PROKOP THE GREAT
Prokop the Great launched a series of offensives against neighbouring German principalities during the Hussite Wars, which broke the will of his Catholic foes
When the leading brotherhoods of the Hussite army were not banding together to fight their Catholic enemies, they were warring among themselves. Having vanquished the armies of King Sigismund of Hungary and his allies after 15 years of warfare, two opposing Hussite armies assembled in central Bohemia near the village of Lipany on 30 May 1434 to settle their differences with arms.
The Bohemian League, a combination of moderate Utraquists Hussites and Bohemian Catholics, opposed the radical Taborites. The Taborites, led by Prokop the Bald, set up their wagenburg atop a hill where they awaited the attack of the League’s army.
The League also deployed a wagenburg. In both wagenburgs, handgunners and crossbowmen stood poised to fire through loops in the high wooden walls that protected them. Behind the wagons were foot soldiers armed with a wide variety of polearms, including awlpikes, flails, and spiked maces. A contingent of mounted Catholic men-at-arms led by Ulrich von Rosenberg had assembled in a concealed position behind the Utraquists’ wagenburg.
The battle began with the Utraquists cautiously advancing their wagenburg towards the hill occupied by the Taborites. The primitive field guns possessed by each side banged away ineffectively at each other when the armies were still too far apart for their ordnance to do any damage. When the Utraquists moved close enough for the missile troops to begin firing, a sharp fight ensued. The battle grew in intensity as companies of infantry began making sorties
form their respective laagers. Perched atop one of the wagons on the top of the hill, Prokop the Great watched the spectacle of battle as he had so often before. After a decade commanding the radical brotherhoods in battle, he had great confidence in his men. Soon the Utraquists began to retreat, and he issued orders for a pursuit.
Bohemian reformation
The Hussite Wars that roiled Bohemia and the adjacent regions in the early 15th century stemmed from the martyrdom of Prague preacher Jan Hus. Lured to the Council of Constance in 1414 with promises of protection by King Sigismund, he subsequently was burned at the stake as a heretic the following summer.
The Hussite Wars from 1419 to 1436 took on several forms. They consisted of Papal-directed crusades against the Czech Hussites, civil wars between Germans and Czech Hussites, and internecine war among Hussite brotherhoods.
Upon the death of King Wenceslas IV, Sigismund sought to obtain the crown of Bohemia. Because he had betrayed Hus, he was unpalatable to the militant Hussites. Instead, the Hussites elected Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania as their king.
In an effort to crush the Hussites, Pope Martin V called a crusade against them in
March 1420. Sigismund responded by invading Bohemia with 26,000 heavy cavalry. In a desperate clash atop Vitkov Hill on the south side of Prague, Jan Zizka’s Hussite army won a crucial victory. Despite the Hussites’ preference for a Lithuanian king, Sigismund was savvy enough to have himself crowned King of Bohemia while in Prague. Afterwards, he hastily departed from the city.
Taborite captain
Nothing is known of Prokop’s early life. He first appears in history as a radical Hussite preacher in the town of Sobeslav in 1417. He then became a fixture in Tabor in 1420 and New Town Prague the following year. His rise to the upper echelons of Hussite command began with his association with Utraquist preacher Jan Zelivsky and radical Hussite commander Jan Zizka.
During Zizka’s tenure as chief captain of the radical Hussite army, Prokop devoted himself in the first years of the war primarily to spiritual and political affairs. He stressed the need for the Taborites and Orebites to work in concert with each other. It was during this time that he acquired the sobriquet “the Bald” because
of his preference for preaching with a shaved head and conducting mass in full vestments.
Zizka was a brilliant tactician who adopted the wagenburg, which had been used by Romans, Chinese, and Russians, into Bohemia to enable the Hussite peasants to fight on equal terms with the crusader heavy cavalry.
Following the signing of an armistice in November 1422 that ended the Third Crusade, the Hussite brotherhoods fought among themselves for nearly a year.
During that time, Prokop assisted Zizka in vanquishing a rival Hussite army at Malesov in June 1424 that had been raised by the residents of Prague. The upshot of the clash at Malesov was that the Taborites and Orebites came to dominate Hussite affairs in Bohemia in the decade that followed.
When Zizka died from the plague during the siege of Pribyslav Castle on the Moravian frontier in October 1424, his Orebite soldiers began calling themselves the Orphans, having suffered the loss of their paternal leader. Prokop succeeded in persuading the grieving Orphans to continue fighting alongside the Taborites.
In the wake of Zizka’s death, Prokop took command of the Taborites. As such, he devoted endless hours to improving the organisation of the Hussite armies, although there was little need to improve its tactics since Zizka had done such a superb job training and equipping the army. As captain of the Taborites, he participated in expeditions into Moravia and Silesia in 1425.
Battle of Aussig
Between the Third and Fourth Hussite Crusades, the Germans and Hussites battled along the northwest frontier of Bohemia. A pitched battle unfolded on 16 June 1426 at Aussig-on-the-elbe that pitted a Hussite army led by Lithuanian Duke Sigismund Korybut against a German army led by Frederick II, Elector of Saxony.
The Hussites deployed a large wagenburg on a hilltop where they awaited the inevitable German heavy cavalry attack. The Germans succeeded in breaching the wagenburg by fighting their way through gaps in the wagons, but they were checked by Prokop’s reserve.
The Hussites then counterattacked, leaving the battlefield littered with fallen Germans.
