Jan Zizka, ~ 1360 - 1424. The Wrath of God in a Commander, First Use of Mobile “Tanks,” Howitzers, and Guns. Experimental Episode.

Today is somewhat of an experiment in the direction season two will go. 

I’ve got a few options… I have 50 or so fascinating sieges throughout history that I want to cover. I’ve got a dozen or so deep dives into incredible military leaders. And I’ve got a sizable amount of stories about individual heroes in battle.

While season one is not yet done, I wanted to get a sneak peak of a possible season two out to the audience, and get feedback in return on your thoughts on it. After listening, you can either click the link at the bottom of the show notes that sends me a text, with your thoughts, you can go to our website and leave a voice not, the button of which shows up on the right side of your screen. Or you can use the contact us form on the website to send an email. If you’re listening on Spotify, you can leave a comment as well. 

So, as we embark on this experimental episode into the life of an incredible battlefield leader, please keep some mental notes on whether this is what you enjoy, and look forward to, in season two of history’s greatest battles.

Let’s now experience, the life and battlefield times, of Jan Zizka.

Welcome to History's Greatest Battles, experimental episode of Season 2, Episode One: The life and times of Jan Zizka: Birth, guessed at around 1360 Common Era, to his death in 1424. 

Jan Zizka was a relentless warrior who defied every convention of his time. Born in a Bohemian village, he rose from the ranks of minor nobility to become the most feared general in central Europe. Fighting without sight in one eye, and later completely blind, Zizka led his peasant army against the might of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church, commanding with a precision and brutality that shattered the knights’ traditional dominance. His brilliance lay in his unbreakable discipline, iron-willed strategy, and mastery of the wagenburg, his mobile fortress of fortified wagons and firepower that turned common men into deadly soldiers. Even his enemies feared him as a military genius who never lost a battle. Zizka's life was a testament to raw resilience and tactical supremacy, his legacy a reminder that true strength lies in the unyielding will to fight for what one believes is right, no matter the odds.

Of Jan, Historian Frederick Heymann wrote: "To most of his contemporaries he was, it seems, not so much an individual character as a great and frightful natural phenomenon: a terrific power, sent by God to save the Law of God and to punish the sinners; or, to his enemies, a great scourge of humanity, but even so: sent by God. That it was God indeed, who made him do what he did, was the firm conviction of Zizka himself."

The early years of Jan Zizka are a mystery veiled in shadow. Not even the embellishments of legend have filled in the blanks.

He was born in the Bohemian town of Trocnow, likely to a family of modest nobility. His blood carried the status of his rank, but he wasn’t born into privilege.

In the social order, he held a place, yet whether his family had wealth or merely the barest essentials—well, history leaves us guessing.

One fact stands out amid the shadows: young Jan lost the sight in one eye. How exactly it happened—no one knows. Perhaps an accident. Perhaps a brutal clash in his youth. The truth was obscured, but the man became unmistakable.

Some say "Zizka" was a nickname, meaning simply "one-eyed." His true name was John Trocnowski. But in time, that name would fade as the legend of Zizka grew.

In 1306, the royal bloodline of Bohemia came to an end, and with it came a question: who would wear the crown? The answer arrived from across the border—Bohemia’s throne went to the Germanic House of Luxemburg.

Decades later, in 1347, a spark of Czech nationalism was ignited by King Charles IV. He founded the University of Prague—a sanctuary of scholarship that stood apart from church rule, making it a rare arena for free thought.

When Charles died in 1378, his son Vaclav IV took the reins, crowned not only as King of Bohemia but also as King of the Romans—a rule stretching from Prague to the German lands.

By 1380, a young man named Zizka—possibly the very Jan Zizka himself—entered King Vaclav’s service as a hunter.

Vaclav had a passion for the hunt that far surpassed his appetite for rulership. And he wasn’t a king given to ceremony, so it’s likely he took a liking to young Zizka.

Zizka’s quick rise through the ranks hints at this bond, a bond rooted in both court intrigue and the violent currents of Vaclav’s reign.

The trouble simmering under Vaclav’s throne stemmed largely from the rivalries within his own family, the House of Luxemburg.

His younger brother, Sigismund, held the crown of Hungary, and he was a man as ambitious as he was cunning.

