‘Accident,’ Von Jungingen said. ‘Fall of the land.’
‘Perhaps not, Sire. I would send our best detachment of cavalry to that spot.’
‘I see no cause,’ the Grand Master said, but as he spoke the two German commanders witnessed a most terrifying sight. From the woods that had hidden the peasants through this long day came galloping at full speed the reassembled Tatar regiment, which the Germans thought they had destroyed early that morning.
At their head rode Tughril of Kiev—small, drooping mustache, wild fury in his good eye—shouting for revenge. Behind him came the thousand desert horsemen who had survived the German rout, and they, too, were lusting for a battle in which the odds and the terrain would now favor them. It required about six minutes for the Tatar horde to cover the open ground between their section of the Tannenberg wood and the battle line that had now moved closer to Grunwald, and in that time Von Jungingen, his face ashen and his throat suddenly parched, realized that this was going to be a battle to the death and that his knights might lose. Grasping Von Eschl’s arm, he said in hushed voice: ‘Now comes the time when we defend the cause of Jesus Christ with our own lives.’ And without hesitation or calling for support, he spurred his horse and dashed directly to the spot where the oncoming Tatars would hit.
It was six in the afternoon, with the sun still blazing hot, when the Tatars smashed into the faltering German lines, and in the ensuing half-hour there was a scene of such savagery that no Teutonic Knight had ever known its equal, not even when he had been the author of it. The infuriated Tatars, burning from the contempt with which the Germans had dismissed them in the morning skirmish, knew no restraint, in either the protection of their own persons or in their attack upon the enemy. Astride their swift horses, they swept into a struggling mass, cut and slashed and killed and sped away. Regrouping at the edge of the entangled battle, they suddenly appeared at some new spot, striking like a bolt of terrible lightning across an empty steppe.
Tughril and some of his men came upon Ulrich von Jungingen and those defending him, and not knowing that this was the Grand Master himself, they fell upon him like a configuration of hawks attacking a wounded eagle and they supposed that they would knock him from his horse and kill him, but with massive swipes of his huge two-handed sword, Von Jungingen drove them off, and displaying a heroism which astonished the Tatars, fought his way clean through their attack, and they galloped off to concentrate on some other foe.
With repetitive force these swift little warriors hacked at the Teutonic Knights, and whenever one of the Germans was thrown from his horse or lamed or left behind, Polish peasants and scythe-swinging Lithuanians swarmed in to slash the stumbling bodies, and three times Janko of Bukowo swung his frightful flint-studded ash tree against a German skull, shattering the bone but leaving the flints unscarred.
Polish horsemen who had been hard pressed at the approaches to Grunwald, where they were trying vainly to attack the German headquarters, took renewed hope when a herald came shouting The Tatars are back!’ and they came roaring against the Germans from the opposite direction.
Slowly, like the remorseless tentacles of a giant octopus, the various bands—Lithuanian, Polish, Bohemian, Russian, Tatar—closed in upon the knights who had so abused them, and when the circle was complete, the slaughter began. Lances, daggers, pikes, scythes, poignards, the hoofbeat of horses, the strangling force of maddened hands, all combined to crush the German power which only one day before had seemed so impregnable.
At the height of the killing, Pawel of Bukowo performed an act which eventually modified sharply the development of his village, his own castle and that of his master, Kazimir of Gorka. It began with a feat of heroism that attracted wild applause from those who witnessed it: ferocious Graf Reudiger, who had led numerous German sorties, was about to lead another which might have rescued many of the Germans, but as he spurred his big horse forward, Pawel, with almost superhuman effort, leaped up behind him and struck at him many times, his dagger hitting only the protective chain armor, until finally, one thrust pierced it and severed the spinal cord.
For several swaying, dreamlike moments dead Reudiger and stubborn Pawel dashed through the battle astride the panicking animal—Pawel still stabbing at the body before him, not realizing that it was already dead—until suddenly the horse reared in terror at the sight of a peasant coming at it with a pike, pitching the dead German hero and his bewildered Polish assailant backward onto the earth.
From that ignoble position, with Reudiger’s heavy body atop him and blood streaming from God knew where, Pawel looked up to see the climax of the battle, for Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen, aided by Kuno von Lichtenstein, Von Wallenrode and six of the bravest knights, was endeavoring to hold off a tumultuous Polish attack, and with their dreadful long swords they were succeeding, until a group of determined foot soldiers and peasants armed with long pikes rushed at the Grand Master with such force and in such numbers that he could not repel them all. One point caught him in the neck just above his armor, another in his face, one in the side of his head, and a fourth at the left temple. Thus pinioned, he uttered the cry ‘Jesus save me!’ and perished at a moment when he must have known that his crusade to crush Poland had failed.
Pawel, still pinioned by Graf Reudiger’s corpse, tried to break free in order to attack Von Lichtenstein, who was battling to break clear, when he saw rushing to the side of the dead Grand Master a knight for whom he bore a personal grudge. It was Von Eschl, who had treated him with such contempt at Marienburg Castle, slim, fierce-eyed and brave. With a mighty effort Pawel shoved Reudiger’s heavily armored corpse aside, leaped to his feet with blunted dagger still in his right hand, and rushed toward the German, shouting: ‘Von Eschl, it’s me!’
He missed and stumbled past the German, but quickly he turned and with a wild cry leaped forward, flying through the air parallel to the earth, catching Von Eschl by the knees, dragging him down and knocking his sword away.
Still shouting for revenge, Pawel drew back his right arm and was about to drive his dagger deep into the fallen knight’s throat, when he felt his arm gripped powerfully and heard his master’s stern voice: ‘No, Pawel! Save him for me!’ And when Kazimir of Gorka knelt down beside the two fallen men he said softly, in the heart of battle: ‘Siegfried von Eschl, you are my prisoner.’
