THE LITHUANIAN UNION 97Habsburgs, and of the Ottomans at the end of the fifteenth century, Central
Europe lived in constant commotion, but no great danger.
The one persistent nuisance was presented by the Teutonic Order. The dis-
putes were endless - over the right of storage in the Vistula towns, over the legal-
ities of land settlements, over the German colonists in Lithuania. In 1398, the
Grand Master seized the island of Gotland from its pirate rulers, in 1402, the
Neumark of Brandenburg, and in 1404, Samogitia. It was time for a reckoning.
After 1386, the conversion of Lithuania had destroyed the Teutonic Knights'
original raison d'etre. But they had no intention of closing their business.
Although lacking the resources of the new Polish-Lithuanian combination, they
could draw on great reserves of military investment, technical skill, and diplo-
matic support. They defended their inheritance with steady determination. Two
major wars - the Great War of 1409-22, and the Thirteen Years War of 1454-66
- served only to trim the Order's pride, and to reduce its territory. In between,
in the 1430s, the coalition of Polish magnates and Czech Taborites mounted a
number of expeditions which penetrated to the Baltic Coast. Finally, in 1519-21,
another major war looked set to develop into a life-and-death confrontation,
until suddenly in 1525, the Order was secularized and disbanded. The
Reformation achieved at a stroke what the combined forces of Poland and
Lithuania had failed to achieve over one and a half centuries.
Military problems demanded constant attention. Until the middle of the
fifteenth century, the old feudal host performed its tasks with reasonable
efficiency. Poland alone, without Lithuania, put 18,000 knights into the field.
Fortresses and cities were surrounded by dirt-and-stone walls to meet the chal-
lenge of siege artillery. In later decades, however, serious difficulties arose. The
old type of army was no longer suited to the open warfare of the south and east.
Knights could hardly arrive on the scene of distant action before the season's
campaign was ended. Casual finances, which had to be spent before the land tax
was collected, no longer sufficed. A standing army was required to supplement
the levee-en-masse. In the 1490s, the first move in this direction was taken when
an obrona potoczna or 'current defence force' of some 2,000 men was created to
defend Red Ruthenia from Tartar raids. In 1526, it received an established finan-
cial grant. Finally in 1563, the institution of the Kwarta or 'quarter tax' on the
income of the Crown estates, ensured support for a permanent professional
force. Even so, numbers were constantly declining. Every campaign necessitated
an extraordinary grant from the Sejm. In 1532, the land tax of 12 groszy per lan
produced barely enough to keep 3,474 cavalry, paid at 2 zl. a month Field com-
manders were forced to rely on resourcefulness, and on the quality of their
troops. In this regard, Hetman Jan Tarnowski (1488-1561), was an outstanding
figure. Like his contemporary in the west, the Chevalier du Bayard, 'the knight
without fear or reproach', he was a small man with an immense reputation. It
was Tarnowski who modified the Hussite concept of the Tabor or 'military
train' for use in the east, and turned it into the vehicle of repeated victory against
overwhelming odds. The stores of ammunition of his entire army were carried