Vaclav’s troubles weren’t just familial. His authority faced relentless defiance from the Bohemian nobles—proud, iron-willed men who despised any restraint on their power. By 1395, they rallied under Henry of Rosenberg, forming the League of Lords. They allied with Sigismund and his cousin, Margrave Jost of Brandenburg, bringing yet another force into the fray.

Yet Vaclav was not alone. At his side stood the youngest Luxemburg brother, Duke John of Görlitz, as well as Prokop, Margrave of Moravia and Jost’s own brother. Together, they mounted a resistance.

The year 1399 saw the powder keg ignite. Nobles from both factions rallied their bands of retainers, setting Bohemia ablaze with pillage, raids, and guerrilla warfare.

Sigismund’s ambitions soon struck at his brother’s throne itself. He persuaded the Bohemian nobles to oust Vaclav as King of the Germans, installing Rupert III in his place—a title that Sigismund would secure for himself in 1411.

As the new century dawned, the bloodshed only intensified, sweeping across the lands of Bohemia and into neighboring Moravia.

As Zizka’s biographer Friederich Heymann describes, this struggle raged on three levels: personal and political tensions between the rival Luxemburg kings and margraves; bitter feuds among the barons who chose one side or the other; and finally, the relentless guerrilla warfare waged by mercenaries in their employ.

Zizka’s name echoes through the Rosenberg records as a persistent enemy, a sign that he was active in these irregular bands fighting for Vaclav.

His unit fell under the command of Matej Vúdce, a loyalist under the patronage of the Lichtenburg family, yet another noble house drawn into the fray.

At this point, Zizka held no rank of command. He was little more than a junior officer, yet his effectiveness did not go unnoticed.

The flames of conflict dimmed around 1406, after Vaclav’s ally Prokop died. Vaclav moved toward peace, striking an accord with both Henry of Rosenberg and Margrave Jost, while Sigismund’s attention was pulled toward unrest in Hungary.

Still, the chaos didn’t disappear. Bands of marauders found new purpose backing or opposing the embattled King of Austria, who was himself embroiled in a feud with his brother. This kept the countryside ablaze with sporadic pillaging for years to come.

Amid this unrest, Zizka caught the eye of John Sokol, Bohemia’s most formidable military mind, who had pledged himself to Vaclav’s cause.

Sokol saw in Zizka what others had missed: a man born to lead. In the rough-and-tumble world of guerrilla warfare, Zizka was already proving himself a natural.

By 1409, Zizka had joined forces with Sokol, who had been recruited by the Polish king to confront the formidable Teutonic Knights.

The Poles had forged an alliance with Lithuania, a land long in the crosshairs of the Teutonic Knights, who saw it as a pagan stronghold ripe for conquest.

This situation shifted dramatically in 1386, when Lithuania’s Prince Jagiello took the Polish throne and converted his lands to Christianity.

By then, the Teutonic Knights had seized control of Prussia, and without pagans left to conquer, they expanded their domain purely out of ambition.

Their power was rooted in the region’s most fearsome heavy cavalry, and they faced no unified force capable of stopping their advance.

But with Poland and Lithuania now united, a newly organized military stood ready to challenge the Knights’ supremacy on the battlefield.

The Polish cavalry, composed of audacious nobles on powerful steeds, was prepared to match the Knights’ mettle.

The Lithuanians brought an entirely different strength—swift, agile light cavalry molded by generations of clashes with Mongol warriors.

Yet, the Polish-Lithuanian infantry was poorly equipped and inadequately trained, unable to match the Teutonic Knights on the field save in sheer courage.

Desperate to bolster their ranks, the Polish-Lithuanian leadership turned to Bohemia for reinforcements, recognizing Bohemian fighters as some of the fiercest in Central and Eastern Europe.

In July 1410, during the climactic Battle of Tannenberg, Sokol stood alongside the Polish king Wladyslaw, ready to face down the Knights.

Whether Zizka fought at Tannenberg remains uncertain. But what is clear is that he gained valuable experience, either in the brutal realities of battling heavy cavalry or in observing the inner workings of command at the highest levels.

Zizka remained with Sokol as the Polish army pressed deeper into Teutonic territory, aiding in the capture and defense of Radzyn Fortress, where he stayed until peace was brokered in 1411.

But Sokol did not live to see the end of the campaign. He fell during the siege, leaving Zizka bereft of his patron and mentor.

