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Warband

Sketch of history

Part 4

Decline of the Teutonic Order.

The order at the beginning of the 15th century was at the apogee of its power. The whole country belongs to him. More precisely, the Order is simultaneously a military-monastic community and a state.

But the meaning of the existence of the Order as a fighting detachment of the Holy Roman See, as a battering ram that cleared the way for the Catholic Church to the lands of pagan peoples, has been lost. There are no longer any of those left in the foreseeable space.

In addition, overwhelmed by arrogance generated precisely by the power of the Order, the Teutons, since the middle of the last century, considered less and less the authority of the Pope, and increasingly acted contrary to the demands of Rome. The Pope's support became increasingly weaker.

European monarchs, who in the past had clearly supported the Order in its campaigns and military conflicts, began to be jealous and increasingly came to the conclusion that the expenses and losses they suffered in wars in the interests of the Order did not give them anything worthwhile, that they themselves had nurtured a state that is now trying, if not to dominate Europe, then at least to play a huge role.
Fewer and fewer monarchs took the side of the Order in territorial disputes with neighbors.

One of the main and organic defects of the Order was the principle of attracting knights into its ranks. If in national states a feudal lord (or his younger sons) who had property, land, power on his land, and a family usually became a knight, then upon entering the Order he took vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience. Those. in his country, the knight had something to fight for and he joined the army of the monarch in order to protect not only his overlord, but also his estate and his family.
In the Order, the knight had to go and fight in foreign lands for abstract ideas. And the victory did not bring him anything personally.

And if in the past the Order, although not without difficulty, could regularly replenish its ranks with knights, then by the beginning of the 15th century this stream began to dry up.

And on both sides the Order is squeezed by the too strong state of the Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania.

By the time of its maximum development, the Order as a state had a population of about 2 mln. Human. On its territory there were 19 thousand villages, 55 cities, 48 ​​order castles and 16 commanders outside the territory, i.e. large estates in different European countries. The annual income of the Order reached 800 thousand silver marks.

But at this time, a radical contradiction between the Order as a military-monastic organization and the Order as a state clearly manifests itself.

And if the interests of the state were still the same as those of the secular states of Europe, then the interests of the organization became increasingly blurred and incomprehensible to anyone. Actually, with the disappearance of paganism and the loss of the idea of ​​the crusades, the Order as an organization became unnecessary. Residents of Order Prussia wanted their own prosperity and wealth, and if not participation in government, then at least laws guaranteeing their rights and protection of property.

The existence of the ruling elite (knight monks), consisting of people who did not have any property of their own, and therefore had no personal interest in the prosperity of the state, no longer met the interests of society.

As a result of growing contradictions, already at the end of the 14th century, political parties emerged in Prussia and began to struggle with the top of the Order for power. At that time such organizations were called Leagues. One of the first was the “League of Lizards”. Wealthy townspeople and landowners who wanted to fight for their rights became members of the leagues.

At the same time, many Prussian cities, primarily port cities, were members of the Hansa, a trading community of German cities. The urban bourgeoisie of Prussian cities, gaining more and more weight as they became richer, did not like the interference of the Order’s administration in trade affairs, the attempts of the elite to influence neighboring states with various kinds of trade restrictions, import or export bans.

This dissatisfaction with the top of the Order within Prussia coincided with the discontent of Poland, which was separated by the Order from the main seaport of Danzig, from which the main trade artery, the Vistula River, ran deep into Poland.

The Polish king Jagiello (Wladislav) contributed in every possible way to the processes in Prussia that led to the destruction of the Order. In addition to his influence through the Hanseatic merchants, he secretly supported the opposition Leagues in Prussia and incited Samogitia, which at that time belonged to the Order, to revolt.

In 1407, the Samogitians rebelled. The commander of the Order in Samogitia von Elfenbasch managed to suppress it, but already in 1909 rebellion breaks out again.

Grandmaster Ulrich von Jungingen demanded that Jagiello stop supporting the rebels. However, the course of events promised the liberation of Samogitia from the Order and its annexation to the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom.

On July 22, 1409, Jagiello declares his title - by the grace of God, Wladislaus, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, Heir of Pomerania, Lord and Heir of Russia (Wladislaus, Dei gratia rex Polinae, dux supremus Lithuaniae, haeres Pomeraiae et Russiae dominus et haeres).

This is a direct challenge to the Order and provoking war. If only by the fact that Jagiello declares Pomerania (Pomerelia) his patrimony. Jogaila openly begins military preparations. The King of the Czech Republic manages to impose a truce on the parties to the conflict, which will last until the summer of 1410.

Grunwald - fatal defeat of the Teutonic Order

On June 30, 1410, Jagiello's army, which, in addition to Poles and Lithuanians, included several Russian regiments, Czech mercenaries (led by Jan Zizka, who later became the famous leader of the Czech Taborites) and Tatar detachments, crossed the Vistula and moved to the order castles of Lobau, then to Soldau and Guildenburg.

By July 14, 1410, the Polish-Lithuanian army and the Teutons converged on the plain between the villages of Grunwald and Tanenberg. The forces opposing the Order clearly outnumbered the Teutons, but by how much, this will forever remain a mystery since the chroniclers of both sides, as always, shamelessly lie, in every possible way exaggerating the forces of the enemy and downplaying their troops.

From the author. This has long been a cliche and banality. The enemy always has “superior forces,” he always has “selected divisions,” he always has “an innumerable number of reserves.”
It's boring, girls!

In my opinion, it would be worthwhile to legally prohibit the use of these tired phrases, which testify only to the military illiteracy and extremely meager vocabulary of the writers.

The battle began early in the morning and continued until the evening. The Teutonic Order suffered a crushing defeat.

It is unknown how many died on both sides, but documentary chronicles indicate that 51 standards of the Order were put on public display and desecration in the chapel of St. Stanislaus in Krakow.

The deaths of the Grandmaster of the Order Ulrich von Jungingen, the Grandskomtur Konrad von Walenrod, and the treasurer Thomas von Merem are documented.

In tactical terms, this defeat was not the most severe. The Order had worse defeats, but in the past it always quickly regained its strength, recruiting new knights into its ranks, turning to the Pope and the monarchs of Europe for help (primarily the Holy Roman Emperor, the kings of Hungary and the Czech Republic).

But by 1410 the political situation was already different than in the past. Especially count on The Order no longer needed outside support. The stream of new brother knights has dried up.

And it became more and more noticeable in military terms that heavily armed, armored mounted knights were no longer the main striking force in the battle. The appearance and development of firearms greatly reduced the combat value of the knight. Combat is increasingly becoming on foot.

And if earlier any battle one way or another broke down into the sum of single combats of knights, around which groups of their squires and servants fought, now the fighting of organized large groups of infantry came to the fore.
At the same time, the dominant role is now played not by the individual training of a mounted warrior, but by the ability to act as part of a foot unit; and not the courage of an individual knight, but the ability to command subordinates.

In the 15th century, these requirements were best met by professional soldiers, usually united in groups called Companies and ready to offer to fight for anyone for a price. At the head of such a gang, frankly speaking, there was a leader, called a captain, who was most often elected by the members of such a group or who assembled a detachment of mercenaries for his own money. For which country and for which monarch they did not care.

From the author. It’s interesting that we use the term “company” that came from nowhere, while in most European languages ​​the name “company” is assigned to an infantry unit of 100-200 people. So it would be most correct to translate from French not “a company of royal musketeers”, but “a company of royal musketeers” in Dumas’s famous novel.

And further. A hired soldier serves not his people and not his country, but the one who pays him. And he goes into battle not for the freedom of his country, not for his people, but only to earn his salary.
A Landsknecht is a Landsknecht, no matter what you call him. The modern Russian term "contract soldier" is synonymous with the term "landsknecht".
Especially if you take into account the fact that to enter contract service in the Russian Army you do not have to be a citizen of Russia.
We will see below how much mercenaries will cost the Order. They will become one of the main reasons for the death of the Order.

So, on July 15, 1410, the Teutonic Order was defeated in the Battle of Grunwald (at Tanenberg). The Polish-Lithuanian army, having suffered heavy losses, remained on the battlefield. For the next three days they will mourn and bury the fallen, rest, and put themselves in order.

This delay allowed Commander Heinrich von Plauen to take measures to prepare the capital of the Order of Marienburg for defense. The Teutons who survived the battle and residents of nearby villages will gather there. Von Plauen will bring all the supplies of food and fodder from the area to the castle. The villages surrounding the castle will be burned. The commander will send messengers to Livonia for help.

July 25 Jagiello begins the siege of Marienburg. There is a split among the inhabitants of Prussia. The bishops of Kulm and Sambia swear allegiance to the Poles. The castles of Thorn and Stetin surrender without a fight and recognize Jagiello as their overlord. But the castles of Königsberg, Elbing, Balga, and Kulm are resisting.

