Panslavism and Germanism. By Count Valerian Kransinski [pp. 486-508]

Their Religious Ristory.
Nor was the question simply one of succession; the Pope was
as deeply concerned in its settlement as the Emperor. Accord ingly Rome and Germany, with hearty good will, combined
their forces for the double purpose of putting down Bohemian
rebellion, and the extinction of Bohemian heresy. The contest
which ensued was not merely a struggle between a tyrannical
king and a people resolved to defend their rights; it also became
from its very outset a war of religion, and a war of races.
The odds were so fearfully against the Bohemians, that suc cessful resistance seemed to be perfectly hopeless. Sigismund
entered Bohemia at the head of' an army containing five
Electors, two Dukes, two Landgraves, more than fifty Princes
of Germany, and over one hundred thousand soldiers. But the
battle is not always to the strong, nor the race to the swift;
this mighty host was defeated and utterly broken by the Bohemians, under the command of one of those extraordinary men
who appear at rare intervals upon the stage of human affairs.
John Ziska, the Hussite leader to whom we refer, may be said
to have been the Cromwell of Bohemia. Unlike the great English captain, he had indeed spent his earlier years in the profession of arms, and had seen a good deal of service, but like him
he trained a multitude of rude peasants into an army of warriors
"whose backs no enemy ever saw," and who never fought a battle without gaining a most decisive triumph. In his boyhood he
lost an eye, and this circumstance gave rise to the nicknameZisca (one eyed)-under which he became known to Europe.*
During the siege of Raby by the Imperial forces he lost his other
eye, yet it was after he had thus became totally blind that he
evinced his most consummate generalship, and gained his most
splendid victories. Zisca, who was at the time attached as
chamberlain to the court of Winceslav, was profoundly affected
by the martyrdom of Huss, though it must be owned that he
regarded the event with the eye of a patriot rather than a
Christian. It was the insult to his country that moved his soul.
The king one day perceived his chamberlain, who had been before one of the gayest of courtiers, walking the corridors of the
* His family name was John Troeznowski. He was of noble descent, and was
born at Troez, now his paternal estate, during the latter half of the 13th century.
1851.]
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