God's Warriors: the story of the Hussite Reformation

[Winner]

So, since I am still waiting for my "WW2 mood" to return so that I can continue in my other AAR, I decided to fill this time with something constructive. This is the result:

***
God’s Warriors: the story of the Hussite Reformation
***

Ktož jsú boží bojovníci - Ye Who Are Warriors of God - Hussite battle hymn

***
Ye who are God's warriors and of his law,
Pray to God for help and have faith in Him;
That always with Him you will be victorious.

Christ is worth all your sacrifices, He will pay you back hundredfold.
If you give up your life for Him you will receive eternal life.
Happy is he who believes this truth.

The Lord commandeth you not to fear bodily harm,
And commandeth you to even put your life down for the love of your brothers.
Therefore, archers, crossbowmen, halberdiers of knightly rank,
Scythemen and macebearers from all walks of life,
Remember always the Lord benevolent.

Do not fear your enemies, nor gaze upon their number,
Keep the Lord in your hearts; for Him fight on,
And before enemies you need not flee.

Since ages past Czechs have said & had proverbs which state,
That if the leader is good, so too is the journey.
Remember all of you the password which was given out.
Obey your captains & guard one another.
Stay sharp and everyone keep formation.

You beggars and wrongdoers, remember your soul!
For greed & theft don't lose your life.
And pay no heed to the spoils of war.

And with this happily cry out - sayeth, "At thee! Have at thee!"
Savour the weapon in your hands and shout, "God is our Lord!"

***

Few things you should be aware of before reading this AAR:

- This is an ALTERNATE history of the Hussite revolution based on my latest Magna Mundi Platinum game. Hussites in my story are different from the Hussites in OTL (Our TimeLine) and so is the story of their rise to power, which in this AAR resembles the great reformation movement of the 16th century.

- Historically, Hussites were a bunch of idealists who fought a series of bloody wars in the first half of the 15th century. They shocked and scared contemporary Europe when their seemingly invincible armies of fanatically determined peasant-soldiers trashed one crusading army after another. Eventually, they forced the Church to make a deal with them, thus becoming the first heretical movement to survive Church's attempts to wipe them out like the previous heretics (for example the cathars from who the Czech word for a heretic - kacíř - originates).
It wasn't a success story, however. The wars left much of Bohemia devastated and improverished even by contemporary standards and the population of Bohemia shrinked by at least 30%. This had weakened the country so much that it lost its sort of major power status it used to enjoy during the reign of the Luxembourg-Přemyslid dynasty (ofted considered as the golden age of the medieval Bohemian kingdom) and eventually found itself under the Hapsburg boot. The hussite doctrine itself split into many creeds, most of which either died out or merged with the Lutheran/Calvinist reformers a century later.

- If you have absolutely no idea what the bloody hell I am talking about here, you should read the related Wiki aricles about John Wycliffe and Lollards, Jan Hus, Hussites, Hussite Wars, History of the Czech lands etc. It is not that important for this AAR, but it will give you some insight into the religious doctrines of the Hussites and the history of Bohemia.

- Despite that this is a story based on gameplay, I'll do my best converting the game events into somewhat plausible story (at least to non-historians).

- This won't be a long AAR, I don't plan to cover the whole 400 years of game. I am not sure yet at which point I am going to end this, but most likely I will stop once the Protestant Reformation spreads and the Hussites thus become just another of many Protestant creeds.

- There won't be many pictures, sorry. I am too lazy to install my Photoshop and try in vain to match the unbeatable pictures made by people like Milites or FYROM There will be some, however.

- I beg for forgiveness of people whose style I am going to emulate. If you don't recognize yourself, it means that I am even more pathetic in doing so than I previously thought

- I am obviously not very good at English, so please, have patience with me.

Comments and constructive criticism is always welcome here

WARNING: Some pictures don't load properly sometimes. If that happens, try reloading the page one or more times, the images should appear. I have no idea why this keeps happening, sorry.

