Teutonic Knights

by William Urban

  A crusader poet tells us that this was a moving scene: as the Christian warriors advanced into position there were cries from women and children, the returning shouts of their relatives in the militia, yells by desperate men ready for the furore of battle. The chronicle that related this scene may have been read aloud at mealtimes to teach proper attitudes to the knights and their men-at-arms. Such passages emphasising knightly deeds, courage, fairness, pity for the unfortunate, and service to the Church and Lady Mary, give us valuable insights into the mind of the crusading knight. Unfortunately, we lack a Lithuanian equivalent of this chronicle; the pagan tradition was oral, not written, and it has largely vanished.

  When the entire force of Christians had formed their lines for the assault, Vytenis recognised the flags and banners of his opponents. Only then did he realise whom he was up against. Success in arms, he knew, was not a question of numbers, but of quality. The gay banners of the castellans and the grand commander’s great black cross on a white field told knowledgeable pagans that they were facing the best the Teutonic Knights had. Consequently, as the attackers approached, the less bold Lithuanians (or, at least, the most discreet and prudent) began to seek their horses and ride hurriedly for home. Meanwhile, the captive women broke loose from their bonds and created confusion in the rear. Vytenis disappeared (and escaped), while thousands of his followers fell in the hand-to-hand fighting. The Christians took as booty 2,800 horses, thousands of spears and swords, reclaimed the booty and prisoners taken earlier, and took Vytenis’ chamberlain captive. One chronicler wrote a hymn of victory: ‘Oh, noble knights of God, God must honour you on earth and in heaven.’ Heinrich commemorated the day by founding a nunnery at Thorn.

  Despite what seemed to be an overwhelming victory, the battle made little impact on the general course of events because the Teutonic Knights lacked the forces to exploit it and because Vytenis had escaped. The grand prince regrouped his forces, encouraged his subjects to defend their forts resolutely, and ordered everyone to refrain from taking risks. Somewhat later, when a young castellan, Gerhard von Mansfeld, boldly rode into Lithuania, the pagans followed his small army back out of their country. Fearing an ambush, they refused his offer of formal battle, but they asked his name and warned him he would not live long if he continued to enter their country with so few men.

  The fact was that significant advances could be made only by occupying key castles, and castles were difficult to capture. This was especially true in Lithuania, where the fortresses lay across a difficult wilderness, so that men, supplies, and siege engines had to be transported long distances. The easiest way to capture a castle was as ransom or by treason.

  Treason worked best. As noted above, Heinrich had captured Vytenis’ chamberlain, the castellan of Gardinas. If he held him for ransom, he could have demanded a small fortune or exchanged him for Lithuanian captives. Instead, he listened to his promise to surrender Gardinas in return for his freedom. It was necessary to act quickly, however, so that he could explain his late return as the result of hiding in the woods or having lost his way. Moreover, there was no guarantee of obtaining a ransom, because Vytenis might conclude that this was a convenient excuse to eliminate a potential competitor and simply appoint a replacement. Therefore Heinrich released his prisoner on a promise to allow the crusaders to enter his castle by stealth and capture it. Not unexpectedly, the chamberlain did not keep his part of the bargain. Instead, he ‘betrayed’ the Christians by telling Vytenis of his bargain and arranging for an ambush of the Prussian forces near Gardinas.

  Heinrich had not ignored the risks. He knew that the chamberlain might be a clever liar. We do not know what the chamberlain said to persuade the grand commander and his council, but we do know that treason was common in this era, that personal feuds were more important than clan loyalty, and that ambition often overrode personal loyalty. Moreover, the heathen code of honour emphasised keeping oaths, and Heinrich had undoubtedly extracted powerful oaths from his prisoner. For Heinrich’s part, he was in a position to make handsome promises for the chamberlain’s future, even to recognise him as a future ruler of Lithuania. In short, Heinrich had good reasons for trusting this pagan lord. But he had equally good reasons not to trust him too much.

