Blog on the Lillypad
Saturday, August 14, 2004
 | John the One-Eyed
John Hus lived in Bohemia in the late 1300's and early 1400's. He read the writings of John Wycliffe and became convinced of the doctrine of salvation in Christ alone. This made Hus a heretic, and though he was granted a safe-conduct by the Emperor to come and explain his doctrines, he was arrested instead, and burned at the stake. |
Yet Hus's exemplary life and his writings continued to have influence. When the King of Bohemia died, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire took the Bohemian throne, determined to bring the Hussite Bohemians into line with papal authority. The Bohemians revolted, and they chose John Ziska, known as John the one-eyed, to be their commander in chief.
The Bohemian nation was hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. All of so-called Christendom was allied against them. Ziska sent emissaries to "sue for quarter," which means he asked that if he and his men were conquered, the enemy would spare the peasantry and not burn a swath across the land or rape women and children.
But the hard-hearted rulers of the Holy Roman Empire declared that as Bohemia had defied them, and was willing to go to war as though she were a nation of equal strength, Bohemia would be granted no quarter. The duty of every Christian, according to them, was to level Bohemia and afflict her people. They warned the Hussites that no mercy would be shown them, for they did not deserve mercy.
The war was soon engaged. Ziska, with very few men and small provisions, retreated before the advancing armies up into the high hills where enormous wagons were loaded with great, jagged boulders. As soon as he and his men were up in the heights, his infantry pushed the wagons down the steep hills, right onto the onrushing enemy. These massive and primitive "avalanches" broke the charging lines, and Ziska's men wheeled around and attacked, scattering the enemy.
Warfare at that time favored overly-armored knights on equally armored horses. Ziska used this to his advantage. Knights on horseback could smash through any infantry, but they could not break down fortifications, not even wooden walls. Warfare was designed to be out in the open plain.
So Ziska designed wagons that had side walls that could be quickly put up and braced. He would use the high hills to his advantage, take his men up the steep paths with the wagons, and then quickly raise his mobile fortifications on the wagons while the over-weighted horses of his enemies tried to keep up.
On uneven footing, with high walls against them, the charging armies exhausted themselves in fruitless attacks, and when they were worn down, Ziska and his men would break apart the walls and counter-charge.
Even so, the invading armies practiced no quarter against any towns or farms they crossed. And so Ziska, recognizing that even in retreat his enemies would be cruel, stuck to the bargain and completely annihilated his enemies in defeat. He had no choice, for the rejection of quarter meant that survivors who he spared would regroup and attack again. As he and his countrymen had been declared worthy of death by the supreme religious leaders of the day, Ziska had to make sure that the enemy armies were decimated. But he ordered that women and children be shown mercy.
Eventually, as the war continued, Ziska relented from the practice of no quarter as much as he dared. Ordinary soldiers who were not papist clergy were given an opportunity to switch sides when captured.
Yet, after repeatedly being defeated by the Bohemians, the leaders of the Holy Roman Empire sued for quarter. But Ziska had to refuse. He recognized that his own spiritual father, John Huss, had been killed because he had trusted the guarantees of corrupt religious leaders. For Bohemia to be safe, Ziska had to insist that the armies of the Holy Roman Empire leave its borders or die in combat. More battles followed, with the armies of the Holy Roman Empire less and less enthusiastic about fighting Ziska. Ziska routed the Emperor in 1420 and again in 1422, ensuring over a decade of freedom in Bohemia.
The religious leaders had guaranteed a war that they could not win, against a victor who could not afford to show them mercy. Let it be a lesson to those who declare they have a prerogative not to show mercy; it puts your opponent in a position where he or she is forced not to show mercy. Knowing the severity and butchery of his enemy, having heard them declare in public that they had a right not to show him mercy, Ziska had to choose to destroy them.
