Teutonic Knights

by William Urban

  Albrecht did not consider himself a rebel or disrupter of church unity. Years later he was still continuing his correspondence with Rome and honouring the pope as the head of the Church. The formal separation came later, as one inevitable step of many. The nature of the transformation of Prussia would be easy to exaggerate; in 1525 Protestantism was a reform advocated and welcomed by many devout Roman Catholics who saw no practical alternative. Within a year Sigismund could congratulate himself on his foresight. Louis Jagiellon of Hungary (1516 – 26) fell in the battle of Mohács and the Turks occupied most of his kingdom. The deceased boy king left the remnants of Hungary and his claims to other kingdoms to the Habsburg, Friedrich of Austria, who later became emperor. With Poland now besieged by strong enemies on the east (Moscow), the south (the Turks), and the west (the Habsburgs), it was fortunate that Sigismund had at least relieved himself of worries about the north.

  The emperor, meanwhile, had the extensive resources of the Teutonic Order in Germany to use in his wars against the Turks. There would be no distractions by northern affairs. In short, everyone seemed to benefit from the secularisation of the Prussians lands. This assessment was not universal, of course, and anyone who suggested that the Prussian example should be applied to Livonia could count on a hot dispute.

  12

  The End in Livonia

  Livonia and Prussia had grown apart during the Thirteen Years’ War. Erlichshausen’s desperate need for money had caused him to look northward, but he succeeded only in provoking the Livonian Knights to limit his authority over them and their lands in every way. By 1473 the Teutonic Knights consisted of three autonomous regions – Prussia, Germany, and Livonia – connected only by a common heritage and occasional common interests. This meant that when wars came to Livonia, the Livonian Order was on its own.

  The victories of Wolter von Plettenberg (Livonian master 1494 – 1535) over Ivan III (the Great, 1462 – 1505), the grand duke of Moscow, at the beginning of the 1500s had brought five decades of peace to Livonia. Peace with neighbours, that is. Internal problems were present in abundance. But Wolter managed to keep even those within acceptable bounds, and his influence persisted long after his death at an advanced age in 1535. Unfortunately for his successors, the tide of history was running against them. First and foremost, the Livonian Order no longer governed the region more or less alone, but shared power with the Livonian Confederation, a body which was capable of regulating the coinage, passing common laws for commerce and crime, debating significant issues and unifying public opinion, but lacked an executive branch which could devise an effective foreign policy or unite the region’s military forces under one command. Secondly, the Livonian Order remained a small Roman Catholic organisation in a fiercely Protestant region. Not only were the Scandinavian kingdoms and the duchy of Prussia Lutheran, but so were most of the burghers in the Livonian cities and some of the nobles in the countryside; Protestant offshoots were even strong in Lithuania, and the kings of Poland looked favourably upon the spread of Protestantism in rival lands, assuming more or less correctly that citizens who dared think independently about religion would make trouble for their secular rulers too. Thirdly, several areas formerly important for recruiting knights, especially Lower Saxony and Holstein, were now Protestant; only Westphalia, which had remained Roman Catholic, provided knights for service in the Baltic, and only a few knights could be recruited locally. To a certain degree the insufficiency in recruits was offset by hiring mercenaries. But money had to be raised to pay the mercenaries, and this was best done by increasing grain exports. The question was, how to do this? The answer was to reduce the native population to serfdom and require them to labour on the order’s estates.38