The Lithuanian prince Vitovt, in whose troops dysentery broke out and who already suffered heavy losses on September 11, takes his people to Lithuania.

Next, having learned that reinforcements from Germany and Hungary were rushing to the rescue of the Order (the information turned out to be false) leaves the king and the Duke of Mazovia.

In the current situation, Jagiello was forced to lift the siege of the capital of the Order on September 19, but he occupied the castles of Marienwerder and Rehden.

Outwardly everything worked out fine.

The Order has found itself in similar situations more than once in the past. And the consequences of past defeats were not cheap for the Order.

On December 8, von Plauen began negotiations with Poland, which ended with the signing of a peace treaty in Thorn on February 1, 1411.

According to the agreement, Samogitia falls into the power of the Lithuanian prince Vytautas, a vassal of the King of Poland Jagiello (Vladislav), but only until they both die. Dobrzyn returns to Poland. Pomerelia, Kulma and Mikhailovsky lands remain with the Order. Free movement of merchants and goods through Prussia and Poland is proclaimed.

Crisis development of the Teutonic Order.

It seems that everything worked out and the Order emerged from the war without particularly serious consequences. And before, the Order lost lands and castles, which they then returned.

However, this war gave rise to many problems within the order state.

The new grandmaster had to take a number of unpopular measures to restore order. Those who betrayed the Order in difficult times were severely punished. Many of them were executed, and their property was confiscated in favor of the Order.

The Grandmaster introduced a new type of tax, which was levied on literally everyone living in Prussia, regardless of class. Today this tax is called income tax.

This was especially disliked by wealthy citizens and landowners, since it is precisely the very top of the Order that does not pay anything. They are, by law, monks who have no property and no personal income.

Cities inhabited by the bourgeoisie, which has common interests and the same views, and by artisans, closely associated with the bourgeoisie, become breeding grounds and centers of opposition. It comes to open riots in the richest cities of Danzig and Thorne.

The League of Lizards is preparing a plot to limit the power of the grandmaster. Some of the highest dignitaries of the Order also join the conspiracy. In particular, Marshal of the Order von Kuhmeister.

The grandmaster is forced to maneuver. In 1412, he invited representatives of cities and provincial nobility to the Council of the Order, in which previously only the highest dignitaries from among the knights-monks sat. However, the result is exactly the opposite. The knights considered themselves humiliated by the presence of the “rabble,” and the townspeople and provincials considered themselves humiliated by their lack of the right to vote in the Council.

In addition to political contradictions, in the order state, as indeed throughout Europe, religious reformism is emerging and gaining strength, criticizing and rejecting a number of dogmas of the Catholic Church. In particular, the celibacy of priests, church services in a Latin language that no one understands.

Reformism finds many supporters in Order Prussia. Grandmaster Heinrich von Plauen himself leans toward reformism, for which he is declared a heretic by supporters of Catholicism. The assembled chapter of the Order calls the grandmaster three times, but he avoids attending the chapter. By decision of the chapter, the oldest knight of the Order, Otto von Bernstein, arrests von Plauen and imprisons him in Tapio Castle.

By the decision of the Chapter of the Order gathered in Marienburg in October 1413. von Plauen is removed from power. Knights and commanders who support reformism are excluded from the Order.

January 9, 1414 a new grandmaster, Michael von Sternberg, is elected. The measures he took did not stop the development of reformism. Society is split into supporters and opponents of reformism.

Internal political and religious strife is superimposed by external danger from Poland. In July 1414, Polish troops invaded Prussian territory and captured several castles. And only the intervention of the Pope stops the bloodshed.

In 1421, the Order de facto lost power over Samogitia. Behind it remains only a narrow coastal strip, providing a connection between Prussia and Livonia.

In 1422, the Poles again attacked the Order, seized the Kulm land and the Kulm castle itself. After a series of battles, on September 27, 1422, the Melnovsky Peace Treaty was concluded, according to which the Order cedes Nessau Castle to Poland, half of the duties on border trade, and recognized Samogitia for Lithuania.

Realizing that the main danger for the Order still remained internal problems, the new Grandmaster von Russdorff convened in 1425 the General Assembly of the Commanders of the Order and the richest citizens, at which he ceded many management issues to the cities. In particular, Thorne and Danzig receive the right to mint their own money.

In 1430, the Great Council of State (Gross Landsrat) was created at the new General Assembly. The Chairman is the Grandmaster of the Order, the members are six commanders, six representatives of the church and four representatives of the cities. Laws are passed on the independence of city heads and that taxes cannot be changed without the consent of city magistrates.

Thus, administrative power in Order Prussia begins to gradually flow from the hands of the top of the Order into the hands of the local bourgeoisie.

Meanwhile, the Poles, as their state strengthens and weakens, torn apart by internal contradictions of the Order, are making efforts aimed at its destruction.

In 1433, Jagiello recruited mercenaries in the Czech Republic and Moravia and threw them into Pomerania along with his soldiers. The Order, no longer having an army corresponding to the era, is unable to provide adequate resistance and agrees first to the Peace of Lensin on December 15, 1433, then on December 31, 1435 to the Peace of Brezh, according to which a large indemnity was imposed on the Order.

The result was an exacerbation of contradictions at the very top of the Order. Von Russdorff was accused of violating fundamental legislation.

Meanwhile, the Lizard League, taking advantage of the residents' dissatisfaction with how the top of the Order runs the country, forms on March 14, 1440. The Prussian Confederation (Der Preussische Bund), essentially a political union that included both wealthy city dwellers and rural landowners.

The main goal is to protect their rights and privileges, and in essence, to remove knighthood from power.

The Assembly of Cities, convened by von Russdorff, went into open confrontation with the elite of the Order and voted to abolish most taxes. This fundamentally undermined all the efforts of the Order’s leadership to maintain a combat-ready army, which now consisted mainly of mercenaries, who also had their own commanders.

Unable to effectively govern the state and not seeing a way out of the crisis, von Russdorff resigned from his rank at the capitulation on December 6, 1440.

Thus ends the first stage of the death of the Teutonic Order as a state.

Mutiny of the Prussian Confederation

In fact, dual power is developing in orderly Prussia. On February 6, 1444, the Prussian Confederation sought from the Holy Roman Emperor its official recognition as a representative of the interests of the population of Prussia. But nominally the head of the order of Prussia is still the grandmaster. He was elected at the chapter by Konrad von Erlichshausen.

The new grandmaster is trying to maintain peace with Poland and at the same time trying to curb the Prussian Confederation with the help of the Emperor and the Pope.

Since the actions of the Confederation are directed against the Order, King Casimir IV of Poland encourages rebellious sentiments in every possible way.

At the beginning of February 1454, it came to an armed rebellion. At the head of the Prussian Confederation is Hans von Beisen. The rebels capture a number of order castles and destroy them. Then Danzig, Elbing, and Königsberg are captured.
On February 17, 1454, the Confederates besieged the residence of the Grandmaster of Marienburg.
The grandmaster does not have the money to hire soldiers, and he instructs the great commander of Saxony to lease part of the order's lands to the Elector of Brandenburg for 40 thousand florins.

Meanwhile, the Confederates offer the Polish king all of Prussia in exchange for the abolition of customs duties and the privilege of free trade.

February 15, 1454 The Confederation swears allegiance to the King of Poland. The Church of Prussia also takes the side of the king. Half of the Prussian cities are on the side of the Confederation. A war begins between the Order and the Confederation, which will go down in history as the Thirteen Years' War.

Thirteen Years' War

The war actually begins with the arrival of the Order's troops from Germany under the command of the German commander to help the grandmaster. These troops push the Confederates back from Marienburg. By September, Konitz Castle in Pomerania is liberated.

The Poles, together with the Confederates, launched a counter-offensive in October 1455, but the Order managed to repel it and even regain several castles.

From the author. This is where the system of mercenaries (elegantly called today in Russia “contract service”), for which crazy Russian democrats are so actively advocating today at the beginning of the 21st century, manifested itself in all its ugliness.
The lessons of history do not serve them well, and for some reason they believe that they can step on the same rake as the Teutons did in the middle of the 15th century without consequences.

How many times have they told the world that a mercenary, that is, a contract soldier, serves not the Motherland, not the government, not the people, but the employer. If he pays, he serves, if he doesn’t pay, he doesn’t serve. Although it would be more accurate to say that they are selling the employer in order to get their money.

Oh, gentlemen Putin and Medvedev, if you finish the game, the mercenaries will sell you at the right moment, just as they sold the grandmaster of the Teutonic Order Ludwig von Erlichshausen. He failed to pay what he promised and paid dearly. You, too, are twisting and deceiving the mercenaries who make up the Russian Army today. Your prospects are unenviable.

