Battle of Grunwald: Defeat of the Teutonic Knights

In July 1410, the formidable Teutonic Knights, rapacious crusaders clad in heavy plate armour, faced a massive Polish-Lithuanian alliance. After an insulting taunt involving two unsheathed swords, the Battle of Grunwald erupted into a bloody, day-long melee. Matt Lewis and Dr. Aleks Pluskowski to explore this epic medieval clash. MORE Teutonic Knights Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/teutonic-knights/id1564113746?i=1000683294739 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/0gUpGPLW74wnhDm7MI5h6V The Last Pagans Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-last-pagans/id1564113746?i=1000708439881 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/1LIVIGWSUOhXsOkspiaVRJ?si=68eb8cc9275f4517 Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™ Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original TV documentaries, with a new release every week, PLUS early access ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:01Matt Lewis?

  From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:40Matt Lewis?

  Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders to find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval.

• 1:17Matt Lewis?

  It's high summer, July 1410. And in an open meadow, deep in the Prussian countryside, thousands of fighting men stand abreast, melting under the heat of the morning sun. Kitted out in plate, cloth and mail, they're ready to indulge in the butchery of war. Hearts throb, heads pound, beads of sweat weave through the folds of weathered faces. They're being made to wait.

• 1:49Matt Lewis?

  Across the grassy plain, their opponents are arrayed in martial splendor. Their standards bear the sign of the cross, but coloured charcoal black, the emblem of the Teutonic Knights. For over 200 years, these rapacious crusaders have squeezed northern Europe dry, seizing land and coin to satiate their gluttonous territorial appetites, all supposedly in the name of their benevolent god. And now they face the combined forces of another burgeoning Christian power, a union of two proud kingdoms, Poland and Lithuania, bound together in opposition to the cross-clad horsemen from the far west. The uneasy standoff is broken

• 2:33Matt Lewis?

  when two riders burst forth from the Teutonic throng. Together, they carry two unsheathed swords. But this is not some lonely charge or the breaking of nerve. Instead, it's a gift, an offering. The two swords are for His Majesty, King Wadysław II of Poland, sent by Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen. And they're delivered with a sting. Delay less, fight more. The challenge is accepted. Soon, the meadow erupts into chaos. Thousands of men collide in one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the Middle Ages.

• 3:16Matt Lewis?

  By sunset, the Teutonic Order has been shattered. Its grandmaster lies dead. And the two swords, intended as an insult, have become trophies of victory.

• 3:32Matt Lewis?

  I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval. Today, we're exploring the Battle of Grunwald, one of the medieval world's greatest military clashes and a battle whose legacy still resonates across Europe more than 600 years later. How did the Polish-Lithuanian alliance defeat one of medieval Europe's most formidable military powers? Why did this battle become such a defining moment in Polish and Lithuanian history? And what happened to those two legendary swords? To help us answer those questions, I'm joined by Dr Alexander Pluskowski, Professor of Medieval Archaeology at the University of Reading and author of The Black Cross: A History of the Baltic Crusades.

• 4:19Matt Lewis?

  Welcome back to Gone Medieval, Alex.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me back.

• 4:22Matt Lewis?

  It's great to have you back. We're going to talk today about the Battle of Grunwald. And this is largely the result of a conversation with someone I had at work who wanted to know why we hadn't done one of the most important battles in Polish history. So hopefully you can explain why we should all have heard about the Battle of Grunwald. To kick us off, can you just tell us where and when are we when we talk about the Battle of Grunwald?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Okay, so where? We're in what at the time would have been southern Prussia, what today is northern Poland, north-eastern Poland, not too far from the border between the Kingdom of Poland and the Teutonic Order's territory or state of Prussia. And the battle took place on the 15th of July in the year 1410 and lasted all day from morning till the late afternoon.

• 5:15Matt Lewis?

  Wow, which is quite a considerable length of time for a battle.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, a long time. And you can imagine it would have been exhausting, massively exhausting. And actually, that's one of the features of the battle.

• 5:26Matt Lewis?

  And we're going to get into lots of detail about why it happened, why it happened there and what happened on the day. But can you just also give us a sense of why this is considered so important, particularly in Poland, but I guess in a wider European context too?

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the battle is one of the largest battles of the European Middle Ages. And we can argue one of the most consequential in terms of its symbolism, but also its later ramifications. I guess from a military perspective, it's a devastating defeat for the Teutonic Order and its allies. The grandmaster and most of the Order's brethren who are present at the battle are killed. For Poland, it represents the defeat of this powerful force and a high point in Polish-Lithuanian power. And I think we'll talk a bit more about that later on. In terms of European history, it really does mark the decline

• 6:22Speaker 01

  of one of medieval Europe's distinctive institutions, the Teutonic Order. It really is the beginning of the end. And conversely, the rise of Poland-Lithuania as this major European force, what becomes the largest state in Europe. So it is really sort of epoch-making as a symbolic watershed. The battle itself is perhaps less immediately consequential, as we'll discuss. But it's more its symbolism and how it was later imagined and projected.

• 6:54Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. And we're calling it the Battle of Grunwald, but I have seen it given a couple of other names, Tannenberg and things like that. Is there a correct name for it? Is there a reason it has several different names?