--------------
Table of contents:
--------------

1. Prologue
2. The beginnings of the Hussite movement
3. The King is dead. Long live the King!
4. Prelude to a revolution
5. Ripple effects
6. Outbreak
7. Point of no return
8. Decatholization of Bohemia
9. Storm clouds gathering
10. The worst trap...
    1st Hussite War
11. Der Winter Kalt
12. Pride precedes a fall
13. The 2nd Wave
14. The third time is not the charm
15. Desertions & Conversions
16. A light at the end of the tunnel
    ------
17. The End of an Era
18. The King-Soldier
19. The tragedy of Hungary
20. The years of peace

[gabor]

sounds interesting (which version of MMP? start date i guess early 1400?)

[Qorten]

Your English is pretty okay I think, although it isn't my mother tongue either. I'll see whether I like the styles of the people you are going to emulate and follow!

[Winner]

sounds interesting (which version of MMP? start date i guess early 1400?)

The latest and last, MMP 1.401. Game starts at the earliest possible date in October 1399. I made some custom changes though (e.g. I made Hussite religion even stronger by adding a decent discipline bonus, which I think simulates the use of revolutionary tactic and firearms by the Hussite armies).

[Rabid Bogling]

Ah, the Hussites. Lollards with balls. I'll be reading keenly!

[Winner]

***
Prologue
***

The last member of the Luxembourg-Přemyslid dynasty, ruler of Bohemia and the King of the Romans Wenceslas IV died childless in 1407, presumably because of a disease he caught during his campaign against Denmark, thus ending the golden age of the Bohemian kingdom which had lasted for over 40 years, during which Bohemia counted among Europe’s great powers. The kingdom was relatively rich and prosperous as a result of being the seat of the imperial court for the past decades and also thanks to the God’s mercy: the Black Death, which killed over one third of European population 50 years ago, miraculously spared Bohemia and the country had suffered only lightly from it [1].

Wenceslas IV

Since the king failed to produce an heir [2], the assembly of kingdom’s estates had to choose a new king. Their final choice was Friedrich of Palatinate, the younger brother of the Count Palatine of the Rhine and a distant relative to the late Bohemian king, who was crowned a king the next year. This choice turned out to be a very good one. Though young, Friedrich I was an exceptionally gifted strategist and a very cunning diplomat who would not only quickly persuade the other rulers to recognize his position as the king of Bohemia, but also subdue the traditionally ungovernable Bohemian nobility which had given such a hard time to his predecessor [3].

His success was partly attributed to his proficiency in Czech language, which he had obtained recently during his studies at the Charles University in Prague, where he had also been introduced to the teachings of John Wycliffe, the well-known founder of the Lollard heresy in England [4]. Knowledge of the language helped the new king to gain trust of his subject and negotiate with the representatives of the aristocracy and the commons more effectively. Also, it prevented the royal court from isolating him and feeding him with false information.

Bohemia and the neighbouring countries, 1378

Friedrich I finally won the respect of all his subjects when he managed to arrange a marriage with the daughter of the Count of Breslau, a long-term vassal of Bohemia. This union helped Friedrich to finally annex the last remaining parts of Silesia to the Lands of the Bohemian Crown when the count died in 1410 [5]. In order to secure his gains, he sent a force of 6,000 soldiers to the crusade led by his ally, the Hapsburg archduke of Austria, against the heathen Ottoman Turks. Although the crusade was largely unsuccessful, it greatly boosted the international standing of Bohemia, so much that Friedrich could exert a great deal of influence on the Pope in Rome (the anti-pope in Avignon distanced himself from the crusade) [6].

Friedrich was a good Catholic but he was well aware of the corruption of the Church, therefore he often appealed on the Pope to push forward with the necessary reforms. To his great disillusion, the Pope showed no intention to initiate a profound reform of the Church as his interests were mostly limited to enforcing his authority all over the Western Christendom and removing his rival in Avignon [7]. Correspondence between the king and the Pope had become scarce and eventually it ceased altogether when the Pope refused to hear more of Friedrich’s idealist proposals.

The failure of the Church to offer a clear vision of future reform became a fertile ground for individual reformers. In Bohemia, it was Jan Hus, who built upon Wycliffe’s ideas and preached openly against the Church’s arrogance, wealth, corruption and general failure to uphold the teachings of Christ. He would be the first one to shatter the unity of Western Christianity.

