"Bohemian mercenaries in the late 15th century" Topic

Folks:

I recently learned about these guys – using Hussite tactics into the early 16th century. I put a piece on my website about them, with links to the sources I found (mostly but not all in German):

link

Cheers,

A. Gregory

Thanks for that interesting analysis! And I know what you mean about allies for one gaming force becoming a force in their own right, and so on…

Thanks for that. I never knew that they hung on for so long, but it does make sense that they did.

My guess is that they were successful as much for their discipline as for their tactics. The Hussites were pretty well known for having exact lists for what went in each wagon, and what the exact duties of the crew of each wagon were. Hussite camp discipline was impressive as well.

They moved pretty fast on the march as an army(much faster than their opponents), had a good grasp of logistics, could carry out a night attack, and apparently had dedicated engineers. It's all the boring stuff that wargamers tend to lump into a +1 on a combat roll.

I have a feeling that at least one of the accounts suggests that Max's guns rather messed up the Bohemian wagonburg and made the pavises rather pointless.

It hasn't stopped me from putting an army of them together though. Who knows – I may even use them one day.

Swampster:

It is interesting to note that the term "burg" in German refers to a Medieval-style castle or fortification. During this period in Germany, artillery was demonstrating that such castles simply didn't measure up any longer – lots of castles simply capitulated during the various feuds if the attacker had a modern artillery train.

The "wagenburg" was just as prone to defeat this way as the less mobile type of "burg"! But at the time, they clearly saw it as a moveable fortification. It wasn't just pavises that couldn't handle artillery fire.

Interestingly, there seems to be less emphasis in these sources on the Hussite's use of gunpowder weapons, although you read about that in descriptions of earlier Hussite conflicts. Maybe by the later 15th century it had just become a typical part of the weaponry, and not worth commenting on?

Cheers,

A. Gregory

In the later 15th century both handguns and war wagons have become staple of the middle European warfare, though the gun was more universal, while the wagons most likely derivated from their successfull Hussite usage only.

Its true that the introduction of field artillery – pioneered by the Burgundian under Charles, if I remember that correct, made the typical war wagons less usefull – though in combination with other defenses they remained in use. I am not sure wether there was a field battle that remarks on wagons being destroyed by artillery, though, or when their last field usage was.

BTW: The Gulay Gorod of the 16th century probably is a descendant of the Hussites warwagons, and did see action, if not against artillery.

Puster:

Interesting question about the Gulay Gorod.

Oman credits the Russians with inspiring Zisca's original use of the wagons:

"in his Eastern campaigning Zisca had become familiar with a system of tactics which he thought might be developed and turned to account by an army of infantry, forced to take the defensive… There had now been prevailing in the East for more than a century the practice of providing against cavalry attacks by movable trains of wagons…" (Art of War in the Middle Ages, vol. 2, Chap. III)

Other people cite much later dates for the development of such things among the Russians. (Wikipedia says "The wide-scale usage of gulyay-gorod started during the Russo-Kazan Wars of 1438-1552" for instance.)

It may be than Oman was referring to some earlier tactic.

It is probably impossible to know who was inspiring whom, but it also makes sense that there would have been a bit of back-and-forth.

Cheers,

A. Gregory