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's no universally correct name. The preferred name depends on language and national traditions. Grunwald is the Polish name for the battle. And that itself is a German name that just means green forest. Actually, to make it a bit more confusing, it had a different name before that. Briefly, it was referred to as Grünfeld, green field. But someone in the Royal Chancellery in Krakow, the capital of Poland, either made a mistake or made a deliberate change and it became quickly known as Grunwald. And then the first sources that really write about this, that we'll talk about in a bit, start using the word Grunwald.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  So then this becomes popular and then it gets adopted by 19th century Polish painters and writers. But it really does depend on what you're reading. And so the historians, the international historians, reading Polish literature would start using this name. Whereas the other name you refer to, Tannenberg, which is the German name, which basically means fir tree hill, which is a name that's given to a nearby village that the name itself is later changed into Polish, into something else. But this then becomes part of the German tradition. So those reading the German histories would then start using this name. And then we've got a third name, Jalgillis,

• 8:33Speaker 01

  which is the Lithuanian name. And that is just the Lithuanian version of Polish Grunwald. So it really depends what you read. But I would say Grunwald probably is the most popular just because the Poles have written the most about it. And we've got the big film from the 1960s that popularised the battle on the big screen. I think the only one to do so, actually. So that's why Grunwald probably is the one that we all use. Although in Germany, Tannenberg is still used.

• 9:02Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And what kind of sources do we have for reconstructing the events leading up to the battle and the battle itself? Are we relying on chronicles? Do we have kind of letters? Do we have some archaeology from the battlefield, maybe?

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Yep, so we've got all of those things. The two main sources are Polish. We've got this so-called Chronicle of the Conflict, which is written by an eyewitness not long after the battle. We don't really know who he is, but someone high up in the Polish state. But only an abridged version of that survives in a 16th century copy.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  The most famous account was written by this person called Jan Drugosz as part of his annals of the Kingdom of Poland. Now, he was actually born five years after the battle, but his father had fought at the battle. He was a minor nobleman who served in the Krakow Regiment. And so Jan would have grown up in a household where the battle would have been treated as a, as part of family memory. By the time he was writing, he was an important member of the royal court. He was a tutor to the Polish king's son. He was involved in diplomatic negotiations between the Teutonic Order and the Polish Crown. So he was writing many decades after the events, maybe speaking to very elderly eyewitnesses

• 10:21Speaker 01

  and obviously writing from a biased political viewpoint. He also produced this really colourful manuscript called the Banderia Prutinorum, which just basically translates to Prussian banners. He read that in 1448 and it's this beautifully illustrated inventory of the captured banners of the Teutonic Order's army that were taken as trophies back to Krakow and stored in a castle. So that gives us a nice detailed commentary on the organisation of the Order's army. And then we've got a few German sources, a few chronicles, as you said, which are less detailed. There's something called the Older Grandmasters Chronicle, which is basically a history of

• 11:01Speaker 01

  the Teutonic Order's grandmasters, written again from the Order's viewpoint. And the writers there really had to explain how such a disaster could have befallen in the institution that had this divine mandate. So they emphasised all sorts of things that you don't see in the, in the Polish chronicles. You're right in saying that there's a lot of correspondence, there are letters within the Teutonic Order's archives, but also letters to the papacy, letters between different rulers discussing or referring to the battle. And then we've got the archaeology, which really kicks off in the late 1950s as the museum on the supposed battlefield sites being built.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  The museum's opened in 1960 on the 550th anniversary of the battle. And the excavations focus on an area that later we know is the Teutonic Order's camp, where they find mass graves, where we have a few hundred individuals excavated with signs of battle trauma, as well as pits of charred and burnt remains. There are disagreements about the exact location of a battlefield that's defined the archaeology. And these are disagreements between Polish scholars and German scholars about where exactly the battlefield was. It was probably spread out over several places for reasons that will become clear a bit later on.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  And then we've got the first big metal detector ring survey taking place in, in 2014. So the archaeology of battlefields, it's quite a late development. Initially, they don't find much because they're looking in the wrong place. Later on, in subsequent years, they find fragments of weapons, axes, armour, crossbow bolts. And that sort of shifts where people think the battle took place. And these have been happening sort of year in, year out. They've been finding more arrowheads, more crossbow bolts, coins, bits of dress accessories worn by the Teutonic Order, for example, have inscriptions Ave Maria and things like this. But actually, most of the, the armour and the weapons probably would have been collected at the time.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  And anything that was buried would have been dug up by farmers and recycled in subsequent centuries. So there's relatively little in terms of the archaeology.

• 13:19Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, but it sounds like a battle that's fairly well served by the evidence, though. We've got a fairly strong range of, of sources that we can draw on. So we've talked a little bit about one side in this battle is the Teutonic Knights. I wonder if you can give us a kind of a potted history of why the Teutonic Knights have ended up here? What is the crusading order doing in the north east of Europe?