By 1411, Zizka found himself in Prague, now employed within the ranks of Vaclav’s personal guard.

His official title, portulanus regius—or royal doorkeeper—was a role that brought him close to the seat of power, akin to the rank once held by the legendary Mongol general, Subedei.

Zizka’s proximity to power grew, particularly with King Vaclav and his queen, Sophia, whom Zizka regularly accompanied on her church visits.

It was during those Sunday excursions that Zizka likely first encountered the fiery sermons of Jan Hus, a university proctor whose teachings would soon shake the very foundations of religious life across East-Central Europe.

Hus, a disciple of the English theologian John Wycliffe, was unyielding in his belief that scripture held authority above the church hierarchy.

His sermons, his lectures, everything he stood for horrified the Catholic nobility, whose Germanic lineage linked them firmly to the House of Luxemburg and to the orthodox traditions of Rome.

Hus’s main charges against the church focused on its worldliness and its practice of “communion in one part,” where only the priest received both the bread and wine, while the congregation received only bread.

To Hus, this practice defied scripture. He called instead for “communion in both parts,” or sub utraque specie. His followers would soon be known by this rallying cry, calling themselves Utraquists.

These sermons must have left a profound impression on Zizka.

As Zizka’s biographer Friederich Heymann notes, “We know that at that time Hus had his most faithful and most determined adherents among the King’s courtiers… There is no doubt that Zizka later fought for what he believed to be Hus’s tenets, though we may be much less certain whether Hus, had he lived, would have approved of Zizka’s fierce ways.”

Yet it’s worth noting that Hus, like Zizka, was often portrayed with words that captured an unbending spirit: bold, fiery, unrelenting, and admired by his followers.

As Hus’s influence grew, so did the pressure from the German nobles, who called on the church to silence him.

In 1408, Czech church authorities formally condemned Wycliffe’s writings. Hus, defiant as ever, refused to recognize their decree. The Archbishop of Prague excommunicated him on the spot, a move soon echoed by Cardinal Colonna on behalf of “anti-pope” John XXIII.

In response, the city of Prague fell under a punishing interdict, with church services forbidden until Hus was driven out.

Hus, undeterred, appealed to a general council in 1411—only to receive yet another excommunication for his efforts.

By 1412, Vaclav persuaded him to leave Prague and retreat to a country castle, a move that backfired as it merely gave Hus the chance to carry his message directly to the peasants.

In 1414, Hus was summoned to answer for heresy before the Council of Constance. Hungary’s King Sigismund, host of the council, extended Hus safe passage there and back.

But once the council condemned Hus and his teachings, Sigismund broke his word. Hus was burned at the stake in 1415, his promise of safety reduced to ashes along with him.

In his account of the Moravian Church, J.E. Hutton offers a vivid description of Hus’s execution: “At last the cruel fire died down, and the soldiers wrenched his remains from the post, hacked his skull in pieces, and ground his bones to powder. As they prodded about among the glowing embers to see how much of Hus was left, they found, to their surprise, that his heart was still unburned. One fixed it on the point of his spear, thrust it back into the fire, and watched it frizzle away; and finally, by the Marshal's orders, they gathered all the ashes together, and tossed them into the Rhine.”

This execution marked a turning point for Bohemia. There’s always a risk in martyring a beloved religious leader; if their followers don’t fade away, they harden and fortify their ranks. And that’s exactly what the Hussites did.

Bohemians held Sigismund personally responsible for violating Hus’s safe passage, and their resentment extended to all Germans within the kingdom’s borders.

A coalition of 452 nobles signed a formal protest against Hus’s execution, and the mood of the people shifted decisively against the Catholic Church.

In towns where the Hussite influence was strong, Catholic priests were driven out, and monasteries faced violent attacks.

Out in the countryside, noblemen sympathetic to the Hussites appointed priests aligned with Hus’s teachings to parish offices.

In response, the Council of Constance took a sweeping measure in 1417, declaring a mass excommunication on all Hussites.

Vaclav attempted to enforce the decree, offering cash rewards to anyone who would identify Hussites and ordering their churches seized and destroyed.

Prisons filled to the brim, while hundreds met grim fates—burned at the stake, drowned, or worked to death as slaves in the Kutná Hora silver mines.

But rather than weaken them, the persecution only strengthened the Hussites’ resolve.

