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| Battle of Grunwald | |||||||||||||||||
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| Conflict | 1409-1411 war | ||||||||||||||||
| Date | July 15, 1410 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place | Grunwald/Tannenberg | ||||||||||||||||
| Result | Decisive Polish and Lithuanian victory | ||||||||||||||||
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The Battle of Grunwald took place on July 15 1410 between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on one side (estimated 39,000 troops), and the Teutonic Knights on the other (about 27,000 troops). In the battle the Teutonic Order state was defeated and never recovered its former influence. There are few eye-witness accounts of the battle and many of them are contradictory.
The battle was fought in what is now Polish territory (then in Teutonic Order state), in the plains beetween the villages of Grunwald (Žalgiris in Lithuanian), Stębark (Tannenberg in German) and Łodwigowo. The nearest city of any size was Dąbrówno (Gilgenburg in German). The names Žalgiris (from Lithuanian Žalia giria) and Grunwald (from German Grünewald), are both tentatively translated as Green wood.
The battle is also called Žalgirio mūšis (Battle of Žalgiris) by Lithuanians, Bitwa pod Grunwaldem (Battle near Grunwald) by Poles, Гру́нвальдзкая бі́тва (Battle of Grunwald) by Belarusians or Battle of Tannenberg/Stebark by Germans.
In the documents of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (kept in the old Belarusian language) it was called Дубро́венская бі́тва (Battle of Dąbrówno).
It was a battle between two alliances. On the one side were alligned the forces of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, supported by the Bohemian, Moravian, Tatar and Novgorod forces (about 39,000 troops), under the command of the grand duke of Lithuania Vytautas the Great and his cousin, the king of Poland and former grand duke of Lithuania Władysław Jagiełło (Jogaila). On the other side were the forces of the Teutonic Knights and some Western European knights (about 27,000 troops) under the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order Ulrich von Jungingen.
After the battle rumours were spread across the Europe (probably as an excuse) that Teutons were defeated with the help of numerous muslim Tatar hordes. In fact, it was estimated there were around 1.000 horseback tatars, the core being the Lipka Tatars settled in GDL, under the leadership of Jalal ad-Din, son of Tokhtamysh khan.
Historians of the Soviet Union attempted to overemphasize the Russian role in the battle. For example, they included some GDL banners, such as Smolensk, into the Russian list. They also phrased the desciption of the battle to make it feel that the support from Russian lands was decisive. In fact there was a joke that the battle with The fascist Teutons was won by joint Polish-Soviet forces (the territory of Grand Duchy of Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union).
In the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights had been invited to the lands surrounding Chelmno to asist in the expulsion of the (pagan) Prussians. They stayed on, and, under the pretext of a papal edict which gave them effective carte blanche to act as they wished, established a power base in the region, occupying the Baltic coastal regions of what are now Latvia Lithuania and Estonia, and showed every signs of outward expansion. Their incursions into Poland in the 14th century gave them control of major conurbations such as Chelmno and Pomorze. In order to further their combat against the (pagan) Lithuanian state, the Teutonic Knights instituted a series of crusades, enlisting support from other European countries.
In 1385 a diplomatic arrangement between Poland and Lithuania, and the subsequent marriage of the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Vladyslav Jogaila and the queen of Poland was to shift the balance of power; both nations were more than aware that only by acting together could the yoke of the Teutonic Knights be broken.
In 1398 the Knights again invaded what was now a firmly united Polish/Lithuanian state. At this time, the Poles and the Lithuanians had little option but to suffer in silence for they were still not prepared militarily to confront the power of the Knights.
On August 14 1409 the Teutonic Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen declared war on the Polish-Lithuanian union and then issued a subsequent armistice which was to last until June 24 1410. However the Lithuanians and the Poles used this time to prepare themselves to remove themselves of the Teutonic presence once and for all. Jogaila, commanding the Polish forces and Vytautas the Great of Lithuania, to whom Jogaila had ceded power in the wake of his marriage to the Polish queen, assembled their armies on July 2 1410, crossing into the territory of the Teutonic Knights and heading for the fort of Malbork.
After the initial failure to break the left flank of the Teutonic forces, Lithuanian light cavalry had to retreat into marshes. Jagiełło ordered an all-out assault of the right flank and the Teutonic lines were finally broken by heavy cavalry. Eventually, Polish-Lithuanian forces annihilated the Teutonic army. Ulrich von Jungingen died in battle, probably killed by enemy peasantry while retreating to his camp. Despite the technological superiority of the Teutonic Knights, to the point of this being believed to be the first battle in this part of Europe in which field-artillery was deployed, the numbers and tactical superiority of the Polish Lithuanian alliance were to prove overwhelming.
Jan Zizka lost his eye in the battle.
After the battle Polish and Lithuanian forces laid siege upon Malbork castle, but it was ineffective and the siege was lifted shortly afterwards.
After the battle a peace in Toruń (1411) was concluded in which Poland recovered Dobrzyn Land and Lithuania recovered Samogitia (Žemaitija). This is thought to be a diplomatic defeat of Poland and Lithuania as there were attempts to dismantle the Teutonic Knights state altogether. The indirect results of the battle were the disappearance of the victorious order myth, and the Prussian Confederation uprising after the Knights raised taxes. After this battle the power of the Teutonic Knights waned and never recovered; this decline resulted in a series of wars culminating in the Thirteen Years' War
To commemorate the medieval battle thousands of modern knights from all across Europe gather every year in July at the Grunwald fields to reconstruct the battle again. Great care is put to the historical details of the armour, weapons and the conduct of the battle.
Leading Lithuanian basketball and football teams are both called "Žalgiris" to commemorate the victorious battle (BC Žalgiris and FC Žalgiris).
The events of the battle are depicted in the film Aleksander Ford.
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