Battle of Grunwald
A Polish-Lithuanian army destroyed the Teutonic Order's field force at Grunwald on 15 July 1410, in one of the largest battles of medieval Europe. The Order had ruled Prussia as a sovereign monastic state for two centuries, justified by a mandate to convert the pagan Balts. Lithuania's conversion in 1386, when Grand Duke Jogaila married the Queen of Poland and was baptised, removed that justification and the Order kept attacking anyway, arguing the baptism was insincere. Perhaps 39,000 Polish, Lithuanian, Ruthenian, Tatar, Moldavian and Bohemian troops faced some 27,000 under Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen. The battle opened with the Order sending two naked swords to Jogaila as a taunt, inviting him to fight if he lacked the courage. The Lithuanian wing under Vytautas withdrew after about an hour, drawing a substantial part of the Order's line into a pursuit. Whether that was a rout or a feigned retreat in the steppe manner has been argued by Polish and Lithuanian historians for six centuries. The Polish wing held, the Lithuanians returned, and the Order's reserve was committed into a gap and enveloped. Ulrich was killed with most of the senior officers — a leadership destroyed in an afternoon. Marienburg held out against the siege that followed, and the Peace of Thorn took little territory. The Order's prestige, its finances and its supply of crusading volunteers never recovered, and it was secularised in 1525. Its last Grand Master became the first Duke of Prussia. The battle is a national symbol in Poland and Lithuania and was appropriated in reverse by German nationalism as a defeat to be avenged.
- Year: 1410 CE
- Category: Military