The Order did not have available funds to pay German, Czech, Moravian and Gypsy mercenary soldiers. Therefore, the Order was forced to pledge its order castles, including Marienburg. The mercenaries did not see any prospects for receiving money, and, having entered the castles, they made the grandmaster and all the highest dignitaries their hostages, and began to sell off their property. Having learned about this, the King of Poland invited the mercenary captains to sell him the castles pledged by the Order. The money had to be paid in advance before the Poles occupied the castles.

On August 15, 1456, a sale agreement was concluded for 436,192 Hungarian florins of the castles of Marienburg, Dirschau, Meve, Konitz and Hammrestein.

From the author. Business is business, nothing personal. There can be no talk of betrayal here. The relationship here is purely business. Whether the employer can pay or not, it doesn’t matter to the employee. A mercenary soldier too. And guys don’t have to lie to themselves that there is some kind of difference between a mercenary and a contract soldier.

On June 8, 1457, King Casimir IV of Poland entered the purchased order castle of Marienburg in order to leave it for Poland forever.

Marienburg became the Polish Malbork. It remains in this status today at the beginning of the 21st century.

Grandmaster von Erlichshausen managed to ransom only himself, and the Taborite mercenaries allowed him to escape on the eve of the entry into the castle of Casimir IV, who had lost the pleasure of seeing the grandmaster of the once proud and great Teutonic Order kneeling.

The Grandmaster flees to the Order Castle of Königsberg, which will be destined to become the last capital of the Order of Prussia. The castle from which the Order’s way of the cross will begin, the path of humiliation and shame, the path to oblivion.

The last capital of the Order of Prussia is Königsberg.

From the author. This castle does not exist today. Having survived the fall of the Order, the Seven Years' War with Russia, the Napoleonic Wars, and the First World War, the castle was badly damaged during completely unnecessary air raids by the extremely vindictive British in August 1944 and during the assault on the city by Soviet troops in April 1945.

And it was destroyed to the ground in 1966-72 to please the party bosses of the city and region who had long dreamed of “demolishing this symbol of Prussian militarism and German aspirations against the USSR.”

But in vain. It would be worth preserving the castle, at least as an eternal reminder to the Germans of how wars of conquest end.
Well, the Poles saved Marienburg. And nothing. They are even proud that they can rub the noses of the arrogant Teutons.
No, the decision to demolish Königsberg Castle was not the best decision of the Soviet government. It did not gain any respect from the townspeople or neighboring countries.

The Order's war with Poland and the Confederation continued until the fall of 1466. Negotiations began in Stetin in early August.

The Order ceded to Poland the Kulm land with all the castles, Pomerania also with all the cities and castles, among which Danzig and Stetin, Marienburg Castle, the cities of Elbing, and Christburg were of particular importance.
The bishoprics of Warmia and Kulm also came under the jurisdiction of Poland.

The Order retained only the lands of East Prussia that had once been conquered from the Prussians, including Sambia, Pomesania, the castles of Königsberg, Memel and all the smaller castles and cities in this territory.

The Order recognized itself as a vassal of the King of Poland.

This meant that the Grandmaster of the Order was confirmed and removed by the King of Poland; up to half of the Order's knights may be Poles.

The Prussian Confederation received nothing at all and was dissolved by the Polish crown. Weak attempts by the Confederates to protest were crushed by force with the usual cruelty of the Poles. In general, this is fair. You cannot rebel against your own government, no matter how bad it may be. And even more so rely on the enemies of your fatherland. Traitors are always despised and never trusted, including those who used their services.

Subsequent grandmasters tried to raise East Prussia from ruins and restore at least partially the power of the Order. Nevertheless, in addition to Prussia, the Order retained a significant part of Livonia, extensive estates in the Holy Roman Empire, Italy and Hungary.

Among the attempts to get rid of the Polish dictatorship and regain former independence, the idea arose to offer the rank of grandmaster to one of the European monarchs or their sons. He will a priori extend the sovereignty of his state to the Order and take it under its protection.

After the death of grandmaster Johann von Tiefen in 1498. The grandmaster post was offered to the youngest son of the Duke of Saxony Albrecht III, Friedrich von Sachsen aka Friedrich von Wettin, who was never a Teutonic knight. In his youth he served as a canon in Cologne, then was at the court of the Archbishop of Mainz.
Those. The Order was ready to trade its dignity for the sake of survival.

September 28, 1498 Friedrich was elected grandmaster of the Order. However, when the Polish king, arrogantly deciding that he had acquired a new vassal in the person of the Saxon duke, invited Frederick to come to him for approval and to take the oath of allegiance, the latter reasonably noted that the Treaty of Stetin of 1466 was not ratified by either Rome or the empire. Poland did not dare to go to war with the Order, fearing that the German Duke would be taken under the protection of the Papal Throne and the Empire.

Although Grandmaster Friedrich was unable to accomplish anything outstanding, he ensured the peaceful existence of Order Prussia until his death in 1510.

This success in foreign policy prompted the elite of the Order to repeat the coup. They offered the rank of grandmaster to the thirty-year-old Albrecht von Brandenburg-Preussen. He was the son of Margrave Frederick of Brandenburg and Margravess Sophia, who was the daughter of the Polish King Casimir IV.
Albrecht was educated at the court of the Archbishop of Cologne, who made him a canon.

If only they knew who was invited to lead the Order...

Sources and literature

1.Guy Stair Sainty.THE TEUTONIC ORDER OF HOLY MARY IN JERUSALEM (www.chivalricorders.org/vatican/teutonic.htm)
2. Heraldic collection of the Federal Border Guard Service of Russia. Moscow. Border. 1998
3.V.Biryukov. The Amber Room. Myths and reality. Moscow. Publishing house "Planet". 1992
4. Directory - Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad book publishing house. 1983
5. Borussia website (members.tripod.com/teutonic/krestonoscy.htm)
6.A.Bogdan.Teutonic Knights. Eurasia. St. Petersburg, 2008
7.V.Urban. Warband. AST. The keeper. Moscow. 2003
8. Website “Iconography and heraldry of the masters of the Teutonic Order (teutonicorder.livejournal.com/997.html)

Henry IV Reuss von Plauen

Henry IV Reuss von Plauen (? - 12/28/1429), commander of Elbing, then 27th Grand Master of the Teutonic Order (1410-1413). He became the head of the order after the defeat in the Battle of Grunwald. He managed to organize the defense of Marienburg from Polish-Lithuanian troops and to attract a number of allies to fight them. Thanks to this, the situation that developed after Grunwald was somewhat corrected. He concluded the First Peace of Tortuna (1411) on very mild terms for the order. Overthrown in 1413 by Michael Kuchenmeister von Sternberg. Remanded in custody. In 1415-1422 he was in Brandenburg Castle, released by Master Paul von Rusdorff and transferred as an order brother to Lochstedt Castle. Completely rehabilitated in 1429 shortly before his death, on 05/28/1429 he was appointed manager of Lochstedt Castle.

Jogaila and Vytautas achieved a triumph that they hardly dared to dream of. Their grandfather had once laid claim to the Alle River, which more or less marked the boundary between the settled lands along the coast and the deserted areas to the southeast on the Lithuanian border. Now, it seemed, Vytautas could lay claim to all the lands east of the Vistula. Jagiello was ready to implement the old Polish claims to Kulm and West Prussia. However, just at the moment when the victors were celebrating their short-lived success, among the Teutonic knights there was the only person whose leadership qualities and strong will would equal their own - Heinrich von Plauen. Nothing in his past biography foreshadowed that he would become anything more than a simple castellan. But he was one of those who suddenly emerges and rises in times of crisis. Von Plauen was forty years old when he arrived as a secular crusader in Prussia from Vogtland, which was located between Thuringia and Saxony.