• 13:39Speaker 01

  Okay. So as you said, the Teutonic Order are a crusading order. They're a German speaking Catholic military institution and they've built their territorial state on the southern and eastern Baltic coast. And this took place over much of the 13th century. They were actually invited to the region by the Polish Duke of Missavia, Konrad, in, in 1230 and joined or started to lead the crusades against his neighbours, the pagan Prussians. They conquered the region. They then joined the crusades in what became Livonia, so modern Estonia and Latvia from 1237. And so this is where they carved out their core Baltic territories.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  And once they'd conquered these, they focused their attention on a region that is part of western Lithuania today called Samogitia. And then the region of Lithuania itself that became a grand duchy in the mid 13th century. And they so launched tonnes of attacks across their frontiers to try to conquer these last pagan regions. And these were part of their crusading mission. But we've got a second side to the hostility. You may think, well, why did they get involved against Poland? In 14, 1308, sorry, the Teutonic Order were invited to, by one of the Polish leading

• 15:07Speaker 01

  dukes, to defend the city of Danz, or Danzig in German, against the margraves of Brandenburg. And the order ended up, for complicated reasons, taking control of the city and then annexing the region. And so successive Polish kings always wanted to recover the city and its region. And at the time, in the 14th century, this escalated into a full blown war, relations deteriorated. To cut a long story short, a peace followed and the Polish kings were not powerful enough really to challenge the Order's rule throughout much of a 14th century, until they began to enter into an alliance with Lithuania. And that really tipped the balance.

• 15:51Matt Lewis?

  So we've got kind of a century of, of rivalry, of tension on that border between these two factions before we get to the Battle of Grunwald. So on the other side then, we've got, we've got the Kingdom of Poland and we've got the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. How have they come to be working together?

• 16:07Speaker 01

  So the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Jorgaila, was looking for an alliance to bolster the defence of his realm. And he, he thought of various options, but the best one was to marry the Polish monarch. Incidentally, she was called king at the time. That's just a Polish term to emphasise her right to the throne. This was an individual called Jadwiga. In exchange for agreeing to Christianise Lithuania, return all Polish lands Lithuania had taken in formal wars. You've got to remember, Poland, Lithuania were also rivals, politically speaking, and then attaching Lithuania to the crown of Poland. So this agreement was sort of developed in 1385.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  The following year, in February, the Grand Duke converted to Catholicism, took the baptismal name of Wadyswaf, which is a popular royal name, particularly chosen in honour of his bride's great grandfather, Wadyswaf I. They married three days later. He was crowned the following month and became known as Wadyswaf II Jagewa. And Jagewa is basically the Polish rendering of Jorgaila. And it's the word, it's the name that becomes most commonly associated with him as he then becomes joint ruler with his wife until her death. And then he becomes the sole ruler. So this is how Poland and Lithuania become united.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  And then after that, we've got essentially joint rulers. And by joint rulers, I mean, we've got two separate rulers agreeing to rule together. We've got the Grand Dukes and the Polish kings. But eventually in the 16th century, this becomes merged into a single, a single post of a joint ruler of the Commonwealth, Lithuanian and Polish Commonwealth.

• 18:01Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. The idea of having two rulers agreeing to rule a territory together seems like a bit of a recipe for disaster.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Yes, there were definitely many tensions because the other big figure in Lithuania is Jorgaila's cousin, who is the son of the former Grand Duke of Lithuania. And this individual's name is Vitaltas. And he's a very interesting figure, a very popular figure in Lithuanian history because he was involved in a civil war with his cousin and he was supported by the Teutonic Order at various points. So various people were switching sides as Vitaltas and Jorgaila struggled for command of Lithuania. But at the end, they resolve their differences and both would in fact fight together against the order at Grunwald.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  So ultimately, there was a compromise and...

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Jorgaila agreed that Viteltus could be Grand Duke of Lithuania, providing he acknowledged him as his superior ruler. So you've got then this dual structure that seems to work, but really does depend on the personalities involved. And of course, the Lithuanian nobility are not massively happy. They're fearing a loss of independence, a growing Polish dominion. And in fact, Polish influence does eventually grow, particularly in the 16th century, when both are merged into this single state. So you're right, there would have been tensions. It was difficult.

• 19:31Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And I guess there's that question as well of the the conversion to Christianity. So Jorgaila, do we have any sense of how genuine that was? Because I guess there's there's an issue here in that it creates this Polish Lithuanian state, which bolsters the position of Lithuania politically by making this religious decision. But the other side of that also is it it sort of removes the rationale for the crusading Teutonic Knights to be there if the population is now Christian.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  And this creates a real legitimacy crisis for the order. Because obviously, they can't now legitimately attack a Christian state. That doesn't stop them, of course. And they basically say that the conversion is a sham, it's fake, and that Poland is heretical for helping pagans against a sacred crusading institution and against the church. And we can imagine that many knights continue to believe this because the order continues its attacks against Lithuania. And many European knights continue to join its mini crusades. And it takes a while for people to accept, actually, no, Lithuania is Christian and is under the protection of the papacy.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  It's joined the Christian club. So especially after the defeat of the Teutonic Order at Grunwald, it becomes really clear, well, they can't be defeated if they have this heavenly mandate. So they people start to question it and the order start to lose this legitimacy in the eyes of of European rulers and European nobility. But on the ground, as you said, we don't have this overnight conversion. We never do in the history of Christianity. So this is quite a slow and gradual process, especially in the rural areas of Lithuania, where pagan practices continue for generations, for centuries in some cases, almost becoming like this cryolized form of religion with Christianity.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  So in a way, the order was correct in saying that we don't have this instant genuine conversion to Christianity. Politically, it was the astute thing to do.

