Howitzer groups called batteries. The English word ""howitzer"" comes from the Czech word ""houfnice"", from "houf", "crowd", and "houf" is in turn a borrowing from the Middle High German word "Hūfe" or "Houfe" (modern German "Haufen"), meaning "heap". "Haufen", sometimes in the compound "Gewalthaufen", also designated a pike square formation in German. In the Hussite Wars of the 1420s and 1430s, the Czechs used short barreled ""houfnice"" cannons to fire at short distances into crowds of infantry, or into charging heavy cavalry, to make horses shy away. The word was rendered into German as "aufeniz" in the earliest attested use in
Name of the Czech Republic "Czech" and "Bohemian". The Czech Republic's official formal and short names in Czech were decided at its creation after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in the so-called "Velvet Divorce" of 1993. The country is named after the Czechs (), a Slavic tribe residing in central Bohemia that subdued the surrounding tribes in the late 9th century and created the Czech/Bohemian state. The origin of the name of the tribe itself is unknown. According to legend, it comes from their leader Čech, who brought them to Bohemia. Research regards Čech as a derivative of the root "čel-" (member of the people, kinsman).