You can give us your money, so we can make more videos about Sigismund. Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/KingsandGenerals or via Paypal: paypal.me/kingsandgenerals. Seriously, the guy was everywhere...
Kings and Generals Ottomans used the tactics of Taborites and even nmed the wagenburg tactic Tabur Cengi it means Taborite Warfare but ottomans mixed their cavalry superiority hit and tun tactics and faigned retreat to drive the enemy into artillery range after that azabs would open sideways and the hidden artillery would begin to hit the enemy. It is really suprising to see how ottomans used this tactic and perfected it with cavalry great video keep up the good work
well I wasnt thinking about some kind of mainstream modern history like ww1/2 etc. but more like Algerian - Morrocan Sand War, Shaba 1/2 Conflicts, Indian-pakistani wars etc
Well, as a Czech with a degree in history from a Czech college, I gotta say I'm impressed. The Hussite Wars are a complicated subject every Czech pupil (from middle school to uni) hates, because it's complicated and Czechs are proud of it, thus spend a lot of time teaching it to every single youngster in a lot of detail. I have to say you did a splendid job in just under 13 minutes. This time I have only two rather insignificant remarks: 1) "Ultraquists" do not have any "L" in the name. In English it's supposed to be "Utraquists" (from Czech "Utrakvisté"). 2) Considering how hard it's to pronounce the Czech names, you did quite a good job, even though "Ř" is obviously a problem, though one I'm used to :-). But that's okay. For the next time I would just point out that Czech pronunciation is practically the same as Latin one (as said last time), therefore the worst sounding word to me was the city of "Jihlava" where the "Peace of Jihlava" was signed. The "J" letter is supposed to sound exactly as "Y" in "yes", not as "J" in "jail". upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Cs-Jihlava.ogg But aside from that, I wasn't able to find any mistakes in your facts and I commend you for your job as you probably weren't taught this subject for your whole childhood and young adulthood as I were. And you were even able to pick the right battles to go into detail with, omitting the less important ones, such as the infamous last "Battle of Lipany" which no Czech teacher would ever omit but I must side with you - its importance is only in it being the last at least a little bit important battle. So, well done, you have my absolute admiration.
I have noticed a mystake in the beginning. Battle at Vítkov hill was fought in 1420, battle of Vyšehrad took place after that. I also think that Žižka used this charging wagons tactic during Battle of Malešov, which was hussite civil war, but maybe he used the same tactic in several battles. There is also a fun fact, during the battle of Deutchbrod, hussites captured famous polish knight Zavis the Black of Garbow, he was later ransomed by Sigismund.
If war is inevitable, is a victor in war inevitable also? If so, victory would mean peace, even if temporary. Therefore, peace would also be inevitable, right?
Claystead I'm sorry? Alexander didn't die halfway any war. He died undefeated two years after the end of his TEN year military campaigns, in Babylon. Poisoned.
To be hoonest, in some parts of Serbian culture, term ziska represents awesome person, quite inspirational, great one. That may come from the general, or from the basic of the name, representing the spark of flame, if you translate Ziska into english.
It's correct that we Czechs are proud of Hussites and some of us even consider them heroes. But they were also brutes who massacred innocent people. We shouldn't forget that.Jan Žižka was probably one of the best generals from the Czech lands and I am very happy you made a video about this era. :)
I would like more Polish-Czech Commonwealth instead of Polish-Lithuanian one. Hussites were badass. Their style of fighting was inspiration for Czech Legion during WW I ?
That might be true. I know about armored trains, which were used by Czechoslovak Legions in USSR (after the revolution). That is basically the same as Wagenburg tactics.
I would say, that fighting style was more a necessity, then isnpiration from Hussites. legions were fighting on trans-syberian railway, so i was cruccialy important to hold it for sake of logistic.