  Heinrich had brought his army almost to Gardinas when his scouts came upon an old man whom they put to torture until he revealed that Lithuanians were lurking near a river, waiting until half of the Christian army had crossed over before attacking. Heinrich spared the old man, as promised, and fled with his army back to safety.

  Heinrich’s next effort was in late May, when he called up 140 knights, a strong force of native knights and mounted militia, and 2,000 foot soldiers who probably followed a somewhat different route through the lakes, rivers, and swamps in small boats. As the mounted troops approached Gardinas through a thick forest, they came upon four scouts. Killing three, they captured the fourth and learned that nobody was aware of their approach. Quite the contrary. Vytenis was feeling so secure that he had sent the scouts as part of a group of fifty men to set up a hunting camp. Heinrich annihilated the advance force, then crossed the Nemunas River. Leaving twelve knights and the foot soldiers to guard the boats, he struck through the countryside, sparing neither age nor sex. The raiders took 700 prisoners, and of the dead they left behind ‘only God knows the number’.

  These victories made Heinrich von Plötzke a strong candidate to replace the deceased grand master, Siegfried von Feuchtwangen, but his bid for election failed, perhaps because of his controversial seizure of Danzig and West Prussia, perhaps because of his domineering ways. In any case, he was unacceptable to the electors in Germany, who chose Karl von Trier as their new leader. Heinrich von Plötzke was given the consolation office of grand commander and, later, marshal.

  Karl von Trier targets Samogitia for attack

  Karl von Trier was forty-six years old, relatively young to hold the highest office in the military order. However, Karl spoke fluent French, and his Latin was reputedly so good that even his enemies loved to hear him speak. Consequently, he was the ideal figure to deal with the French pope in Avignon. This was an important consideration, since the order was under investigation by papal officials. As a corollary to giving the papacy primary attention, Karl wanted to reduce the tempo of war against Lithuania. He also wanted to make peace with King Ladislas of Poland and to resolve the troubles in Livonia. These were not policies popular among the knights in Prussia. Karl’s only chance to persuade them to accept his point of view was to go east and speak to them in person.

  After completing a tour of Prussia, inspecting the order’s resources and discussing various possible strategies, the new grand master ordered the attacks on Gardinas suspended. He had decided to concentrate all his forces against Samogitia in the hope of securing a shorter land route to Riga and putting an end to devastating pagan attacks on Kurland and Semgallia.

  In April 1313 Karl von Trier loaded ships in Königsberg with supplies, war equipment, and men, and sent them to the Nemunas River via the Baltic Sea and the Kurland bay. Other forces he sent overland to Ragnit. Despite the misfortune of losing at sea four knights, 400 men, a vast amount of supplies, and building materials for a new castle, Karl marched his forces thirty miles upriver, where he built a bridge of boats across the stream. When the bridge was completed, priests led a great procession and held a festive mass before the workmen crossed over to build a great castle of logs and earth that Karl named Christmemel. It was to be the base for his attacks into the heart of Samogitia.

  Not long afterward Heinrich attacked the castles farther upstream. He personally led the assault on Bisen, using a bridge of boats to bring siege weapons to bear, but without success. Meanwhile, the castellan of Ragnit sailed farther upriver to Welun. His plan was to assault the walls directly from a large warship, but a strong burst of wind drove his ship ashore as he approached the castle. Surprise was lost, and only after desperate fighting was the crew able to get the vessel back into midstr
eam and return to Ragnit.

  Vytenis was stirred into action by these attacks. He was especially worried about the large warship, because it threatened every riverside castle along the Nemunas. Therefore he ordered one of his vassals to destroy it as quickly as possible.