  It is often mistakenly assumed that the crusaders had reduced the native population to serfdom immediately after the conquest in the thirteenth century. In fact, most natives were free taxpayers into the fifteenth century, when a number of developments began the process of changing their status into servitude. Perhaps most important in this social revolution was the natives’ declining usefulness in warfare. As long as hostile armies were penetrating into the country, as was common in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Livonian master had to rely on the local militias to assist in garrisoning the castles and fighting in pitched battles; but once the Livonian Order managed to build an effective defensive system the militiamen’s function changed, to building fortifications and carting supplies. Next most important was the development of a cash economy. The natives never had much money, and their standard of living was miserably low. Even so, their grain contributions had always been calculated in cash equivalents, payments they often had to borrow to fulfil in years of poor harvests; as they sank into debt, they lost their former protected legal status. In addition, prisoners-of-war were commonly settled on estates as serfs. As the number of free farmers dwindled it was impossible to attract them into border regions whenever Russian or Lithuanian armies carried away the work force. As a result, the owners of the estates tended to replace the lost free peasants with serfs. It is also quite likely that landless sons of free farmers accepted work on the terms of serfs, while retaining their free status; in the course of time these either intermarried with serfs or ‘slipped’ down to their level.

  By the early 1550s members of the Livonian Order were openly discussing their options. The one mentioned most often was to convert to Protestantism, divide up the order’s lands among the officers and knights, and make the kinds of reforms in the economy and education that were needed to provide the revenues necessary for national defence. This suggestion brought stalwart Roman Catholic knights almost to apoplexy, causing them to warn direly that this would cost them dearly with the Holy Roman emperor and the electors. Eventually, the decision by the Rigan canons to make a Protestant the assistant and heir of the aged archbishop led to a brief, almost bloodless civil war. The Roman Catholic faction prevailed, more or less, then not long afterward Wilhelm von Fürstenburg became master of the Livonian Order. Most observers interpreted these as Roman Catholic victories, but since the military unpreparedness of the Livonian Confederation had been fully displayed for all neighbours to observe, the triumphs meant little.39

  The problems of Livonia meant little to rulers to the west and south. Denmark and Sweden were too interested in fighting one another to disperse military resources to the east; the king of Poland could never have persuaded his nobles and clerics to authorise spending money to extend his authority to the north – against all evidence they saw the king as a potential tyrant, and they wanted to keep him as weak as practical with the needs of national defence.

  The new ruler to the east, however, was of a different mind. Ivan IV (1533 – 84) of Russia was not yet known as ‘the Terrible’, but he was already considered a ruthless monarch with an enormous appetite for more land. Grand duke of Moscow, he took the title of tsar after crushing important Tatar khans to his south and east, thereby expanding his empire almost to the Black Sea; thereafter many Tatars reluctantly served in his armies, while those still beyond his control, mainly in the Crimea, dreamed of defeating him yet and resurrecting the long-lost prestige of the Golden Horde. Ivan had also won over Lithuanian lords from Poland, and he was acquiring new military equipment and expertise as fast as he could find someone to sell it. Later generations of historians would credit him with wanting to conquer the Baltic coastline in order to open trade to the West. More realistically, he just enjoyed taking lands from his neighbours, much as he luxuriated in devising imaginative new ways of humiliating his domestic enemies before murdering them.

  Ivan’s method of dividing the Livonian rulers was to combine threats with offers of peace. When the truce negotiated by Wolter von Plettenberg expired, Ivan agreed to renew it only on the condition that the Livonians began to pay ancient taxes and tributes. No living person had ever heard of such taxes and tributes, and certainly the Livonian Order had never paid any. The issue was not so clear in Dorpat, however. There the bisho
p and the burghers had always stood somewhat aloof, asserting their independence from the Livonian master and even the archbishops of Riga. In the past, they conceded, they had paid some rents to Novgorod and Pskov for swamplands used by beekeepers and hunters, and they might be willing to do so again, if the price was reasonable.

  That was all the encouragement Ivan needed to press the point. He offered a bargain. He would settle for an annual payment of 1,000 Talers and the back taxes, a mere 40,000 Talers. Since this lump sum was the equivalent of 10,000 oxen, the Livonian ambassadors tried to persuade him to reduce the sum until he finally tired of the game and raided their quarters to seize the moneys they said they had brought with them. But the pleasure he had anticipated would come from handling the coins turned into bitter anger when he learned that the Livonians had not brought a schilling with them.

