Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/15



is impossible when studying the events connected with the life of Hus not to devote great attention to the lengthy wars in Bohemia and the neighbouring countries that were the inevitable result of his unjust condemnation, and not to realise how great the influence of these wars on the development of Europe was. It is certainly due to the military genius of Žižka and the other Hussite leaders that Hussite teaching and Hussite thought long prevailed in Bohemia and largely influenced the neighbouring countries. Had the Bohemians been defeated in the battles of the Žižkov and the Vyšehrad, their doctrines would have been immediately suppressed, and Hus would have appeared in history as an isolated enthusiast, such as Savonarola.

Yet the history of the Hussite wars is, I think, little known in England. The late Bishop Creighton, in his History of the Papacy, gives an admirable outline of the Hussite movement, but he stated that he did not intend to attempt a detailed account of the Hussite wars. In Bohemia itself no reliable account of this great struggle existed before the days of Palacký. For political reasons, into which I do not wish to enter, the Austrian Government which, after the year 1620, obtained absolute control over Bohemia, wished to obliterate in that country all recollections of the time when Bohemia had played a great part in European politics, and successfully repulsed the attacks of countless invading armies. It is from this period that date many of the fables that have long taken the place of historical facts in the records of Bohemia, though it must be admitted that the Historia Bohemica of