Summer, on 11 August. Mustafa gathered a war council the next day. On 18 August the Ottomans left Belgrade heading north towards Szeged. Battle Opening manoeuvres On 5 July, in the newly conquered Pannonian Plain of Hungary, Prince Eugene of Savoy, a young French prince who had distinguished himself greatly in battle, was appointed Commander-in-Chief by Emperor Leopold. His army consisted of 70,000 men with roughly 35,000 ready for battle. As the war chest was empty, Eugene borrowed money in order to pay wages and to create a working medical service. He requested that rations, ammunition and equipment be brought up to the level of an army of 50,000. When news arrived that the Sultan and his army had left Belgrade, Eugene decided to gather all his available troops from Upper Hungary and Transylvania and force march them towards Petrovaradin, on the Danube, upriver from Belgrade. Prince Eugene sent some troops north to Hegyalja to deal with Hungarian rebels while he worked on rebuilding the remainder of the army to face the Turks. After the concentration was completed, Eugene's forces numbered about fifty thousand to face the Ottomans. The Habsburg army consisted of German, Austrian, Hungarian and Serbian infantry and cavalry forces. Palatine Paul Eszterházy of the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary contributed 12,000 soldiers; the Serbian Militia, 10,000 men, a majority of whom were cavalry, under the command of Jovan Popović Tekelija, also joined Eugene's forces. Serb conscripts were part of the coalition, notably Vice-Voivode Jovan Monasterlija with his 1,000 infantry and 700 cavalry soldiers. Despite the advice of the warden of Belgrade, Amcazade Hüseyin Pasha, who proposed attacking Habsburg-held Petrovaradin northwest of Belgrade on the Danube River, Mustafa moved towards Transylvania. The Ottoman army counted on Hungarian Kuruc cavalry under the leadership of Imre Thököly, however many former Kuruc rebels had also joined the Holy League and the call for a crusade. The Sultan and his army crossed the Danube, then made a detour west to capture Titel Castle at the confluence of the Tisza and the Danube. Finding the castle without a garrison, the Ottomans demolished it. In September, they headed north, along the right bank of the Tisza reaching the vicinity of the village of Zenta on the morning of 11 September. The river Tisza was the last major river barrier before Transylvania. Prince Eugene followed, marching the Imperial army south from Petrovaradin, crossed the Tisza river