Slavonians to the other Indo-European Nations. 29 
Bohemian talent. In the army of the Taborites, first during the 
Middle Ages, a disciplined infantry took the lead in war, Zisca 
invented the theory of fortification, and restored the Roman 
discipline. Driven from the arts of peace the Slavonians taught 
the ivorkl the science of war, 
D. In political power the first great monarchy of the Slavonians 
was Poland. That kingdom sprung into one of the great powers of 
Europe with a rapidity hardly exceeded in its fall. Only 60 years 
were required to transform five barbarous tribes into one of the most 
powerful nations of Christendom. The conquering squadrons of 
Boleslaw the Great swept from the Elbe to the Dnieper, from the 
Danube to the Baltic. All Poland, Red (and for a short time 
Little) Russia, Mazovia, Kujavia, Silesia, Pomerania, Chrobacia, 
Lutycia, and even Misnia and Northern Hungary owned his sway^ 
The cause of such rapid victories can hardly be sought alone in the 
courage of their Polish nobles, for a martial caste had been already 
formed, but also in their superior discipline, and in their mild 
treatment of the vanquished. 
It is usual, because, after nearly 800 years success the aristocratic 
theory of Poland has been found to fail, to point at it as an 
unmitigated evil. Regarded, however, on philosophic grounds, no 
system during the Middle Ages, approximated nearer to the scheme 
of Greek philosophy, which in our modern standing armies has been 
recognized : that — 
" War must be a profession like any other ; and to be an able soldier 
a man must devote his life to it." 
In modern continental armies this theory is worked on by selecting 
the poorest of the population to be soldiers of despotism. In Poland, 
where liberty was always a chief object, as in Plato's republic, the 
noblest and most talented were selected for the profession of arms. 
Long training and discipline gave them a superiority to the wild 
tribes around them, and to the feudal militias of Germany. They 
