Taborites and “Tanks”: Military Revolution in the Hussite Wars

Since the dawn of time, humanity always sought new ways to kill one another in war. The Medieval Era was no exception, having its fair share of military revolutions. The Hussite Wars of the early fifteenth century were one such instance of innovation. After attempts to swiftly deal with the growing Hussite heresy in Bohemia were metaphorically and physically thrown out the window in 1419, war was the only option left. Across Catholic Europe, many lords, knights and soldiers of Christ heeded the call for crusade. Their heretical adversaries could only muster peasantry to arms whilst factions such as the moderate Utraquists and the radical Taborites sowed division amongst the Hussite ranks. However, the heretics possessedan ace up their sleeve. Jan Žižka. 

A grizzled one-eyed veteran, Žižka was well acquainted with crusaders, having fought against the Teutonic Order several years prior. Realising that in normal circumstances, his peasant infantry would be decimated by heavy cavalry, Žižka brought in an innovation to shift the odds in his favour. For centuries, wagons were key transportation for supplying marching armies, but he would turn them into killing machines. Each of these war wagons were manned by around twenty to thirty men (in some cases, even women). Fitted with high walls with firing ports, crossbowmen and hand gunners could fire projectiles from cover. If the enemy got too close for comfort, those crew members armed with flails, halberds and pikes would drive them off. Some wagons even possessed artillery pieces such as the houfnice from which the word “howitzer” was derived from. Several of these war wagons would form a Wagenburg, a defensive formation, which provided protection against flanking manoeuvres. Even if the Wagenburg was breached, reserve soldiers would repulse the enemy. 

The Wagenburg’s defensive prowess was put on full display in the first crusade against Hussites. Against insurmountable odds, Žižka’s force won a series of victories at Nekměř in 1419, Sudoměř and Vítkov hill in 1420. The once invincible veil of heavy cavalry in European warfare was shattered by the firepower of the war wagons and their peasant crews. The only loss that the great Hussite general suffered during this crusade was that of his remaining eye during the siege of Rabí in early 1421 which rendered Žižka blind.  

Reeling from the defeat of the initial crusade against the Hussites, Sigismund, the Holy Roman Emperor, rallied his forces and marched back into Bohemia. But when the crusader army arrived at Kutná Hora on December 21, 1421, they found Žižka and his Wagenburg entrenched upon a hill. Confident in their far superior numbers, the crusader knights advanced upon the war wagons, only for their charges to be nullified by the withering firepower of Hussite handguns and artillery. Sigismund’s infantry fared no better and when they retreated, the Wagenburg opened to allow heretic horsemen to harass the fleeing crusaders before returning to the safety of their war wagons. The Wagenburg even became an offensive weapon later in the battle, enabling the surrounded Hussites to break out of the encirclement and fight another day.  

Several more crusades against the Hussites proceeded with no success. Even with the death of Jan Žižka in 1424, his war wagons proved too deadly for the crusaders. It was only the defeat of the Taborites at Lipany in 1434, achieved through the use of Utraquist war wagons, that brought an end to the Hussite Wars. However, Žižka’s military revolution set the stage for the importance of firearms in European warfare as well as provided a rough prototype for what would be later known as the “tank”.  

Bibliography 

Primary Sources 

Balbín, Bohuslav, Epitome Historica Rerum Bohemicarum (Prague: Typis Universitatis Carolo-Ferdinandeae, per J.N. Hampel, 1677) 

Goll, Jarolsav, ed.,  Fontes rerum bohemicarum, vol.5 (Prague: Nákladem nadání Františka Palackćho, 1893) 

Hegel, Karl, ed., “Die Magdeburger Schöppenchronik”, in Die Chroniken der deutschen Städte, vol.7 (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1869) 

Palacký, František, ed., Staři letopisové češti od r. 1378 do 1527 in Scriptores rerum Bohemicarum, vol 3 (Prague: J.S.P, 1829) 

Vavřinec of Březová, “Historia Hussitica”, in Jaroslav Goll, ed.,  Fontes rerum bohemicarum, vol.5 (Prague: Nákladem nadání Františka Palackćho, 1893) 

Secondary Sources 

Bennett, Matthew et al, Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World, AD 500 – AD 1500: Equipment, Combat Skills, and Tactics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005) 

Dean, Sidney E., “Zizka’s Wagenburg: Mobile fortress of the Hussite Wars”, Medieval Warfare, Vol.6, No.1 (2016), pp.43-46 

Fudge, Thomas A., ed., The Crusade against Heretics in Bohemia, 1418-1437: Sources and Documents for the Hussite Crusades (London: Routledge, 2016) 

Górski, Szymon and Wilczynska, Ewelina, “Jan Žižka’s wagons of war: How the Hussite Wars changed the medieval battlefield”, Medieval Warfare, Vol.2, No.3 (2012), pp.27-34 

Grant, R.G., ed., 1001 Battles that Changed the Course of History (London: Cassell Illustrated, 2011) 

Heymann, Frederick G., John Žižka and the Hussite Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955)