The Battle of Płowce was fought on 27 September 13312 between the Polish army of King Władysław I the Elbow-high and the Teutonic Order. The Poles attacked a detached part of the Teutonic army, routed it and captured its commanders, but when the main Teutonic force arrived the fighting ended without a clear victor. It is remembered as a morale victory and a symbol of Polish resistance to the Order.
In 1331 the Teutonic Knights were raiding deep into Poland, burning towns across Kuyavia. When their army split on the march, the elderly King Władysław I the Elbow-high saw his chance and struck at one part of it near the village of Płowce.
A kingdom under attack
Władysław the Elbow-high had reunited the Polish kingdom and been crowned in 1320, but the Teutonic Order held Pomerania and Gdańsk and was at war with him. In 1331 a Teutonic army invaded, ravaging Kuyavia and Greater Poland.3
The Order divides its army
As the Teutonic army moved through Kuyavia it split into separate groups.1 The Polish king, shadowing it, caught a part of the force near Płowce on 27 September, while the main body under Otto von Lauterberg was some distance away.
The first clash
The Poles attacked and, after hard fighting, broke the Teutonic group they had caught. Its commander, the marshal Dietrich von Altenburg, was among those taken prisoner, and many knights fell or were captured.4
The second phase
Later the main Teutonic force came up, freed most of the prisoners and renewed the battle4. The fighting went on until dusk without a decisive result; the Poles withdrew at nightfall, and the Teutonic army then fell back toward Toruń4. Chroniclers and later historians disagree about the details and the losses.
Why Płowce mattered
Płowce did not end the war, which was settled only by the Treaty of Kalisz in 13435 under King Casimir the Great. But it showed that the Order's knights could be beaten in open battle2, lifted Polish morale, and became a symbol of resistance remembered long before the great victory at Grunwald in 1410.
