In Old Czech, for many almost illegible, it is written here: “Pilgrims, stand where the fury of the Swedes must have ceased during the wars of thirty years. Read it in memory of the Czechs, but before the memory of the Old Towns and Students, who FLYED the Lord in 1648 on the bridge at the cross with weapons in their hands and with heavy gunfire from the already shot Wěže Mostecké and Wodárny heroically repelled the Swedish attacks. “

The battle for the cities of Prague was very bloody, the Thirty Years’ War was coming to an end, Europe was economically and demographically exhausted, but there was still war.

Direct battles took place mostly on Charles Bridge, but the Swedes tried to get in front of the city fortifications to the New and Old Town. But the defenders have always repulsed them. For bravery and also mainly for the fact that Prague remained Catholic, the Old Town received from Emperor Ferdinand III. promotion to character. He is a hand with a sword about to defend an open gate against intruders. It remained part of the emblem of the capital city of Prague.

For his contributions to the defense of the Old Town, he also granted the emperor the Jewish Butcher’s Guild the right to use a two-tailed lion as a Czech sign. Butchers still use it.

As a thank you for saving the Swedes in 1650, a Marian column was erected on the Old Town Square. It was demolished in November 1918 by the firefighters of Žižkov, who Franta Sauer, a bohemian and companion of Jaroslav Hašek, peeked out that they were going to overthrow the symbol of the Habsburg tyranny and the celebration of the monarchy. No celebration of the monarchy, but a big thank you for not destroying Prague.

Exiles led by Jan Amos Komenský, who had to leave the country as Protestants after the defeat of the Czech states on Bílá Hora, relied on Swedish soldiers. The conflict, which began with the Prague defenestration, plagued Europe after thirty years. Eventually, the armies found themselves in a stalemate, with their leaders seeking a peaceful solution.

In the last year of the war, there was still fighting mainly in our territory. The Swedes did not conquer Brno, the campaign in Vienna was unrealistic, the troops withdrew to retreat to Sweden. In July, however, the army under General Königsmarck reached the Lesser Town and the Castle through the betrayal of Arnošt of Ottowald.

At that time, the city’s innumerable defenses were mostly drunk on bartenders, and the imperial wedding was celebrated. The Swedes began to plunder the city on the other side of the Vltava. At the same time, they captured 80 prominent personalities with the hope of a high ransom. The townspeople in both the Old and New Towns watched with apprehension the numerous fires on the opposite bank and prepared for defense.

The artillery shelled the opposite bank. The soldiers looted the Castle, the imperial collections were declared state property, including the Codex gigas, the so-called Devil’s Bible, and taken to Sweden.

The defense was started by the commander of the Prague garrison, Rudolf Colloredo. The Swedes were surprised that the people of Prague did not welcome them as liberators, as the exiles told them.

Students from Klement also take part in the defense, and their leader, Jiří Plachý, a monument was erected in the courtyard of the Jesuit dormitory two centuries after the event. There was a lot of fighting, especially for Charles Bridge, the fierce defense is immortalized on the canvas of the Liebscher brothers in the maze on Petřín.

Although the Swedes received reinforcements, they managed to defend Prague, but the forces were running low. On the last day, they only had a barrel of gunpowder to resist. 219 defenders of the city were killed. While fighting, the Peace of Westphalia was signed on October 24, and the war ended. The information reached the people of Prague on November 1, after which the fighting subsided. An armistice was signed in the middle of the bridge, they built a kind of wooden shelter there.

The stone bridge, as the building was originally called, was without statues at the time of the clash, only there was a cross in the place where the Calvary sculpture now stands. Opposite in the alcove stood the torment of God, the pillar by which Pilate of Pontus had Christ flogged. You see him in the picture of the battlefield, it’s where he was executed. The cross stood here sometime from the 14th century, in 1419 it was destroyed by the Hussites.

A unique, mostly Baroque gallery of statues was created at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, it would probably not survive the fighting at that time, especially during the stunt of Protestants, who were iconoclasts. It is enough to recall the troops at the Castle during the temporary settlement by Friedrich Falcký. There they destroyed what was possible in the cathedral. The bridge decoration contains 30 statues and sculptural groups, the youngest depicting Saints Cyril and Methodius dates from 1938. The statue of John of Nepomuk, a place of tourists where most of the world stops, was installed in 1683.

The name Charles Bridge first appeared in the work of the Prague writer and copperplate engraver Joseph Rudl in 1870. The monograph is called Die Berühmte Karls-Brücke und ihre Statuen, mit einem kurzen Anhange: Die Franzens-Ketten-Brücke.

The bridge did not only serve as a link between the left-bank and right-bank sides of Prague, until 1828 merchants, mostly foodstuffs, had their stalls and shops here.