the authorities how best to meet the coming danger, and equipping his army for the campaign. December 8th he started for Kuttenberg, where he intended to await the Imperial army. The Prague army, under its own leader, followed him the next day.
The war that now followed between Sigmund and the Hussites was one of the most interesting of that age. Never before had it been so clearly shown how a small army, actuated by high moral principles and commanded by an able general, was able to cope with vastly superior forces. Sigmund had a well-disciplined, splendidly-equipped army, accustomed to fighting, at least three times as large as that of the Hussites, and commanded by the renowned General Pipa, of Ozora. Both men and generals, therefore, went to the scene of action fully confident that now, at last, the power of heretics in Bohemia would be forever broken.
In the campaign the Hussites had not only to compete with vastly superior forces, but, what was even worse, with treachery. When Žižka arrived at Kuttenberg, he was received with every appearance of joy, which, however, was only feigned. It will be remembered how kindly the miners had been treated by the Hussites the year previous; this kindness they now rewarded with the blackest ingratitude. A plot was formed to murder all the Hussites. When, therefore, the Hussite army left the city to go out to meet the Imperial forces, the work of destruction began. The miners and other Catholics fell upon the unsuspecting people, and ruthlessly massacred all who could not give the word agreed upon, not even sparing helpless women and little children. They were aided in this bloody work by the soldiers of Sigmund, who had,
15