When von Plauen learned of the extent of the defeat that had befallen the order, he, the only remaining castellan, took upon himself a responsibility that went beyond the scope of normal service: he ordered the three thousand soldiers subordinate to him to march to Marienburg to strengthen the garrison of the fortress before Polish troops arrived there. . Nothing else mattered to him at that moment. If Jagiello decides to turn to Shvetz and capture it, so be it. Von Plauen considered it his duty to save Prussia - and this meant protecting Marienburg without worrying about the smaller castles.
Neither von Plauen's experience nor previous service prepared him for such a decision, because he took upon himself enormous responsibility and full power. The Teutonic Knights prided themselves on their strict obedience to orders, and at that moment it was unclear whether any of the senior officers of the order had escaped. However, in this situation, obedience turned out to be a principle that turned against the knights themselves: the officers of the order were not accustomed to go beyond the instructions given to them, especially not to reason or make independent decisions. The order rarely had to rush - there was always time to discuss in detail the problems that arose, consult with the chapter or council of commanders and come to a common understanding. Even the most self-confident Grand Masters consulted their knights on military matters. Now there was no time for this. This tradition of the order paralyzed the actions of all surviving officers, who awaited orders or the opportunity to discuss their actions with others. Everyone, but not von Plauen.
Heinrich von Plauen began to give orders: to the commanders of fortresses that were under threat of attack - “Resist!”, to the sailors in Danzig - “Report to Marienburg!”, to the Livonian master - “Send troops as soon as possible!”, to the German master - “Recruit mercenaries and send them to the east! The tradition of obedience and the habit of obeying orders turned out to be so strong in the order that its orders were carried out!!! A miracle happened: resistance increased everywhere. When the first Polish scouts approached Marienburg, they found the fortress garrison on the walls, ready to fight.
Von Plauen gathered people from wherever he could. At his disposal was the small garrison of Marienburg, his own detachment from Schwetz, sailors from Danzig, secular knights and the militia of Marienburg. That the townspeople were willing to help defend the fortress was a result of von Plauen's actions. One of his first orders was: “Burn the city and suburbs to the ground!” This deprived the Poles and Lithuanians of shelters and supplies, prevented the dispersal of forces to defend the city walls and cleared the approaches to the castle. Perhaps the moral significance of his decisive action was even more significant: such an order showed how far von Plauen was willing to go to protect the castle.
The surviving knights, their secular brethren and the townspeople began to recover from the shock into which their defeat had led them. After the first Polish scouts retreated from under the castle walls, Plauen’s people collected bread, cheese and beer inside the walls, drove cattle, and brought hay. The guns on the walls were prepared and the firing sectors were cleared. Time was found to discuss plans for defending the fortress against possible attacks. When the main royal army arrived on July 25, the garrison had already collected supplies for 8-10 weeks of the siege. The Polish-Lithuanian army was so lacking in these supplies!
Vital to the defense of the castle was the state of mind of its commander. His genius for improvisation, desire for victory and unquenchable thirst for vengeance were transmitted to the garrison. These character traits may have previously hampered his career - a bright personality and intolerance of incompetence are not valued in the army in peacetime. However, at that critical moment, it was precisely these traits of von Plauen that were in demand.
He wrote to Germany:

“To all princes, barons, knights and warriors and all other good Christians who read this letter. We, Brother Heinrich von Plauen, Castellan of Schwetz, acting in the place of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order in Prussia, inform you that the King of Poland and Prince Vytautas with a great army and infidel Saracens besieged Marienburg. All the forces of the order are engaged in its defense. We ask you, most bright and noble gentlemen, to allow your subjects, who wish to help us and protect us in the name of the love of God and all Christianity, for the salvation of souls or for the sake of money, to come to our aid as soon as possible, so that we can drive out our enemies.”

Plauen's call for help against the Saracens may have been hyperbole (although some of the Tatars were Muslims), but it nonetheless appealed to anti-Polish sentiment and galvanized the German Master to action. The knights began to gather at Neumark, where the former protector of Samogitia, Michel Küchmeister, retained significant forces. The officers of the order hastily sent out notices that the order was ready to accept for military service anyone who could begin it immediately.
Jagiello hoped that Marienburg would quickly capitulate. Elsewhere, the order's demoralized troops surrendered at the slightest threat. The garrison of Marienburg, the king convinced himself, would do the same. However, when the fortress, contrary to expectation, did not capitulate, the king had to choose between bad and worse. He did not want to attack, but retreat would be an admission of defeat. So Jagiello ordered a siege, expecting the defenders to surrender: the combination of fear of death and hope of salvation was a strong incentive for an honorable surrender. But the king quickly discovered that he did not have the strength to besiege such a large and well-designed fortress as Marienburg, and at the same time send enough troops to other cities to capitulate. Jogaila did not have siege weapons at his disposal - he did not order them to be sent down the Vistula in time. The longer his army stood under the walls of Marienburg, the more time the Teutonic knights had to organize the defense of other fortresses. It is difficult to judge the victorious king for his errors in calculations (what would historians have said if he had not tried to strike right at the heart of the order?), but his siege failed. Polish troops tried for eight weeks to take the castle walls, using catapults and cannons taken from the walls of nearby fortresses. Lithuanian foragers burned and ravaged the surrounding area, sparing only those properties where the townspeople and nobles hastened to provide them with cannons and gunpowder, food and fodder. The Tatar cavalry rushed through Prussia, confirming in general opinion that their reputation as ferocious barbarians was well deserved. Polish troops entered West Prussia, capturing many castles that were left without garrisons: Schwetz, Mewe, Dirschau, Tuchel, Bütow and Könitz. But the vital centers of Prussia - Konigsberg and Marienburg remained in the hands of the order. Dysentery broke out among the Lithuanian troops (too much unusually good food), and finally Vytautas announced that he was taking his army home. However, Jagiello was determined to remain until he took the castle and captured its commander. Jagiello refused the proposals for a peace treaty, demanding the preliminary surrender of Marienburg. The king was sure that a little more patience, and complete victory would be in his hands.
Meanwhile, the order's troops were already moving to Prussia. Livonian troops approached Konigsberg, freeing the forces of the Prussian Order located there. This helped refute accusations of treason: the Livonian knights were blamed for not breaking the treaty with Vytautas and not invading Lithuania. This might have forced Vytautas to send troops to defend the border. In the west, Hungarian and German mercenaries hurried to Neumark, where Michel Küchmeister formed them into an army. This officer had hitherto remained passive, too concerned about relations with the local nobility, and did not risk moving against Poland, but in August he sent a small army against a detachment of Poles, approximately equal in number to Küchmeister's forces, defeated them and captured the enemy commander. Küchmeister then moved east, liberating one city after another. By the end of September, he cleared West Prussia of enemy troops.
By this time, Jagiello was no longer able to continue the siege. Marienburg remained impregnable as long as its garrison maintained its morale, and von Plauen ensured that his hastily assembled troops remained willing to fight. Moreover, the castle garrison was encouraged by the departure of the Lithuanians and the news of the order's victories. So, although supplies were dwindling, the besieged drew their optimism from the good news. They were also encouraged by the fact that their Hanseatic allies controlled the rivers. Meanwhile, the Polish knights encouraged the king to return home - the period they were supposed to serve in their vassal duties had long expired. The Polish army lacked supplies, and illness began among the soldiers. In the end, Jagiello had no choice but to admit that the means of defense still triumphed over the means of attack: a brick fortress, surrounded by water barriers, could only be taken by a long siege, and even then, probably only with the help of a lucky coincidence circumstances or betrayal. Jagiello at that moment had neither the strength nor the provisions to continue the siege, and there was no hope for this in the future.
After eight weeks of siege, on September 19, the king gave the order to retreat. He erected a well-fortified fortress near Stum, south of Marienburg, garrisoned it with a large number of his best troops, and gathered there all the supplies he could gather from the surrounding lands. After which Jagiello ordered to burn all the fields and barns around the new fortress in order to make it difficult for the Teutonic knights to collect provisions for the siege. By holding a fortress in the heart of Prussia, the king hoped to put pressure on his enemies. The existence of the fortress was also supposed to encourage and protect those of the townspeople and landowners who went over to his side. On his way to Poland, he stopped at the tomb of St. Dorothea in Marienwerder to pray. Jagiello was now a very devout Christian. In addition to piety, doubts about which arose due to his pagan and Orthodox past and which Jogaila tried in every possible way to eradicate, he needed to demonstrate to the public that he used Orthodox and Muslim troops only as mercenaries.
When Polish troops retreated from Prussia, history repeated itself. Almost two centuries earlier, it was the Poles who bore the brunt of much of the fighting, but the Teutonic knights gradually took possession of these lands because, then as now, too few Polish knights were willing to remain in Prussia and defend it for their king. The knights of the order had more patience: thanks to this, they survived the disaster at Tannenberg.
Plauen gave the order to pursue the retreating enemy army. Livonian troops moved first, besieging Elbing and forcing the townspeople to surrender, then headed south to Kulm and captured most of the towns there. Castellan Ragnita, whose troops controlled Samogitia during the Battle of Grunwald, headed through central Prussia to Osterode, capturing castles one after another and expelling the last Poles from the lands of the order. By the end of October, von Plauen had regained almost all the cities except Thorn, Nessau, Rechden and Strasbourg, located directly on the border. Even Sztum was taken after a three-week siege: the garrison surrendered the castle in exchange for the right to freely return to Poland with all property. The worst days of the knights seemed to be over. Von Plauen saved the order at its most desperate moment. His courage and determination inspired the same feelings in the rest of the knights, turning the demoralized remnants of the people who survived the lost battle into warriors determined to win. Von Plauen did not believe that a single lost battle would define the history of the order, and convinced many of a final future victory.
Help from the west also arrived surprisingly quickly. Sigismund declared war on Jagiello and sent troops to the southern borders of Poland, which prevented many Polish knights from joining Jagiello's army. Sigismund wanted the order to remain a threat to the northern provinces of Poland and an ally in the future. It was in this spirit that he had previously agreed with Ulrich von Jungingen: that neither of them would make peace with anyone else without consulting the other. Sigismund's ambitions extended to the imperial crown, and he wished to prove himself to the German princes as a strong defender of German communities and lands. Exceeding legitimate authority, as a true leader should do in a crisis, he summoned the emperor's electors in Frankfurt am Main and persuaded them to immediately send help to Prussia. For the most part, these actions on the part of Sigismund were, of course, a game - he was interested in being elected king of Germany, and this was the first step towards the imperial throne.
The most effective help came from Bohemia. This was surprising, since King Wenceslas initially showed no interest in saving the order. Although the news about
The Battle of Grunwald reached Prague a week after the battle, he did nothing. This behavior was typical of Wenceslas, who often found himself on a drinking binge just when decisions needed to be made, and even when sober he was not overly interested in his royal duties. Only after the representatives of the order shrewdly bestowed generous gifts on the royal mistresses, promised payments to the penniless representatives of the nobility and mercenaries, and finally made the king an offer by which Prussia would become subject to Bohemia, did this monarch begin to act. Wenceslas unexpectedly wished that his subjects would go to war in Prussia, and even loaned over eight thousand marks to the diplomats of the order to pay for the services of mercenaries.
The Prussian state was saved. Apart from the losses in men and property that would eventually recover, the Teutonic Order did not seem to have suffered particularly badly. His prestige was, of course, damaged, but Heinrich von Plauen recaptured most of the castles and expelled his enemies beyond the borders of the order's lands. Later generations of historians viewed the defeat at the Battle of Grunwald as a mortal wound from which the order gradually bled to death. But in October 1410 such a development of events seemed unlikely.

