Evolution of a Concept — The Tank Prefigured?

Pretentious and shallow surveys of the development of modern armor doctrine find precedents for the tank as far back as the Hyksos, Philistine or Egyptian chariot. But that’s really just glib pop history, patching together synthetic parallels for dramatic effect. The chariot was initially a weapons carrier for infantry — the British World War II Bren carrier and the Humvee of Desert Storm fame come to mind rather than Guderian’s panzer columns. Somewhat later, there was an effort to employ chariots to break enemy infantry formations, but the elephant proved far more effective in that role until ways were devised to panic those temperamental beasts.

There were several notable pre-Ziska theoretical speculations as to the employment of mobile firepower, but they were fanciful musings on a concept of a force multiplier rather than well thought out practical blueprints for production and deployment. Even the noted tank sketches of Leonardo da Vinci are really no more precursors of the modern tank than the ancient near eastern chariot. There is no continuity with or linkage to Moltke-era tactical innovations. These were simply reveries about obvious battlefield wish lists.

But shortly after the successful Prussian campaign against the Danes in 1864, and just before the AustroPrussian (“Seven Weeks”) War, one Lt. Col. Kammby took a stab at reviving the Hussite system in his treatise, The Battlewagon: A Historical Study with Observations on the Unique Features and the Employment of the Battlewagon. This 19th century German essay is discussed in a long footnote by the famous historian of warfare Hans Delbruck in his classic work, History of the Art of War. It bears repeating here:

This little document is valuable and very interesting because of the practical purpose which is the author’s real concern, that is, to indicate the possibility of a battlewagon for the future, which, as an arm between cavalry and infantry, could blend the numerous advantages of both those arms. It is easy to understand that transported infantry could be very useful in some circumstances, but it is astonishing to what extent the author, who as an artilleryman was a competent driver, believed that wagons could compete with cavalry in accomplishing the truly cavalry mission... the author, who was caught up in his pet idea, had read it to some extent into the sources and so, from the fantasy of Aeneas Sylvius, has drawn still another fantasy, one that, to be sure, is not quite so impossible but has just as little historical background. He imagines that the Hussite wagons are battlewagons like cavalry, which bring shock action against the enemy and break up his closed formations.

That idea is strikingly similar to the tank concepts prevalent during the late 1930s. Kammby also incorporated the countervailing notion of the tank as a shield and leading element for advancing infantry. His monograph was written just before engine propulsion was feasible and therefore envisioned a more efficient and agile application of animal-drawn vehicles. However, apart from Delbruck, few seemed to have noticed this unusual Hussite derivative. By the time agricultural caterpillar tractors were being appraised for possible military applications around 1905, the Ziska episode was of historical interest only.

Hussite Baptism of Fire: Breaking the Siege of Prague, 1420

The opening clash between the crusaders and the Hussite nation-in-arms came at a point early in the developmental stage of the wagon-fort system. The siege of Prague occurred at a time when the device was still more of an improvised expedient than a deliberate scheme.

At the onset of the Papal call to arms, the laborites instinctively went on the defensive, infiltrating whatever fortified towns and castles they could and throwing up screens of earthworks where feasible. Such quantities of the innovative hand firearms as could be scrounged from the armories of turncoat Czech nobles were spliced into the ranks of the peasant throng, who were otherwise armed with converted agricultural implements and crossbows.

Ziska had appreciated the Potential of the wagon-fort tactic before the start of the Holy Roman drive to suppress the Czech rebellion. Czech Units in the civil strife had implemented the method to some extent during the reign of Venceslas IV, in which Ziska had taken part.

The only access route to Prague was through a relatively open flank of the siege guarded by a Spiny ridge called Ziskov Hill. This was the Imperialists’ obvious focal point for further operations. Ziska, well aware of the hill’s crucial location, hastened to reinforce the existing watchtower on its summit by throwing up two wooden bulwarks and digging ramparts strengthened with stones, fronted by a ditch. Several field guns were placed in back of the rampart, but the configuration of the terrain didn’t allow the use of wagon-forts.

The Imperialists’ operations around Prague were marked by their inability to coordinate the efforts of the various factions of knights. Their coordinated offensives tended to become unraveled when some units failed to act due both to lack of enthusiasm and poor communications. Ziska’s men were even able to take one of the surrounding enemy held castles from its garrison, though here again there was no scope for employing wagon-forts.

But from this experience, what Ziska did learn was that a tightly knit and coordinated defense could lure the inflexible chivalry to throw themselves recklessly and piecemeal against devastating firepower. The laborite general also perceived how cracks in the Imperialist coalition had prevented them from making anything beyond lackadaisical and disjointed thrusts rather than launching a much feared abrupt and all out onslaught that might have overturned the lengthy preparations the Hussites required to check a determined heavy cavalry charge. These lessons all had implications for those occasions when the wagon-forts could be used to advantage.

Conclusion

The complexity and precise calibration demanded by this barricade and counterattack system presupposed a degree of dedication and steadfastness not customarily associated with a mass army. Only an inspired and talented leader the likes of Ziska and his successor Prokop, along with the fanatical sense of duty and zeal of the hymn-singing Hussite throngs, could have made it work. Significantly, the system was only effective against an enemy armed and led much as the plodding and inflexible knightly orders. Once opposed by a similarly constituted force, such as at the fratricidal showdown at Lip-any, the results were indecisive.

The wagon-fort system was taken up briefly by various German duchies in the latter half of the 15th century. But as field artillery became more mobile and flexible, the wagon bulwark turned into-more of an impediment than a shelter and it completely fell out of use by the time of the Thirty— Year’s War (1618-48).

