The Trio – Alexander, Sangala and Jan Zizka

 

Alexander’s retreating  armies saw a new way of chariot fighting at Sangala Battle as did Vatican – 1700 years later.

Roma-Gypsy Family With Varda Wagon & Bender Tents at Barnhurst, 1902. From the Boswell Collection.

The barbarians came forth to fight with chariots lashed together, some of them were equipped with spears, others with lances, and they would jump nimbly from chariot to chariot whenever they wished to aid comrades, who were under pressure (from The History of Alexander, By Quintus Curtius Rufus, John Yardley, Waldemar Heckel)

From Alexander to Zizka

Now this is very interesting.

Some 1700 years later, during the Hussite wars, the Moravian armies under Jan Zizka, routed the combined armies of Prussia, Austria and various Catholic countries, commandeered by the Vatican. It was the Hussite Wars that started off the Reformation and Renaissance in Europe, from Moravia – now a part of modern Czechoslovakia.

The Taborites, one of the two factions (along with the Utraquists or the Calixtines) formed a front under Jan Zizka to take on the might of the Vatican. Zizka’s armies were made up by two factions – The Utraquists and the Taborites.

Zizka used a similar tactics – like what retreating armies of Alexander saw at Sangala. It was the Taborite use of wagons in war that was revolutionary in Europe – and the blind general, Jan Zizka defeated the combined armies of European Superpowers of his time. The Taborites used Wagenbergs, (fortified wagons).

Roma Gypsy wagon – Picture from UK c. 1910 (Bexley Local Studies and Archives Centre of Gypsies).

Who were the Taborites? Moravians living in Tabors, were named Taborites – and a mountain on which they lived, was also known as the Tabor mountain. And what does Tabor mean?

Tabor, in various Eastern European languages meaning camp, tribe, community. In English Tabor means a drum – which comes from the drums used by the Taborites. Jan Zizka’s dying wish was that the combined Hussite armies would use his skin on a drum to lead the Czech armies against the Vatican.

Trust, Betrayal …

How did the alliance break?

The Utraquists, made a deal with the Vatican, called the “Compactata of Basle” (1433) – and betrayed the Taborites. The combined forces of the Utraquists and the Vatican waged war against the Taborites. This massacre called the Battle of Lipan /Lipany, on May 30th, 1434, ended the Taborite faction. Thousands were locked inside barns and huts – and burnt to death. And that was the end of the Hussite Wars and the challenge to the Church. But it broke the military might of the Church also.

Similarly, Jan Hus had earlier been invited to a meeting – was captured and burnt at the stake, under false promises. The Taborites on the other were different. When Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II) sought shelter with the Taborites, he was welcomed openly and warmly.

Interestingly, a 100 years later, the European persecution of the Roma Gypsies began in full earnest. And during WW2, the Vatican joined with the Nazi collaborators, the Ustashe,  to extort gold and the genocide against the Roma Gyspises.

Roma Gypsy wagon-houses at Tarnow Muzeum, Poland | Click for image.

Coming back …

Who were the major users of the wagons in Europe then (and now?) Answer – The Roma Gypsies.

Who were the people who could pose spiritual and ecclesiastical questions to the Vatican? Answer – The Gypsies, with their Indian heritage, were not not new to spiritual dialectics (contests, discourse and debates). For instance, Mani, and his adherents, an Indic teacher of Buddhist thought, known to Christians as Manichean thought, were the nightmare for Christianity till the 15th century. When Mani called for overthrow of slavery, the Vatican at the Council of Gangra, re-affirmed its faith in slavery. European minds were occupied with the questions raised by the Hussite reformers.

Some think they (the Waldensians) had held them for centuries; some think they had learned them recently from the Taborites. If scholars insist on this latter view, we are forced back on the further question: Where did the Taborites get their advanced opinions? If the Taborites taught the Waldenses, who taught the Taborites?

Who were the people who could help the persecuted Waldensians, the Bogomils, the Cathars to escape persecution and spread out across the Europe? Answer – The Roma Gypsies – in their wagons. The same Gypsies, had earlier pioneered the Troubadour culture in the Provence Region, which provoked the Albigensian Crusade by the Vatican.

Prokop Coat Of Arms

And who was the King of the Taborites? Answer – An entire clan of leaders who called themselves as Prokop (The Shaven /Bald; The Little and The Great) were the military leaders of the Taborites.

The word and name Prokop have no meaning in any European language – except in Sanskrit, where it means vengeance, retribution, violent justice. But, this did not stop the cultural dacoity – and the name was  Hellenized to Procopius.

And where do the Roma Gypsies come from? Answer – India, where at the Battle of Sangala, 1700 years ago, Alexander’s retreating  armies, saw a new way of fighting from chariots- which the Vatican saw 1700 years later, again!

The Gypsy secret weapon

And gunpowder was the secret weapon that the Taborite Gypsy armies of Jan Zizka used, mounted on top of the wagons that cut enemy troops to size?

Gunpowder. And Gypsies?

At the end of the 19th century, this was still known. And an extract from that books goes onto trace the introduction of gunpowder to Europe.

Now, Mons is the capital of Hainault ; and the first people known to have used firearms in England were the Hainaulters. “In 1327 the English employed some Hainaulters, who used cannon for King Edward III against the Scotch.” Do these facts not suggest very strongly that the artillerymen among the Hainaulters were procured from one or other of the ” quartiers des Sarrazins ” of that province ? The connection between Edward III and Hainault was very close, for in the year following the arrival of the gunpowder-using Hainaulters, he married Philippa of Hainault. And, since he imported artillerymen from Hainault, it is quite likely that those “foreign traders,” who came to St. Giles’ Fair. Winchester, during his reign, selling ” brazen vessels of all kinds,” were really from Dinant, near Namur, as has been suggested. These people are cited by Mr. Groome {Gypsy Lore Journal, i. 50), as possible Gypsies ; if one grants that there were Gypsies in Belgium in the fourteenth century. For, of course, both of these suggestions are based upon that assumption. (from Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society by FRANZ VON MIKLOSICH).

But do Gypsies and war ever mix?

They have often been employed in military expeditions, but never as regular soldiers. In the Thirty Years’ War the Swedes had a body of them in the army ;  and the Danes had three companies of them at the siege of Hamburg, in 1686. They were chiefly employed in flying parties, to burn, plunder, or lay waste the enemy’s country. In two Hungarian regiments nearly every eighth man is a Gypsy. ((from Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society by FRANZ VON MIKLOSICH).

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