Teutonic Knights

by William Urban

  That the Russians were hardly without human feelings is proven by their careful administration of conquered districts and their practice of confirming landholders and merchants in their former rights and possessions. Also, at the very height of his success, in March 1559, Ivan IV suddenly and unexpectedly granted a truce to his enemies. Through this he hoped to obtain a peaceful surrender and settlement of terms by which Livonia would be governed.

  The reason for halting the Muscovite advance seems to have been the impending intervention of Danes, Swedes, Poles, and Lithuanians into the Livonian War, but most of all an invasion by the Crimean Tatars. Apparently the tsar hoped to secure his gains in the north by negotiation, to balance the intervening powers against one another, and keep them all away while he sent his own army south. He was mistaken in this. The northern powers were indeed jealous of one another, but not one monarch was willing to withdraw his hand from the booty that lay before him, and each was eager to get his share before the others gobbled it up. Ivan’s gesture cost him six months, months in which he could have occupied most of Livonia, months during which his opponents secured footholds in the country and raised troops to send into the fighting.

  In September of 1559 the Livonian Order forced Wilhelm von Fürstenburg to resign his office. Kettler, with authority now in his hands alone, was delayed in secularising his order only by the military crisis. He had already signed a treaty with Sigismund Augustus at Vilnius that made Livonia south of the Daugava a Polish protectorate. At this same time the bishop of Oesel sold his lands to Magnus of Holstein, the younger brother of the king of Denmark. Magnus was soon in Moscow pursuing a policy of his own that involved marriage into the tsar’s family and the creation of a mockable, impotent state grossly subservient to Russia. The Swedes came into the war in June of 1561, when Reval and the nobility of Harrien, Wierland, and Jerwen gave homage to King Eric. The era of German rule was coming to an end, but no one could predict what would succeed it. Not even the foreign powers now intervening in the war were able to do much at first, as the Russian summer offensive of 1560 swept over the land.

  The Livonian Knights had, in fact, developed an effective strategy for dealing with the Russian invaders. In the beginning they had attempted to bring infantry and artillery to bear on raiding parties, but they could not catch Tatar horsemen; when confronted by overwhelming numbers of infantry and cavalry, they retreated into stout fortresses. These tactics left the countryside extremely vulnerable to raiders. Out of necessity Kettler now improvised cavalry tactics that could limit the damage that Russian horsemen could do. Relying on the superior knowledge of the land and the ability to fall back on the castles, they were aggressive in harassing the enemy wherever they found him. This prevented the Russians from spreading out to loot and burn, thus restricting their ability to live off the land and offering some protection to the Livonian peasants. In addition, Kettler persuaded the Lithuanians to defend the southern lands and allowed the Swedes to hold the north. Concentrating his remaining forces, Kettler promoted able commanders whose youth and daring were breathing new spirit into the army. Alas for his fortunes, luck was not with them, as this passage from a contemporary chronicle describes:

  On August 2 thirty horsemen went out to forage some seventeen miles from the camp. They spotted five hundred Russians on the other side of a stream. Both sides were so close that each opened fire. One Russian was killed and the rest retreated across a hay field back toward the main body. Eighteen Germans turned back and twelve were left to pursue the enemy. As soon as the latter saw this main force they, too, turned back and made for camp, but they lost some men. The first group brought word of what had happened and the landmarshal . . . set out with three hundred horsemen, intending to engage the five hundred Russians. (They had not received word that there were any more than this. In fact, there were forty thousand.) They first attacked the enemy pickets and drove them back onto the main group. The Germans followed in hot pursuit and were surrounded by the enemy, all escape cut off. Guns and sabres were used in close combat, but the larger group wore down the smaller and many Germans were slain. Those who had remained in camp and had not taken part in the battle fled through the marshes and forests, each as best he could. This defeat took place . . . ten miles from Ermes. So many of the Russians were slain that it took fourteen wagons to bring them to [a] manor where the bodies were burned. The German casualties, killed and captured, were two hundred and sixty-one.

