Siege of Marienburg (1410)
Marienburg (2010)
| date | July 26, 1410 to September 19, 1410 |
|---|---|
| place | Marienburg in today's Malbork (Poland) |
| output | Siege failed |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 26,000 of them: 15,000 Poles, 11,000 Lithuanians |
4,000-5,000 men |
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The siege of Marienburg was a military conflict over the possession of the Marienburg order castle in today's Malbork after the devastating defeat of the army of the Teutonic Order against the united Polish-Lithuanian army in the battle of Tannenberg . The siege of the castle, which was defended by a few partial forces under Commander Heinrich von Plauen , by Polish and Lithuanian troops lasted from July 26, 1410 to September 19, 1410. The Teutonic Order managed to hold the fortress. The representatively expanded Marienburg was the seat of the grand masters from 1309 to 1454 and was thus the administrative center and was a symbol of the sovereignty of the Teutonic Order.
prehistory
After the defeat of the order near Tannenberg in 1410 against a Polish-Lithuanian army, as a result of which the order's army was almost completely destroyed and Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen also fell, parts of the remainder of the order's army fled to their main fortress, the Marienburg .
The Polish and Lithuanian troops under the command of the Polish King Jagiełło , a total of 26,000 men (15,000 Poles and 11,000 Lithuanians), spent two days on the battlefield after the Battle of Tannenberg to gather the scattered troops. It was not until the third day after the battle that the Polish-Lithuanian army finally marched towards Marienburg, taking six days for the 70 km route to Marienburg. This below-average marching time is all the more astonishing as the order castles of Hohenstein , Osterode , Mohrungen and Christburg on the march route surrendered without a fight and the Polish-Lithuanian army did not encounter any resistance worth mentioning.
Heinrich von Plauen , the Komtur von Schwetz , entrusted by the fallen Grand Master with a reserve of 2,000 to 3,000 men to defend the Vistula crossing at Schwetz and to provide military support to the governor of Neumark , Michael Küchmeister von Sternberg , meanwhile immediately moved to Marienburg and still reached it before the Polish-Lithuanian army.
Although Werner von Tettlingen, as Großspittler, was the last remaining major in the order , he was already very old and had retired to his residence in Elbing after the battle of Tannenberg . The knights of the order who remained in the order castle elected the energetic Heinrich von Plauen as governor of the grand master . Regardless of the formalities, he began preparations to defend the castle as soon as he arrived.
The town of Malbork, located in front of the fortress walls, could not have been defended and would have provided the Polish-Lithuanian troops with accommodation and a superbly covered site for their siege engines. In order to get a better field of fire on approaching attackers, the entire city of Marienburg was unceremoniously burned down. Most of the local population was temporarily housed in the spacious forecourt of the castle. Attempts were made to bring the resources of the surrounding area of supplies and cattle into the walls of the Marienburg. The bridge over the Nogat had to be demolished because the bridgehead on the other bank could not be defended.
The troops that had already arrived with Heinrich von Plauen were reinforced by reinforcements from the as yet unoccupied Order, survivors of the battle (around 1,500 men) and 400 mariners from the city of Danzig , armed with armor and hand weapons. At the beginning of the siege, there were around 4,000 to 5,000 strong troops in the castle in addition to the refugees from the surrounding area. The stone cans originally present at the castle were subsequently brought to the field camp near Kauernick on the Dwerenz River on the orders of Ulrich von Jungingen. They fell into the hands of the Polish-Lithuanian army near Tannenberg. The lack of artillery should prove to be a tactical disadvantage for the defenders.
Siege of Marienburg (July 26, 1410 - September 19, 1410)
On July 26, 1410, the first advance detachments of the Polish-Lithuanian army appeared in front of the Marienburg. After the handover of the body of Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen, who had fallen near Tannenberg, the castle was locked in and shot at. Among other things, the besiegers used stone cans of the order captured in battle.
The besieged, however, made frequent sorties, causing heavy losses to the besiegers. Nevertheless, the position of the defenders worsened and the morale of the previously largely self-sufficient and isolated castle garrison sank. When Heinrich von Plauen learned that the order was only in possession of the castles Rheden , Danzig, Schwetz , Schlochau , Balga , Brandenburg , Koenigsberg and the castles east of Koenigsberg, he wanted to initiate peace negotiations with extensive concessions, not least because of pressure from his own knights his opponents begin. Jagiełło, however, asked for the castle to be handed over as the main condition for peace negotiations. A task of the main house of the order was to be equated with an unconditional surrender, which seemed unacceptable to the governor. Thereupon Heinrich broke off the negotiations.
