April 1430 – 1432
Upper Hungary, 1430–1432
On 16 April 1430 the Orphan captain Velek Koudelník of Březnice leads about 10,000 Orphans, Taborites and men of the New Town of Prague into Upper Hungary, in return for the hearing at Nuremberg that Sigismund has not allowed. They march through Moravia and Holíč in a column of wagons towards the marshy plain between Trnava and the Váh. Sigismund directs his troops from Šintava castle and has them attack the column on the march from two sides, on flat ground that suits his horse.
Sigismund’s wars against the Hussites, a woodcut in the Chronicle of the Hungarians of János Thuróczy, 1488Wikimedia Commons, unknown artist, Public domain (Thuróczy krónika - Zsigmond király háborúi a husziták ellen.jpg)
On 28 April Stibor of Stiboricz the younger strikes first and gets in among the wagons before the Hussites can close the fort. Velek is killed and the front gives way, but the Hungarian and Serbian soldiers start to plunder the wagons, and the Hussites counterattack, drive them out and close the fort. John Maróti, who is to attack from behind, comes late and does not attack the closed fort. The Hussites withdraw to Moravia the same night. Bartošek of Drahonice counts 2,000 Hussite dead and as many horses.
The town walls and the Bernolák gate of Trnava, held by a Hussite garrison from 1432Wikimedia Commons, Photograph: palickap (talk), CC BY-SA 4.0 (Trnava, Bernolákova brána.JPG)
In autumn 1431 the Orphans under Jan Čapek of Sány and the Taborites under Prokop the Great ride by Uherský Brod to the Váh. They quarrel over the booty, and the Taborites go home. In November the Hungarian horse catches the Orphans crossing the Váh near Ilava before they can close their wagon fort, and they lose their booty, their wagons and more than two thirds of their men. In 1432 Hussite captains take Trnava, Skalica and Žilina, and with the castle of Likava and the town of Topoľčany they hold bases in Upper Hungary until after 1434.
Likava castle, a Hussite stronghold in Upper HungaryWikimedia Commons, HradiVslovensko, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Likava Castle.jpg)
Sources
- Branislav Varsík, Husitské revolučné hnutie a Slovensko (1965).
- František Šmahel, Die Hussitische Revolution (2002), vol. 3.
- Eberhard Windecke, Denkwürdigkeiten zur Geschichte des Zeitalters Kaiser Sigmunds, and Bartošek of Drahonice, Chronicle, after the Czech Wikipedia article Bitva u Trnavy.
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