Night of 21 to 22 December 1421
The breakout
In the evening the royal army camps barely a bowshot from the wagon fort, close to the town and its food. The Hussites, with little to eat or drink, keep a fast in the frost, by Laurence of Březová. During the night Žižka forms the wagons into a column and drives straight through the royal camp, and the king’s army is driven from the place where it lay.
A handgun fired from a rest, in Konrad Kyeser’s Bellifortis, about 1405Wikimedia Commons, Konrad Kyeser, Public domain (Hand-cannon-being-fired-from-a-stand-belli-fortis-manuscript-by-konrad-kyeser-1400.jpg)
The guns fire from the wagons as they roll, and gunfire in the dark throws the royal camp into confusion. Some historians call it the first mobile artillery manoeuvre in history. The Kronika velmi pěkná puts the attack at nine in the evening, and modern accounts at about five in the morning.
Kutná Hora seen from the lookout tower on Kaňk, north of the townWikimedia Commons, Czeva, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Kaňk, view of Kutná Hora 01.jpg)
Less than a quarter of a mile on, below the hill of Kaňk, the wagons close into a fort again at daybreak. Sigismund awaits more troops and does not attack, and the Hussites withdraw to Kolín. The king takes the retreat for a victory and lets his men find winter quarters in the villages around.
Sources
- Josef Pekař, Zprávy pramenů o bojích u Hory a Brodu kol vánoc 1421 (1928).
- Ze zpráv a kronik doby husitské (1981), pp. 55 to 56.
- Jan Durdík, Husitské vojenství (1953).
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