  The Lithuanian commander ordered 100 cavalry to make their way to Ragnit, while 600 warriors went down the river in a hundred small boats. These forces were observed by scouts and lookouts, but they moved so quickly that they arrived at Ragnit ahead of all efforts to send a warning. The rest of the plan was not so easy to accomplish. Although the pagans found the great warship anchored in midstream with only four bowmen on board, the vessel was so huge that they could not scale the sides (especially while the archers were shooting them down one after the other). In fact, the attackers, who could not easily retreat upstream, might have been massacred if the archers had been reinforced. But at that critical moment the Lithuanian cavalry prevented a sortie from Ragnit. Soon thereafter the Lithuanians cut the anchor rope and the ship glided down the river, followed by the host of small boats. When the vessel ran aground, the Lithuanians were able to set it ablaze. The grand master did not replace the warship. Apparently he had concluded it was not as useful as hoped even in summer; and in winter such a large vessel would be icebound and probably crushed by the ice floes.

  Brutal Warfare

  We know from other sources how brutal the campaigns of this era could be. Polish witnesses testifying to papal legates in 1320 and 1339 indicated that the warriors in the armies of the Teutonic Order practised torture, massacred prisoners, slaughtered innocent civilians, stripped women, abused clerics, and destroyed villages, fields, and churches. If that was happening in Christian Poland, one can imagine how badly they treated pagans in Samogitia.

  Unfortunately for historians, the evidence at the papal hearings was seriously flawed: the Teutonic Knights boycotted the hearings. This offended the legates, who were further angered when the grand masters suggested that they lacked authority to override the order’s past grants of immunity from harassment. Moreover, much of the evidence was hearsay, and some of the testimony was wildly exaggerated, a medieval characteristic that is the bane of the modem researcher. Many of the witnesses were certain to benefit from a decision against the order. On the other hand, some witnesses were men of position and experience, who had opportunity to know what had happened. Since the papal investigators heard each person’s testimony privately, asking each witness a detailed list of questions, they had means of ascertaining the truth. The popes, hearing their legates reports of misdeeds and atrocities, summoned the high officials of the order to appear before them.

  In their defence the officers of the Teutonic Knights denied some charges and explained that others were exaggerated or misrepresented. Their relationship with Poles, for example, was not uniformly bad. The bishop of Płock had given them the castellany of Michelau in return for an annual monetary payment. It was important to the bishop that the order’s garrison would give some protection to the exposed frontiers of his diocese. The same fear of Lithuanian attack made the dukes of Masovia generally friendly. Moreover, the dukes in Pomerania and Silesia were seeking allies against Ladislas. Nor were the Poles without fault in the dispute. Years earlier the Council of Vienne had ordered the Polish bishops to pay a special crusading tax to support the operations of the Teutonic Order; the bishops never obeyed that resolution. Lastly, the kings prevented their subjects from participating in the Samogitian expeditions, thus interfering with a legitimate crusade. Although the papal legates’ investigations did not result in the condemnation of the Teutonic Order that the crusaders’ enemies had expected, they provided modern historians with ample testimony to the cruelty of fourteenth-century warfare. Moreover, this cruelty was confirmed even by historians who wrote in praise of the crusade. In those days men boasted of their deeds in arms, even bloody deeds that made more tenderhearted contemporaries shake their heads in wonder.

  Principles of Frontier Warfare

  The order’s chroniclers did more than prove that war is terrible. Their descriptions of raids across the wilderness allow us to analyse the strategy which lay behind them. In general deepest winter and high summer were the best seasons for campaigning; during the rest of the year mud could be a major problem. February, June, and November were favourite months for Christian raids – in February the frozen rivers could be used as highways; June provided a period of warm weather before the first harvest; and in November the militia was free from agricultural work and the snow was not yet too deep for infantry. The chroniclers lavishly praised native knights for their deeds during these years. Few crusaders were coming from Germany, and the native Prussians and Livonians who replaced them were enthusiastic warriors, fighting for the love of battle, glory, and worldly advancement.

  The expeditions were well organised. Unable to live off the land in the wilderness, raiders had to carry their supplies with them. Often they left their stores at a rendezvous site along the planned route of return, sometimes guarding them, sometimes burying them, and sometimes simply hiding them. Castles served as supply depots and resting places, and ships transported food and equipment when surprise was not important.

