Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/50

 writes: “Whatever military enterprises the Bohemians undertake they carry out with great rapidity.”

Very characteristic of the Hussite armies, at least while they were commanded by Žižka, is the very severe—puritanic, as we may call it—discipline which he maintained in his camps at a period when almost every licence was granted to soldiers. Žižka’s regulations of war bear witness to his severity, and also to the somewhat democratic manner in which he enforced the same discipline on all, irrespective of all differences of social rank. He allowed no idle or disreputable people in his camps. The women who followed his armies—where alone they were safe from the cruelty and violence of the royal soldiers—were employed as nurses or cooks, and sometimes even took part in the battles. Even the boys who accompanied their parents on the marches were taught to hurl stones from a sling, and soon became very skilful in the use of these arms. Lawrence of Březova calls them “garciones quos fundibularios seu praczatas vulgari bohemico nuncupant.”

I have, in several previous works, referred to the utterly unjust manner in which Žižka has been judged by most historians. Even Protestant writers, though approving of the cause for which he fought, have described him as a ferocious, cruel and savage fanatic, whilst to Roman Catholic writers he has appeared as a bloodthirsty murderer and robber, a mediæval communist and anarchist. The Hussite wars were certainly waged with terrible cruelty on both sides, but now that we have more extensive knowledge of those times than was formerly the case, no unprejudiced person can deny that the atrocities committed by the Hungarian and German so-called “crusaders” were far more heinous than any act of cruelty ever committed by a Hussite. The crusaders undoubtedly aimed at the complete extermination of the Czech population of Bohemia, whom they wrongly believed to be all Utraquists.