Background to the clash
By 1410 the Teutonic Knights, formally the Teutonic Order, controlled a large state along the southern Baltic shore, centered on Prussia, with its headquarters at the great brick castle of Marienburg. The Order had grown through the Baltic crusades, which had shaped much of northeastern Europe, and its land lay between Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Lithuania had remained pagan long after most of Europe was Christian, and the Order justified its wars partly as a campaign against pagans.
That justification weakened after 1386. Lithuania’s ruler Jogaila accepted baptism, married the Polish ruler Jadwiga, and became king of Poland as Wladyslaw II Jagiello. His cousin Vytautas governed much of Lithuania. After these changes, the Order’s claim to be fighting for the faith looked less convincing to many observers, and the Order’s neighbors saw it as a rival for land and trade. A major dispute concerned Samogitia, the lowland region that separated the Order’s Prussia from its territories farther north and that both sides wanted. A fresh war broke out in 1409, there was a truce, and in 1410 the main campaign began.
The two armies
The allied army was a mixture. Polish knights and levies formed one wing, while Lithuanian forces under Vytautas formed another, supported by Ruthenian contingents and, according to the sources, some Tatar horsemen. Czech and Moravian troops are also reported on the allied side, and later tradition links the future Hussite commander Jan Zizka with the campaign, though historians are cautious about his role. Against them stood the army of the Grand Master, Ulrich von Jungingen. It included the Order’s own knights and also guest crusaders and mercenaries from various parts of western and central Europe. The Order also had diplomatic support from the Kingdom of Hungary, whose ruler Sigismund was hostile to Jagiello.
Numbers are hard to establish. Chronicles give large figures, and modern estimates are much lower and debated. It is safest to say that both sides were big by the standards of the time, with the allies probably somewhat larger.
The fight on July 15
The armies met on July 15, 1410, in open country between the villages of Grunwald, Tannenberg and Ludwigsdorf. Before fighting started, the Order’s heralds reportedly handed the allied kings two swords, a challenge that was meant to provoke them into attacking. Whether this happened exactly as described is uncertain. Jagiello is said to have delayed while hearing Mass, and the Order’s men, standing in the heat, were by some accounts tired when the battle began.
The best-known episode is the Lithuanian retreat. Vytautas’s troops, on the allied right, were driven back or fell back, and some pursued. Chroniclers and later historians have argued over whether this was a planned feint or a real rout that was luckily recovered. Historians remain divided. What is clearer is that the Polish troops on the left held their ground, the Order’s forces became disordered while chasing, and the allies were able to attack the Order’s main body from several sides.
The battle ended with a catastrophe for the Order. The Grand Master was killed, as were many of its leading officials, and a large number of its knights were killed or captured. The Order’s camp was taken.
Why the Order still survived
After such a defeat, a modern reader might expect the Order to collapse. Instead, the allied army moved on to Marienburg and besieged it, but the castle’s defenders, led by Heinrich von Plauen, held out. Castle defenses were strong, the allied army was probably short of supplies and ready to go home, and the Order was rallying support elsewhere. The siege ended without success.
Under the Peace of Torun in early 1411, the Order kept most of its land. It lost control over Samogitia, but only for the lifetimes of Jagiello and Vytautas, and it agreed to pay a heavy indemnity in installments. This peace shows a common theme: winning a battle was easier than converting it into permanent territory, and sieges of well-built fortresses often stalled.
Longer consequences
The indemnity strained the Order’s finances, and it raised taxes on its own towns and landowners. Resentment grew in the Prussian cities and among the nobility, and in the middle of the century this contributed to revolt and a long war. The Thirteen Years’ War ended in 1466 with a second Peace of Torun, after which the Order lost western Prussia to the Polish crown and became a vassal in the remaining east. The 1410 victory therefore did not end the Order’s power in a day, but it marked a turning point in its slow decline, and it showed that Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania could act together as a major force.
Memory and names
Grunwald has been remembered in many ways. Polish and Lithuanian writers have treated it as a symbol of national resilience, and it has long been a source for art, literature and reenactment. German writers used the name Tannenberg, and in 1914 a major German victory over Russian forces in nearby East Prussia was given the same name, partly to present it as revenge for the medieval defeat. These uses came from modern nationalism, not from medieval views. The Order’s own members, who saw themselves as defenders of Christendom, would not have understood the battle in those terms.
For the reader, the main points are straightforward. The battle was large and decisive in the narrow sense that the Order’s army was broken. Yet its political effect was slower, and its fame owes a great deal to the centuries of retelling that followed.