We can also put aside the whimsical vision of the wagon-fort as some kind of land battle fleet,--armored train, or panzer prototype. If a modern analogy is needed, then perhaps the towed antitank gun Pakfront of World War II is most suitable. Similar to that German defensive method used against the Soviet juggernaut in 1943-45 Ziska employed an anvil-and-hammer, bait-and-hook--tactical scheme. But it’s not necessary to embrace— any overheated hype about Ziska as a predecessor to Guderian to appreciate that the Hussite armies were the wonder and terror of central Europe at the beginning of the artillery epoch.

Jan Ziska: The Making of a Medieval Warlord

It’s reliably estimated Jan Trocnov was born into a gentry family in 1359. (His norn de guerre, “Ziska meaning in Czech “One Eyed,” was given him later after he’d lost an eye in combat.) His nominal squirehood was enough to gain the young man an appointment as hunter for the court of Bohemia’s King Wenceslas. As leader of the royal hunting parties, Ziska gained experience in fieldcraft and marksmanship that served him well in later years.

At some point Ziska left the king’s service to join one of the guerrilla bands forming across Bohemia. It was during the period of shifting alliances, raid and counter-raid among the noble factions, that Ziska’s prowess at war attracted the attention of the Moravian nobleman John Sokol of Lamberg.

Sokol had observed the special influence Ziska had over peasants and members of the lower gentry — in short, over those who had little to lose in opposing tyranny. He also noted how Ziska was uncommonly skilled at quickly adapting his plans of attack and defense to take advantage of topography.

Sokol sought and got Ziska’s participation in an expedition he was organizing to assist the King of Poland against the incursions of the Teutonic Knights (see Command no. 31, p. 80). The Knights had at first pushed east with a civilizing mission against the heathen Lithuanians. During that phase, Wenceslas supported the German crusade. The Knights esteemed Czech soldiers as the finest in central Europe and actively recruited among them.

But when the Lithuanians accepted Christianity, Czech support for the Knights quickly evaporated. In fact, most in Bohemia and Moravia were sympathetic to the struggle of fellow Slavic peoples against German invaders. Czech soldiers rallied to the Polish/Lithuanian standards. Of the fifty Polish banners flying on the field of Grunwald (Tannenberg) on 15 July 1410, five denoted units comprised of Bohemian and Moravian volunteers. Ziska is known to have been present at this critical battle, but it’s not known for certain if he stayed at the Polish king’s headquarters or took a position in the line.

Ziska, in fact, was Sokol’s eager student throughout the Polish campaign. He experienced the movement of large bodies of troops in full-scale combat and observed for the first time the effects of gunpowder weapons. He immediately grasped the limitations the new technology placed on armored cavalry fighting entrenched dismounted forces. Ziska was also able to study the way both sides used the cover of their supply trains when driven back on their camps.

While Ziska’s warrior destiny was being formulated on a foreign field of combat, his homeland raged with a wave of religious and nationalistic upheaval. By the time of his return in 1412, the preaching of Hus had inflamed his countrymen.

On his return from the Polish campaign, Ziska took up residence near Prague, once again entering the service of Wenceslas’ court, this time as a bodyguard. Since the queen worshiped at the chapel where Hus preached, Ziska soon struck up a relationship with the heretical pastor. In fact, along with most of the royal retinue, he soon became an ardent devotee.

After the papal summons for a crusade, the Hussites coalesced into war parties around four captains. Ziska led the most militant faction, some 400 followers —and, equally important, a dozen farm carts — to labor.

Hussites on the Offensive

The portrayal of Ziska’s methods as being totally defensive, both tactically and strategically, is an overstatement. A few chroniclers recorded scenes of the wagon laager system employed in deep raiding forays — evidently a kind of strategic pursuit and preemptive jab rather than any attempt to subdue the knightly orders to convert them to the Hussite creed.

One of the more fanciful contemporary chroniclers, Aeneas Sylvius, an official in the Papal court, was particularly interested in recording the astounding performance of the Hussite armies. In one of his descriptions, he writes of the wagon columns moving across an open field to engage formations of knights as the latter were advancing to attack. The Hussite train, according to Sylvius, would cut the charging knights into isolated groups by forming various letters of the alphabet, all directed by the use of flag signals.

Elsewhere, he mentions extended flying columns of rushing war carts firing their cannon broadside into the flanks of surrounded Imperial forces. Though this was surely an exaggeration, Ziska’s warriors did become imbued with a spirit of invincibility as their victories mounted. The Imperialist agglomeration of knights tended to become unnerved merely upon hearing the thunderous war anthems chanted from inside the lumbering wagon trains. As early as 1423, Ziska conducted a bold experiment, leading an expedition into Hungary only to quickly bring it back when the limitations of the wagon-fort system for the offensive manifested themselves.

The overheated, drill-like precision in combat attributed to the Hussites by Sylvius and his like was surmised rather than observed. The Hungarian expedition (along with others launched later into other enemy heartlands) was only possible because of the fearful reputation the Hussite war machine had already earned for itself. The Germans, Moravians, Hungarians and others whose lands were raided in this way didn’t dare challenge the Plundering procession of Bohemian wagon warriors. Had the Imperialists been bold enough and flexible enough to attack the extended files of wagons on the move in constricting terrain, the vaunted wagon-fort system would have been literally stopped in its tracks.

Hussites Part 1 (Saga 91)

Used with permission from Command Magazine