  Neither party had been perfectly honest. The tsar was claiming tribute payments from the twelfth century, before the arrival of the crusaders, and claiming it over regions no Rus’ian prince had ever collected payments from. On the other hand, the Livonians were hoping to evade making any payments at all, expecting that the Holy Roman emperor would declare any treaties they signed null and void. Also, there were indications that the king of Poland, Sigismund Augustus (1548 – 72), might come to the Livonians’ aid. The tsar decided to make a pre-emptive strike, to occupy Livonia while the Polish king was still busy in the south.

  In late 1557 the tsar ordered his soldiers and militia to assemble for a long and dangerous winter march to the coast. When the Livonian Confederation received reports that Russian forces had filed out of Moscow, marching through the snow toward the north-west, it ordered a mobilisation.

  The campaign was very different from that a half-century earlier. The Livonian cities raised 60,000 Talers to pay for the cost of a short war, but Master Wilhelm von Fürstenburg decided against meeting the enemy in the field as Wolter von Plettenberg had done. The reputation of the Russian troops and artillery, victors in numerous recent engagements with the Tatars, contrasted too strongly with the unpreparedness of his own forces. The sad performance of the troops and officers in the brief civil war, and the consequent financial crisis, suggested that Livonia was far from ready for a serious fight. The master’s unwillingness to seek a decisive battle precluded the possibility of a short war.

  The Germans were numerous enough to fight, if collected in one body and led to war, but the defensive strategy caused them to be scattered; consequently they were outnumbered wherever the Russians chose to attack. The nobles, who formed the main cavalry force, were hesitant to fight pitched battles that would leave their numbers depleted and their families and fiefs without protection. The citizen militias were not trained for field service. The mercenaries wanted to live to spend their wages. Nobody wanted to arm the peasants. In short, the will to fight was lacking, and Fürstenburg was unable to make the members of the Confederation serve against their wishes. The plan adopted was to defend the fortified cities and castles, use the small forces available to harass the invaders, and hope that the Russian supply system would break down during bad weather and cause the tsar to order a retreat. In early 1558 Ivan’s armies marched through the lands of Dorpat without encountering resistance, plundering as they went, then assembled before Narva and began a siege. The Tatar general prevented the German relief army from approaching the city, and on 12 May the Russian artillery opened fire. The defences were strong and might have held firm if an accidental fire had not broken out. Soon the city was burning, and, as the citizens herded their wives and children into the citadel, the Russians stormed the walls. After the sack had ended and the fierce passions of the tsar’s Russian and Tatar troops had cooled, Ivan’s general accepted the surrender of the castle in return for the free withdrawal of the garrison and the people who had taken refuge there. Thus Ivan captured the key to Estonia and trade up the Narva River toward Pskov and Dorpat. With that Ivan IV could have been satisfied, because the Livonians were ready to agree to almost any terms short of surrender, but his appetite was only whetted.

  Master Wilhelm called a meeting of his castellans and advocates to discuss the situation. At the end of the meeting the decision was hardly courageous: they sent the tsar 40,000 Talers as the required tribute. Ivan showed much greater spirit: he sent it back. Then he ordered a march on Dorpat.

  The Livonians now began to organise in earnest – much too late. In June of 1558 the estates of the Confederation met in Dorpat to discuss their next steps. They sent to Denmark for help – although King Christian had already said that he could not provide troops; they authorised Reval to blockade Narva against ships trying to trade there; and they asked Sweden for a loan of 200,000 Talers and mercenaries. Despite their desperation, however, they did not acquiesce to the demand of the Polish monarch that he be given Riga as compensation for his help. In July, however, Dorpat surrendered to Russian besiegers after only token resistance. Since Dorpat should have held out for a considerable time, but didn’t, morale sank everywhere. The delegates to the Confederation wrote to Poland and effectively accepted the royal conditions for providing military assistance. At the same time the Livonian Knights chose Gotthard Kettler, the castellan of Fellin, to ‘share’ Fürstenburg’s duties.