• 21:35Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And I guess it's it's a act of kind of self preservation on behalf of the Teutonic Order, really, isn't it? Because they've spent 200 years trying to convince these people to become Christians. And you would think they could take the win when they turn around and say, okay, we're Christians now. But actually, the Teutonic Order don't want to to to manage themselves into irrelevance. And so they're like, no, no, no, no, you need to be the right kind of Christians.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah. They want to have a rationale for existing, or at least validity, for maintaining their state and for their economic model. So you're right, it's the right kind of Christians, which from the order's perspective, is on their terms and under their rule. And of course, then it becomes a big argument about who is better placed to convert the Lithuanians, and particularly this group in the West, the Samogishians. And eventually, the Poles are handed this responsibility by the papacy. And the Teutonic Order are not very happy about this. So of course, this is a simmering issue that continues into the 15th century.

• 22:35Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And we've had this kind of, you know, a century really of of conflict between these two sides, during which it feels like very little has has actually changed. No one really has the upper hand or is making vast amounts of progress during that time. Has something changed by the beginning of the 15th century? That means that something significant can happen now.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  What you have is the Teutonic Order finally getting their hands on Samogitia, this frontier region. And they take it essentially because of complicity from Lithuanian rulers, especially during the civil war between Jorgaila and his cousin Viteltus. So Samogitia is promised to the order, given to the order in various treaties, who build castles, establish themselves, and then face a series of uprisings. Now, these uprisings, these are local uprisings, are secretly supported by the Lithuanian rulers and Lithuanian nobility, and by the Poles, of course.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  And then the order retains the upper hand, manages to establish its control again. So you've got sort of a lot of what we can call real politic happening. And it's not until 1408 and really 1409 that you've got another big uprising. And then the Lithuanians come out openly and support of this, as do the Poles. And then the Teutonic Order, led by the Grand Master, basically have a preemptive strike against Poland in the summer of 1409. So that is really the beginning, the spark that starts the whole war that culminates in this big battle.

• 24:19Matt Lewis?

  Interesting. So it's kind of, it's a victory, or what might have felt like a victory for the Teutonic Order, that actually creates the circumstances that will drag it down. It's that kind of Samogitian uprising and the reactions to it that ultimately lead us to the Grunwald.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Yes, that's right. And the Teutonic Order are not expecting a joint invasive force. Because then what subsequently happens? There is a brief peace treaty. And then Poland and Lithuania take the initiative and invade the order's Prussian lands, really under secret. And the order are not prepared, I mean, they're prepared for a conflict, but they anticipate this taking place in both Poland and Lithuania. And so they're not expecting a joint coalition force to face them. All one that is so incredibly organized. The sources talk about how the Polish ruler Jorgaila, Jorgewo, is incredibly well coordinated as a commander

• 25:19Speaker 01

  and manages to march his army incredibly effectively to meet the order's forces. So this challenge to the order's authority is somewhat unexpected. So you're right in that sense, it does sort of backfire against the order.

• 25:35Matt Lewis?

  And as we get closer to the actual battle itself, how much do we know from the sources that we have about the the composition of each army? I guess we imagine the Teutonic Knights, you know, in their armor and on their warhorses as a kind of elite, heavy cavalry force. How accurate is that as a view of them?

• 25:50Speaker 01

  That is partially accurate. The order's army numbers, maybe 16,000 men. Some historians favor higher figures, 18,000. We know that medieval sources are notoriously misleading. But we do know they're organized into what are called banners, as are the Poles. And they had 51 of these regiments. But the actual Teutonic Knights themselves, so the brothers, are just a small elite force within this army, maybe only 250 of them. So the rest includes what are called half brothers and mainly the order's subjects who are obliged to provide military service. This includes members of the indigenous Prussian nobility,

• 26:36Speaker 01

  town nobility, rural levies, and guest knights, mostly from the Holy Roman Empire. So it's a composite army, but one that is commanded by the order's brethren and their higher officials.

• 26:49Matt Lewis?

  And I think that's something our listeners will have heard before in terms of the Knights Templar, that, you know, they act as these kind of organizers, the focal points. There aren't huge numbers of them, but what they're very good at doing is is instilling discipline and organizing the rest of the army.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  That's right. And they were noted for their discipline, but also for their fighting prowess. You have to remember, the order has been fighting for Lithuanians and the Samogishians for over a century. They're battle hardened. Okay, we have obviously multiple generations of individuals, but many of their commanders spend time on the front line or moving between posts in eastern Prussia on the frontier. So they know who they're up against. And they even adopt some of the weaponry used by the Lithuanians and some of their tactics. So they are incredibly flexible. But they do have this reputation because of their investment in heavy cavalry as these heavy plate armored knights.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  But they also invest a lot in crossbows and even in field artillery. In fact, they're some of the earliest European powers to do so. So we know they have these bombarders, these sort of early cannons and guns that they position before the main battle line. In the end, these don't have much effect. They end up firing two volleys, doesn't do very much. But nonetheless, they are investing in the latest technology.

• 28:16Matt Lewis?

  And what do we know about the Lithuanian and Polish forces in comparison? What are they consisting of?