  The battle at Ermes was a fatal defeat. The numbers lost were not great, but the fallen knights were the flower of the Livonian Order. Everyone then realised that the end was approaching for the traditional government and way of life. Despite the confusion, the defeats, and the feeling that resistance was hopeless, the Livonian Knights had stayed in the field, harassed the enemy foragers, and defended their most important castles against attack. The extensive correspondence between the master and his castellans and advocates shows that the efficient organisation did not break down completely. Troops were still moved from one threatened point to another, and supplies were collected and distributed with a minimum of difficulty; but the knights were now too few and too old, the number of mercenaries both too large to pay with the reduced incomes and too small to be successful in pitched battle, and the financial condition of the treasury pitiful. The correspondence with foreign princes was staggering in its volume. Gotthard Kettler tried desperately to raise money and troops from the Holy Roman Empire, and to keep the neighbouring princes from dividing the country among themselves, but he had little success in any of these projects. Although Kettler may have plotted from the beginning to subvert the rule of his order and to make himself a landed prince, it is proper that he be given credit for these efforts to save the Livonian Knights and their possessions, and to pass down that inheritance intact to one ruler.

  Still, there was little that Kettler could do to prolong the existence of his military order. Once his field army had been routed, Kettler could not defend the castles effectively. Many brothers went into an imprisonment that ended in the streets of Moscow, their heads bashed in or cut off when they collapsed in exhaustion during the victory parade. The great fortress at Fellin, with all its stores, weapons, and the treasury, was lost when the mercenaries demanded that the commander accept a tsarist offer of surrender; Fürstenburg, who had wanted to fight to the death, was carried away to Moscow to spend the rest of his life in comfortable captivity. Ivan hoped that Fürstenburg would be able to persuade other Livonians to accept him as their lord, with the landed vassals ruling Livonia according to their ancient traditions, their only obligations to the tsar being taxes and military service; and he promised merchants access to the Russian market. A few nobles and burghers did come over to the tsar, but most of those did so only after being captured and given no other reasonable choice. Far more believed the gory stories of Ivan’s atrocities that were giving him the name ‘the Terrible’; as far as they were concerned, tsarist promises meant less than examples of tsarist tyranny. Better, they believed, to try any expedient that gave some promise of surviving the crisis. Soon after this Kettler began secret talks aimed at the dissolution of the order on terms that would make him duke of such regions as could be saved from the Russians.

  There were a few brothers who protested handing over the castles, one after the other, to Polish garrisons, but they could not suggest means by which the Livonian Knights could hold the fortresses alone. Only by concentrating the troops who remained and borrowing heavily to pay mercenaries could they even hold Kurland; and Kettler found that difficult because his royal patron was becoming reluctant to loan him anything more.

  The Livonian Order was technically still in existence, although most of the brethren were now dead or missing. They had found too late effective tactics for countering the Russian numbers. Now the ranks of their knights were too thin, and the good commanders had fallen in battle. No army can expect to fight without suffering an occasional setback, and if the strategy involves daring tact
ics, the number of defeats must necessarily be higher. The one defeat at Ermes had wiped out the most effective cavalry unit. Most survivors were now ready to give over the fight to others. The ensuing power vacuum drew the outsiders right into the country.

  The sense of panic that followed the crushing defeat at Ermes and the fall of the great fortress at Fellin in the centre of the country was observed carefully by the Estonians, that sturdy people which had never reconciled itself to the crusaders’ domination. The memory of earlier insurrections which had failed miserably had taught caution, but now those whose courage and initiative had not been crushed saw that the time had come – if it ever could come – when it might be possible for them to throw out their oppressors. They were unused to arms, having been deprived of weapons for generations, but in 1559 the Livonian Knights had raised units of native infantry, equipped them with swords, spears, and shields, and used them to support the small bodies of mercenaries and feudal cavalry trying to contain the Russian marauders provisioning the besiegers of Reval; eventually the Russians abandoned their attack and retreated. These sturdy peasants then came to realise that if they fought for the Russians instead of against them, they could become independent again – or at least free of German rule. The tsar encouraged them to rebel, reminding them how he had welcomed everyone, even German nobles, who had come over to him at the beginning and rewarded them for their service and loyalty; he listened to the Estonians’ advice, employed them as scouts and spies, and sent them into the German-occupied regions to spread his propaganda among those who would listen. In the occupied regions he ordered his officials to provide the peasants with seed grain, to help rebuild their homes, and to keep the troops from marauding and plundering. In contrast, the Germans were extorting extraordinary taxes to pay the cost of the war and drafting every available man for military service, for transporting supplies and equipment, or for working on fortifications.

