CHAPTER XII
THE HUSSITE WARS
It would be impossible to realise the importance of Hus in the world’s history if we dealt of the events of his life independently of those of the subsequent Hussite wars. In a passage which I have previously quoted, Palacky has pointed out how comparatively unimportant would have been the place of Hus in history had not the unrivalled bravery of the Bohemian people and the genius of leaders such as Zizka enabled Bohemia to beat back the united forces of almost all Europe, which endeavoured to crush the religious movement in the country. Though Palacky died more than thirty years ago, no other writer has since his time more clearly grasped the real character of the Hussite wars than he did. In one of his controversial writings,[1] he says: “One school of historians to which I have the honour to belong has maintained that the Hussite war is the first war in the world’s history that was fought, not for material interests, but for intellectual ones, that is to say, for ideas. This ideal standpoint was so seriously and so sincerely maintained by the Bohemians that when victorious they never attempted to replace it by a more interested policy. It is true that during the war they forced foreign communities to pay taxes and an annual tribute to them; but they never thought of subduing them, or of extending their dominion over foreign lands—a thing that under the circumstances of the time would not have been difficult. I know that among the modern school of German historians there are persons[2] who
- ↑ Die Geschichte des Hussitenthums und Profssor Constantin Höfler. I have here only been able to allude briefly to this brilliant passage. Those interested in the matter will find a translation of a considerable part of it in my Lectures on the Historians of Bohemia, pp. 103–105.
- ↑ Palacky uses the somewhat contemptuous German word, Subjecte.
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