Funny enough, there were more than few instances in history when cavalry just break through wagenburg just by simply ramming the wagons with chests of their horses. Wagon-fort tactic is really a high-risk high reward stuff since almost always when the ring of wagons gets penetrated it was usually ending up with a total slaughter of the defenders.
+Kamil Szadkowski If you think about it, that even doesn't make much sense logically. How would horse push a cart weighting far more than himself against the direction wheels could turn to. Theoretically even if they blinded the horse and he would run full speed into cargo-wall, he would be mortally wounded and the cart would still be obstacle even though it would be damaged or turned to side. That's a waste of horse and manpower as rider would hardly survive impact too. But hey, maybe i'm wrong and doing kamikaze was really common back than, i would like to see some example though.
Kamil: Are you sure? I cannot imagine a horse willingly charging a solid block of wood which is even guarded by pikemen. The war horses might have been trained to do things normal horses wouldn't do (normal horses would run away from battle immediately) but only humans can be brainwashed enough to willingly commit suicide.
Hussite wars were chaotic mess. There were not just two sides, but many. Hussites themselves organised into several independent parties: (1) Prague with few other cities like Kutná Hora, (2) more radical Tábor, (3) even more radical East Bohemian union, (4) union of north-west Bohemian cities. Catholics kept control of several regions, cities and castles. Hussites fought among themselves, against the Catholics, together with Catholics against foreign intrusions, in ever changing combinations. It was horror time, comparable with Thirty Years' War destruction. Human losses are estimated between 30 - 70%. Plague epidemics and recurrent bad harvests did help. Where I live there was conflict between two villages. One village (owned by Hussite warlord) had learned that people from the nearby Catholic village robbed passing by merchants. True or not, enraged villagers armed themselves and attacked the village of the robbers. Those who survived the attack tried to escape, but were caught and hanged up in nearby forest. The forest bears the name "Hanged Man" until these days.
I would add one small note to the video: there wasn't single dominating cause for the war (the religious mess). It was more a result of "perfect storm" of multiple problems. Lucrative south-north trade routes switched to go through France in late 14th century. Period of bad weather coincided with the wars. Generation before the war, ambitious Emperor Charles IV overextended resources of the country by his imperial and construction projects. His less than competent son Wenceslaus was unable to prevent violent conflicts between his brothers. His need for money devaluated the coinage to the point of pauperizing low nobility, this pushed them to brigandry. Sigismund's habit to show iron fist (like ordering to burn merchant-early Hus supporter in Wroclaw in 1420) made his enemies more resolute. Economic and societal collapse led to crazy millennialism before and during early phases of the war. Some peasants burned down their huts and left for some hill, expecting Second coming. Then they took up the arms, and even women among them fought.
Sapkowski (that guy who create the witcher series) wrote great historical-adventure books about this times, The Hussite Trilogy. I recommend to check it out.
I should really read them, but I'm stuck on the last 30 pages of Lady of the lake. I'm not sure I could live on knowing the witcher is now in the past of my life, just "completed, done". The only thing after that would be the netflix series and I'm not so optimistic.
I like that books, it's like Witcher, but more advanced. First book is little boring, but next books are very good. And it's very realistic (ofcourse it's fantasy) because Sapkowski saying they was all motherfuckers, catholics, hussites and everyone else, just murdering scum. :-D
@@CptSquirrel It actually quite different from the Witcher, also by the writing style. The greatest feature of the Hussite Trylogy is indeed a very detailed and true picture of the Hussite movement - although there are some fantasy elements, it actually captures the spirit of this age very well. Sapkowski can nicely connect his fabrications with actual historical events and his in-depth research.
Oh you are moving now to my best and beloved topics...Mongols, Teutons and now Hussites. These are great and interesting topics and as always it's hard to exhaust them in few minutes, therefore it's worth mentioning further reading :) great job with putting this to a bigger picture with refetences to reformation and religious split!
Nice video about very complicated wars. Thank you for it. Zizka is considered by many as one of the greatest warlords of all times. He would probably deserve special separate video.
