<\/p>
Any list of history\u2019s greatest military commanders will include some clear and undeniable choices: Alexander the Great<\/a>, Napoleon<\/a>, Julius Caesar<\/a>, Hannibal<\/a>, Genghis Khan<\/a>, and maybe Sun Tzu for his book The Art of War<\/em>. But no list is complete without Jan \u017di\u017eka.<\/p>\n A national hero to the Czechs, the 15th-century general was an unmatched tactician and an innovator in weaponry, who never lost a single battle despite leading an army of peasants and farmers against hardened soldiers. And most of the time, he was completely blind.<\/p>\n While \u017di\u017eka\u2019s deeds in the Hussite Wars<\/a> made him a legend, his life before has either been lost to history or can only be guessed. Maybe born c1360 or 1376 in Trocnov, Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic) to an upper-class family, it is believed he became an experienced mercenary, maybe a bandit too. At some point, he lost one of his eyes. He may have fought in the battle of Grunwald in 1410, a major engagement that shifted the balance of power in Europe, before possibly entering the service of King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia.<\/p>\n What can be said is that \u017di\u017eka became a follower of the religious firebrand Jan Hus, whose movement was a forerunner of the Reformation<\/a>. For criticising the Roman Catholic Church and seeking reform, Hus had been condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake in 1415. His \u2018Hussites\u2019, hailing him as a martyr, continued to grow in number and split into factions, with \u017di\u017eka joining the more radical and militant Taborites, who called for a complete break from Rome.<\/p>\n In 1419, religious tensions between the Church and Hussites snapped. In what became known as the First Defenestration of Prague (not to be confused with the second, the 1618 Defenestration of Prague<\/a>) a Hussite procession led by priest Jan Zelivsky \u2013 with, according to some accounts, \u017di\u017eka present \u2013 turned violent and several of Prague\u2019s town councillors were thrown out of a window.<\/p>\n Shortly afterwards, Wenceslas died and his half-brother Sigismund, King of Hungary, looked to take the Bohemian throne. He was a staunch opponent of the Hussites, who had betrayed Hus to his death.<\/p>\n