Tactically, the siege by the Poles and Lithuanians was handled extremely carelessly and the order's external communication was not prevented. An elderly priest managed to smuggle 30,000 Hungarian ducats out of Marienburg in order to hire mercenaries.
As the siege battles continued, the situation for the besiegers deteriorated significantly. In the stifling summer heat, epidemics and vermin spread. In addition, food and feed became scarce. With the receipt of a letter from the Livonian order marshal , the strategic assessment of the situation changed in favor of the order, which had a lasting effect on the morale of the defenders: A Livonian army to relieve the Marienburg was already at Königsberg . Heinrich von Plauen received another despatch sent by King Sigismund of Hungary, later Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, who called on the religious to persevere and also promised military support. Heinrich von Plauen had the king's letter read out to the team with the sound of fanfare. The Polish King Jagiełło ordered the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas to counter the Livonian army with his Lithuanian troops. However, when he realized that the entire northern Prussia was already under arms, his armed forces returned to the main Polish army in front of the Marienburg.
The situation now became critical for the besiegers. The ranks of the Polish-Lithuanian army thinned due to desertion, disease and the fighting. The Livonian relief army reached Warmia and was only a few days' march away from Marienburg. The mercenaries in the siege army were dissatisfied with the lack of pay , and mercenary detachments of the order from Pomerania and the Mark advanced towards the Marienburg from the west .
Because of the intolerable conditions and the advanced season of the year, Vytautas finally moved unauthorized with his troops to Lithuania, a few days later the Duke of Mazovia followed his example. When the news of the invasion of troops by the Hungarian king into southern Poland arrived, the Polish king lifted the siege. On September 19, 1410, the besiegers withdrew. The castle, badly damaged by the bombardment, had withstood the test.
Consequences of the siege
The successful defense of Marienburg was a victory for the order in the short and medium term, but in the long term the heavy defeat at Tannenberg had already ushered in the end of the state.
Within 14 days the army of the order managed to reoccupy almost the entire territory of the order and to quickly recapture the castles that had been captured by Poles and Lithuanians. On November 9, 1410, the successful defender of the main house Heinrich von Plauen was elected Grand Master. On February 1, 1411, Heinrich von Plauen ended the war with Poland in the First Peace of Thorn . The order had to cede areas. More important, however, were the high war indemnities. These forced Heinrich to raise taxes. Due to the new burdens and the risk of another war sought by Heinrich, the opposition grew both within the estates and within the Order's corporation. In 1413 he was deposed as Grand Master, accused of high treason and imprisoned with his brother, the Commander of Danzig, where he remained in custody for a decade.
After another siege of Marienburg during the Thirteen Years' War in 1454, Grand Master Ludwig von Erlichshausen had to pledge the castle to his unpaid mercenaries in 1455 because he was in dire financial difficulties. They then sold these directly to the Polish king, which ended the presence of the Teutonic Order in its former main house.
Legends
During the siege, a stone rifle from the besiegers is said to have been shot down on the remter of the high castle , where the knights of the order gathered for deliberation at that time. The projectile, aimed at the only supporting pillar, missed it and got stuck in the brick construction of the wall, where it is still today.
A stone box aimed at the eight-meter-tall image of the Virgin Mary in the south facade is said to have exploded when it was fired and the sacrilege against the “Mother of God” against the seriously injured piece master was “punished with blindness”.
Contemporary chronicles
- Jan Długosz: Annales seu Cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae (Chronicle of Poland, around 1445-1480).
- Johann von Posilge : Chronicle of the State of Prussia completed around 1418
- Unknown author: Cronica conflictus Wladislai regis Poloniae cum cruciferis, Anno Christi 1410. Link: Z. Celichowski, Poznań 1911
literature
- Sven Ekdahl: The battle near Tannenberg 1410. Volume 1, (= Berlin historical studies. Volume 1). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-05243-9 .
- Stephen Turnbull: Tannenberg 1410. (= Campaign. 122). Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2003, ISBN 1-84176-561-9 .
- Wolfgang Sonthofen: The German Order. Weltbild, Augsburg 1995, ISBN 3-89350-713-2 .
- Dieter Zimmerling: The German order of knights. Econ, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-430-19959-X .
- William Urban: Teutonic Knights: A Military History. Greenhill Books, London 2003, ISBN 1-85367-535-0 . (Review)
Fiction
- Ernst Wichert : Heinrich von Plauen . Historical novel from the German East. Schild-Verlag, Munich 1959 (2 volumes, reprint of the edition of the German Book Association Berlin, 1881)