Liked before watching. I guaranteed it would he good and half way in, it is. Was researching into this period of Bohemian history in relation to protestantism. Keep it up, very detailed and accurate
Yeah, it's a very complicated and not at all "black-and-white" topic, as in many battles part of the protestants actually sided with the catholics. And don't get me started on what the populace thought at the time, town from town, city from city, noble from noble...
After Hussite wars czech soldiers were ranked the highest in europe. Hunyadi also had many of them in his army and he learned the usage of wagons from them.
Well he did lose to them decisively, :D It shows strength of character to accept those who are turn in your ass and learn from them. Also, Bohemians and Hussite mercenaries were the most important part in the best army of its time under his son Corvinus.
After watching your other videos, you seriously ought to be commended for your learning and acuity. Just visit any public library and you would notice that these wars are covered in volumes. Your ability to summarize the central themes and present them via key events with easy-to-follow narratives bring these historical lessons afresh. Thank you.
The Tactic of feigning retreat would some 380 years later be used at Austerlitz. I also loved the 'scraps of paper' bits of information. They add flavor to the videos, like pepper. Keep them at this length as they are quicker to read and they also give insight to the events following these battles and events. Keep it up!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Imagine how great it would be if Warhorse studio makes Kingdom Come II based on husite wars and give Henry opportunity to influence John Capon and other lords to either support hussites or catholics and emperor Sigidmund of Luxembourg, and give opportunity to meet famous history figures like Jan Zizka z Trocnova 😊
Interesting thing: A lot of Hussites were just farmers etc., so the usually used weapons were pichtfork, scythe or just long stick with iron top (otherwise used for beating crops), this arsenal allowed to reach from behind the wagons to the enemy whos were usually knight with shorter weapons like swords, axes and so on...
Pitchfork and scythe things are mostly communist propaganda :) (They viewed them as "proto communists" and had to make sure they were as much "common people" as possible). But yeah, flails, gisarmes, etc. were remade farmer tools.
Agreed to Ondřej and one comment on your use of the "knights" word: There were very few knights (nobles) in these battles, and if so, they usually never stepped down from their horses. Main body of the crusader armies at this time were foreign mercenaries, but yeah, professional soldiers from all over Europe, with swords and halberds.
Ondřej Rolník: Actualy scythes were used. Altough not as scythes but as spears where they bent edge of scythe forward. Same with pitchforks and other things. But those were not weapons of choice. Those were things they used when they had no other weapons because no matter how much wooden pitchfork sucks at dealing with armored knight, it is better then nothing. After each battle, if they could, they scoured battlefield and "upgraded" from their repurposed farming tools to actual spears, halberds and anything else they could get their hands on. Only thing that really caught on was farming flail which proved to be more effective against armored knights then many other weapons of that time.
It's a shame that Jogaila didn't help you guys. He toyed with the idea, as Sigismund was an enemy of his, but in the end the cooperation with Hussites was brief, as the king feared to be associated with heretics when Teutonic Order was already accusing him of being a pagan.
as a czech and somebody who is very much in to the hussite era i can only say.... exelent job one of the best hussite docs in english i ever saw, very well done , i would love if you went bit more in depth but..... great job....
Do you remember that dickhead noble with whom Henry went hunting and was pushed to become a friend. Soon after Henry's story (in 1404) he had his firstborn son. His name was Hynek, the Birdie, of Pirkstein (the castle over Rattay). He was one of the utraquist generals in the battle of Lipany and became the leading personality of the kingdome and the de-facto ruler who negotiated the peace in the country. So, while Sigismund had only a daugther and her only child child (boy) died in 18 years of age, the country was in need of the new royal family. But Hynek became ill and died prematurely. That's why George of Poděbrady, Hynek young protegé became Czech king.
Funny story, the some Orthodox Serbs in Belgrade opened the gates for the Ottomans because they thought the catholic Hungarians were worse and less tolerant than the Muslim Turks.