  By the autumn of 1560 the Estonians had concluded that German rule was so weak that no serious resistance could be expected if they were to rebel, seize the forts and castles, and call on the tsar for help. No great preparation would be needed; in fact, efforts to plan ahead might alert the nobility to their danger. It would only be necessary to hold out with primitive weapons and daring until well-trained Russian troops could arrive. The chronicler Russow reported:

  In the autumn, as the situation in the country was so awkward, an alarm went out that the peasants in Harrien and Wiek had risen against the nobility because the nobles had imposed heavy taxes and rents upon them and made them perform difficult service, and nevertheless had not been able to protect them in the time of need, but left them to the Muscovites without resistance. Therefore, they thought that they did not need to obey the nobles any more or perform any services, but they wanted to be free from them or annihilate and root out the nobility altogether. And so they went ahead with their plans and destroyed some manors, and whatever noble they caught they slew and killed.

  The number of rebel Estonians under arms was not large – about 4,000 – and they were poorly equipped, with no supplies or fortresses to fall back upon; but they threatened to spread social revolution throughout Livonia, thereby bringing a sudden end to three-and-a-half centuries of German hegemony. Gotthard Kettler took the situation seriously, writing to the Polish king for help and committing the rest of the country so completely to the crown that it meant the practical end of the rule of the Livonian Knights there.

  The rising was of short duration. The peasants lacked good leaders, proper arms, proper training, and the discipline that comes only with experience. They drove away their German officers and elected leaders – some chosen according to ancient tribal practices and decorated with the traditional pagan symbols of office – but these were no match for the professionals who had come from the West.

  Credit for subduing the rebellion must go to the Danish commander in Wiek, Christopher von Münchhausen. Despite having but a small body of mercenaries, he ordered the handful of episcopal vassals to serve as his cavalry, rounded up the nearby Estonian peasantry to serve as foot soldiers against their rebel brethren, and then proceeded to trick the insurrectionary leader into thinking that the approaching army was another group of revolutionaries coming to join him. He caught the rebels by surprise, routed them, and captured their leader; then he quickly moved against hostile units elsewhere and dispersed them. As the few surviving rebels escaped to join the Russians, German nobles reappeared to take brutal revenge on guilty or suspect individuals and communities.

  The German nobles were not content to return to the pre-war situation, but insisted on subjecting all peasants to serfdom. They had wished to do this for decades, but had not dared to violate law and custom wantonly. Now there was no one to stop them; and, in the years to come, the Polish, Danish, and Swedish monarchs agreed to sacrifice the few remaining rights of the peasantry in order to keep the unsteady loyalty of these nobles. Although the military worth of the feudal cavalry was very doubtful at the onset of the war, at length the Baltic barons became doughty warriors whose knowledge of the land, its customs, its traditions, and its languages made them indispensable to anyone who hoped to hold and administer the territories.

  For the peasantry the failed rising was an unmitigated disaster. Even many of the free farmers were reduced to a state of near-slavery, subject to the wilful brutality and exploitation of a class of warrior-knights who were not required to exercise the caution of their ancestors in dealing with their subjects. In addition, the peasants suffered through years of war in which they lost more property and lives than any other group. First Russian armies came through, then Swedish or Polish forces, and finally the robbers who took advantage of the disorder. The peasants were taxed, burned out, murdered, raped, driven away from their ancestral homes, stripped of all means of self-defence, and left to suffer the ravages of marauders, famine, and disease. When the two decades of war ended, those who survived counted themselves lucky. Then the nobles – who now included many newly-arrived Swedish and Polish mercenary captains and royal favourites – organised a new administration to tax and exploit the peasants more effectively and brutally than ever before.

