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 SIEGE AND CAPTUKE OF SALONICA 157 to pillage the city. In a general assault, they captured it without much difficulty, and the brutalities, the atrocities, the wanton and useless cruelties inflicted upon the popu- lation made a profound impression upon Western Christians. Probably they learned more of the nature of these cruelties, owing to the presence of Italians and the comparative proximity of Salonica to Western Europe, than ever before. But though women were violated, houses pillaged, churches profaned, and seven thousand of the captives sold into slavery, Europe did not yet understand that these were the ordinary incidents of Turkish conquest. Upon the capture of the city, in 1430, Murad and the Venetians made peace. 1 Great efforts, however, were yet to be made to check the progress of Murad, and if in the course of his triumphal progress to Ephesus he was under the illusion that the European nations were content to allow Moslem invasion to remain unchecked, he was soon undeceived. Hungary, Serbia, and Poland now formed the great line of defence against a Turkish advance, and when, in 1428, the first two states were invaded by the Turks, it became evident to the West that Catholic as well as Orthodox nations would have to resist the progress of Turkish arms. Before the nations attacked were ready, Murad struck swiftly and heavily, and Sigismund, king of Hungary, not having received the aid he expected from Ladislaus, king of Poland, suffered a serious disaster on the Danube. On receiving news of the Turkish advance, the pope once Prepara- more preached a new Crusade and called upon all Christians ^^t° to go to the aid of the Poles and Hungarians. But messengers Murad - travelled slowly, and preparations were long. Four years afterwards, in 1433, Murad again invaded Hungary, but was stoutly resisted by Elizabeth, mother of the infant Ladislaus, 1 De la Brocquiere, whose narrative was finished in 1438, states that, when in Galata, the ambassador of the duke of Milan, the protector of the Genoese, told him that ' to do mischief to the Venetians he had contributed to make them lose Salonica taken from them by the Turks ; ' and he adds, ' Certainly in this he acted so much the worse, for I have seen the inhabitants of that town deny Jesus iChrist and embrace the Mahometan religion.' Early Travels, pp. 335-6.