• 28:22Speaker 01

  So we think the Polish army numbered around 20,000 fighting men. We can savor of knightly status, knights, retainers, but equipped as heavy cavalry with some 6,000 wagons. And they probably would have been accompanied by about 10,000 spare horses. So that's a big equine footprint. You can just imagine the size of the army and the convoy going snaking through into southern Prussia when they cross the Vistula. They're organized also into these 51 banners. But these units probably would have been bigger than the orders. So a few hundred in each of these banners. Now, the Lithuanians had maybe between 10,000 and 14,000 men

• 29:05Speaker 01

  organized into 40 of these banners. The Lithuanian army was really interesting because it was actually quite a diverse, we can even say coalition force. Because you have to remember Lithuania had lots of different ethnic groups within its bounds. So we have lots of regional groups that includes Ruthenians, that includes Tartars from the Eurasian steppes. And we would have had different types of weaponry and armor associated with each of these groups. But generally speaking, we're talking about lighter and more mobile cavalry here. And there are also mercenaries from Bohemia and Moravia, probably a few thousand of those. So very diverse and composite.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  And that's one of the most impressive things about the leadership of the Polish Lithuanian force was managing this diverse coalition.

• 30:11Matt Lewis?

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• 32:53Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, that sounds like we've, we've got a huge advantage of numbers for the Poles and Lithuanians, but against that, you have to balance this, this greater variety in the types of people who are there, perhaps their motivations for being there, their styles of fighting, their ways of leadership and organization on a battlefield, which can become really unwieldy in the moment, can't it? And that's where somewhere like the Order might feel, even if they're outnumbered, they have the advantage because they're such a tightly well-organized unit.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And when we look at the descriptions of how the commanders operated, we can see this on both sides. And it's really striking that you've got two commanders on the Polish-Lithuanian side, operating slightly differently, but with Jagiawa having general oversight. And he seems to be incredibly mobile. He moves between different positions. You know, you've got to hand it to the messengers who are conveying various instructions and orders between the various units. I mean, it's incredibly impressive that all of this was coordinated. Although just how much was exactly coordinated, we don't really know. But we can imagine on the basis of the descriptions that we have quite effective coordination

• 34:09Speaker 01

  in terms of reinforcements, in terms of reserves getting sent up to replace exhausted units.

• 34:15Matt Lewis?

  And so the two sides line up on the 15th of July, 1410, and we get initially a bit of a standoff. And I wonder if you could tell us the story about the Grunwald swords, which I think has become quite famous.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, the two swords. So the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Ulrich von Jungingen, sends two swords to the Polish King Jagiawa. They're brought by these two heralds. And we mostly have this from the Polish accounts, from Jan Durgosz, who basically frames this as a taunt, a chivalric insult that is there to goad the Poles to fight. He's like, you, you need these swords to basically help you get into the spirit of things. Why aren't you attacking us? Maybe that's true. Some have speculated, given the Teutonic Order are a monastic institution, that what we actually have is a biblical

• 35:07Speaker 01

  reference, that the swords are a reference to Christ's commentary in the Gospel of St. Luke, where two swords are a reference to defence by peaceful means. So the Order is basically saying, you know, these are two swords that Christ gave us so we can defend ourselves. And maybe it's a justification for the defence. We don't really know. The traditional narrative is the one that is the taunt. And then the two swords are taken off as trophies to Krakow, where they're kept in the castle. And then they have a long, complex biography. They end up vanishing probably into Russian hands in the 19th century,

• 35:48Speaker 01

  and we don't know where they are. So their fate is unknown. They're probably in Russia if they weren't melted down.

• 35:55Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. I quite like the idea of it being a taunt. It's kind of, you know, why aren't you attacking us? Do you need some swords? Maybe we can help you out with that. Here's a couple of swords. Come and have a go.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  That's the popular view, yeah.

• 36:04Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. But that just gives us the sense that there is this, a bit of a standoff, that both sides are kind of waiting maybe for the other one to move first. Would that make sense in the circumstances?

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then you've got these volleys. You know, I guess artillery is the traditional opening of battles, once it starts being used on the battlefield. And then you've got the Lithuanian attack. So yes, you're right, you've got a standoff. And I guess there's a lot to coordinate. And that's, again, something we need to get into our heads, that the standoff happens because you've got the army. And we've, we probably are dealing with, what, 30, 40,000 people, many of whom are on horseback, spread out

• 36:53Speaker 01

  over what ultimately end up being multiple mini battlefields. And then people trying to coordinate these banners, commanders, and then the main commanders on each side. So getting everybody lined up, coordinating maneuvers, is quite complicated. So this probably also explains why you've got a lot of facing off and then reacting to the attacks as they unfold.

• 37:19Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And we're still in a world, I think, as well, where the prevailing military wisdom tends to be that you shouldn't attack first, that the side that attacked first will generally lose, because any good commander has tried to pick a defensive position. And so why would you give up that strong defensive position to make the first attack? So, so both sides are probably thinking, well, I think you see this a lot in medieval battles, don't you? It's kind of, if we move first, we're probably going to lose, so we need a good reason to move first.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Yes, no, absolutely. And obviously, both sides are using crossbows and archers. So you've got that present also in the background in terms of a threat of a cavalry, not to mention the cannons. Okay, the cannons are ineffective in the end, generally speaking. But yeah, you've got that worry as well.

• 38:04Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. And I guess at the start of the battle, no one knows the cannon aren't going to be as effective as you might hope. All you're seeing is the marauder in front of you thinking, uh-oh.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, absolutely. And we have to remember that the Lithuanians are, okay, they do fight pitched battles, but their history of fighting with the Order is more centered on guerrilla warfare in the forests and swamps of Western Lithuania, Eastern Prussia, and also sieges. You know, these are armies that are used to sieges, both, both sides, really. So pitched battles on this scale are quite unusual and quite risky.

