Vytautas the Great
Vytautas ruled Lithuania for thirty-eight years, took it to its greatest extent, and spent much of his life fighting his cousin before joining him. Born around 1350, the son of Kęstutis, he was caught in the dynastic conflict that followed Gediminas' death. Jogaila had his father strangled in 1382 and imprisoned Vytautas, who escaped from Kreva castle in his wife's servant's clothes. He then did what every losing Lithuanian prince did: went to the Teutonic Knights and fought his own country with their help. He did it twice, and both times abandoned them when he had what he wanted, burning their castles on the way out. The settlement came in 1392. Jogaila, now King of Poland, recognised him as ruler of Lithuania in his own right under Polish overlordship, an arrangement that held for the rest of their lives. He pushed east and south, taking Smolensk and reaching the Black Sea, and installed a khan in the Crimea. He also lost catastrophically at the Vorskla in 1399, where a large army including Teutonic and Polish contingents was destroyed by the Golden Horde and much of the Lithuanian nobility killed. His greatest day was Grunwald on 15 July 1410, where he commanded the Lithuanian wing against the Teutonic Order and Jogaila the Polish. The Lithuanian withdrawal that drew the Order's line out of position was either a rout or a feigned retreat, and Lithuanian and Polish historians have argued about it for six centuries. He died in 1430 waiting for a crown the Poles intercepted.
- Lived: 1350 CE – 1430 CE
- Nationality: Lithuanian
- Roles: ruler, general