From that point on, Prokop began conducting pre-emptive strikes into the Bohemian dependencies (Lusatia, Moravia, and Silesia) to keep the Catholics off balance and to carry the destructive processes of war into their lands.
In October 1426 Prokop invaded western Moravia where he besieged Kemnitz Castle, which belonged to Agnes von Zesymarosenberg. The Hussites drove the defenders into the castle’s strong keep. When Agnes learned that no effort would be made to relieve her, she surrendered. As part of the terms of surrender, Prokop allowed her to leave with her people.
In early 1427, Prokop chased Archduke Albert V of Austria’s army from Moravia into Lower Austria. Overtaking the Austrians, Prokop inflicted a decisive defeat on it at Zwettl on 12 March 1427. The battle was significant because it was Prokop’s first major victory on foreign soil. When Korybut ran afoul of the Hussites that year, Prokop became the Hussites’ chief captain.
Fourth Crusade
Although the first three crusades had failed, the Catholic Church remained committed to stamping out the Hussite rebellion. In early 1427 Pope Martin V appointed Cardinal
Henry Beaufort the papal legate for Germany, Hungary, and Bohemia to coordinate a new crusade. The de facto leader of the crusade was Frederick I, Elector of Brandenburg.
Planning on a grand scale for a fourth crusade began shortly afterwards at Bamberg in Franconia. The strategic plan called for four separate Catholic crusader armies to converge on Bohemia from multiple directions. But in the end, the Catholics
“BY THAT TIME IN THE HUSSITE WARS THE CATHOLIC CRUSADERS HAD COME TO BELIEVE THAT THE HUSSITE ARMY WAS INVINCIBLE”
fielded just two armies. Archbishop-elect of Trier Otto von Ziegenhain led a German army into southwestern Bohemia, and
Prince Frederick II of Saxony marched into northwestern Bohemia at the head of a Saxon-silesian army.
Cardinal Beaufort crossed the Bohemian frontier in July with von Ziegenhain’s army. Although its ultimate objective was Prague, the army stopped to besiege Stribro Castle, on the road to Pilsen. Prokop had no intention of taking a defensive stance. Instead he conducted a forced march with 17,500 troops to relieve the strategic castle.
At this stage in the Hussite Wars the Catholic crusaders had come to believe that the Hussite army was invincible. When word reached the crusader army that the Hussites were coming to attack them, they raised the siege of Stribro Castle and withdrew west. Having learned that the southern army was in trouble, Elector Frederick of Brandenburg ordered the Saxon-silesian army to march immediately to their assistance.
As Prokop’s men closed in on the 20,000 crusaders, the soldiers of the Cross panicked. The Hussites overtook the crusader army on
3-4 August in what became known as the Battle of Tachov. Beaufort tried his best to rally them, but it was beyond his power. After suffering heavy casualties, the survivors fled through the forested mountains to the safety of the Upper Palitinate. Hearing the news of the defeat at Tachov, the Saxon-silesian army turned back.
Afterwards, Prokop’s army besieged the fortified town of Tachov that had long been a stronghold of the Catholics on the Bohemian frontier. In the ensuing siege, Prokop exhibited a great mastery of siegecraft.
The Hussites rolled bombards into place to batter the walls while trebuchets slung incendiaries into the town. Additionally, sappers began tunnelling into the base of the walls. Assailed by several means, the town fell in less than a week. The citadel surrendered a few days later.
Peace talks
From 1427 to 1431, the Catholics made no attempt to invade Bohemia. Prokop was determined to continue his pre-emptive strikes into neighbouring lands. He led chevauchees into Austria, Bavaria, Brandenburg, Franconia, Hungary, and Saxony. Prokop’s Hussites pillaged enemy lands and thrived on the plunder that they gathered on what they called spanilá jízda (meaning “beautiful ride”). As a result of their depredations, the Catholic peoples of central Europe greatly feared the Hussites.
Just as the mention of Sir John Talbot’s name terrified the French in the same century, so did the utterance of Prokop’s name fill the Catholics with dread.
The Hussite raids damaged the reputation of King Sigismund and ultimately forced him to the peace table. These protracted negotiations involved the Hussites, central German electors and princes, and the Catholic Church. The talks began in 1429 and dragged on for four years. When the peace talks stalled in 1431, the Catholics mounted their fifth and final crusade against the Hussites.
Cardinal Julian Cesarini led a crusader army that invaded northwest Bohemia that August. The crusaders besieged the frontier town of Domazlice in the hope of gaining a quick success that would raise morale. The Hussites once again crushed the invaders in a pitched battle fought on 14 August on the outskirts of Domazlice. The Hussite victory brought the fifth crusade to an abrupt end.
By 1433 Papal negotiators had conceded to enough demands to compel the Utraquists to agree to a separate peace. The Taborites, who had the continued support of the Orphans, remained irreconcilable.
Death in battle
When the Bohemian League army began withdrawing at Lipany, Prokop allowed his troops to pursue their seemingly beaten foe. By doing so, the Taborites fell into a trap.
The commanders of the Bohemian League had ordered a feigned retreat in the hopes of catching the majority of the radical Hussites outside of protective laager. The Bohemian League’s foot soldiers pinned down Prokop’s exposed infantry while the League’s reserve of mounted cavalry carried out a flank attack that breached the Hussites’ wagenburg.
In a last stand at the wagenburg, Prokop fell in combat. His death marked the beginning of the end for the Taborites and Orphans. Although Sigismund had lost all of the battles, he had won the war by pitting the moderates and radicals against each other. In August 1436 he declared the conflict over after 17 years and the restoration of peace in Bohemia.