  By the autumn of 1561 there was practically no place outside Kurland which remained in the hands of the Livonian Order. The castle of Sonnenburg on Oesel, which was being eyed by Duke Magnus, was the only fortress that Kettler could still offer to the Polish king; and if he waited much longer, until that was lost too, then it would be unlikely that he could bargain for a duchy in Kurland. Already he had committed the southern lands to the king so thoroughly that he would be fortunate to salvage anything for himself and those few surviving knights and administrators who were willing to serve as landed vassals. In September he sent the castellan of Riga to negotiate on his behalf and for the archbishop of Riga in Königsberg.

  The ambassador left us a memoir that describes the short negotiations that brought an end to the Livonian Order. He arrived in Königsberg on a Saturday afternoon, found his lodgings, and rested. The next morning he attended worship service, had a short breakfast with two scholars sent by Duke Albrecht of Prussia, then was summoned to an audience with his royal majesty. Sigismund Augustus did not have business on his mind, however; he only wanted more company for lunch. So the ambassador sat down at a round table with the king, a few nobles, and an observer from Sweden. The fare was good and the wine worth commending. After the meal there was light conversation, during which Duke Albrecht arranged for the ambassador to meet with the chief Polish officials who would conduct the negotiations. That meeting was strictly business, filled with knowledgeable and critical discussions of vital details, and lasting until three in the morning. The next day a Polish official came to the ambassador’s lodgings for lunch to discuss some of the more important points confidentially; and they came to a general agreement on the questions of succession, use of the German language, the retention of traditional rights and privileges, religious liberty, and the status of L
ivonia within the Holy Roman Empire. The next morning the ambassador met with the duke’s representatives, who had little to say other than good wishes – because Albrecht had hopes of inheriting the new duchy should Kettler die without heirs, and he did not want his officials to say anything which might harm his chances. At lunch all the principal negotiators met again, at which time the Polish representative passed the ambassador a note asking for an urgent and secret meeting. Soon afterward he and the ambassador agreed upon all the basic points, including the method of announcing the agreement to the world.

  The details are too tedious to repeat, but they indicate the care with which both sides entered into the agreement. On 28 November 1561 the Livonian Knights were secularised; and on 5 March 1562 Master Kettler informed the world of this. Thenceforth he was Duke Gotthard of Kurland, and the Livonian Order ceased to exist.

  The two decades of war that followed can be divided into three periods. The first was the Seven Years’ War (1563 – 70), a conflict principally between Denmark and Sweden that ended after the Swedish nobility deposed their insane monarch and adopted a policy more favourable to Poland, after which Danish influence declined and the two remaining Western powers, Sweden and Poland, joined to face the tsar. Next was an equally long period, 1570 – 8, during which Ivan IV almost expelled his opponents from the region, until at last everyone joined together to resist him. Ivan was his own worst enemy, executing his generals and terrorising his own nobles and citizens, so that any gains made by the Russian and Tatar generals were accomplished in spite of the tsar rather than because of him. Of course, it was not possible for him to provide sufficient troops both for the Livonian theatre and to throw back the Crimean Tatar assaults; he correctly chose to give priority to the Tatar threat (and by eliminating them as a major military force he made possible subsequent Russian advances to the south). Finally, there were the three years following 1578, when Stefan Batory, the newly elected Polish monarch, resolved the problems with the Turks that had kept him busy on Poland’s southern frontiers. Leading his experienced troops north, the great general-king routed the Russian armies out of Livonia and reconquered parts of Rus’ that had formerly belonged to the Lithuanian state. The Swedes joined in this offensive, occupying Estonia and the Russian coastline up to the mouth of the Neva River. In 1582, Ivan IV, bankrupt, exhausted, and mentally ill, admitted defeat and signed a peace treaty that left Livonia in Western hands for another century.