Hussite Wars, Part 6 - The Wagenburg

    After the withdrawal of the Catholic Crusaders from Prague on July 30, 1420, Sigismund and his remaining Bohemian and Moravian supporters established themselves at the Royalist/Catholic stronghold of Kutna Hora. Following his coronation as King f Bohemia outside Prague, these same followers had promised Sigismund that they could deliver Prague to him by negotiation if he would dismiss his foreign troops. When this proved to be impossible, Sigismund  was furious and began to suspect the Czech nobles of being secretly in collusion with the Hussites. The Holy Roman Emperor had a decidedly paranoid streak to his personality which, if perhaps not entirely unjustified, certainly made him difficult to deal with!

    Meanwhile, there was no chance that the citizens of Prague or the Hussites as a whole were ever going to accept Sigismund as ruler,. and they started their own diplomatic efforts with an emissary to the Serene Republic of Venice, which had its own reasons to distrust the Emperor. They also set about looking for a man to crown as their own KIng of Bohemia, a move which Jan Ziska supported,. as he felt that only a King could unify the various factions of the country. Their first choice was King Wladyslaw of Poland, who had been tentatively approached before. A letter and ambassador (whom Sigismund tried to capture, but failed) were sent to him in August, familiarizing him with their grievances against Sigismund and the Four Articles of Prague. This mission ultimately failed to obtain any firm commitment from the Polish King.

My entire Old Glory Hussite collection, deployed in a Wagenburg. 

Meanwhile, with the immediate threat to Praque removed, the Hussite factions fell to squabbling once again. The Taborites once again complained that the more moderate Hussites were too far from their own Puritanical beliefs, and once again issued demands fro controlling the teachings at the university, forbidding the wearing of luxurious clothes, and calling for the destructions of "unnecessary" churches and all monasteries. These buildings were the pride of Prague, and the source of her reputation as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, and the more moderate Hussites were aghast at these patently ubnplataltable edicts.

    On August 10, 1420, a Taborite mob broke into the monastery that held the tombs of the Kings of Bohemia. Finding no monks to slaughter but abundant wine in the cellars, they became drunk, disinterred the body of the late Wenceslaus, and set the buildings on fire. Not content with this, on their return they made an intoxicated assault upon the Vysehrad castle. This was easily repulsed by the Royalist garrison, with the attackers suffering heavy casualties. Further Taborite demonstrations followed, whilst the city Counselors tried to delay a decision in the hopes that the Taborites would soften their hardline stance. Finally, on August 22nd, 1420, the entire Taborite contingent marched out of Praguie without giving any explanation. Likely their motivations were several, including the political gridlock, the fact that they were no longer needed to defend the city, and especially that the men, women, animals, and wagons were needed to bring in the harvest.

Somewhat oddly, the Old Glory Hussite range doesn't include ANY command figures, foot or mounted!

Therefore, I used these two spare Hussite cavalrymen to provide some leaders for my Hussite army. 

A rather clumsy application of green stuff on wire was used to fashion large maces, of the kind that Jan Ziska is often depicted bearing. 

   After telling off men needed to harvest the grain in the surrounding countryside, \Ziska and his forces promptly moved to Pisek, where they recruited fresh troops and began a campaign against Sigismund's strongest supporter in the area, Ulrich of Rozmberk. Ziska's men captured a number of Ulruich's towns and castles, and burned his fields and drove of his cattle. Ulrich, however, scored a success of his own when he captured Korabnda, the spiritual leader of the Taborite faction, who had been a moderating influence on some of the members of the increasingly radical community. This lead to the Taborites electing their own Bishop, and declaring their complete independence from the Pope and the Church of Rome, a move the more moderate Praguer Hussites were by no means ready for. Ziska supported the new Bishop, Nicholas, and together they atempted to reign in some of the more extreme and mystical sub sects arising in Tabor.

  In early October of 1420, Ziska attacked and captured the strategically important town and castle of Bor Pansky. The townspeople and Ulrich both called for assistance, which arrived in the form of three Royalist forces, including one lead by Bohuslav, who had fought Ziska previously. They arrived too late to prevent the loss of the city and castle, but outnumbered Ziska's mean heavily. They attacked, and Ziska established a wagenburg on top of a hill. The Royalist attacks were repulsed with heavy losses, while the Huskies suffered significant casualties as well.

Frontal view of the Wagon Fortress. In action,. the horse teams would be unharnessed, and the gaps filled with pavises and defenders.

The limited Hussite cavalry generally sheltered within the Fortress until the enemy had exhausted themselves with unsuccessful assaults. 

In many ways, the Wagon Fortress defensive tactics of the Hussites resembled the later entrenched positions taken up by the Spanish during the Great Italian Wars, such as those of Gonsalvo de Cordoba at Cerignola or the Marchese di Pescara at La Bicocca. 

Top down view!

        This post has been in the works for a long time. My motivation for finishing it is both the Hussite game that I am running at Historicon with "To the Strongest", and the resultant additional Hussite figures I am painting using the fine Kingmaker models. The first of those posts should be forthcoming soon as well!