  Kettler was an adherent of Protestant ideas. Although originally a Roman Catholic, like all recruits into the order, he had been stationed in Germany for a few years. There he had seen possibilities for reforming the military order that he longed to put into practice. Upon his return to Livonia he became identified with that faction wishing to imitate the Prussian branch of the order, to secularise the state, divide up its lands among the members, and become landed nobles. This minority faction had been temporarily suppressed by Wilhelm von Fürstenburg, but now it revived, its numbers swelled by the failure of the master’s policies. As it became obvious that the Livonian Order could not perform its military role properly, demands for reform rose; and the reform that was called for was that espoused by Gotthard Kettler, who almost alone of all the castellans was able to achieve minor victories against the marauding Russian cavalry forces. His courage and initiative in the field were equalled by his restraint, and willingness to work within the old framework of the order until a consensus was achieved.

  Most Livonians were giving up all thought of defending themselves alone. The nobles and castellans stood paralysed by the atrocities committed on their unresisting subjects; the burghers were appalled by the behaviour of the Hanseatic League, which not only failed to send aid but took advantage of Reval’s troubles to bypass the port rather than unload their cargo for subsequent shipment to Russia; and the churchmen were hawking their dioceses to German and Scandinavian dynasties, hoping to escape their situation with a profit. The members of the Livonian Order hardly did better. The castellan of Wesenburg proved himself more competent at chasing willing women than chasing away Russians; he abandoned the strongest and best-stocked fortress in Estonia and fled to Reval. That the castle did not fall to the Russians was due solely to the initiative of a young warrior who garrisoned it with the few men who followed him. The castellan of Reval sent to the Danish monarch to come and take possession of the province. Only because King Christian died suddenly did Estonia not return to Danish ownership. When no troops arrived the citizens of Reval concluded that they would have to defend themselves, and they set to work, building new fortifications against the powerful siege train of the enemy. Their old walls would not have withstood a serious bombardment, but Ivan gave them the time to get ready. Having exhausted his men and his supplies, the tsar left garrisons to hold Narva and Dorpat, then withdrew back into Russia with his men, a vast number of prisoners, and an incredible amount of booty. The diocese of Dorpat never recovered: the last bishop died in Russian captivity and was not replaced.

  The Russian army renewed its advance in January 1559, this time striking from Dorpat through the rolling countryside of central Livonia to Riga, then past that well-fortified city into Sem
gallia and Kurland. There it captured ill-prepared fortresses one after the other. The Tatars reinforced their traditional reputation for cruelty, but the Russian troops who had beaten the Tatars and made them serve the tsar were almost equally feared.

  Readers of the chronicles may well doubt whether the Russians were as cruel in these years as later, or as horrible as the retelling of the story fixed them in popular memory. No doubt the atrocities seemed crueller because Livonia had been at peace so long, but at that time Ivan was still making a sincere if clumsy effort to win over German lords and native peasants. This would change later, as Ivan’s periodic bouts of insanity were combined with his promotion of ambitious but frightened newcomers to office, newcomers who understood that the tsar would not accept excuses for any failure. Ivan’s ‘secret police’ used terror against the tsar’s enemies at home, and terror against his opponents abroad.

  Nor were the Russians the only threat to life and property. Unpaid mercenaries and outlaws roamed the countryside. Soon enough Livonians would learn to protect themselves against all soldiers – hideouts would be dug in the woods, girls and young children would be kept out of the way, and the men would defend every fortified church and manor to the utmost; they especially had to prevent marauding irregulars from having their will, for such troops were always worse than organised army units. In the future, when the scum of all Europe appeared in one or another of the armies that operated in Livonia, people learned how to avoid or survive the sacking, plundering, and mistreatment that Germans, Lithuanians, Poles, Swedes, Danes, English, Scots, Dutch, and even more exotic adventurers practised on the civilian population. Even so, the memory of the first years of horror was not erased. The Russians were saddled with a reputation for barbarity that served splendidly as war propaganda for both sides – by the Russians to cow their enemies, and by the Livonians to win help from abroad and to encourage their subjects to fight to the last against the Muscovites.