Turkknight123 well that not to mention the ottoman involve actively in European affairs. They observe closely the situasion in Europe. The ottoman even support the protestant in their war. A short read from wikipedia title Protestantism and Islam should give a rough idea about ottoman involvement in this following religious war.
James Tang In my country there is a saying: "rather turkish than papist." I think that is the same sentiment, though we never dealt with the Ottomans other than at seas.
Wow, did not know that. All these even caused the Ottomans to expand right upon the gates of Vienna. Can you imagine what if Vienna fell? It would of been a big blow to the European states...
The old testament the practice of anathema during the conquest of Canaan. Christianity was not a concept that time if you want examples outside of bible plenty are there anywhere people existed if anything change infidel to forreigner/barbarian every now and then for the most civilized cultures where religion had a backfoot
You did a great job. I understand that pronounciation of czech names and locations was not quite easy :D Greetings from Czech republic. You could do a video about Battle of White mountain. The most crushing defeat for Czechs and 300 years of Habsburg rule in Bohemia.
@ Biggus Dickus What's wrong about that? I doubt Warhorse will have a swashbuckling heroine who slashes her way through hordes of enemies twice their size and physical strength. This will not be a game about Henry in a skirt. Most likely the DLC will be consist of diplomacy, subterfuge, manipulation and perhaps a bit of dagger and cloak, maybe seduction. Those are the things actual pre-modern women employed to achieve their goals (some very successfully - Theodora is a nice example of someone rising from a "lowly courtesan" to a an empress of the Eastern Roman empire). Having a female character in a medieval world which responds to her the way the medieval world would respond to a female character could actually be a lot of fun. It will play more like a traditional adventure game with some RPG elements mixed in (though even in the regular KC:D you can avoid most fights). I'm really looking forward to that expansion.
Once again AoE2 brings me an interesting piece of history that I obsessively start looking into. Judging by this videos comments, this seems like a good video to start with
A great video. It is also worth mentioning that not all Czechs became Hussites (of any kind). Parts of the country remained Catholic, most notably Plzeň/Pilsen (the largest city of West Bohemia...also the place where Pils beer originaly comes from, but that's much later history :-) ). More precisely, Pilsen allied itself with the Hussites at the very beginning and then flipped sides to support the Catholics and king/emperor Sigismund. Hussites laid siege to Pilsen for that but they never succeeded in conquering the city and during one of the Pilseners' raids into their camp they even lost a prized gift from the Polish king - a live camel. The camel has since then been a part of the city's coat of arms. Still, even as a Pilsener I have to admit the Hussites were pretty amazing warriors and Žižka was brilliant general who foreshadowed the pike-and-shot warfare with his Wagenburg tactics. However, they were religious fanatics (the Taborites especially) and the Hussite wars devastated the country and ultimately made it much easier for the Habsburgs to eventually dominate central Europe and the Empire.
Ah, shit I can't believe that I missed this video by so many hours. God damn, you're spoiling us Kings&Generals. You packet this video with so much content. Polish delegation to Council of Constance was absolutely outraged by what was done to Jan Hus. They were most likely the only ones to protest. Although the King of Poland - Władysław Jagiełło couldn't accept Czech crown (he was already fighting with Teutonic propaganda portraying him as secret pagan) Poland was secretively supporting the Hussites to the end. Hence their cooperation against the Teutonic Order. BTW, if someone happens to like the history of Hussite Wars I highly recommend the Hussite Trilogy by Andrzej Sapkowski, the author of the Witcher Saga, to everyone who likes real history, good story, dialogues and narrative in one package.
That's quite interesting. How come Poland was supporting Husites, when Poland was deeply Catholic and Husite movement was sort of anti-Catholic? It was basically fight for religious freedom as I see it...