• 38:42Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, it's another interesting element to throw into the works. So how does the battle kick off? Who moves first?

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Okay, so the Lithuanian flank led by Viteltis attacks first, and then you've got fierce fighting developing on the Order's left flank. And then much of the Lithuanian force withdraws from the battlefield. And this is where we come to this idea, is this a deliberate feint? Is this a manoeuvre the Lithuanians learnt from the Tartars? Or is this a genuine retreat? The feint could have been a later interpretation. Most of the sort of analysis and commentary, we have to remember, is much later on, when people are reflecting on how the battle went, and also on the valor of the people involved. You know, this becomes really important for family memory among the Polish and Lithuanian

• 39:33Speaker 01

  nobility. So everybody then has their own version of which regiment did what, and how heroic they were. So we have to, you know, take all of this with a pinch of salt. But we do know that the Lithuanian force withdraws, and the Order pursues them. And then the three Lithuanian regiments from Smolensk, this is named in the sources, actually withstand the Order's attack, protecting the Polish flank. And the Polish centre and the right continue fighting and absorb the brunt of the Order's attack. And then the Lithuanians return and counter-attack, pushing back the Order. And this is where really the Order's

• 40:14Speaker 01

  artillery is lost, because the Order's forces are pushed back, and maybe some 150 metres, the artillery is just left amidst the Lithuanian counter-charge. And that is, shall we say, the fateful point where the Grand Master Ulrich gathers the remaining units, maybe some 16. No reserves are available at this time, and attacks the Polish army's flank. But the manoeuvre is noticed, and the Grand Master and the other officials are killed by the regiment from Krakow. At that point, a lot of people have said, oh, you know, the Grand Master dies, this results in a collapse in Morrel. Probably most don't know

• 40:58Speaker 01

  that has happened in the melee. Most would have not seen this happen. But what is actually happening at the same time is that the Polish and Lithuanian forces are in a sort of crescent, and they're encircling the Order's army, but it's dwindling. And when they see this, there is a rout. And this is pursued by the Polish and Lithuanian cavalry. And that's really where a lot of the killing takes place during this retreat. So that's a rough sketch of how the battle goes. But we have to remember that what we've got is lots of mini confrontations

• 41:37Speaker 01

  spread out across this series of battlefields. And, you know, you've got multiple charges from either side, which are then replenished by reserves. And then people are resting and getting back, and then going back into the fray. And this seems like continuous fighting over the period of a day. But what you've got is multiple separate charges and attacks that eventually exhaust the people involved, if you think about the timescale. And also, increasing numbers of casualties, especially among the horses, the bodies are piling up. And so this changes the nature and the character of battlefield. So there

• 42:20Speaker 01

  is no single moment where we can go, oh, yes, you know, the battlefield turned on this moment. It was almost this process of exhaustion and attrition. And eventually, the Polish-Lithuanian side gets the upper hand.

• 42:35Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And so I guess the fact that it lasts for so long, and as you say, it becomes more about attrition than fighting ability maybe, favours the Polish-Lithuanian side because they have those much larger numbers and the ability to kind of keep going longer than the Teutonic Order can.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah.

• 42:53Matt Lewis?

  And that feint becomes really interesting, I guess, because the Lithuanians are on the winning side. They can tell the story about the retreat however they like. And I guess it's hard to get to the bottom of, isn't it? Because the Mongols are famously fond of a feigned retreat. And that could be a tactic they've encountered from conflicts with the Mongols. But we also see something similar happen at Hastings in England in 1066. You know, the Normans kind of run away. But because they win the battle, they're able to say, oh, no, no, we didn't really mean to run away. It was a deliberate feint. So I guess it's a bit of the victors being able to write the narrative.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah, we will never really know the truth in that sense. We can observe from the accounts what probably happened in terms of the movements of these various units. But for the motivation and the reasoning, the so-called retreat actually was considerable beyond even the Lithuanian camp. You know, what does that mean? Does that mean that some of the Lithuanians just continued retreating? That sounds like a bit of an excessive feint, although it did draw the Order's cavalry after them. Difficult to know. You know, you're right in saying that the Lithuanians have a lot of experience of fighting with and alongside the Tartars and the eastern parts of the Grand Duchy. And of course,

• 44:06Speaker 01

  we know there are a few thousand Tartars probably in the Lithuanian army itself. So it is entirely plausible that's playing a role.

• 44:15Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah.

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• 46:01Matt Lewis?

  And so how bad a defeat should we consider this to be for the Teutonic Knights? Because not least, the number of casualties, the number of brothers of the Order who have been killed must have been fairly devastating for them.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was really bad. Maybe some 8,000 are killed on the Order's side, with then many thousands captured. Only about seven brothers survive, roughly out of the 250. Most of the higher officials are killed. The Grand Master, Grand Commander, Grand Marshal, numerous commanders, the leaders, the political leaders of the Order's Prussian state. So it is pretty disastrous in that sense. And I think a large number are killed when the armies fleeing, because they're funneled down three roads through this quite

• 46:57Speaker 01

  marshy terrain. And you can imagine that they're cut down there. And then in the Order's camp, on the basis of the archaeology, actually, it's one of the really useful things about the excavations at the end of the 50s, is that these mass graves that are found in the area of the Order's camp suggests that a lot of the killing, even a massacre took place at the Order's camp at the end of a battle.

• 47:21Matt Lewis?