As Count Heinrich von Plauen, the Supreme Master of the Teutonic Order, foresaw, the “eternal peace” with Poland and Lithuania concluded on February 1, 1411 in the Order city of Thorn turned out to be a typical “rotten compromise.” According to this 1st Peace Treaty of Torun, the Dobrin land (ceded in 1396 by the Silesian prince Władysław of Opole to the Teutonic Order and since then has been a constant object of Polish claims) was transferred to Poland, and all of Pomerania and the Kulm land were assigned to the Order of the Virgin Mary. The issue of the disputed castles of Santok and Dresdenko, with the surrounding areas, was submitted to a commission of 12 people appointed by the Polish king and the master of the Teutonic Order (under the supreme arbitration of the Pope).

However, the hostility of Poland and Lithuania towards the Order of the Holy Virgin Mary did not weaken at all, but on the contrary, only intensified. Both states were openly disappointed with the very modest results of the brilliant victory won by the united Polish-Lithuanian army over the army of the Teutonic Order in 1410 under Tannenberg. After all, even the formal goal of Poland in the war was not achieved - the seizure of Eastern Pomerania - Pomerelli from the Order (not to mention the seemingly possible and close destruction of the Prussian state of the Teutonic Order, after the victory at Tannenberg)! The situation was similar with Lithuania, whose Grand Duke Alexander Vytautas made claims to the order on territories that had never been part of the Lithuanian region of Samogitia-Žemaitė-Žmudi, the return of which, for the period before Vytautas’ death, the order agreed to under a peace treaty ( eg Memel castle and area).

The losses in manpower suffered by the Marian Order in the war with the Polish-Lithuanian coalition (especially as regards the “brother knights”) were irreplaceable (neither quantitatively nor qualitatively). Heavy damage was also done to the horse stock - the Poles and Lithuanians destroyed the famous Prussian stud farms of the order, stealing many thoroughbred horses and breeding stallions (and a knight without a horse is not a knight). In the post-war situation, in the face of the overwhelming military, numerical and material superiority of the enemies, there were no incentives that could encourage young knights to join the Teutonic Order, the future of which seemed extremely gloomy (or, in any case, unclear). Heinrich von Plauen tirelessly sought opportunities to put the strength and potential of the Prussian estates at the service of the order he led. He demanded that the Prussian cities, secular knights, cities, clergy and the Order of the Virgin Mary participate in the payment of war indemnities to Lithuania and Poland. For this purpose, a general cash tax was introduced. The Prussian cities under the supreme suzerainty of the Teutonic Order, mainly the largest and richest of them (primarily Danzig), actively protested against its introduction. In Danzig, things went so far that the townspeople surrounded the order's castle located within the city with a hastily erected wall. Relations between Danzig and the order worsened day by day, until finally, on April 6, 1411, the order commander of Danzig, Heinrich von Plauen (the younger brother and namesake of the Hochmeister), ordered the arrest of the Danzig burgomasters of Letzkau and Hecht, as well as the member of the Danzig city council, Gross. On the night of April 7, those arrested were executed by order of the commander.

Conspiracies and unrest occurred everywhere, and therefore the Marian master, in order to maintain the authority of state power, approved the actions of his brother (although he did not coordinate them with him). Georg von Wiesberg, the order's commander of Reden, conspired with the leader of the "Union of Lizards" Nikkel von Renis (whose treasonous departure from the battlefield of Tannenberg at the head of the militia of the knights of the Kulm land - secular vassals of the Teutonic Order - on July 15, 1410 was one of reasons for the defeat of the Order's army at Tannenberg), hatched a conspiracy to kill the Supreme Master. The conspiracy was discovered, and the treacherous commander was sentenced to life imprisonment. However, it became obvious to Heinrich von Plauen that not all of his brothers in the order were ready to follow the thorny path of great labor and hardship that he had chosen. On the contrary, hostility towards the chief master in his own ranks was growing and, as the case with the commander of Reden showed, nested even among the order’s leadership.

The leaders of the rebellious Kulm knighthood, led by Nikkel von Renis, were captured and laid to rest on the scaffold in Graudenz.

In 1412, the Landesrat (Land Council) was formed in Elbing, consisting of 20 prominent representatives of the noblest families of secular knights - vassals of the Order of the Virgin Mary - and 27 townspeople, representatives of large and small cities. His goal was to put all the forces of Prussia at the service of the order. For Plauen, the interests of the Prussian state of the Teutonic Order became more important than the interests of the order as such. This proud, unbending man did not have the gift of forgiving those guilty before him and the Order of the Virgin Mary. The Hochmeister ordered the return to Prussia of all fugitives who had taken refuge in the territory of the Holy Roman Empire. Knights who failed to fulfill their military duty at the Battle of Tannenberg or who entered into an agreement and alliance with the Poles (like some Prussian bishops) were accused of treason and deprived of their posts. From the “order brothers” Plauen demanded unquestioning submission and blind obedience in the spirit of the founders of the Teutonic Order. He did not always find a common language with his subordinates. Alienation grew between the Supreme Master and the order entrusted to him. Plauen increasingly relied on his brother, relatives and friends of his powerful family. Not trusting anyone anymore and constantly fearing for his own life, by the end of his reign, he was even forced to surround himself with bodyguards, which no Supreme Master had done before him. All his thoughts and deeds were aimed at saving Prussia. Already by the autumn of 1411, it became absolutely clear that paying the required military indemnity to the Lithuanians and Poles would not only ruin the order’s state, but would also completely subordinate it to Polish influence. By March 10, 1411, the 1st, and by June 24, the 2nd tranche of the payable indemnity amount was paid. However, the Poles did not release the prisoners, and therefore the mayor refused to pay the 3rd tranche (due for payment by November 11 of the same year). In response to Polish threats, Plauen planned on July 25, 1412, in alliance with Hungary, to attack Poland. However, on the recommendation of the marshal, instead, peace negotiations took place in the Hungarian city of Ofen (Buda), through the mediation of the King of Hungary, Sigismund of Luxembourg, which did not lead to results satisfactory for the order. Little of! The Order of the Virgin Mary was presented with new financial demands. This time they were presented by his recent ally - the Hungarian king Sigismund von Luxemburg, who demanded monetary compensation for his mediation. The worst fears of the cook, who did not expect anything good from the peace negotiations and shrewdly warned the marshal, were realized: “You know the Poles well, and you know well that you cannot trust them.”

In this situation, Heinrich von Plauen, seeing no other way out but war, decided to describe the current situation and thereby justify his chosen course of action in a justificatory message addressed to the secular knighthood and the cities of Prussia, as well as the sovereign sovereigns of the Holy Roman Empire. The Hochmeister ordered the fortifications of Marienburg to be strengthened (in particular, new bastions were erected for “fiery combat” on the eastern side of the castle complex). At the same time, Plauen tried to strengthen the artillery armament of all order castles.

In addition, the chief minister, despite the expenses, recruited a large number of mercenaries (mainly, as usual, Slavs - Czechs and Silesians). Heinrich von Plauen divided his armed forces into three detachments.

He appointed the Grand Commander, Count Friedrich von Zollern, to command the first detachment - one of his few true friends and a participant in the Battle of Tannenberg, who never forgot this tragic day. Friedrich von Zollern was at the time described one of the few “Gebitigers” who faithfully served the Order of the Virgin Mary for many years. In 1389, Count von Zollern became the commander of the commander of Brandenburg, and subsequently the commander of the marshal of the order. In 1402 he became the Vogt of Dirschau, then the commander of Ragnit, and in 1410 the commander of Balga.

