How Providence Helped Bohemia by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 22, 1909

How Providence Helped Bohemia

By W. A. S.

It was a mistaken view of the truth for which Huss was burned at Constance that led the Bohemians who loved his memory to take up arms to defend the truth of God. Luther caught the true idea when, at the beginning of his work, he insisted that it was by the Word of God alone that error was to be met. But a hundred years before Luther the Bohemian people, who had barely tasted the precious fruit of civil and religious liberty, drew the sword to resist the armed crusades sent against them at the instigation of the pope.

As the Syrian army before Samaria fled in panic when the Lord “made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses,” so, more than once, the papal army in Bohemia was seized with panic unaccountable save on the grounds that an overruling Providence did not design to allow Bohemia to become wholly overwhelmed at that hour.

Panic of the Papal Army

Pope Martin had organized a great crusade, which entered Bohemia in June, 1427. Electors, princes, and counts led the invading host, with a special papal legate in charge. The little army of the Hussites, under Ziska, the “one-eyed,” went out to meet the invaders. Wylie says:—

They were now within sight of them, and the two armies were separated only by the river that flows past Meiss. The crusaders were in greatly superior force, but instead of dashing across the stream, and closing in battle with the Hussites whom they had come so far to meet, they stood gazing in silence. . . . It was only for a few moments that the invaders contemplated the Hussite ranks. A sudden panic fell upon them. They turned and fled in the utmost confusion. The legate was as one who awakens from a dream. His labors and hopes at the very moment when, as he thought, they were to be crowned with victory, suddenly vanished in a shameful rout.

Urged on still by the pope, a yet greater crusade was organized and entered Bohemia in 1431, “chanting triumph” as they marched. Wylie again says:—

The enemy were encamped near the town of Reisenberg. The Hussites were not yet in sight, but the sounds of their approach struck upon the ears of the Germans. The rumble of their wagons, and their war-hymn chanted by the whole army as it marched bravely forward to battle, were distinctly heard. Cardinal Cesarini and a companion climbed a little hill to view the impending conflict. Beneath them was the host which they expected soon to see engaged in victorious fight. It was an imposing spectacle, this great army of many nationalities, with its waving banners, its mail-clad knights, its helmeted cavalry, its long lines of wagons, and its numerous artillery. The cardinal and his friend had gazed only a few minutes when they were startled by a strange and sudden movement in the host. As if smitten by some invisible power, it appeared all at once to break up and scatter. The soldiers threw away their armor and fled, one this way, that; and the wagoners, emptying their vehicles of their load, set out upon the plain at full gallop.

Struck with consternation, the cardinal hurried to the field, and soon learned of the catastrophe. The army had been seized with a mysterious panic that extended to the officers as well as the soldiers. The Duke of Bavaria was one of the first to flee. He left behind him his carriage, in the hope that its spoil might tempt the enemy and delay their pursuit. Behind him, also in inglorious flight, came the Elector of Brandenburg; and following close on the elector were others of less note, chased from the field by this unseen terror. The army followed, if that could be styled an army which so lately had been a marshaled and bannered host, but was now only a rabble rout, fleeing when no man pursued.

The comment of the historian Wylie expresses the conviction that must come to every heart: “There is something more in the facts we have related than the courage inspired by the consciousness of a good cause, and the feebleness and cowardice engendered by the consciousness of a bad one. There is here the touch of a divine finger—the infusion of a preternatural terror.”

W. A. S.