Lecture 13: 1410 Tannenberg—Cataclysm of Knights

1410 Tannenberg—Cataclysm of Knights ........................................

Lecture 13

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n the morning of July 15, 1410, two armies drew up on opposite

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battles ever fought in medieval Europe, involving over 50,000

combatants, many of them knights in full armor. On one side were the

fearsome Teutonic Knights, supported by knights from Kulm, Konigsberg,

and Brandenburg. The other side consisted of the combined armies of Poland

and Lithuania. The subsequent Battle of Tannenberg would be a grim,

violent affair that ended with the near destruction of one side and helped to

determine the borders of Eastern Europe for many centuries to come.

The Teutonic Knights

x During the Crusades, a number of new monastic orders formed

whose members took the usual religious vows but trained as

knights. The most famous of these orders were the Templars and

the Hospitallers, both of which were based in the Holy Land and

played important roles in the history of the Crusades.

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time and originally based in Acre in the Holy Land, truly began to

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Teutonic Knights; as the name implies, they were mainly Germanic,

and they eventually focused their attention almost entirely on

Northern and Eastern Europe.

x Their chosen opponents were the last remaining European pagans,

found in Prussia, Lithuania, and other parts of northeastern Europe.

The Knights set up a network of massive castles from which they

launched their raids, and they aggressively pursued their chosen

enemies, steadily expanding their territory and driving east. This

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for the Battle of Tannenberg.