  And what's left of the Teutonic Knights will retreat back to their humongous castle at Marienburg, but the Poles and Lithuanians kind of follow them and lay siege to that. So how does that play out for the Teutonic Order?

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Remarkably well. This is actually a turning point in the war and it stalls what may have been a catastrophic defeat. Had the Polish Lithuanian army taken Marienburg or Melborg, its Polish name, that could have been it for the Teutonic Order. They would have decapitated the Order's political centre and maybe that would have been the beginning of the end. But they advanced on the castle quite slowly. They took a number of other castles on the way and those were handed over because many of the Order's officials believed that their cause was lost. And in fact, in Marienburg, yes, there was a panic, but the crucial figure here was Henry of Plowin, Heinrich von Plowin, a commander

• 48:17Speaker 01

  of a small castle in southern Prussia called Schwetz. And he actually acted remarkably quickly. He rode to Marienburg, assumed command, gathered the survivors, organised the defence, organised food and artillery, strengthened the castle's defences. And the besieging army just didn't bring enough with them. Obviously, they were worn out after Grunwald. They didn't have enough artillery to maintain a successful siege. As the weeks passed, food became scarcer for both men and horses, and disease starts to spread among the army as well. And so this becomes a problem. And ultimately, also, we have the motivations

• 49:01Speaker 01

  now of the two rulers of the Polish-Lithuanian coalition. And Viteltus is actually, deep down, more concerned with securing Samogesha and Lithuania's frontier. Jagewo wants to recover Polish lands that were taken by the Order, and this isn't doing him any good. So after roughly two months, they withdraw and the Order hold on to Marienburg. It's not the very end of the war, but it is the end of attempting to seize the Order's capital.

• 49:33Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. The Teutonic Order are still kind of a bit too strong to fall at this point. So how does the war ultimately come to an end?

• 49:41Speaker 01

  So the Order tried to get the upper hand again by recruiting a fresh army in the Empire. And they do, relatively small one, but they end up confronting the Polish army later on that year in October, 10th of October in 1410. It's a bit of an exhausting conflict. There are three breaks in the fighting. The Poles lose maybe only 100 men. The Order lose a few thousand in terms of casualties and prisoners. And eventually, they realise that this isn't going anywhere. So you've got then these negotiations where the Teutonic

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Order eventually sign what's called the Peace of Torn in February 1411. And that is a treaty that marks the history of relations between the Teutonic Order, Poland, Lithuania, where they recover, Poland recovers the land that was taken on its frontiers by the Teutonic Order, and Lithuania regains Samogesha for the lifetime of the Polish and Lithuanian rulers. More importantly, the Order has to pay these massive war reparations. And this is really a crippling sum that has a massive long-term impact.

• 51:03Matt Lewis?

  And so should we consider Grunwald to be kind of responsible for the decline of the Teutonic Knights? It may be in combination with that treaty that punishes them? Or is there more to the fall of the Teutonic Knights than just simply losing kind of one battle and not coming out the war very well? You know, we've got the, maybe the increasing acceptance that the Christianisation of the region is done, and it's happened now, the move towards the Reformation and things like that. There just aren't crusading orders around like that anymore. Is it one thing that leads to the downfall of the Teutonic Knights, or is there more than one factor at play?

• 51:39Speaker 01

  There's more than one factor. It is elevated later on to this big symbolic defeat. But if we look at it in detail, it's maybe a symbolic beginning of the Order's decline, but the battle itself isn't a cause of decline in a real sense. Yes, it did destroy much of the Order's experienced leadership, but this is quickly replaced. It didn't result in the capture of the Order's political centre and headquarters. And the Order regains its strength and control over its territories pretty quickly. It does dent the Order's

• 52:20Speaker 01

  aura of, if you like, invincibility as these, you know, divinely ordained crusaders. So people do begin to question the Order's ability on the battlefield. And also, it's divine mandate. Like you said, the Christianisation of Lithuania is making people think twice. And this, if you like, solidifies that in their minds. And they go, okay, well, wouldn't the Order be better off doing things like fighting the Turks, for example, which are real enemies of Christendom as opposed to the Lithuanians, who are under the protection of a papacy? And as you mentioned, these crippling financial commitments that in the long term create or accelerate, because we already have these tensions, with its own subjects, particularly in the cities. And we've also got an internal decline within

• 53:05Speaker 01

  the Order. By the 15th centuries, higher officials of the Teutonic Order are beginning to live almost separate lives where they are, how shall we say it, there's an element of corruption going on. They are using surpluses from their lands to supply their own personal treasuries. It's a sort of privatisation that we see happening on the Order's lands in Livonia as well. And some people even begin to accuse the Order of greed. You know, what happened to that vow of poverty they took as these fighting monks? They're also accused of breaking their vows of celibacy, and this tarnishes their reputation. And they have a real problem with recruitment over the course of the 15th century. So they

• 53:50Speaker 01

  start to have to rely on mercenaries, which, you know, you have to pay. And if you don't have the money, or insufficient money, that creates a problem. And mercenaries can abandon you or change sides, which creates, you know, a problem for the Order's military security. So all of these things come together. And I guess Grunwald, that war associated with it, the Great War from 1409 to 1411, really is one of these points that highlights this fragility.

