October 11, 1424 • John Zizka, Blind "Warrior for the Lord."

ersecuted Christians have often been glad for warrior friends. When John Zizka (Jan Zizka or Ziska) died on this day, October 11, 1424 the "Protestants" of Bohemia (Czechoslovakia) lost such a friend.

To understand the role Zizka played, we must go back a few years to another John. John Hus was a reformer long before Luther. Like the better-known Protestants who came after him, Hus opposed the sale of indulgences to cover sins. We should appeal directly to God for forgiveness through Christ, he taught. Hus preached against various abuses within the church. Under a promise of safe conduct, he traveled to the Council of Constance to plead for ecclesiastical reform, but was betrayed and burned to death as a heretic.

Bohemian peasants had loved Hus and accepted his teaching. Outraged by his treatment, they revolted against the Roman Church.

As with all revolutions, other economic and political factors were also involved. The peasants wanted freedom from serfdom and detested their absentee lords. Importation of German craftsman also rankled them.

Zizka was about sixty when he led the peasant "Warriors of God." He had been a fighter for much of his life and was so successful now that his name inspired dread. His enemies sometimes even fled without a fight rather than face him on the battlefield.

He owed part of his success to flexibility. He allowed peasants to use weapons, such as flails, with which they were familiar. When someone conceived the idea of an armored wagon with light cannon on it, Zizka embraced the concept. A circle of these wagons could not be broken and when used for attack, they easily smashed through enemy lines. Thus Zizka was the world's first tank commander.

Armies on both sides were terribly cruel and Zizka's forces were no exception. Zizka, however, was a man of his word. When his soldiers violated a promise and broke into a city and butchered its people, John ordered them to do penance and joined them in it. He then issued the world's first-known written code of military conduct.

Amazingly he was blind during much of the period of his greatest military success. He had lost sight of an eye as a child and lost the other in battle. Blind though he was, he led his men brilliantly until his death by bubonic plague at the height of the conflict. His victories ensured that the reformers survived and were able to extract political and religious concessions for Bohemia. Although plagued by infighting, Hussite Protestantism was strong for over 200 years in Bohemia and, indeed, the Bohemian reform church endures to this day.

Bibliography:

1. "Battle Tactics of the Hussites." (www.deremilitari.org/RESOURCES/SOURCES/hussites.htm)
2. "Jan Zizka." Britannica, 1911.
3. "Military Strategies of the One-Eyed Genius, Jan Zizka." (archiv.radio.cz/history/zizka.html)
4. Swan, Joe. "Zizka, Jan." Reader's Companion to Military History. (college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/mil/html/ mh_059800_zizkajan.htm)
5. Various encyclopedia and internet articles.

Last updated April, 2007.