Teutonic Knights (27 page)

We know from other sources how brutal the campaigns of this era could be. Polish witnesses testifying to papal legates in 1320 and 1339 indicated that the warriors in the armies of the Teutonic Order practised torture, massacred prisoners, slaughtered innocent civilians, stripped women, abused clerics, and destroyed villages, fields, and churches. If that was happening in Christian Poland, one can imagine how badly they treated pagans in Samogitia.

Unfortunately for historians, the evidence at the papal hearings was seriously flawed: the Teutonic Knights boycotted the hearings. This offended the legates, who were further angered when the grand masters suggested that they lacked authority to override the order’s past grants of immunity from harassment. Moreover, much of the evidence was hearsay, and some of the testimony was wildly exaggerated, a medieval characteristic that is the bane of the modem researcher. Many of the witnesses were certain to benefit from a decision against the order. On the other hand, some witnesses were men of position and experience, who had opportunity to know what had happened. Since the papal investigators heard each person’s testimony privately, asking each witness a detailed list of questions, they had means of ascertaining the truth. The popes, hearing their legates reports of misdeeds and atrocities, summoned the high officials of the order to appear before them.

In their defence the officers of the Teutonic Knights denied some charges and explained that others were exaggerated or misrepresented. Their relationship with Poles, for example, was not uniformly bad. The bishop of Płock had given them the castellany of Michelau in return for an annual monetary payment. It was important to the bishop that the order’s garrison would give some protection to the exposed frontiers of his diocese. The same fear of Lithuanian attack made the dukes of Masovia generally friendly. Moreover, the dukes in Pomerania and Silesia were seeking allies against Ladislas. Nor were the Poles without fault in the dispute. Years earlier the Council of Vienne had ordered the Polish bishops to pay a special crusading tax to support the operations of the Teutonic Order; the bishops never obeyed that resolution. Lastly, the kings prevented their subjects from participating in the Samogitian expeditions, thus interfering with a legitimate crusade. Although the papal legates’ investigations did not result in the condemnation of the Teutonic Order that the crusaders’ enemies had expected, they provided modern historians with ample testimony to the cruelty of fourteenth-century warfare. Moreover, this cruelty was confirmed even by historians who wrote in praise of the crusade. In those days men boasted of their deeds in arms, even bloody deeds that made more tenderhearted contemporaries shake their heads in wonder.

The order’s chroniclers did more than prove that war is terrible. Their descriptions of raids across the wilderness allow us to analyse the strategy which lay behind them. In general deepest winter and high summer were the best seasons for campaigning; during the rest of the year mud could be a major problem. February, June, and November were favourite months for Christian raids – in February the frozen rivers could be used as highways; June provided a period of warm weather before the first harvest; and in November the militia was free from agricultural work and the snow was not yet too deep for infantry. The chroniclers lavishly praised native knights for their deeds during these years. Few crusaders were coming from Germany, and the native Prussians and Livonians who replaced them were enthusiastic warriors, fighting for the love of battle, glory, and worldly advancement.

The expeditions were well organised. Unable to live off the land in the wilderness, raiders had to carry their supplies with them. Often they left their stores at a rendezvous site along the planned route of return, sometimes guarding them, sometimes burying them, and sometimes simply hiding them. Castles served as supply depots and resting places, and ships transported food and equipment when surprise was not important.

The Teutonic Knights knew many paths into Samogitia. They collected descriptions of routes used by merchants and raiders, giving the names of the men who had gone that way, the number of days’ march for each stage of the journey, and other useful information. Once the raiders crossed the wilderness, they knew exactly what to do. The general practice was to divide the army into striking forces, each small unit plundering a designated area all day and meeting at a pre-determined location forward of the dispersal point, where camp would be pitched. A strong detachment would be kept in this central location to protect the booty and supplies and as a reserve force ready to assist against any threat which might appear. Since one day’s raiding would generally suffice to ravage any small district, the army moved each day to a new location, proceeding in a zigzag pattern, often varying the march by going straight forward, or even returning to ravage a district again. They followed whatever route seemed best suited for catching the defenders by surprise, either before they could go into hiding or as they emerged from concealment. Sometimes small forces were sent ahead with the intention of retreating hurriedly and leading pursuers into an ambush by the main party. This instilled such caution among defenders that occasionally very small parties were able to make daring raids deep into the heart of the enemy countryside and escape unharmed. Each campaign was thoroughly planned, and as time passed new variations were added to the general theme. Christian and pagan alike employed the same tactics because they were the only ones available, and both adhered to a strategy of exhausting the enemy by attacking agricultural production and commerce.