In Prague, the authorities had some success quelling the movement. Yet across the countryside, peasants organized, fortifying towns and staking their claim to hilltops.

The ancient town of Nemějice, fifty miles south of Prague, was renamed Mount Tabor. It became the heart and soul of the Hussite movement—and the headquarters of Jan Zizka.

Under the priest Jan Zelivsky, the Hussite movement gained a leader whose fervor surpassed even that of Hus himself.

Together, he and Zizka sparked the Hussite rebellion against the Catholic Church by late July 1419.

On July 6, Vaclav had ousted the Hussite councilors of Prague’s New Town, replacing them with hard-line Catholics. This move foreshadowed a sweeping reinstatement of Catholic priests across the city and the ousting of Hussite clergy.

On July 30, Zelivsky held a mass in which he served communion in both kinds. Afterward, he led a march through the streets, stopping at the New Town Hall, where they encountered a group of Catholic councilors appointed by the king.

The crowd demanded the release of imprisoned Utraquists. When the councilors refused, chaos erupted. The mob stormed the hall, hurling thirteen councilors from the windows. Those who survived the fall were swiftly cut down in the street.

A defenestration that would be echoed two centuries later, sparking the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War.

The strain of these events proved too much for Vaclav, whose resolve had already begun to waver. Two weeks later, he was dead of a stroke.

Whether Zizka led that defenestration remains a matter of speculation. But what is certain is that shortly afterward, he was elected captain of the Hussite troops in Prague. By late October, he had taken Vysehrad Castle, commanding the southern approach to the city.

Bohemia was a cauldron of unrest, with no single Hussite faction holding sway and demands coming from every corner.

Among the Hussites, divisions ran deep. On one end stood conservative factions seeking only modest reform—chiefly, communion in both bread and wine. On the other were the Taborites, based at Mount Tabor, whose vision was apocalyptic. They believed only a holy war could cleanse the church and hasten Christ’s return.

Catholic factions were equally fractured, with conservatives and reformers clashing in their approach. Queen Sophia, appointed regent by Sigismund, tried to keep both the peace and her tenuous hold on power—even as her sympathies leaned toward the Hussites.

Fortifying Hradčany Castle to guard Prague’s western side, she stood ready, hoping for support from beyond Bohemia’s borders.

By the late 1300s and early 1400s, the reign of the heavily armored knight was fading. In France, the English longbow was restoring infantry to dominance, while in Switzerland, pike-wielding soldiers resurrected the phalanx, transforming it into a powerful battlefield formation.

Yet these innovations had yet to spread eastward by the Hussite Wars, and German nobles remained at the head of the invading armies. They were not the sole force, however; the knights were often outnumbered by foot soldiers, particularly crossbowmen.

The precise role of knights in this era remains hotly debated. Some argue that, even as infantry swelled in ranks with men from the lower classes, it was still the noble cavalry that dominated battles with their sheer force.

The impact of a charging cavalry line—once an unstoppable force—was diminishing. Yet when combined with other military arms, it could still decide the course of battle.

During the early Middle Ages, warfare in Europe was relatively infrequent outside of the Crusades, sparing the knights from heavy casualties. This limited bloodshed helped shape their reputation as victorious warriors of unparalleled courage.

By the Hussite wars, knights wore the peak of medieval body armor. Chain mail still had its place among troops in the 14th century, but as longbows and crossbows began to pierce these metal rings with ease, new and stronger defenses were sought.

This drive for protection gave rise to plate armor, which had emerged between the 13th and early 14th centuries and would remain a mainstay until the 16th. At first, it shielded only the upper body, but soon plates covered the arms and legs as well.

The iconic armor of the medieval knight was a compromise between protection and sheer heft, weighing a daunting fifty to sixty pounds.

Once unseated, a knight became easy prey for masses of infantry, particularly on wet, boggy ground.

Yet on horseback, with a straight sword in hand and a lance braced to his breastplate with an arret de cuirasse, the heavy cavalryman of the 15th century was an imposing figure, still capable of havoc when used wisely.

Siege warfare reigned supreme in this period, and infantry played a critical role.

As the 14th century progressed, battles grew more frequent and casualties climbed. What had once passed as chivalric combat between Christian knights was mutating into outright class warfare.

