Civitot. The Emperor consented, and a force was sent, which arrived
just in time to save them from destruction. The Turks had beleaguered
the place, and the crusaders were reduced to the last extremity.
Negotiations were entered into, and the last three thousand were
conducted in safety to Constantinople. Alexius had suffered too much
by their former excesses to be very desirous of retaining them in his
capital: he therefore caused them all to be disarmed, and, furnishing
each with a sum of money, he sent them back to their own country.
While these events were taking place, fresh hordes were issuing from
the woods and wilds of Germany, all bent for the Holy Land. They were
commanded by a fanatical priest, named Gottschalk, who, like Gautier
and Peter the Hermit, took his way through Hungary. History is
extremely meagre in her details of the conduct and fate of this host,
which amounted to at least one hundred thousand men. Robbery and
murder seem to have journeyed with them, and the poor Hungarians were
rendered almost desperate by their numbers and rapacity. Karloman, the
king of the country, made a bold effort to get rid of them; for the
resentment of his people had arrived at such a height, that nothing
short of the total extermination of the crusaders would satisfy them.
Gottschalk had to pay the penalty, not only for the ravages of his own
bands, but for those of the swarms that had come before him. He and
his army were induced, by some means or other, to lay down their arms:
the savage Hungarians, seeing them thus defenceless, set upon them,
and slaughtered them in great numbers. How many escaped their arrows,
we are not informed; but not one of them reached Palestine.

Other swarms, under nameless leaders, issued from Germany and
France, more brutal and more frantic than any that had preceded them.
Their fanaticism surpassed by far the wildest freaks of the followers
of the Hermit. In bands, varying in numbers from one to five thousand,