------

[1] Or, if you prefer, the relative well-being of Bohemian peasants combined with greater isolation from the main trade centers had made the country less susceptible to the plague which usually spread along the trade routes and first attacked people weakened by chronic malnutrition resulting from repeated crop failures in the preceding years.
[2] Due to the fact that he had more than one wife during his life (not at the same time, obviously) indicates that he was sterile. Thank the God, his genes were a curse, judging from his incompetence. I gave him way too much credit in this AAR.
[3] Bohemian aristocracy was a real pain in the ass. Wenceslas IV failed to treat it like his father Charles IV, who played it against the Church and the burgers, thus neutralizing it enough to be able to rule without constant bickering. Wenceslas historically lost the title of German king (he was not an Emperor since he repeatedly refused to move his ass to Rome to get the title) in 1400 and two years later, he was imprisoned by the high-ranking aristocrats. In my story, he never lost the title and waged many wars against Denmark until his death in 1407, which is also ahistorical – in OTL he died in 1419.
[4] Wycliffe’s ideas were introduced to Charles University by Anne of Bohemia, the queen consort of the English king Richard II, as well as many students returning from England. They were studied and discussed freely by the Bohemian scholars and caught attention of many students, among them was Jan Hus (or John Huss, if you like the anglicized name – I don’t).
[5] In game terms, I simply annexed Silesia. In reality, Silesia was a mosaic of counties, some of which were part of the Bohemia and some of which were not.
On a side note: I am using the term Bohemia loosely, in fact I should always refer to it as "the Lands of the Bohemian Crown", which was the official name of the complex of land ruled by the Bohemian kings: Bohemia itself, the Margravate of Moravia, the Duchy of Silesia and Lusatia.
[6] I became the controller of Papal Curia for a short while. In case you wonder, it’s not that important in Magna Mundi.
[7] 1399 start in Magna Mundi means there is a Schism – a generally annoying thing to all Catholics.

[Winner]

***
The beginnings of the Hussite movement
***

Jan Hus

Due to continuing unwillingness of the Church to contemplate real reforms which would address its many failings, the teachings of Jan Hus were becoming ever more popular. Bethlehem Chapel, a large building with capacity of over 3000 people [1], was regularly full of his followers who were eagerly listening to his preaching against simony, the corruption of the Church and generally the decadence of the whole society.

According to Hus, the Church had drifted so far away from the Christian ideals, that it no longer guaranteed redemption to the believers. Instead, he argued, salvation awaits only those who live according to the God’s law which he had given to the mankind in the form of gospel. He called the community of the true believers who avoid all sin and obey God’s law the true Church of Christ.

Hus preaches in Bethlehem Chapel

It comes without saying that ideas like these were not received well by the Roman Church. The very notion that there could be salvation outside the Church and worse, that the money it received from peasants and nobles alike had in fact no effect on their standing in the afterlife, was indeed a very dangerous one [2]. And this was not the last of his dangerous heresies. He also claimed that a noble or churchman who lived a sinful life did not deserve any respect from commoners and that the Church should return to its apostolic chastity and hand over its earthly riches to the king and the aristocracy [3]. With the growing influence of his ideas the frequency of complains and appeals by the catholic clergy to Rome increased and the Pope slowly began to realize the danger this man was posing to the authority of the Church.

After some time, Hus moved to Moravia to continue his work and again he received a warm welcome by disillusioned people, both commoners and gentry. This alarmed the Catholics. So far, the heresy had been limited to Prague and the Bohemian inland, but now it appeared that the misguided preacher planned to spread his word to other parts of Bohemia too and perhaps even abroad. Unfortunately for them, Friedrich I tolerated this and repeatedly refused to silence the heretic. His inaction was partly motivated by his sympathy for this man's reformatory proposals, but the frustration with the Church played much more important role. The Church was rich in lands and property and the taxes and fees it collected were draining money from state coffers. Therefore, Friedrich hoped, he could trade Hus’s silence for concessions from the Church [4].