At the head of the second detachment of the order's army, Chief Plauen placed his brother Heinrich von Plauen (the commander of Danzig mentioned above).

Led by the third - his cousin and comrade-in-arms in the defense of Marienburg, whose name was also Heinrich von Plauen!

The moment for the attack was chosen very well. It was at the described time that Jagiello and Vytautas celebrated the conclusion of the Polish-Lithuanian Gorodel Union in Gorod-le-on-the-Bug. The Hochmeister could not personally lead the order's army that set out on the campaign. A sudden attack of illness confined him to his bed in Marienburg. The goal of the military campaign that began in the fall of 1413 was to devastate the Polish and Mazowieckian borderlands. The Teutons tried to take several fortified cities by storm, but were unable to capture them. On the 11th day of the campaign, its supreme leader, Marshal of the Order Michael Küchmeister von Sternberg, arbitrarily ordered the Order's army to retreat. He acted as the head of one of the parties into which the Teutonic Order split - the party in opposition to Hochmeister von Plauen, the party of peace at any cost. The Hochmeister, despite his illness, scheduled a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Order for October 14 in Marienburg, at which he intended to call the Marshal to account. But the marshal was not asleep. As a countermeasure, he, with the assistance of the Deutschmaster (!) and the Livonian Landmaster (!), made plans to remove the Supreme Master from office. The conspirators previously secured the support of 73 “brother knights” of the Teutonic Order. They declared Heinrich von Plauen (still confined to his sickbed) removed from office, stripping him of the insignia of the Lord's authority (including the famous ring of the Supreme Master, adorned with a ruby ​​and two diamonds). Plauen was accused of inciting war, of violating the spirit and letter of the charter of the Teutonic Order and of ruining the order's state with exorbitant taxes and levies. Most of these accusations were made up and could have been easily refuted, but no one did. In reality, the point was that the attempts at reform undertaken by Plauen infringed on the momentary “selfish” interests of the selfish, short-sighted “brothers of the order” who lived only for today.

After the deposition of the former chief minister for some time, at his own request, he was appointed commander of Engelsburg. However, on January 7, 1414, Plauen was forced to publicly declare his - supposedly voluntary! - resignation from the position of Supreme Master. When the treacherous conspirator Michael Küchmeister von Sternberg was elected Supreme Master on January 9, Heinrich von Plauen was forced to swear allegiance to the traitor and plotter. Heinrich von Plauen the Younger (brother of the deposed Hochmeister) was removed from the post of commander of Danzig and appointed to the insignificant post of caretaker of the order's hospice in Lochstedt. In Lochstedt, he tried to gather around himself supporters of the deposed master and restore him to his position, with the help of foreign sovereigns (including even with the support of the Polish king, for whom another turmoil in the camp of the “damned Kryzhaks” was only to his advantage). However, among the conspirators there was a traitor. The conspiracy was discovered and many of its participants were arrested. Heinrich von Plauen the Younger himself, accused of treason and sentenced to death in absentia, managed to escape to Poland, where he, in a white order cloak with a black “Teutonic” cross, was honorably received, in the presence of all the possible owners (magnates) of the kingdom, by the king himself Polish, who, however, did not provide any real help to the fugitive from Lochstedt. The further fate of Heinrich von Plauen the Younger is shrouded in the darkness of the unknown.

Although the former Lord Master Heinrich von Plauen was not personally involved in the conspiracy organized by Plauen the Younger, he was captured on charges of treason against the Grand Master and the Order and thrown behind bars. The hero of Marienburg had to spend 7 years in Danzig, and then another 3 years in Brandenburg prison,

From the moment von Plauen was removed from the post of Supreme Master, the entire military-political history of the Teutonic Order in Prussia went downhill. The previous order structure had long been out of keeping with the spirit of the times and, as it turned out, did not have strong roots in Prussia. Only this can explain the collapse of all order structures after the Battle of Tannenberg. Plauen's attempt to lead the order and Prussia, subordinate to the order, through reforms, while simultaneously waging an armed struggle for independence, was the only possible alternative...

The deposition of the Supreme Master was something hitherto unheard of in the history of the Teutonic Order of the Holy Virgin Mary. This event demonstrated to the whole world (and first of all to the Polish king) that the previous foundations of the order’s power - discipline, obedience, order - were crumbling. The hopes of the “grossgebitigers” to calm the Poles and keep them from hostile actions by deposing Hochmeister von Plauen, whose iron will and unbending character saved the Teutonic Order from certain death after the defeat at Tannenberg, turned out to be in vain. In 1414, King Jagiello unleashed another war against the Order of the Virgin Mary.

The new Supreme Master Michael Küchmeister von Sternberg did not dare to go into the field to fight Jagiello. The Marian troops remained behind the walls of the fortified order castles.

From there, especially in clear weather, they could watch how the Polish interventionists once again burned cities and villages, tortured, killed and drove away the entire population. The Poles destroyed Allenstein, Heilsberg, Landsberg, Kreuzburg, Christburg and Marienwerder, which had been rebuilt shortly before with such difficulty. Little of! The chapel, erected by order of Heinrich von Plauen in 1411 on the field of the Battle of Tannenberg “for the salvation of the souls and rest in peace of all eighteen thousand Christians who fell on this field (that is, not only the “Teutons”, but also their opponents!)”, was first plundered and then destroyed by Polish warriors. At the same time, “the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary of indescribable beauty” fell victim to fire.

With SUCH leadership, the Teutonic Order had no choice but to sign a humiliating peace, fraught with tangible territorial losses for it. On March 10, 1422, Michael Küchmeister von Sternberg resigned from the position of Supreme Master. His successor in this post, Paul von Rusdorff (1422–1441), ordered the release of the seriously ill Heinrich von Plauen from prison on May 28, 1429. Exactly 7 months later, on December 28, 1429, the hero of Marienburg moved to a better world. And - a strange thing - the Teutonic Order gave the dead hero the honors that they denied him during his lifetime. His mortal remains, covered with a white Hochmeister cloak, were buried in the Marienburg chapel of St. Anne - the tomb of the Supreme Masters - next to the ashes of the hero Tannenberg Ulrich von Jungingen...

However, its defender still did not have to rest in Marienburg forever. In 2007, according to reports in the Polish and German press, Polish archaeologists discovered in the crypt of the Kwidzin Cathedral (ancient Marienwerder) the ashes of several dignitaries of the Teutonic Order, judging by the remains of expensive silk fabrics and accessories (clasps, etc.) made of precious stones preserved on the skeletons metals As a result of anthropological analyzes and DNA analysis, archaeologists came to the conclusion that three of the skeletons found in the crypt belonged to the Supreme Masters of the Order of the Virgin Mary - Werner von Orseln (1324–1330), Ludolf König (1342–1345) and ... Heinrich von Plauen (1410 –1413)…

In 1430, the Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander Vitovt died. In 1434, Vytautas was followed into another world by his cousin, the Polish king Wladyslaw II Jagiello (the king whose reign turned out to be the longest in the history of the Polish monarchy). Neither one nor the other lived to see the final collapse of the power of the Order of the Virgin Mary over Prussia, but both were clearly aware that with their victory over the Order’s army at Tannenberg they had created the main prerequisite for this.

As a result of all the military-political and financial problems listed above, the Order of the Ever-Virgin Mary was so weakened that its own subjects - of German origin - rebelled against it! - townspeople and - most importantly! - knights-vassals of the Order of the Virgin Mary (even before the Tannenberg defeat, they founded the above-mentioned secret “Union of Jagzerits (s)”, which sought to overthrow the order’s power), united with other classes of the order state, including the rebellious burgher “Union of Cities”, in the so-called “Prussian Union”, which seized most of the order’s castles by treason and called for help from the Polish king.

The unfaithful vassals of the Teutonic Order, led by the knight Hans von Beisen, sought to replace for themselves the firm power of the order of the Polish-Lithuanian “gentry's liberty”. The townspeople, dissatisfied with the increased levies necessary to pay indemnities to Poland and Lithuania, and with their exclusion from managing state affairs, also rebelled against the power of the order (after the master Heinrich von Plauen, who tried to satisfy their demands and attract the burghers to govern the state, faced “irreconcilable opposition” in the person of the order knights, was removed from power and imprisoned).

It should be noted that by the time described, the “brother knights” of the Teutonic Order were no longer the same as before. Over time, they began to make increasingly greater demands on the order's leadership regarding the standard of living (although upon joining the order, according to old memory, they took a vow of non-covetousness, that is, they swore before God and the Virgin Mary to live in poverty, as befits monks). Things got to the point that Supreme Master Konrad von Ellrichshausen (referred to in many sources as Erlichshausen) even had to introduce a separate clause into the order’s charter, which allowed officials of the order to keep hunting falcons, and ordinary “brother knights” to keep dogs. Little of! We also had to issue an official ban on the “brother knights” taking dogs with them to church! If the “brother knights” did not receive, in their opinion, a worthy content, befitting their noble status, they could now turn to their influential relatives, who often put corresponding pressure on the Deutschmaster, the Landmaster of Livonia, and even on the Lord of the Order of the Virgin Mary himself!

