Battle of Grunwald
The Teutonic Order — a crusading military monastic order that had conquered Prussia — had become the dominant power on the Baltic shore, constantly probing Polish and Lithuanian borders. On 15 July 1410, near the village of Grunwald, a combined Polish-Lithuanian army met the Teutonic Order. Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen committed his reserves prematurely, a Lithuanian feigned retreat drew in the Teutonic cavalry, and the Grand Master himself was killed in the fighting. The Teutonic defeat was total. Grunwald became one of the central myths of Polish and Lithuanian national identity. The battle acquired enormous symbolic weight: when Germany invaded in 1914, the Kaiser's generals deliberately named their encirclement of the Russian Second Army at the same location 'the Battle of Tannenberg' to erase the Polish memory.
- Year: 1410 CE
- Category: Military