@@miplev Poles at that time were not particularly extreme, in Poland reformation movements also played a role, In Poland there was much greater religious tolerance- result ethnic composition (Poles, Ruthenians, Lithuanians, Jews, Tatars) The king's attitude strengthened or marginalized the factions, but did not liquidate them, magnates played a large role, Jagiełło tried to maintain a balance in order to strengthen his influence in Poland. The most Catholic kings who came from the Vasa dynasty are a much later period. Why did Jagiełło support the Hussites? Jagiełło was a Lithuanian, a pragmatist is their national trait remaining after dealing with the Mongols. The emperor held the Teutonic Knights' side and played the break-up of the Polish-Lithuanian alliance, he was simply afraid of the growth of the significance of this new political organism. It may only surprise the attitude of Vytautas, who was the "tactical" supporter of the Emperor, he wanted to free Lithuania from the influence of Jagiełło and raise Lithuania to the position of the Kingdom. Jagiełło never forgot the Emperor's attitude undermining the status quo, that is his right to Lithuania. This is the reason why Jagiello did not decide to officially appear against the Emperor, he had Witold behind him, and the Teutonic Order in the north.
Very well made, as usual, I appreciate the more pragmatic approach to the topic than let's say game KCD and was pleasantly surprised about pronunciations in Czech, the narrator has a bonus points for that one :D, seriously tho u guys are getting better and better.
Excellent job! Such a concise description. I appreciated the fact that you have the years of the events change as you explain it. I'm hooked on your channel. Thanks again.
Thanks for this episode! If you mentioned the battle at Domazlice, it would have been absolutely marvelous, but even like this it was a pleasure to watch :)
Awesome video presenting the unknown in Western Europe and America Hussite Wars, which were annonciating pre-protestant movements. I highly recommend to read Andrzej Sapkowski's (autor of great Witcher stories) historical novels, available in Polish and German, intitled Narrenturm, Bozy Wojownicy and Lex Perpetua. ;) They are awesome and well written!
Well, a new tactic is always needed if you're being screwed by multiple crusades that use only battle-hardened mercenaries, while you're left mainly with peasants not that eager to become soldiers. :-)
There is more to it. Much more. Using bandwagons went against chivalric code of conduct. You were considered dishonorable if you refused to met enemy in field (which was exactly what wagon forts did). But considering that Taborites under Žižka were mostly peasants and always underdogs, they simply went with pragmatism and ignored chivalric code of conduct. To paraphrase Žižka: Our actions are as fair and honourable as theirs when they decided to send 2000 ironclad knights against 300 naked peasants (altough hilariously in that case peasants destroyed those knights) It was to such degree that they even allowed women and children to fight in battles when in pinch. Because most of their army were simply peasants from fields who were just wielding repurposed farming tools, it did not make much difference if it was man or woman who were wielding them. Tools like farming flails required more of skill then actual strength so even women were dangerous with them since they had as much experience using them as their male counterparts. As for children, they simply gave them slings and send them to annoy those bad people over there and run around being the thing children are best at - being pest :-D. Hussites were so pragmatic in combat and sucessfull due to that that it feels hilarious considering that it was in middle of medieval times with chivalry still going on :-D
From what I've read, they had stayed behind the wagons as only a part of the army went to finish the enemy. As they were counter-attacked, they tried to retreat back to safety of the wagons which caused chaos. Some wagons were broken/overturned and the czech nobility then defeated the Taborites.
Peasants don't get cavalry and nobility had enough of famine and Taborite fanatics plundering the land, despite the offered peace. So Catholics and non-hardcore utraquist forces teamed up. All nobility (> most of the cavalry) was of course against Taborits.
the problem is we have a very little first hand records on how the battle really went.... it is practically impossible to reconstruct what happend, not helped by the fact that the original battlefield was destroyed by strip minig coal... what we do know is that the radicals were somehow trickedin to counter atacking, were isolatedoutside the waggong fort and destroyed with the waggon fort being taken, as for the cav they eather rtreated once they knew the battle is lost or that they had run away at somepoint of the battle due to a treason.... either the way the didnot take much ofa part in the fighting
You forgot to mention one very important part of the battle. The history says there was a manacing knight killing hundreds of enemies with simple slash of the sword. Nobody knows who he was and his identity remains a mystery but many people claim all they remembered about him was that he was always hungry.
