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 COMBINED MOVEMENT AGAINST MURAD 159 return from Florence sent an embassy to the sultan to protest that he was a loyal vassal, he was only waiting for the ships and aid promised by the pope and by Western princes in order to join in a combined attack. Although the ships promised were long in arriving, the West was known to be full of anxiety, and preparations were being hurried forward. On New Year's Day 1442, the pope again preached a Crusade and called on all Christian princes, and especially on Ladislaus, king of Poland and Hungary, to help in the defence of the three bulwarks of Christendom — Constantinople, Cyprus, and Bhodes. 1 Cardinal Julian was commissioned to advise Ladis- laus, and the king was ordered to render every aid possible to him as the legate of Eugenius. George Brancovich of Serbia bound himself to aid the Hungarian king and for this purpose to send twenty-five thousand men and large sums of money, the produce of the Serbian mines. The combined army of Hungarians and Serbs, with the co-operation also of Scanderbeg, was placed in June under the command of John Corvinus Hunyadi, the waywode of Transylvania. Hunyadi Hunyadi had already distinguished himself as a brave and leader of skilful leader against the Turks. In a short campaign of armies, less than half a year, he had captured five strongholds north of the Danube, won as many battles, and had returned laden with booty and trophies of victory. In 1442, at the head of twelve thousand chosen cavalry, he chased the Turks out of Serbia and defeated in succession several armies. Christians from France, Italy, and Germany hastened to enrol them- selves under his leadership. Not even before the terrible disaster at Nicopolis in 1396 had so powerful an army been gathered together to attack the common enemy as was now collected under Hunyadi. It represented all the force that the pope and Western Europe could muster, and the presence of Cardinal Julian gave it the sanction of an international army representing Christendom. Seldom have soldiers had more confidence in their leader, and apparently that confidence was well bestowed. 1 Possibly Hungary was not mentioned, with the object of leading the Turks to believe that the place of attack would not be nearer than Constantinople.