Battle of Hiltersried

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Battle of Hiltersried
Part of: Hussite Wars
date September 21, 1433
place Hiltersried ( Gde.Schönthal ), Bavaria
output Victory of the Upper Palatinate troops
Parties to the conflict

Hussites

Upper Palatinate

Commander

Johann Pardus

Johann von Pfalz-Neumarkt

Troop strength
about 1,600 men approx. 1,200 men
losses

approx. 1,500 dead and 300 wounded prisoners

approx. 140 fallen

In 1433 Johann von Pfalz-Neumarkt undertook a campaign against the Hussites who were plundering in the Upper Palatinate . Count Palatine Johann was considered a special enemy of the Hussites, as he had handed Hieronymus of Prague over to the Council of Constance . On September 21, his field captain Hintschik Pflug and his 1,200 men (around 200 brushwood and 1,000 foot soldiers, servants and riflemen) succeeded in building one near the village of Hiltersried (in today's municipality of Schönthal ) - in today's district of Cham in the Upper Palatinate Beat about 1,600 strong Taborite detachments . Count Palatine Johann did not ride with the battle himself, but stayed with his son Christoph in Neunburg, where he prayed for victory with outstretched arms in the mountain church of St. George. At the time of the battle he was considered an old man and was held back by his knights ("Sed prohibitus a milicia"), as his protection would have bound too many knights in battle. It was one of the bigger battles the Hussites were defeated in.

Hussite wagon castle

prehistory

The Hussites had besieged Pilsen, which had become Catholic again, from mid-July 1433 . The neighboring territories therefore tried to build up a defensive front, as further incursions were to be expected. The city of Nuremberg took on the leading role ; The representatives of threatened princes and cities met here on July 15, 1433, and it was decided to put the border castles in readiness for defense. However, the resolutions were only implemented very poorly. The mercenary troops sent from Nuremberg to Neunburg were even withdrawn on September 3rd because others had not kept their promises. Count Palatine Johann received no help from his relatives either, and that from Duke Albrecht III. Troops promised by Bayern-Munich came too late.

By the leader of the Taborite Field Army before Pilsen, Andreas Prokop , the captains John Pardus of Horka and John Rzitka of Bezdetitz were to foraging in the Nordgau sent. On September 16, 1433, the army left Pilsen and moved to Reichenstein via Taus . On September 18, the Hussites tried to storm Obermurach Castle , but they did not succeed. Then they turned to Schwarzhofen , where they had burned down the Schwarzhofen monastery in 1427 . They took hostages and extorted ransom from the surrounding villages. On September 21, 1433, the day of the evangelist Matthew, they passed Neunburg vorm Wald .

The Upper Palatinate Army gathered at Schwarzenburg , and the Nabburg aid contingent also arrived. A messenger reported that the Hussites were planning to move to Hiltersried. The army then left the assembly point and marched to Hiltersried.

Course of the battle

Hintschik Pflug attacked at Vesper time , between 3:30 p.m. and 6 p.m., and thus unusually late in the day. That is why the Hussites, who did not expect any more attack that day, had not yet finished building their wagons . The Palatinate-Neumarctic Army formed itself in three blocks: In the middle the riders were in a first wedge-shaped, then block-wise formation (this went down in war history in 1450 as the "Pillenreuther Battle Order"). To the left and right of it were two groups of infantry. In front of it, shooters armed with crossbows and rifles were placed in two groups.

After crossbowmen from Upper Palatinate had shelled the camp, the riders rushed in a wedge formation towards the entrance on the narrow side of the wagon castle. At the same time, the infantry attacked the long sides in order to bind forces of the Hussites. This enabled the knights to break through into the wagon castle. After that, the Hussites were unable to counter the attackers and tried to flee. The Upper Palatinate followed them.

In the end, around 1,500 Hussites reportedly remained on the battlefield and 300 were captured; their leaders escaped and reached Pilsen with about 130 men . In contrast, according to tradition, the Upper Palatinate only lost fourteen citizens and farmers. Another 120 or so people from Upper Palatinate died from their injuries later after the battle.

Contemporary depiction of the Battle of Hiltersried

A local source (Prelate Josef Kraus: "Gleißenberg - Ein Heimatbuch", 1973) describes the battle as follows:

In 1431 the Hussites burned Erasmus Sattelboger's castle in Arnschwang , but the lord of the castle succeeded in ambushing the enemy and overpowering an enemy division with the help of the peasants. Again the Hussites moved to Bavaria to get provisions, because in Bohemia there was famine due to poor cultivation of the fields. 500 horsemen and 1,100 infantry under the leadership of the captains Pardus and Ritka were sent to plunder the Upper Palatinate. Via Neukirchen near Hl. Blut , Roding , Walderbach , Reichenbach , they penetrated to Nabburg , consuming and searing . The Hussites wanted to return home, loaded with booty, when Duke Johann von Neumarkt-Neunburg brought them near Hiltersried . The Hussites believed a special vengeance to him to be guilty because his carer Teynstorffer to Hirschau that time the Jerome of Prague captured and to the Emperor of Konstanz had delivered. When the Count Palatinate saw the danger of the Hussites coming, he called on the rural people all around, sent messages to the neighboring nobility and gathered the armed crew on the Schwarzenburg near Rötz. The supreme command was transferred to the already battle-tested Hintschik plow. The standard bearer was Wilhelm Paulsdorfer . Next to him stood a well-known seventy-year-old warrior, Johann Zenger von Schneeberg , also the Wartberger von Kürnberg , Ulrich Thürlinger on Thürlstein , Hans Sazenhofer on Frauenstein, Marquard streng, keeper from Cham, Ulrich Fronhofer, Albrecht von Treffelstein and Bodenstein and others. Among these others, who are not mentioned by name, the Hausner (Hans Hausner or his son) from Burgstall near Gleißenberg may have been. (...)
Before we set off, there was a service, then the train started moving. It was St. Matthew's Day, September 21st. The elderly Count Palatine Johann, in his holy anger, wanted to fight the heretics personally, but his son Christoph and the knights did not admit it. During the fight, the Count Palatine threw himself down in front of the sacrament house in the parish church in Neunburg vW and with arms outstretched pleaded with his wife Beatrix to God for victory and mercy. In the meantime the army had rushed after the robbers and surprised them in an entrenched camp near Hiltersried. The Hussites fought fiercely. They had built their wagon castle on a hill that is still called "Hussitenbirl" today , which seemed to be a defiant fortress, because their wagons were chained together and seemed to defy any attack. The brave Upper Palatinate took hold of the wagon castle and broke through it impetuously. Then a terrible hand-to-hand combat began. 1,177 dead remained in the forest and 330 were wounded and taken prisoner. Only a small remainder managed to escape, including the two captains Pardus and Ritka, who escaped across the border at Grafenried . Bayern lost 10 knights and 129 men. All of Germany cheered at the victory at Hiltersried. At last the enemy who was believed to be invincible was overcome. The deep wounds, of course, which had been inflicted on the country and the people, required a good time before they healed. Everywhere there was need and misery, entire villages were deserted and burned down. (...) Despite the heavy defeat, the Hussites raised their cheeky heads again and appeared in front of neighboring Waldmünchen in 1434, captured it and destroyed it so terribly that it lay there for a few years. ... In the same year (1434) Gleißenberg became a desolate place of fire.

The knight Ventzel von Retz (Wenzel von Rötz) brought the Count Palatine the victory report and the still bloody sword of the Hintschik plow. After receiving the victory report, Johannes and his son Christoph had to come to Regensburg immediately to negotiate with Duke Ludwig von Ingolstadt . A victory ceremony took place in the cathedral there, while the celebrations in Neunburg and Neumarkt could only take place after his return.

Consequences of the battle

Memorial to the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Hiltersried (erected in 1933)

The defeat at Hiltersried led to internal quarrels among the Hussites. After the return of Johannes Pardus, the Hussites encamped in front of Pilsen got into an uproar. The commander, who was returning home, was tried to be sentenced to death as a coward and he was handcuffed. Thereupon Andreas Prokop faced the raging and demanded that he be set free again. The crowd was so excited that they didn't follow him or one of the warriors grabbed a stool and hit Prokop in the face with it, so that he collapsed bleeding. The thug was proclaimed in command and Prokop was arrested. After a few days he was released and asked to take over the command again. He refused and went to Prague to have his wound healed. With this, Procopius had lost face and authority - that was the beginning of the end of the Hussites.

The long-smoldering conflict between the radical Taborites - who wanted to fight to the end - and the moderate Utraquists ( Calixtines ) broke out again. In the Battle of Lipan on May 30, 1434 , the Taborites were defeated by the Utraquists. The Hussite movement broke up and the end of the Hussite Wars drew nearer.

Sources on the battle

A “memorial sheet” provides information about the battle of Hiltersried and its participants, which had to be read out on the anniversary of the battle (September 24th). This lists the fallen citizens and some of the aristocratic battle participants. The copy of this memorial slip, which is kept in the church of Neunburg vorm Walde, was used as a document in a trial between Duke Albrecht V and Elector Friedrich III. used by the Palatinate as proof that the Cham office had been Palatine property for centuries. The copy was not doubted by the other side, so it was considered correct at the time. Another source are the records of Andreas von Regensburg , who summarized his diary-like entries into a chronicle of Bavaria.

literature

  • Josef Kraus (1973). Gleißenberg. A home book . Pfarramt Gleißenberg (ed.): Self-published Oberviechtach.
  • Peter Pauly (1983). The battle of Hiltersried, 1433. In Hans Fischer, Manfred Kindler, Theo Männer, Peter Pauly, Otto Reimer & Rudolf Wisneth (eds.), Festschrift for the Pfalzgraf-Johann year 1983 (pp. 77-101). Neunburg vorm Wald: Schmiedl.
  • Heinz Rieder (1998). The Hussites. Gernsbach: Casimir Katz Verlag. ISBN 3-925825-71-1 .
  • Karl Winkler (1939). The battle of Hiltersried in 1433. Würzburg-Aumühle, K. Triltsch (also dissertation from the University of Munich).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Heinz Rieder, 1998, pp. 226-227.

See also