Kings and Generals You have the map of Czech Kingdom wrong. You are missing big part of Moravia that you accidentaly painted as part of Hungary. We los Slovakia to Hungary, not Moravia. In that time, like every time in History... Bohemia and Moravia was undivided when in terps of State, but not in terms of internal civil wars. 2.nd They attacked the councillors in Old Towns town hall and defenestrated them on pikes and halberds. Czech tradition, we did that 3 times in history. Hussites actuaelly awaited support of the Kingd. Lot of lesser nobles hoped that King will join that cause, and will use Hussite movement as a base of power. He decided to disarm the people (ordered them to return the weapons, something EU is doing now). That caused the demonstrations, arrests which ended by the march of armed mob on Old Towns hall in Prague. People then armed them selfs and went to the Pragues Castle to see the king. Jan Žižka called for the king to show him he has the support of people as many people believed Venceslas is beeing controlled by High nobles, as he really was, while he was very weak ruler. But instead of taking that oportunity, Venceslas was outraged angered by the outcome, he wished to have peace and quiet, not to take sides. He even stabbed the Jester who tried to say something to him (as the historical sources say). And then he died, heart attack or stroke. Nobody knows for sure. 3. There was small fort on the Vítkov hill. And it would be good to fill in some mentions that Hussites were the first ones in Europe to use trained gunner regiments and field artilery on large scalle as a standard units. Untill then gunpowder weapons were used only as rarity, while Hussites made them important part of their army. They also invented anti-personnel cannons, Houfnice, hence the word, Howitzer. Another large breakthrough were "military manuals" which were new thing to the world. Modern military manuals are derrived from this point. First and most famous is "Žižkův vojenský řád" - Žižkas military order manual". Even Teutonic knights and Germans paid Czech Hussite nobles to write such manuals to them after the end of Hussite wars. Pope him self wrote a book about it as to how Hussites could won and fight for so long on their own. They also created professional infantry, like Swirzerland did, many years later. Those things helped them a lot and gave them great advantage. 4. During the battle of Kutná Hora he also used rock-loaded fire wagons. 5. There are many missinformations about Hussite era beeing the dark age full of plunder. That is not true. It accelerated the Humanism in Czech lands, but prevented the reiniassance era, forming Vladislavská gotika (Vladislavian Gothic) instead. It was also time of prosperity for cities and lesser people that were allowed to study, read and write. Many books were written and many inventions created. Although all catholic sympathizers left, other intelectuals were attracted. Hussite Era ment large developement for Czech Lands, despite the war damage. 6. Sigismund died year later of exhaustion or heartattack. He basically had no power in Czech kingdom especialy he had no power over the cities which he thought would be his. Hussites also moved citizens in to the Zemský sněm (Council of the country) and allowed the ones who were not nobles in to the process, especialy the cities and lesser nobles. If you need some more infor let me know next time. I am Czech historian and fencer. Thanks for the vid.
Jan Zizka first encountered an organized infantry armed with firearms at Grunwald (Tanenberg). He was a wise man who could combine several tactics from different regions of the world into an effective strategy. Tactics with coupled wagons were previously used in the Eastern steppes.
Loved it so much. Watching your videos i can always count it will be great and this is no exception. Many thanks for covering this topic, i have been waiting for it like for christmas :) PS: Great job with pronunciation, surprised how well you spell out things!
Currently studying towards three of my exams (Multivariable calculus, databases and Embedded systems), that I am scheduled to have in a week approximately. Very nice to get to watch this as a break :D :D :D Much love.
