Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/265

 in Meissen (Saxony); nor is there any man who remembers anything similar before, neither is anything such recorded in the chronicles. They numbered, as was commonly said, 40,000 men. Had they striven for glory like their ancestors they could have marched as far as the Rhine and have subdued many countries; but having obtained rich spoils they returned to Bohemia.” This day marks the climax of the glory of the Táborite arms. The decline followed it very closely; the former rigid discipline gradually disappeared; greed for plunder took the place of the former religious fervour and enthusiasm.

The Elector of Brandenburg soon found it difficult, or rather impossible, to obtain the Pope’s sanction for the negotiations with the Utraquists which he had planned. It was only the great defeat at Domážlice in the following year which at last induced Pope Martin to abandon his previous point of view, according to which discussions of Hus’ tenets were inadmissible, as they had already been condemned by the Council of Constance. The German princes also declined to take any part in the negotiations suggested by the Elector of Brandenburg, and Sigismund again protested against all conferences with heretics, now that it seemed improbable that they would turn to his personal advantage. The Elector reluctantly broke off all negotiations with the Bohemians, but before doing so he sent to Domážlice the sums of money which he and his allies had promised to the Bohemians on condition of their evacuating Germany. Prokop’s great winter campaign of 1429–1430 did not, however, prove entirely fruitless. Though the conferences at Boheimstein had led to no immediate result, yet the foundation of a future agreement had been laid there. There is little doubt that the Council of Basel in some respects considered the deliberations at Böheimstein as a precedent.

The brilliant campaign of the Bohemians in 1430 again attracted the attention of all Europe to their country. The