h of despair, and was
the beginning of the wars which raged between the Germans and the
Sclaves to the end of that century. Even after dissensions had broken
out amongst the Bohemians themselves, and after the death of Georg von
Podiebrad, feuds continued, and predatory bands spread themselves over
the neighbouring lands, the people and nobility of Bohemia as well as
those of the suffering frontier lands became lawless, and a hatred of
races, less passionate but more savage and more enduring, took the
place of fanaticism.

No land suffered more from the terrors of the Hussite time than
Silesia, and it must be confessed that the Silesians showed to less
advantage in this century than at any other period of their history; by
the division of their country they were politically weak, and quite
unfitted to withstand by their own strength the attacks of powerful
enemies; when danger approached a feeling of the helplessness of their
position came over them and disheartened them; but whenever they could
breathe more freely, they became overbearing and full of high-flown
plans which generally ended in nothing. As neighbours they were bitter
enemies of the Bohemians, and from hatred to them, zealous in their
orthodoxy; they were actively engaged in the first disgraceful
devastation of Bohemia, and thus, by breach of faith, brought down on
themselves the vengeance of the Bohemians. As in the Roman time the
truth of a Carthaginian was a byword, so now in Silesia was that of a
Bohemian; but the Silesians had no right to reproach the Bohemians with
breach of faith. Their dangerous position did not make them more
careful, and they allowed their possessions and cities to be destroyed
from the want of timely succour; they were always irritating their
enemies and causing fresh attacks by their insolent witticisms and
small perfidies. Their vigour and elasticity, however, were most
enduring; as often as the Bohemians burnt down their cities and
villages, they rebuilt them, and patched up whatever would hold
together; they never tired of irritating the heretical Girsik, as they
called Georg von Podiebrad.[4] If, however, they were in need of his
assistance, they tried to appease him by a present of a hundred oxen.
After a time, however, their hatred became more manly; they took up
arms and fought him valiantly; and when at last he sank into the grave,
they had the satisfaction of feeling that they had embittered the life
and thwarted the