reuth in the Upper Palatinate, not far from the Bohemian frontier. He here expected to be joined by large reinforcements, but hardly any German troops appeared. The Margrave of Meissen, who was to attack Bohemia from Saxony and thus create a diversion, did not move. The annual Silesian raid was too distant and too insignificant to affect the events at the principal theatre of war. When even the Bishop of Würzburg, who had joined the army, declared that it was better not to enter Bohemia at all than to suffer another defeat there, Frederick disbanded his forces.
While Sigismund’s hope of subduing Bohemia by the help of Germany was thus again disappointed—as indeed it continued to be up to the end of the war—he about this time obtained an important diplomatic success. Ever since the arrival of Prince Korybutovič in Bohemia the Holy See had constantly appealed to the Grand Duke Vitold of Lithuania and his cousin, the King of Poland, attempting to induce them, both by promises and menaces, to recall Korybutovič. It must be admitted that Vitold, and to a far greater extent Ladislas, acted disloyally towards the Bohemian people. During the short first rule of Korybutovič in Bohemia the Polish clergy, led by Simon Olesnicky, who had just become Bishop of Cracow, fully used its vast influence against the Bohemians.[1] The implacable hatred of Utraquism which has always been a characteristic of the Roman Church was in Poland intensified by the vicinity of Lithuania and Russia, where the Greek Church has always maintained the right of laymen to receive Communion in the two kinds.[2] Vitold had in a letter which I have already quoted attempted to describe the
- ↑ It is impossible to enter here more fully into the politics of Poland, though their influence on Bohemia was far greater than is usually supposed.
- ↑ As I have written elsewhere, the connection between politics and religious controversy is in Eastern Europe nearly as close as it was in the Middle Ages, and the intense animosity between the Eastern and the Western Churches still continues. During a recent debate in the Austrian parliament (October 1912) the priest Bauchinger declared that he “saw no difference between Islam and schism,” meaning of course Mahomedanism and the Eastern Church.
