He at once made his way back to Ebernburg, where he intended to pass the winter, since he saw that it was useless to continue the campaign, with his own army diminishing and the hoped-for supplies not appearing, whilst the forces of his antagonists augmented daily.

In his stronghold of Ebernburg he could rely on being secure from all attack until he was able to again take the field on the offensive, as he anticipated doing in the spring.
In spite of the obvious failure of the autumnal campaign, the cause of the knighthood did not by any means look irretrievably desperate, since there was always the possibility of successful recruitments the following spring.

Ulrich von Hutten was doing his utmost in Wuertemberg and Switzerland to scrape together men and money, though up to this time without much success, while other emissaries of Sickingen were working with the same object in Breisgau and other parts of Southern Germany.

Relying on these expected reinforcements, Franz was confident of victory when he should again take the field, and in the meantime he felt himself quite secure in one or other of his strong places, which had recently undergone extensive repairs and seemed to be impregnable.
In this anticipation he was deceived, for he had not reckoned with the new and more potent weapons of attack which were replacing the battering-ram and other mediaeval besieging appliances.

Franz retired to his strong castle of the Landstuhl to await the onslaught of the princes which followed in the spring.