One of the clearest explanations for the rise in battles after 1300 is that infantry forces were beginning to command the battlefield.

While medieval Europe had seen battles where infantry won the day, the myth of cavalry supremacy continued to endure.

Perhaps it was the practice of ransoming captured nobles while peasants were simply discarded that stoked a thirst for retribution among common soldiers—a long-overdue reckoning with their "betters."

The peasants following Hus were imbued with a growing sense of freedom and dignity, a shift that likely fueled their scorn for the lives and privileges of the upper classes.

Infantry training often had its roots in guild-like structures within towns and cities.

As military historian Dennis Showalter explains, “If each task had its specific skill, taught and supported by specific guilds and craft brotherhoods, was it not correspondingly reasonable to divide up the labor of military service, and to provide specialists in this craft as in all the others?”

Starting with a small core of experienced captains and armorers, the standing forces of Europe’s cities and city-states expanded significantly during the 14th century.

Levied infantry were expected to bring their own weapons and often received training at fairs or from local commanders.

Standards of training fluctuated as they do in any militia, and there was no coordination with the cavalry.

In Germanic territories, the basic military unit was the gleve, comprising up to ten men with at least one mounted soldier among them.

Yet the composition of a gleve wasn’t uniform. In Swabia, it meant four horses; in Nuremberg, two horses and a spearman; in Strasbourg, five horses; and in Regensburg, a mix of one spearman, one archer, and three horses.

Additionally, the ranks often swelled with attendants, servants—some fighters, some not—and archers.

Each city was obligated to supply a specified number of gleven whenever the call for arms went out.

A unit of ten gleven fell under the command of a hauptman, or captain; one hundred under an oberhauptman.

Infantry fought with whatever was available. Townsfolk wielded clubs and spears, while peasants brought the tools of their fields—scythes, axes, and pitchforks.

Their arsenal included swords and maces, but many also wielded the rough tools of their trades—knives, hatchets, pitchforks, and scythes.

Their signature weapon was the spiked threshing flail—a brutal tool that would come to symbolize the Hussite warrior.

Breaking from tradition, peasant women played a role not just in constructing defenses but also in taking up arms when needed.

After one 1420 battle, Hungarian forces captured 156 Hussite women—armed and dressed as men.

In a 1422 clash, Hussite women fought side-by-side with the men, wielding their weapons with the same fierce conviction. For them, this was holy war.

The last recorded mention of Hussite women in combat appears in 1428.

One of the Hussites’ greatest assets was their use of gunpowder. Though they hadn’t invented or advanced the technology, they were among the first to use firearms in open battle rather than limiting them to sieges.

These early handguns were simple devices—a sixteen-inch iron tube attached to a short wooden stock. Just long enough to brace against the arm, yet short enough for the gunner to reach back and ignite the touchhole with a smoldering wick.

They fired a projectile somewhere between .50 and .70 caliber. With accuracy nearly nonexistent, these weapons were effective only against large groups.

German records refer to them as Pfeifenbüchsen, or “pipe guns,” named after the instrument, not a smoking pipe.

The Czechs called them pistala or pischtjala, meaning “fife”—a term that may well be the origin of our modern word “pistol.”

Some accounts suggest larger guns were mounted on the wagons, but given the tight quarters, this seems improbable.

Instead, larger tarasnice—small cannons—were mounted on stands between wagons, shielded behind pavises.

Eventually, an even larger cannon known as the houfnice, the ancestor of the howitzer, was mounted on wheels for greater mobility.

Handguns and tarasnice had been around since the 1380s. Zizka didn’t invent anything new; rather, his genius lay in how he used these weapons.

His contribution was in turning these firearms into mobile assets, integrating them into a flexible, tactical system.

As historian Charles Oman observed, “It was evident that these war-waggons, when once placed in order, would be impregnable to a cavalry charge: however vigorous the impetus of the mail-clad knight might be, it would not carry him through oaken planks and iron links.”

As King Sigismund of Hungary weighed his next move against the Hussites in Bohemia, violence erupted once more in Prague.

In early November 1419, news broke that one of Sigismund’s own princes had attacked and butchered a group of Hussite pilgrims. This massacre lit a fire under the Hussite ranks, pushing them to retaliate.

Zizka’s forces charged across the Charles Bridge, seizing control of western Prague. In the fierce days of combat that followed, much of the area was ravaged, until Queen Sophia managed to broker a truce.