Rapid spread of Hus’s teachings in Moravia couldn’t be ignored, however. When Friedrich ignored the appeals from Rome to arrest him, the Pope adopted a different approach. He invited Hus and his close friend Jerome (who took over the leadership of Hus's followers in Prague) to Rome to publicly discuss his proposals for reform. This was entirely unprecedented; the Church had never discussed the matters of faith with people it labeled as heretics before and so Hus sensed it could be a trap. He therefore approached the king and asked him to guarantee his safety once he would leave the kingdom. Friedrich gave him his personal assurance and proclaimed that this man was under his protection: anybody who would harm the preacher would also harm the king of Bohemia. This was a powerful guarantee indeed and so Hus agreed to travel to Rome and explain his ideas to church representatives.

Hus discusses his beliefs with the Catholic bishops

It turned out that his fears were not entirely unfounded. After he and Jerome presented their ideas to the college of high-ranking bishops and theologians and shocked pretty much everybody when they also skillfully refuted the counter-arguments made by their opponents [5], the situation changed dramatically. What began as a scholastic discussion about theological matters quickly turned into a shouting match. When it became unbearable to listen to baseless accusations and insults, both Hus and Jerome left the hall and intended to leave Rome as soon as possible. It was too late; hours later they were both arrested and charged with heresy.

Hus imprisioned in Rome

When Friedrich I heard about Hus’s arrest, he realized that he had been played and that his own calculation to use Hus as leverage against the Church had been turned against him. Thus he sent a message to Rome urging the Pope to release both men and went as far as to promise that he would have them tried before a Bohemian court. It would have been humiliating, but the Church would have got what it wanted. But the Pope was not in conciliatory mood. He needed to boost his prestige after recovering from the Schism so being unforgiving to heretics could only help him, therefore he declined Friedrich’s offer. In an arrogantly phrased letter he expressed doubts about the king’s fidelity, firmness in faith and reminded him of the fact that crimes against the Church can only by punished by the Church.

Hus refuses to recant his beliefs

The trial itself was a farce typical for 15th century "inquisition" tribunals. Neither Hus nor Jerome was given an adequate room for defense and after few hearings a list of 39 articles taken from Hus’s writings which the tribunal found as heretical was presented to them. Then they were both called upon to recant them and promise never to advocate heretical beliefs again. This was of course a mockery, since among these articles were obviously ridiculous views that neither of the two men had ever advocated [6]. They objected to this and refused to recant them.

Before the execution

This was all that was needed to sentence them to death as stubborn heretics. On August 8, 1423, soon after the sentence was announced, they were both burned at stake. Their execution was watched not only by common people, but also by many foreigners, including some diplomats. The message was clear: any reform of the Church must come from within the Church itself. No self-appointed reformers would be tolerated.

Hus was viewed as a martyr of the true faith

Friedrich took Hus’s execution as an insult to himself and an attack against his prestige, however he found himself in a very awkward position: either he could argue that a promise made to a heretic had been null and void, which would definitely damage his prestige even more and probably also spark a rebellion, or he could denounce Pope’s meddling into Bohemian internal matters and thus risk a clerical backlash. Eventually he chose the second option. During his visit in Brünn (Brno), he condemned Pope’s treachery and in order to calm the Hussites (as the followers of Hus began to call themselves) he promised to respect their freedom to follow Hussite teachings.

Moravia becomes Hussite

King’s guarantee energized the Hussites. Soon many nobles and burghers openly proclaimed their adherence to Hus’ doctrine and across the kingdom entire parishes declared themselves for Hus. In Moravia the Hussites had even become a majority. In the end, the martyrdom of Jan Hus didn’t bring the reformists down - on the contrary, it encouraged them to come to the open and to renounce the treacherous Papacy [7].

------

[1] By then it was roughly equal to one thirteenth of Prague’s population.
[2] Telling nobles and peasants that they can buy their ticket to heaven, imagine that!
[3] This he took from Wycliffe. About the part about not respecting the aristocracy, this was often interpreted as a license to revolt against the nobles, though Hus had never said that and he probably wouldn’t have agreed with it.
[4] Lust for the church property was a powerful driving force behind the 16th century Reformation and I doubt that the 15th century monarchs were any different from their future counterparts. They just didn’t have the right pretext to seize it.
[5] In OTL, Jerome was much better at scholarly debates.
[6] This is pretty much what happened in OTL in Constance, only 8 years earlier.
[7] In OTL, the Hussites had never broken away from the Catholic Church and they continued to recognize the Pope as the leader of the Church.

