year approached the condition apparently confirmed the
prophetic warnings of the New Testament. Western Christendom seemed to
be hopelessly disordered. It was at this time that a worse invasion than
that of the Turks threatened Europe. The Magyars, or Huns, were
barbarous, irrespons