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 Slovak national aspirations, the name "Czecho-Slovakia" (later "Czechoslovakia") was adopted instead. After the establishment of Czechoslovakia, the name "Czechia" appeared in English, alongside the official name, as a reference to all the Czech lands and to differentiate between the Czech and Slovak parts of the state. It was used at least as early as 4 January 1925; appearing in the article "Literary History of the Czechs", published by "The New York Times". The name was used in the Anglophone press before the German occupation of the Czech lands in 1939. The current English ethnonym "Czech" comes from the Polish ethnonym