[Winner]

***
The King is dead. Long live the King!
***

Friedrich I eventually paid the highest price for tolerating the Hussites. The king, still relatively young in his 42 years of age, died after a short and strange illness that seemingly came out of nowhere. Friedrich’s death shocked Bohemia, but nobody mourned him more than the followers of Hus who he had always protected. Subsequent investigation found some evidence that the king was poisoned and in a short time many of the king's servants were imprisoned, tortured and many of them hanged with the exception of the chef who was suspected of being the most responsible, which earned him the “honor” of being quartered alive in front of cheering crowds of Prague’s citizens. Even before the executions a number of influential Catholic nobles left Bohemia, most probably because they were somehow connected to the regicide.

One way or another, it was necessary to elect a new king before the kingdom would descend into chaos. Despite the fact that Friedrich’s title wasn’t supposed to be hereditary the Estates chose his teenage son Ladislav as the new king, partly because they were wary of the alternatives (the king of Poland, the archduke of Austria and the king of Hungary [1]) and partly because some nobles believed they would be able to control the new king and reassert themselves after the two decades of Friedrich’s strong rule. 18 years old son of Friedrich I was therefore crowned as Ladislav I on November 2, 1428. The next day he stunned the court by announcing that he would immediately assume all his duties as king. Though many objected to this and tried to dissuade him pointing at his age and lack of experience, Ladislav’s undeniable qualities and wisdom soon became apparent and the opposition was gradually silenced.

Despite Friedrich’s support for the Hussites he was a Catholic and although he had had troubles with the Pope he never actually thought about changing his religion. Ladislav I was different. He had been exposed to Hus’s teachings since childhood as many of his tutors were Hussites and when he ascended to the throne, rumors started to spread that he was in fact a secret Hussite too. Ladislav never responded to these allegations which naturally strengthened suspicion about the king’s true faith. Soon the word about this uncertainty reached Rome and became a source of discomfort to the many successive Popes.

In 1434, series of brutal attacks against Hussites in Moravia sparked a revolt among the Hussite burghers and peasantry who demanded better protection from the Catholic minority, which often resorted to assassinations and arson against Hussite churches in order to create fear among them. Even though Ladislav had strong military garrison in Moravia and could have easily crushed the rebellion, he instead chose to withdraw the soldiers to Bohemia as a signal that he was willing to negotiate with the rebels. This alarmed the Church since many believed that the king would use the negotiations as an opportunity to abandon his Catholic faith and proclaim himself a Hussite, thus breaking one of the most powerful countries in Central Europe from the Roman Church altogether. This had to be stopped at all costs.

That is why the Pope began to secretly negotiate with the archduke of Austria who also held the title of Holy Roman Emperor, pressing him to send his forces to Moravia and deal with the rebels himself since the Bohemian king was obviously unwilling to do this himself. Despite Ladislav’s expressed objections, the Emperor sent his troops north under the pretext of transferring them to Brandenburg to aid it against Pommerania. In a few weeks the badly organized rag-tag armies of the rebels were defeated and dispersed, the rebellion crushed and the danger of Ladislav’s conversion averted. Young king of course protested against this interference into his kingdom’s internal matters but his hands were tied as the Emperor was entitled to military access to all Holy Roman Empire’s member states. In the end, he just had to suffer this humiliation and move on [2].

Unfortunately for him, the Pope wasn’t finished yet. The continued existence of a large community of heretics in Bohemia together with the doubts over its king’s true religion posed a great challenge to the authority and prestige of the Papacy which was still recovering from the Schism and thus remained sensitive over these issues. In order to exert pressure on Ladislav, the Pope decided to recall the archbishop of Prague and the bishop of Olmutz (Olomouc) back to Rome and thus made it impossible to ordain new priests which in turn meant a lot of trouble for the 15th century Bohemian society in which religion played a very important role [3].