Vytenis did not allow the crusaders free run of his country or of Samogitia. He was a skilful and determined warrior who had capable vassals in his service, and all hated their Christian foes. One vassal, David of Gardinas, first appeared in the crusader chronicles in 1314. The foremost pagan warrior of his generation, he was castellan of the second most important fortress in the country, Gardinas (Vilnius being the most important). What happened to his predecessor, the chamberlain, is unknown. David’s first exploit was to destroy supplies left by Heinrich von Plötzke during a daring September raid into south-eastern Lithuania, far behind Vilnius. Killing the guards, burning the foodstuffs, and stealing 500 horses, David presented the grand commander with a terrible dilemma. When Heinrich reached the empty underground laager, he realised that the enemy was undoubtedly lying in wait somewhere along his way home. Doubting that his hungry forces could fight their way through an ambush, Heinrich made a 500-mile detour around the danger. Some of his men dug for roots, others ate their starving horses, and many died in their tracks. Those who escaped were exhausted from their ordeal, and many were too ill to return to duty quickly. Without any fighting, David of Gardinas had almost destroyed an entire army.

In time the grand masters realised that it was much easier to take crusaders up the Nemunas River than through the many swamps and streams of the wilderness. On the great river the grand masters could effectively employ their technological advantages – ships which could carry troops and supplies, castles which could protect strategic points and serve as bases for raids and major offensives, and missile weapons. Moreover, the Nemunas and its tributaries led directly into the Lithuanian heartland, while Lithuanians coming downstream were diverted toward the bogs along the Kurland bay. The grand masters built impressive castles along the wide river, first at Ragnit, close to the river’s many mouths and protecting Samland from attack, then farther upstream, at Christmemel and Welun.

In August 1315 Samogitians slipped up to Ragnit unnoticed and were upon the walls before the alarm was given. The startled garrison hurried into the keep, a strong tower that demonstrated the engineering superiority of the Westerners. A crusader keep was tall enough to serve as a lookout and almost impossible to assault directly. The entrance was hardly more than a door high above the ground, reached by a narrow staircase and solidly barred from within. The base had no entrances or windows and could have a solid stone wall six metres thick. Any approach to the foot of the keep, any attempt to undermine it, was greeted with a barrage of heavy stones thrown from twenty metres or so above, or by a shower of crossbow shafts. Even wounded and exhausted men could defend such a post for several days, and since the garrison had a field of fire over the entire castle no enemy army could hold the castle against a relief force as long as the keep remained untaken. The Samogitians did not even try to assault Ragnit’s keep. They were satisfied with ravaging and burning the fields that were ready for harvesting.

Six weeks later Vytenis appeared at Christmemel. He set up two hurling machines and brought up a multitude of Rus’ian archers. He put the remainder of his men to work cutting wood and stacking it in dry places whence it could be carried easily to the moat. His plan was to pile so much wood and brush around the castle that when fire was set to it, the heat would crack the walls and the smoke would suffocate the garrison.

As soon as the grand master heard this news he summoned his forces. Although he could not begin his march until his army was fully assembled, he sent ten knights and 150 men ahead on ships. Vytenis, having foreseen this occurrence, prevented their reaching the castle. The best the crusaders could do was to harass the besiegers, exchanging volleys of arrows and hoping to slow their work. On the seventeenth day of the siege the relief army approached. Vytenis was not ready yet for a general assault, but since he had only this one chance to take Christmemel before the grand master was upon him he gave the order to fill the moat with wood and straw, then to set fire to it. Thousands of men rushed toward the castle, their arms filled with wood. His archers fired thousands of arrows at the ramparts in an effort to drive the defenders from the wall or at least hinder their shots at the infantry. The garrison, however, was well protected behind crenellations; they fired their crossbows as rapidly as they could, striking down so many Lithuanians that Vytenis ordered the attack stopped. Burning his siege machines, he led his army in retreat.

This was the last time the crusaders heard of Vytenis. No one knows what happened to him. Legend has it that he died when struck by lightning, but that seems to be a mistranslation of the name of his successor, Gediminas. So little is known of the genealogies of the Lithuanian rulers that historians believed for centuries that Gediminas was Vytenis’ son, whereas it appears that they were brothers. Was Vytenis killed by his brother? Or was that story a later effort to stain Gediminas’ reputation? Was Vytenis killed at the siege of Christmemel? If so, the Teutonic Knights did not realise it and report on it, which they would certainly have done. Vytenis was a great man, an authentic national hero. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the first Lithuanian coins bore the symbol of a mounted rider called Vytis. The religious significance of that figure could well have been augmented by a canting reference to the great prince.