The Hussites in Prague secured the right to full communion—bread and wine—while agreeing to disperse the crowd of rural pilgrims and return Vysehrad Fort in the city’s south to royal forces.

Disgusted by the Utraquists’ willingness to relinquish such a strategic stronghold, Zizka withdrew from Prague with his Taborite followers. He set out for Pilsen, where he began fortifying defenses along the main western approach into Bohemia.

This marked the first of many rifts between the moderate Hussites and the radicals—divisions that would only grow with time.

Meanwhile, the Catholic loyalists saw the Prague clashes as a triumph over the Hussites, and especially over Zizka’s hardline Taborites.

In the city of Kutná Hora—a German stronghold and home to the silver mines that fueled Bohemia’s wealth—the Hussites faced ruthless repression. Countless were condemned as heretics and hanged.

In time, the number of Hussites sentenced to death grew so large that, to save time, authorities began tossing prisoners into the old silver mines, bypassing the gallows altogether.

This brutal repression stoked not only religious fervor but also ethnic tensions, setting the stage for even deeper divisions.

The Hussites had long demanded the right to worship in Czech rather than Latin, and to read the scriptures translated into their own tongue.

To the Bohemians, “Catholic” was now synonymous with German nobility. The Hussite Wars became a clash of class, nation, and creed all in one.

During this time, more moderate nobles reached out to Sigismund with an offer: he could rule as king of Bohemia if he would agree to communion in both bread and wine, protect Hussites from persecution, and take a stand against corruption in the church.

Sigismund, arrogantly confident in his military might, dismissed the offer outright, believing he could stamp out all resistance by force.

But rallying the German princes to his cause proved more difficult than he’d anticipated. To strengthen his hand, Sigismund turned to the newly appointed Pope Martin V, persuading him to declare a crusade.

Pope Martin obliged, and on March 17, 1420, his legate Ferdinand, Bishop of Lucena, proclaimed the bull Omnium plasmatoris domini from the pulpit.

The bull called for the utter annihilation of all “Wyclifites, Hussites, other heretics, and those who favor, accept, or defend these heresies.” As with all crusades, the promise of absolution was offered to those who fought for the church.

With papal backing, Sigismund summoned warriors from across the Holy Roman Empire, ordering his soldiers to execute any Hussite who dared to resist.

In defiance, the Hussites declared their own holy war, promising spiritual rewards for those who stood against their persecutors.

Jan Zelivsky, a firebrand Hussite preacher, declared that those responsible for Hus’s death were guilty of murder, driven not by faith but by pure malice.

As historian Thomas Fudge observes, “By extension and implication, the crusade itself was nothing but militarism based on malice and was therefore murder on an unimaginable and unconscionable scale. … The counter-crusading anthem of the heretics Ktoz jsú bozi bojovnici [You who are the warriors of God] identified death at the hands of the wicked crusaders as martyrdom.”

As Catholic nobles across Bohemia started to impose Sigismund and the pope’s orders, Zizka’s arrival in Pilsen couldn’t have been better timed.

Zizka, alongside the city’s priest, Father Nicholas Koranda, began fortifying Pilsen’s defenses.

Meanwhile, Zizka resolved to launch a siege on the nearby town of Nekmet, just north of Pilsen.

Royalist troops under Lord Bohuslav of Svamberg moved to confront him, but Zizka’s crossbowmen and hand gunners held them back, firing from the safety of their seven wagons.

Caught off guard, Bohuslav was forced to withdraw, and Zizka led his troops back to Pilsen.

This skirmish at Nekmer marked the debut of Zizka’s signature war wagons, a tactic that would define his campaigns.

Zizka held firm at Pilsen until March 1420. In the end, though, the city’s moderate citizens, wary of the destruction that a siege might bring, persuaded Zizka to negotiate with Bohuslav.

Bohuslav granted the Taborites safe passage. On March 23, a convoy of 400 men rolled out in twelve war wagons, accompanied by supply carts and carriages carrying women and children.

But Bohuslav’s word meant little. Secret messengers slipped out of Pilsen, alerting royalist forces across the region to intercept the vulnerable caravan and crush it.

Two royalist forces converged, meeting at Pisek, roughly twenty miles west of Tabor. Together, they fielded 2,000 cavalry, the so-called "Iron Lords" of legend.