• 54:20Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. And Grunwald has gone down, as we've discussed, as really significant, important European battle. Do you think it deserves to be maybe better known than it is? Particularly, I wasn't aware of the Battle of Grunwald before we talked about it ahead of this. Does it deserve to be better known? And does it have a real kind of legacy that we should consider?

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I think part of the lack of knowledge is that this is, in simple terms, a product of the Cold War, where we have a marked ignorance of central and eastern European history in the West because of these boundaries and because of a propaganda that is churned out by either side that creates these somewhat sort of caricatured versions of history that are mapped on to the status quo at the time, and of course, on to what happened in the First and Second World Wars. So I think that you haven't heard of this is not surprising because it's not the kind of thing, you know, I grew up in London. I heard about it because it was talked about in my Polish family. It's a big part of Polish

• 55:27Speaker 01

  history, but it's not something I would have learned at school in London. And yet, it marks this massive shift in the balance of power in Northern Europe and particularly in Eastern Europe. It marks the decline of one of the most important medieval powers in Europe, and unusual powers, you know, this crusading order ruling large portions of the Baltic, and the emergence of Poland, Lithuania as what would become the biggest European power for a time. So within European history, within Eurasian history, I think it's really important. And also for how it was used during the First and Second World

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Wars by Imperial Germany and by nationalists in Poland and Lithuania, and also in Russia. It becomes a big part of a propaganda wars and the motivations for preserving national identity in Central and Eastern Europe. So it's a big part of that story, which of course, you know, in the West, we're also a big part of that story. But I think that ignorance is because of what happened after the Second World War. And people are becoming aware of it because, of course, we have from the 1990s, increasing mobility, people are visiting Eastern and Central Europe, studying its history, reading about it, visiting as tourists, going to these castles and battlefields. So people are becoming more aware of it. But

• 56:52Speaker 01

  I think, you know, we need a big Netflix film or TV series to really penetrate the Western imagination and put it on the map, I think.

• 57:01Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, sounds like a good idea. I mean, it's a story that writes itself, isn't it? But Teutonic Crusading Knights versus the Polish-Lithuanian people.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  It's begging to be filmed.

• 57:10Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, let's get on it, Alex. Yeah, and I was going to say that to some extent, this feels like a legacy of the 20th century, when things like that have been hijacked by other forces for other reasons. And do you think that that means that there is a real drive for particularly Polish people, I guess, to try and reclaim this part of their history and set it at the centre of European politics and history where it does belong?

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Yep, absolutely. And this goes back to Poland's own political history. After the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, it disappears from the map of Europe, comes under Russian, Prussian and Austrian rule, it's subdivided. And so Polish history, especially glorious battlefield victories, become one of the ways in which national identity is preserved. And so Grunwald becomes the perfect symbol for Poland defeating a powerful invader, reinforcing that memory of the Lithuanian partnership, which really were the glory days for Poland and Lithuania, the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, and representing really that kind of national resilience.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  And you've got these big creative pieces in the 19th century. Firstly, Jan Matejko's painting of the Battle of Grunwald that you can see in Warsaw, painted in 1878. This is a massive patriotic statement during a time when Poland is not an independent state. And this also inspires the author, Henrik Schenkevich, to publish this book, All the Teutonic Knights. This becomes the staple national history of Polish victory against the order. And he describes Grunwald, obviously, this is a patriotic history, not a real history, but it influences how people learn history at school in Poland and also in Lithuania.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  And then we've got Alexander Ford's film in 1960, again, named after Schenkevich's book. And this brings it in for the generations of the 20th, the later 20th centuries. So in Poland, you've got a very clear chain of narratives that fixes this in the Polish national imagination as the great victory. And it is against Germany in their minds, because the flip side of this is that the Teutonic Order are appropriated by Imperial Germany and then by the Third Reich as, if you like, ancestors of German imperialism in the East, which is not what they were.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  But nonetheless, this is an image that's taken up on both sides of the divide by the Nazis, by German nationalists and then Polish Lithuanian nationalists, and by Soviet propagandists. So they sort of reinforce each other. So Grunwald becomes reimagined, if you like, as the defeat of Germany. And in fact, the Battle for Berlin, the defeat of Nazi Germany, is pitched as a second Grunwald in Soviet propaganda, in Polish propaganda. And so it becomes this great revival of Polish identity after the Second World War. And I think that association is only now slipping away and becoming more connected

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  with the medieval realities of what was going on at the time and the Teutonic Order separating from later Imperial Germany and the Third Reich.

• 1:00:44Matt Lewis?

  Well, I mean, I've found this absolutely fascinating. It sounds like an incredible bit of history that we all ought to know a little bit better. And also just the journey that that bit of history has been through throughout the rest of European history, from which it only seems to just be emerging now, so that we can all get to know the battle in its own context a little bit better. So thank you so much for joining us, Alex, and sharing your expertise on the Battle of Grunwald.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Thank you very much for having me.

• 1:01:12Matt Lewis?

  I hope you've enjoyed this episode. And if you want to find out more about the Teutonic Knights and the medieval Baltic, then Alex's book, The Black Cross: A History of the Baltic Crusades, is a fantastic starting point. You can also go back and listen to our previous episode with Alex titled Teutonic Knights. And if you want more on the conversion of Lithuania to Christianity, then you can listen to last year's episode titled The Last Pagans. There are new instalments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back to join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval.

• 1:01:54Matt Lewis?

  You can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week at historyhit.com/subscribe. Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History Hits.