The day of 1454 was not far off when the Czech and Silesian mercenaries, who defended Marienburg from the Poles and had not received the salary due to them for a long time, rebelled and sold the castle complex (possessed by the master of the house to pay for their future salary) to the Poles. Hochmeister Ludwig von Ellrichshausen, stripped dry by mercenaries, was forced to flee Marienburg, which served for 148 years as the residence of seventeen Supreme Masters of the Teutonic Order. The city of Marienburg was surrendered by the rebellious townspeople to the troops of the “Prussian Union” (the traitor Hans von Beisen had already received the position of “governor” of Prussia from the Polish king). The Marienburg burgomaster Bartholomew (Bartholomeus) Blume, who remained faithful to the order, was quartered, and his comrades on the city council were also quartered or beheaded. From now on, Königsberg became the residence of the Hochmeisters. Subsequently, under the terms of the 2nd Peace Treaty of Thorn (Torun) signed in 1466, the Order of the Virgin Mary had to cede all of East Prussia to Poland.

In the meantime, this dark day for the Teutonic Order has not yet come. But wars with rebellious subjects and the Polish-Lithuanian coalition were complicated by invasions of the order’s lands by the troops of the heretical Hussites - the “fear and terror” of all of what was then Central and Western Europe.

Jogaila and Vytautas achieved a triumph that they hardly dared to dream of. Their grandfather had once laid claim to the Alle River, which more or less marked the boundary between the settled lands along the coast and the deserted areas to the southeast on the Lithuanian border. Now, it seemed, Vytautas could lay claim to all the lands east of the Vistula. Jagiello was ready to implement the old Polish claims to Kulm and West Prussia. However, just at the moment when the victors were celebrating their short-lived success, among the Teutonic knights there was only one person whose leadership qualities and strong will would equal their own - Heinrich von Plauen. Nothing in his past biography foreshadowed that he would become anything more than a simple castellan. But he was one of those who suddenly emerges and rises in times of crisis. Von Plauen was forty years old when he arrived as a secular crusader in Prussia from Vogtland, which was located between Thuringia and Saxony.

He was so impressed by the warrior monks that he accepted their vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and war against the enemies of the Church. His noble birth secured him an officer's position, and after a long service he was appointed commandant of Schwetz Castle. This large point was located on the western bank of the Vistula north of Kulm and was important for protecting the borders of West Prussia from raids.

When von Plauen learned of the extent of the defeat that had befallen the order, he, the only remaining castellan, took upon himself a responsibility that went beyond the scope of normal service: he ordered the three thousand soldiers subordinate to him to march to Marienburg to strengthen the garrison of the fortress before Polish troops arrived there. . Nothing else mattered to him at that moment. If Jagiello decides to turn to Shvetz and capture it, so be it. Von Plauen considered it his duty to save Prussia - and this meant protecting Marienburg without worrying about the smaller castles.

Neither von Plauen's experience nor previous service prepared him for such a decision, because he took upon himself enormous responsibility and full power. The Teutonic Knights prided themselves on their strict obedience to orders, and at that moment it was unclear whether any of the senior officers of the order had escaped. However, in this situation, obedience turned out to be a principle that turned against the knights themselves: the officers of the order were not accustomed to go beyond the instructions given to them, especially not to reason or make independent decisions. There was rarely a need to rush in the order - there was always time to discuss emerging problems in detail, consult with the chapter or council of commanders and come to a common understanding. Even the most self-confident Grand Masters consulted their knights on military matters. Now there was no time for this. This tradition of the order paralyzed the actions of all surviving officers, who awaited orders or the opportunity to discuss their actions with others. Everyone, but not von Plauen.

Heinrich von Plauen began to give orders: to the commanders of fortresses that were under threat of attack - “Resist!”, to the sailors in Danzig - “Report to Marienburg!”, to the Livonian master - “Send troops as soon as possible!”, to the German master - “Recruit mercenaries and send them to the east! The tradition of obedience and the habit of obeying orders turned out to be so strong in the order that its orders were carried out!!! A miracle happened: resistance increased everywhere. When the first Polish scouts approached Marienburg, they found the fortress garrison on the walls, ready to fight.

Von Plauen gathered people from wherever he could. At his disposal was the small garrison of Marienburg, his own detachment from Schwetz, sailors from Danzig, secular knights and the militia of Marienburg. That the townspeople were willing to help defend the fortress was a result of von Plauen's actions. One of his first orders was: “Burn the city and suburbs to the ground!” This deprived the Poles and Lithuanians of shelters and supplies, prevented the dispersal of forces to defend the city walls and cleared the approaches to the castle. Perhaps the moral significance of his decisive action was even more significant: such an order showed how far von Plauen was willing to go to protect the castle.

The surviving knights, their secular brethren and the townspeople began to recover from the shock into which their defeat had led them. After the first Polish scouts retreated from under the castle walls, Plauen’s people collected bread, cheese and beer inside the walls, drove cattle, and brought hay. The guns on the walls were prepared and the firing sectors were cleared. Time was found to discuss plans for defending the fortress against possible attacks. When the main royal army arrived on July 25, the garrison had already collected supplies for 8-10 weeks of the siege. The Polish-Lithuanian army was so lacking in these supplies!

Vital to the defense of the castle was the state of mind of its commander. His genius for improvisation, desire for victory and unquenchable thirst for vengeance were transmitted to the garrison. These character traits may have previously hampered his career - a bright personality and intolerance of incompetence are not valued in the army in peacetime. However, at that critical moment, it was precisely these traits of von Plauen that were in demand.

He wrote to Germany:

“To all princes, barons, knights and warriors and all other good Christians who read this letter. We, Brother Heinrich von Plauen, Castellan of Schwetz, acting in the place of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order in Prussia, inform you that the King of Poland and Prince Vytautas with a great army and infidel Saracens besieged Marienburg. All the forces of the order are engaged in its defense. We ask you, most bright and noble gentlemen, to allow your subjects, who wish to help us and protect us in the name of the love of God and all Christianity, for the salvation of souls or for the sake of money, to come to our aid as soon as possible, so that we can drive out our enemies.”

Plauen's call for help against the Saracens may have been hyperbole (although some of the Tatars were Muslims), but it nonetheless appealed to anti-Polish sentiment and galvanized the German Master to action. The knights began to gather at Neumark, where the former protector of Samogitia, Michel Küchmeister, retained significant forces. The officers of the order hastily sent out notices that the order was ready to accept for military service anyone who could begin it immediately.

Jagiello hoped that Marienburg would quickly capitulate. Elsewhere, the order's demoralized troops surrendered at the slightest threat. The garrison of Marienburg, the king convinced himself, would do the same. However, when the fortress, contrary to expectation, did not capitulate, the king had to choose between bad and worse. He did not want to attack, but retreat would be an admission of defeat. So Jagiello ordered a siege, expecting the defenders to surrender: the combination of fear of death and hope of salvation was a strong incentive for an honorable surrender. But the king quickly discovered that he did not have the strength to besiege such a large and well-designed fortress as Marienburg, and at the same time send enough troops to other cities to capitulate. Jogaila did not have siege weapons at his disposal - he did not order them to be sent down the Vistula in time. The longer his army stood under the walls of Marienburg, the more time the Teutonic knights had to organize the defense of other fortresses. It is difficult to judge the victorious king for his errors in calculations (what would historians have said if he had not tried to strike right at the heart of the order?), but his siege failed. Polish troops tried for eight weeks to take the castle walls, using catapults and cannons taken from the walls of nearby fortresses. Lithuanian foragers burned and ravaged the surrounding area, sparing only those properties where the townspeople and nobles hastened to provide them with cannons and gunpowder, food and fodder. The Tatar cavalry rushed through Prussia, confirming in general opinion that their reputation as ferocious barbarians was well deserved. Polish troops entered West Prussia, capturing many castles that were left without garrisons: Schwetz, Mewe, Dirschau, Tuchel, Bütow and Könitz. But the vital centers of Prussia, Koenigsberg and Marienburg, remained in the hands of the order. Dysentery broke out among the Lithuanian troops (too much unusually good food), and finally Vytautas announced that he was taking his army home. However, Jagiello was determined to remain until he took the castle and captured its commander. Jagiello refused the proposals for a peace treaty, demanding the preliminary surrender of Marienburg. The king was sure that a little more patience, and complete victory would be in his hands.