The Pope made it clear to the king through unofficial channels that the archbishop and the other bishops would return only if he publicly reaffirms his allegiance to the Catholic Church and commits himself to fighting heresy in his realm. Much to the Pope’s surprise, Ladislav ignored this move and remained ambivalent about his true faith. Moreover, as a form of payback he invited humanist thinkers from Italy and Western Europe to live and work in Bohemia, where they would be safe from Church’s harassment. As a result of this, humanism spread rapidly among the Bohemian thinkers and artists and contributed to an explosion of arts, philosophy and sciences which was later “the Bohemian Renaissance” [4].

------

[1] Historically the most serious contenders. Monarchs from all three countries ruled over Bohemia during the 15th and 16th century.
[2] In game terms it happened like this: Hussites in Moravia rebelled and I wanted to let them succeed and then negotiate with them. I am role-playing and this would have justified the conversion. Unfortunately the Austrians started moving one of their armies to Moravia. I quickly cancelled their military access, but since they were HRE and they were in war, they still had an access, arrived to Moravia and crushed the rebels anyway. Well, the revolution has to wait, I guess...
[3] In other words, I got the “Absentee Bishop” event shortly after the rebel affair was over.
[4] Humanism spread pretty fast after the AB event. I know it isn’t related but the game was really helpful this time.

[M4 Emperior]

Józef z bagien...

Życza ci powodzenia.
Tobiasz Sztajer zo Slezka.

[Winner]

***
Prelude to a revolution
***

Although the contemporary observers thought the situation in Bohemia was stable due to the tolerance of the Hussites, the reality was different and tensions were growing in the country. The tensions stemmed from different religious make-up of the various strata of the population: while the urban population and most of peasants accepted the Hussite faith, the higher aristocracy did not and the lesser nobles were divided in half on the matter of religion. The Church of course supported the catholic aristocracy as much as it could under the circumstances.

Besides social tensions, there were also differences between the Czech and German speaking communities. Ethnic Germans who made up majority of the population in Lusatia and Silesia (there were also sizable German communities in Bohemian borderlands and towns) remained unmoved by Hus’s teachings, mostly because Hus and most of his followers were preaching in Czech to a Czech audience. Thus, most German inhabitants of Bohemia had little idea what was this new faith about and instinctively stuck to their Catholic faith. The only German converts came from bigger Bohemian and Moravian towns, where they were more exposed to Hussite ideas [1].

Ethnic composition of Bohemia in 15th century

Divisions like that had to end in violence. The first explosion of anger took place in Upper Silesia in 1446. Local peasants and small, predominately Hussite urban population was especially hard-pressed by the local nobility, which abused religious divisions to enrich itself. Having received the blessing of the Church, the nobles demanded higher taxes from Hussite subjects, arguing that special taxation would serve as a motivation for them to return to the true faith. The fact was that they didn’t want them to convert back to Catholicism, because they’d lose the justification for the extra taxation, which is why they didn’t even try to ban Hussite priests from performing their duties (except occasional arson attacks against Hussite chapels). In order to convince the Church that their motives were pure, they often punished crimes committed by Hussites much more severely, often with death.

The uprising in this province erupted when a catholic nobleman ordered executions of several peasants because they were unable to pay the extra “heresy tax”, as it was called. This act of extreme arrogance and brutality was the last straw for the other peasants in the village: they rose up, charged the nobleman’s mansion and lynched him together with his wife and servants. Once the neighboring villages learned about this, they rose up too, often led by lesser nobles (not nearly all of them were Hussites) who sought to gain land and property from their richer counterparts. In about a month, the revolt engulfed most of Upper Silesia. Many chateaus, mansions, monasteries and churches were looted and many aristocrats as well as also many common people, Catholics and Hussites alike, were killed. Despite all that, the revolt didn’t have openly religious character – it was more of a spontaneous outburst of anger from the frustration with the oppression and injustice rather than a religious uprising seeking to push forward religious agenda.

