Although many inhabitants deserted their dwellings for the forests and mountains, Manuel was horrified by the slaughter accompanying the expedition, not only by the Turks, but furthermore by Bayezid's Serbian, Bulgarian, and Albanian vassals, who were eager to "avenge" their sufferings at the hands of the Ottomans on the Muslim population of Anatolia.[14] The Ottoman army passed by Taşköprü and advanced east with the Kızılırmak River to its right, and faced great hardships as the autumn went into winter: already after mid-October Manuel writes of scarcity of food and disease striking the camp, while in his later letters he writes of "terrible famine and cold, the fording of rivers, the crossing of mountains too barren to sustain even wild beasts".[14]