Who won the Battle of Grunwald?
The Polish-Lithuanian alliance won the Battle of Grunwald on 15 July 1410, destroying the field army of the Teutonic Order in an afternoon in one of the largest battles of medieval Europe. Known as Grunwald in Poland, Žalgiris in Lithuania and Tannenberg in German, it broke the Order's power and still runs deep in the national memory of all three nations.2
On 15 July 1410, on rolling fields between the villages of Grunwald and Tannenberg, one of the largest battles of medieval Europe destroyed the military power of the Teutonic Order in an afternoon. Known in Poland as Grunwald, in Lithuania as Žalgiris and in German as Tannenberg, it is the same day remembered under three names, and it still runs deep in the national memory of all three.3
The battle from both sides
Two perspectivesThe allied army of King Władysław Jagiełło and Grand Duke Vytautas came to Grunwald to break the Teutonic Order's grip on the Baltic. It was one of the largest forces in medieval Europe: Polish knights, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Tatars and others. When the Lithuanian wing gave way, whether broken or in a feigned retreat, the Order committed its reserves and lost its cohesion, and the Polish line held and then rolled forward. The Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen and much of the Order's leadership were killed. The victory shattered the Order's military power and made the Polish-Lithuanian union the dominant power in the region, a triumph still central to Polish national memory.
The Teutonic Knights met the allied army confident in the heavy cavalry and discipline that had made them the Baltic's foremost military power. Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen sought a decisive field battle and, by tradition, sent two bare swords to King Władysław Jagiełło and Grand Duke Vytautas as a taunt to fight. The Order's charge drove back the Lithuanian wing and seemed to be winning, but when its knights pursued and then committed the last reserves, the Polish line enveloped them. The Grand Master and most of the senior brethren fell on the field. Though the Order's capital at Marienburg withstood the siege that followed, Grunwald began a decline it never reversed.
The Order and the alliance
For a century the Teutonic Knights, a crusading monastic order turned Baltic state, had expanded at the expense of their neighbors. Against them stood the union of the Crown of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, sealed by the marriage that made the Lithuanian ruler Jogaila into King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland. He and his cousin, Grand Duke Vytautas (Witold) of Lithuania, brought together a remarkable army: Polish knights, Lithuanian and Ruthenian riders, Tatar horse-archers and Czech mercenaries among them.
Two bare swords
The Grand Master, Ulrich von Jungingen, drew up his heavily armored knights and waited. As the morning wore on and the allies did not attack, he sent Jagiełło a taunt, two naked swords, an invitation to fight if he dared. He would not live out the day.4
The retreat that turned the field
The battle opened on the allied right, where Vytautas' lighter Lithuanian and Tatar cavalry engaged, then fell back. Whether a genuine rout or a deliberate feigned retreat in the steppe manner is still argued, but the effect was the same: it drew ranks of Teutonic knights out of formation in pursuit. On the left the Polish heavy cavalry ground forward in a long, brutal mêlée. When the Order committed its last reserves in a bid to reach and kill Jagiełło himself, the allied line held, enveloped them, and the Teutonic army came apart.5
What the day decided
The Grand Master and much of the Order's leadership were killed on the field. The follow-up failed, the allies could not take the great fortress of Marienburg (Malbork), and the Peace of Thorn in 1411 was territorially modest. But the aura was gone. Grunwald broke the Teutonic Order's reputation and its offensive strength for good, and shifted the balance of power in the region toward Poland-Lithuania for generations. Few battles have meant so much to so many nations at once.6
A symbol that outlived the Order
The defeat did not destroy the Teutonic Order at a stroke, but it began a decline it never reversed. Though the Order's capital at Marienburg held out against the siege that followed, the loss of so many knights and so much prestige broke its grip on the region. Over the next decades wars and crushing debts hollowed it out, until by the Peace of Thorn in 1466 it ceded vast territory and became a vassal of the Polish crown. For Poland and Lithuania the battle became something larger still, a lasting emblem of their union and of victory over a mighty enemy, invoked for centuries afterward in art, literature and national memory. The Order's push east had been checked before, notably when Alexander Nevsky turned back its Livonian branch at Lake Peipus in 1242.