If it had been purely a peasant revolt, Ladislav would have simply sent his troops to quell it; however the participation of some nobles led him to restrain himself. Instead, he chose to negotiate. His representatives met with the rebel leaders and forged a peace settlement. The king granted an amnesty to all the rebels, declared the practice of special taxation for Hussites illegal and promised to respect the “redistribution” of land which took place during the revolt [2]. Then the rebels laid down arms and royal army was deployed in the province to keep order.

If Ladislav I thought that he had defused the crisis, he was wrong. In the following two years, he had to deal with similar revolts in other provinces, which just followed the example of Upper Silesia: Wroclaw, Erz, even parts of Bohemia itself. In many cases he had to make further concessions harmful to his prestige, because he couldn’t trust the military to put down the revolts by force. The period of so-called “Peasant war” didn’t end until 1448 [3].

It served as a sort of wake up call to Ladislav since he realized how badly he needed to reform the military, if he was to survive another upheaval like this. With the help of a brilliant military strategist, Mojmir of Pardubice, he launched a major reform of the military. He established a small standing army acting as a core of the military with predominately Hussite officers serving at top positions. Hussites were generally thought to be more reliable due to their respect for the king who acted as a protector of their religious rights. Infantry which made up the backbone of the new force received better training, better armor and better training. A lot of emphasis was put on the loyalty to the king. In the end, the military was transformed from a medieval feudal army into a more modern and much better motivated professional force [4].

-------

[1] Ethnic composition of Bohemia is not simulated well in Magna Mundi (and the vanilla EU3 for that matter). Lusatia consisting of Oberlausitz and Niederlausitz provinces is culturally “Saxon” from Germanic culture group (in reality there was still sizable Sorbian population) while Silesia is “Schlesian”, listed as West Slavic culture group whereas in reality most of Silesia was populated by people speaking German or Polish. Furthermore, the border provinces of Erz and Sudety are “Czech”, despite having German or Germanized names and despite the fact that they were mostly German by the 15th century. What a mess...

[2] It was some MM event, I chose to lower taxes to the revolters.

[3] Peasant was in Magna Mundi can be very troublesome. Fortunately, it’s much more manageable if you’re playing a smaller country.

[4] I reorganized it, upgraded “Foot Soldiers” infantry to “Men at Army” and hired a 5 star military adviser.

[Enewald]

w00t!
Wycliff!
Lollards!
Hus!
Hussites!
woohoo!!!!

Great aar!!!

[Winner]

Am I daydreaming? A comment? In English?

[Enewald]

Am I daydreaming? A comment? In English?

I could have posted it in german, finnish or swedish too.
But I just thought it'd be easier for everyone if it is in english.

[gabor]

i like your aar, and have a soft spot for hussites
only internal strive so far, no wars -?- being pacifist or playing it safe?
(agree with culture distribution comments of yours)

[Winner]

i like your aar, and have a soft spot for hussites
only internal strive so far, no wars -?- being pacifist or playing it safe?
(agree with culture distribution comments of yours)

There will be wars, don't worry.

I took (ok, my game did) a different approach. Instead of having the Hussites rise to power as a bunch of disaffected peasants, they'll take their time.

This will be more of a prelude to the protestant reformation half a century later.

[vanin]

A really nice history-book aar, a great read so far!

[dharper]

Very nice indeed - well written and interesting.

I only hope the Hussite events can live up to the expectations created in this thread - they are still very primitive.

[Throne]

Bah! Heresy...

Nice AAR though.

[Milites]

I submit my approval of this AAR.
*hands over note*

You are doing a great job at explaining this confusing situation!

[Winner]

A really nice history-book aar, a great read so far!

Thank you!

Very nice indeed - well written and interesting.

I only hope the Hussite events can live up to the expectations created in this thread - they are still very primitive.

To be honest, the event chain got a bit broken, so I had to manually help things here and then. It doesn't matter much, the revolution will happen anyway

Bah! Heresy...

Nice AAR though.

Heresy... well, that depends on your viewpoint

I submit my approval of this AAR.
*hands over note*

You are doing a great job at explaining this confusing situation!

Thanks, coming from you, it's really encouraging!

The situation is going to get even more confusing soon, I hope I won't get lost in it.