  The Teutonic Knights knew many paths into Samogitia. They collected descriptions of routes used by merchants and raiders, giving the names of the men who had gone that way, the number of days’ march for each stage of the journey, and other useful information. Once the raiders crossed the wilderness, they knew exactly what to do. The general practice was to divide the army into striking forces, each small unit plundering a designated area all day and meeting at a pre-determined location forward of the dispersal point, where camp would be pitched. A strong detachment would be kept in this central location to protect the booty and supplies and as a reserve force ready to assist against any threat which might appear. Since one day’s raiding would generally suffice to ravage any small district, the army moved each day to a new location, proceeding in a zigzag pattern, often varying the march by going straight forward, or even returning to ravage a district again. They followed whatever route seemed best suited for catching the defenders by surprise, either before they could go into hiding or as they emerged from concealment. Sometimes small forces were sent ahead with the intention of retreating hurriedly and leading pursuers into an ambush by the main party. This instilled such caution among defenders that occasionally very small parties were able to make daring raids deep into the heart of the enemy countryside and escape unharmed. Each campaign was thoroughly planned, and as time passed new variations were added to the general theme. Christian and pagan alike employed the same tactics because they were the only ones available, and both adhered to a strategy of exhausting the enemy by attacking agricultural production and commerce.

  The Death of King Vytenis

  Vytenis did not allow the crusaders free run of his country or of Samogitia. He was a skilful and determined warrior who had capable vassals in his service, and all hated their Christian foes. One vassal, David of Gardinas, first appeared in the crusader chronicles in 1314. The foremost pagan warrior of his generation, he was castellan of the second most important fortress in the country, Gardinas (Vilnius being the most important). What happened to his predecessor, the chamberlain, is unknown. David’s first exploit was to destroy supplies left by Heinrich von Plötzke during a daring September raid into south-eastern Lithuania, far behind Vilnius. Killing the guards, burning the foodstuffs, and stealing 500 horses, David presented the grand commander with a terrible dilemma. When Heinrich reached the empty underground laager, he realised that the enemy was undoubtedly lying in wait somewhere along his way home. Doubting that his hungry forces could fight their way through an ambush, Heinrich made a 500-mile detour around the danger. Some of his men dug for roots, others ate their starving horses, and many died in their tracks. Those who escaped were exhausted from their ordeal, and many were too ill to return to duty quickly. Without any fighting, David of Gardinas h
ad almost destroyed an entire army.

  In time the grand masters realised that it was much easier to take crusaders up the Nemunas River than through the many swamps and streams of the wilderness. On the great river the grand masters could effectively employ their technological advantages – ships which could carry troops and supplies, castles which could protect strategic points and serve as bases for raids and major offensives, and missile weapons. Moreover, the Nemunas and its tributaries led directly into the Lithuanian heartland, while Lithuanians coming downstream were diverted toward the bogs along the Kurland bay. The grand masters built impressive castles along the wide river, first at Ragnit, close to the river’s many mouths and protecting Samland from attack, then farther upstream, at Christmemel and Welun.

  In August 1315 Samogitians slipped up to Ragnit unnoticed and were upon the walls before the alarm was given. The startled garrison hurried into the keep, a strong tower that demonstrated the engineering superiority of the Westerners. A crusader keep was tall enough to serve as a lookout and almost impossible to assault directly. The entrance was hardly more than a door high above the ground, reached by a narrow staircase and solidly barred from within. The base had no entrances or windows and could have a solid stone wall six metres thick. Any approach to the foot of the keep, any attempt to undermine it, was greeted with a barrage of heavy stones thrown from twenty metres or so above, or by a shower of crossbow shafts. Even wounded and exhausted men could defend such a post for several days, and since the garrison had a field of fire over the entire castle no enemy army could hold the castle against a relief force as long as the keep remained untaken. The Samogitians did not even try to assault Ragnit’s keep. They were satisfied with ravaging and burning the fields that were ready for harvesting.