Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/260

 campaign. It was decided that the troops should assemble at different points along the Saxon frontier. On December 3 Prokop returned to Prague at the request of the magistrates of that city. He was to assume command over the vast army, which, according to the most trustworthy authorities, consisted of 4,000 cavalry, 40,000 infantry, and 2,500 armoured wagons. Besides the Orphans and Táborites, the men both of the Old and New Towns of Prague, and the levies of many Bohemian cities, started for the frontier on December 4. The burgomaster and councillors entertained the generals at a banquet at the town-hall before their departure, “drinking to their health as they were taking leave.” On its march the army was joined by the troops of several Bohemian and Moravian nobles, and on the frontier by the Bohemian forces that were already encamped there. The whole large army then, after crossing the frontier, followed the course of the Elbe as far as Pirna and Dresden. They encamped for some time before the latter city, but faithful to the system they had adopted during their former invasions of Germany, they did not attempt the siege of the fortified town. Small detachments of Hussites raided some of the open Saxon towns, but the Germans remained behind their fortifications, not daring to meet the Bohemians in the open field. On the appeal of Frederick, Elector of Saxony, some of the German princes promised to march to his aid and to arrest the triumphant progress of the heretics. The ecclesiastical princes were naturally among the most zealous. The Archbishop of Magdeburg, the Bishops of Naumberg, Halberstadt, Merseburg, and Hildesheim with their troops joined the Saxon army, which, under the command of the Elector Frederick, had assembled at Leipzig. The Duke of Brunswick and the Landgrave of Thuringia also marched to the aid of the menaced elector. The German army, according to the most trustworthy