Meanwhile, the order's troops were already moving to Prussia. Livonian troops approached Konigsberg, freeing the forces of the Prussian Order located there. This helped refute accusations of treason: the Livonian knights were blamed for not breaking the treaty with Vytautas and not invading Lithuania. This might have forced Vytautas to send troops to defend the border. In the west, Hungarian and German mercenaries hurried to Neumark, where Michel Küchmeister formed them into an army. This officer had hitherto remained passive, too concerned about relations with the local nobility, and did not risk moving against Poland, but in August he sent a small army against a detachment of Poles, approximately equal in number to Küchmeister's forces, defeated them and captured the enemy commander. Küchmeister then moved east, liberating one city after another. By the end of September, he cleared West Prussia of enemy troops.

By this time, Jagiello was no longer able to continue the siege. Marienburg remained impregnable as long as its garrison maintained its morale, and von Plauen ensured that his hastily assembled troops remained willing to fight. Moreover, the castle garrison was encouraged by the departure of the Lithuanians and the news of the order's victories. So, although supplies were dwindling, the besieged drew their optimism from the good news. They were also encouraged by the fact that their Hanseatic allies controlled the rivers. Meanwhile, the Polish knights encouraged the king to return home - the period they were supposed to serve in their vassal duties had long expired. The Polish army lacked supplies, and illness began among the soldiers. In the end, Jagiello had no choice but to admit that the means of defense still triumphed over the means of attack: a brick fortress, surrounded by water barriers, could only be taken by a long siege, and even then, probably only with the help of a lucky coincidence circumstances or betrayal. Jagiello at that moment had neither the strength nor the provisions to continue the siege, and there was no hope for this in the future.

After eight weeks of siege, on September 19, the king gave the order to retreat. He erected a well-fortified fortress near Stum, south of Marienburg, garrisoned it with a large number of his best troops, and gathered there all the supplies he could gather from the surrounding lands. After which Jagiello ordered to burn all the fields and barns around the new fortress in order to make it difficult for the Teutonic knights to collect provisions for the siege. By holding a fortress in the heart of Prussia, the king hoped to put pressure on his enemies. The existence of the fortress was also supposed to encourage and protect those of the townspeople and landowners who went over to his side. On his way to Poland, he stopped at the tomb of St. Dorothea in Marienwerder to pray. Jagiello was now a very devout Christian. In addition to piety, doubts about which arose due to his pagan and Orthodox past and which Jogaila tried in every possible way to eradicate, he needed to demonstrate to the public that he used Orthodox and Muslim troops only as mercenaries.

When Polish troops retreated from Prussia, history repeated itself. Almost two centuries earlier, it was the Poles who bore the brunt of much of the fighting, but the Teutonic knights gradually took possession of these lands because, then as now, too few Polish knights were willing to remain in Prussia and defend it for their king. The knights of the order had more patience: thanks to this, they survived the disaster at Tannenberg.

Plauen gave the order to pursue the retreating enemy army. Livonian troops moved first, besieging Elbing and forcing the townspeople to surrender, then headed south to Kulm and captured most of the towns there. Castellan Ragnita, whose troops controlled Samogitia during the Battle of Grunwald, headed through central Prussia to Osterode, capturing castles one after another and expelling the last Poles from the lands of the order. By the end of October, von Plauen had regained almost all the cities except Thorn, Nessau, Rechden and Strasbourg, located directly on the border. Even Sztum was taken after a three-week siege: the garrison surrendered the castle in exchange for the right to freely return to Poland with all property. The worst days of the knights seemed to be over. Von Plauen saved the order at its most desperate moment. His courage and determination inspired the same feelings in the rest of the knights, turning the demoralized remnants of the people who survived the lost battle into warriors determined to win. Von Plauen did not believe that a single lost battle would define the history of the order, and convinced many of a final future victory.

Help from the west also arrived surprisingly quickly. Sigismund declared war on Jagiello and sent troops to the southern borders of Poland, which prevented many Polish knights from joining Jagiello's army. Sigismund wanted the order to remain a threat to the northern provinces of Poland and an ally in the future. It was in this spirit that he had previously agreed with Ulrich von Jungingen: that neither of them would make peace with anyone else without consulting the other. Sigismund's ambitions extended to the imperial crown, and he wished to prove himself to the German princes as a strong defender of German communities and lands. Exceeding legitimate authority, as a true leader should do in a crisis, he summoned the emperor's electors in Frankfurt am Main and persuaded them to immediately send help to Prussia. For the most part, these actions on the part of Sigismund were, of course, a game - he was interested in being elected king of Germany, and this was the first step towards the imperial throne.

The most effective help came from Bohemia. This was surprising, since King Wenceslas initially showed no interest in saving the order. Although the news about

The Battle of Grunwald reached Prague a week after the battle, he did nothing. This behavior was typical of Wenceslas, who often found himself on a drinking binge just when decisions needed to be made, and even when sober he was not overly interested in his royal duties. Only after the representatives of the order shrewdly bestowed generous gifts on the royal mistresses, promised payments to the penniless representatives of the nobility and mercenaries, and finally made the king an offer by which Prussia would become subject to Bohemia, did this monarch begin to act. Wenceslas unexpectedly wished that his subjects would go to war in Prussia, and even loaned over eight thousand marks to the diplomats of the order to pay for the services of mercenaries.

The Prussian state was saved. Apart from the losses in men and property that would eventually recover, the Teutonic Order did not seem to have suffered particularly badly. His prestige was, of course, damaged, but Heinrich von Plauen recaptured most of the castles and expelled his enemies beyond the borders of the order's lands. Later generations of historians viewed the defeat at the Battle of Grunwald as a mortal wound from which the order gradually bled to death. But in October 1410 such a development of events seemed unlikely.

On June 9, thousands of people in Russia and the former republics of the USSR celebrate a memorable date - the Day of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSVG Day). On this day in 1945, the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany (GSOVG) was formed, transformed in 1954 into the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSVG), and then, in 1989, into the Western Group of Forces (ZGV). The Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (German: Gruppe der Sowjetischen Streitkräfte in Deutschland, GSSD) was the world's largest operational-strategic formation of armed forces abroad, stationed in Germany (GDR, West Germany). It was part of the Armed Forces of the USSR (1945-1991), the United Armed Forces of the CIS (1992) and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (1992-1994). The Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany (GSOVG) was created after the end of the Great Patriotic War and the unconditional surrender of Germany, based on Directive of the Supreme High Command Headquarters No. 11095 of May 29, 1945. It was with this document that the almost half-century history of the Group began, which was formed by June 9, 1945 and began its activities the next day, June 10. The GSOVG became at that time the largest military formation of Soviet troops, stationed in close proximity to NATO armed forces, and was considered the most combat-ready. The basis of the Group was made up of troops of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts. And the first Commander-in-Chief of the GSOVG was appointed Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov, who at the same time became the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. The troops of the occupation group bordered the Allied troops from the west, from the east the border ran along the Oder and Neisse rivers, from the south it was the border of Czechoslovakia with Germany. The zone of Soviet occupation was 107.5 thousand square kilometers with a population of more than 18 million people. Initially, the headquarters of the Group was located in Potsdam, and in 1946 it was transferred to the suburb of Berlin - Wünsdorf. The issue of deploying the Group's troops, which included several hundred formations and units, was resolved mainly through the use of former Wehrmacht bases. Soviet troops were based on German territory from 1945 to 1994; more than 8.5 million citizens of the USSR and Russia served in the GSVG. The initial size of the group was approximately 1.5 million soldiers and officers, by 1949 - about 3 million people, and in the year of its withdrawal - about 600 thousand military personnel. This strike offensive group of the Soviet Army was capable, if necessary, according to the plans of Soviet military strategists, of delivering a dagger tank attack on NATO troops and “flashing” Western Europe to the English Channel. And, of course, during its base in Germany, the Group turned into a kind of “state within a state”: military camps, infrastructure facilities, schools for officers’ children, pioneer camps, sanatoriums were created here... The main task of the Group was to provide protection the western borders of the USSR from external threats and the crushing of any enemy. Therefore, these troops were equipped with the most advanced and modern military equipment and weapons, including nuclear weapons. The group has always been a testing ground for the capabilities of the latest weapons at that time, the level of training of command personnel and personnel. The group of troops belonged to the first strategic echelon (cover troops). In addition, the GSVG also became a famous forge of personnel: future ministers of defense of the USSR, CIS, chiefs of the General Staff, commanders-in-chief, most marshals, generals, senior officers of the USSR, Russia and the CIS countries underwent training and education here. After all, in the GSVG, readiness for war has always been constant and checked around the clock. It must also be said that the Group more than once found itself in situations of direct confrontation with former allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, especially during the Berlin crises of 1948-1949, 1953 and 1961. In 1968, individual units of the Group took part in Operation Danube (the entry of troops into Czechoslovakia). With its combat power, the Group contributed to the recognition of parity in the military field, the policy of détente and acted as a deterrent.