In October 871 Louis the German sent Bavarian and Franconian troops against the Bohemians (Czechs). During the campaign the Franconians surprised a party of Moravians somewhere near the traps that guarded the narrow approaches to a Bohemian fort. The Moravians were returning to their homeland with the daughter of a Bohemian "dux" ("duke"), presumably to marry an unidentified Moravian magnate. Although the Moravians managed to reach the safety of the fort, they had to abandon 644 fully equipped horses in the narrows. The marriage of a Bohemian leader's daughter to a Moravian magnate implies that Svatopluk was planning to form an alliance with the Bohemians.