One thousand rode under Henry of Hradec, the grand master of the Knights of St. John, based in Strakonice. The other half of the force followed Peter of Sternberg.

Zizka’s column moved across mostly flat ground, but ponds dotted the landscape. Spotting the cavalry bearing down from the north, he maneuvered his wagons onto a dam between two drained ponds.

Zizka chained his twelve wagons in a single line, leaving the royalists with no choice but to attack in a confined space.

The Hussite cannon, thundering across the field, threw the enemy horses into a frenzy. From their elevated ground, Zizka’s men held fast with their long spears, halberds, and deadly flails, ready for the knights’ charge.

Henry’s Knights of St. John, unable to breach the line on horseback in the late afternoon assault, dismounted and advanced on foot, hoping for better luck.

The fighting was brutal, with heavy losses on both sides and three of Zizka’s wagons damaged. But the relentless fire from guns and crossbows, along with the peasants’ makeshift weapons, held the attackers at bay.

Sternberg’s men attempted a flanking maneuver, pushing through the mud-filled pond on the Hussites’ right. But the mud sucked in their horses, forcing the knights to wade forward on foot.

Their heavy armor slowed them to a crawl, and Zizka’s reserves surged forward—flails and pitchforks in hand—to deliver a merciless blow to the stranded knights.

The struggle dragged on into nightfall, descending into chaos so deep that knights, blinded by the dark, began striking one another.

Zizka’s own chronicler called the darkness and fog a miracle sent to confound the knights. Meanwhile, a Catholic account claimed that Hussite women had laid veils and scarves on the ground to trip up horses and knights alike.

The records of Sudomer are sparse, but two major outcomes stand clear: Zizka’s tactical genius had revealed itself, with his war wagons serving as the linchpin of his defense; and, in his fifties, he had become a national icon in Bohemia.

The timing of this victory couldn’t have been more potent, coming just as the pope declared the crusade. It sent Hussite morale soaring.

When the enemy forces advanced, Zizka led them into an engagement on ground of his choosing—a decision made quickly, but shrewdly.

The swift formation of his war wagon line took the enemy by surprise, and the flash and roar of gunpowder weapons threw their horses into chaos.

In defense, Zizka exploited the terrain, covering both flanks with drained ponds, forcing the enemy to charge directly into his narrow killing ground.

The position meant fewer cavalry could engage him directly, while his wagon fort and gunfire shattered the usual momentum of a heavy cavalry charge.

Whether on horseback or foot, the knights faced a distinct disadvantage; they lacked the firepower that the Hussites unleashed in waves.

With limited manpower, Zizka held his ground, unable to press forward until the royalists attempted their flanking maneuver.

Then, he sent his unarmored reserves—men and women alike—to exploit the helplessness of the armored knights stuck in the mud.

He held back any pursuit; exposing infantry to even a retreating cavalry force in open ground would risk turning triumph into disaster.

By the next morning, the royalists had vanished, and Zizka marched on to Tabor, where he was welcomed in a storm of celebration on March 27.

Once the initial fervor died down, the townsfolk elected their leaders. Zizka was chosen as one of four captains, charged with organizing and training the army, while Nicholas of Hus took up the role of political leader.

In his new role, Zizka’s mission was clear: forge the Hussite ranks into a formidable force.

Zizka’s guiding principle in building his army was simple: cast aside the conventions of centuries.

He had to maximize the use of every available resource, manpower, and weapon, often leaning on innovative tactics and weapons that few armies had yet dared to try.

By now, Zizka had firmly chosen his war wagons as the backbone of his military strategy.

Relying mostly on peasants and a handful of city craftsmen, Zizka capitalized on their strengths. The artisans became his armorers, forging weapons and building cannons.

The peasants, seasoned wagon handlers by trade, were trained to move with speed and precision. They could deploy a wagenburg in moments, unhitching horses, chaining wagons, and manning their positions in battle-ready formation.

Beyond their skills, Zizka drew heavily on the religious zeal of his men, who saw their fight as both military and sacred.

Zizka didn’t just develop a new style of warfare suited to his troops; he trained them with a discipline unheard of in medieval Europe.

The soldiers got a taste of real combat early on when Zizka led a dawn assault on the nearby town of Vozice.