The German looked up into the eyes of his unknown captor and asked: ‘Your name, Sir Knight?’
‘I am Kazimir of Gorka, and you have two choices. Confess that you are my prisoner and honor-bound to observe that state, or die.’
‘I accept your capture,’ the German said.
‘I accept your word of honor,’ Kazimir said. Then, helping Pawel to his feet, he commissioned his man: ‘You are responsible for this prisoner. With your life you are responsible for him.’ And during the remainder of the battle Pawel guarded Von Eschl, and when he saw Janko of his village roaring past with a pike wrested from a wounded German he whistled, the familiar sound used often in the Forest of Szczek when the two were hunting wild boar, and Janko joined him, eager to stab the prisoner, but Pawel explained that this one they must keep alive, and so the great Battle of Grunwald, or of Tannenberg if one preferred, ended.
At twenty past seven, when there still remained a half-hour of daylight, Jagiello rode down from his command position and embraced his cousin Witold, who had been the greatest of the allied battle commanders, a man of supreme courage following his years of siding first with the Germans, then with the Poles, then the Russians, then the Tatars, and finally with his own Lithuanians against their mortal enemy. Vytautus the Great, he would be known in subsequent Lithuanian history, savior of the nation.
Together the two leaders, surrounded by their splendid captains, moved across the darkening battlefield, while men who knew the enemy read out the names of the fallen for scribes to indite:
This is the body of Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen, died bravely, let his corpse be covered with purple. This is the body of Wallen
rode, died at the head of a charge, let his corpse be covered with purple. This is their greatest hero, Kuno von Lichtenstein, died grappling with seven, let him be treated with honor. This is Schwarzenberg, this is the great Graf Reudiger, let them be treated with honor.
‘And here we have placed the foreign knights who fought against us because they thought we were pagans who knew not Jesus Christ. This is Jaromir of Prague, none braver, and this is Gabor of Buda, who led the Hungarians with skill, and this is Richard of York, who brought four other Englishmen with him, and these two are the French brothers Louis and Francis, knights without reproach. Let them all be buried with honor.’
At dusk, after prayers of victory and thanksgiving, King Jagiello performed two acts which brought him praise. Assembling some three dozen Poles who had distinguished themselves in battle—men like Pawel of Bukowo, who had slain the famous German champion Graf Reudiger—he asked them to kneel and commissioned them battlefield knights. And then he went to where the surviving Teutonic Knights were crowded into a circle guarded by peasants with scythes, and he asked each Pole who had captured a German to stand forth and identify his prisoner, and Janko pushed Siegfried von Eschl forward for Kazimir of Gorka to claim, and when captor and captives were paired, the king said: ‘You Knights of the Cross fought bravely today, and you have work to do at home. You are set free, on your word of honor as knights that you will report to me at Krakow four months hence on St. Martin’s Day. Do you accept the charge?’ The Germans did, and they were set free.
Jagiello next ordered all captured wine barrels to be split open, lest his troops riot, and Janko, seeing the drink flowing on the ground, lamented: ‘The only battleground in history where the blood of the defeated mingled with the wine of the victors, one loss as great as the other.’
Eighteen thousand Teutonic Knights and their helpers were slain that day. Of sixty leaders of the Order, more than fifty perished. Of the foot-soldier Lithuanians who attacked without serious weapons, more than two-thirds died, and of the eleven hundred Tatars, one hundred and twenty-six were killed.
It was these Tatars who caused the Battle of Tannenberg to become something of a scandal, because Priest Anton Grabener of Lübeck, who did not participate in the fighting, drafted an emergency report to all the capitals of Europe informing the courts that the Teutonic Knights were defeated only because the pagan Jagiello and his heathen cousin Witold had imported one hundred thousand Tatars, who overwhelmed the defenders of Christianity. Later German historians would claim that the figure was ‘two hundred thousand mad, screaming followers of Islam who killed any Christians they captured with long-drawn agonizing tortures.’
Polish historians, somewhat embarrassed by Jagiello’s reliance upon infidel Tatars, insisted that their total number was only two hundred, a substantial difference from the German figures. A Czech commentator on the discrepancy suggested that the Germans could be forgiven their exaggeration because Tughril’s eleven hundred screaming little devils must have seemed like two hundred thousand.
In the week prior to St. Martin’s Day, 1410, some hundred and thirty Teutonic Knights straggled in to Krakow, where in conformance with their vow, they surrendered themselves for a second time to their Polish captors. Kazimir took Siegfried von Eschl to Castle Gorka and sent Pawel to Germany to arrange for a ransom, and in the castle town of Eschl, along the right bank of the Rhine, Pawel located members of the wealthy family who were eager to ransom their bold nephew from pagan hands.
In the waiting period before Pawel returned with the money, Kazimir the Pole and Siegfried the German had many opportunities to discuss the battle, and it was the latter’s freely expressed opinion that the Order’s loss at Tannenberg was a loss not only to the Germans but especially to the Poles:
‘Your country, Gorka, does not know how to govern itself. Allied with mine, it could form one of the strengths of Europe. We would provide the fighting men, the governors, the scholars; you, the backbone, the wheat, the timber.
‘You will never catch up with us, I think. Always you will require the guidance we can provide, and although this time we lost in our effort at civilizing your areas, history will demand that we try again, for under the leadership of Grand Masters like Hermann von Salza and Ulrich von Jungingen we will forge ahead to new accomplishments, while under a king like Jagiello, who is not even a Pole, you can accomplish very little, and what you do, most insecurely.’
When Kazimir pointed out that in the recent battle Ulrich von Jungingen appeared to have made several mistakes and Jagiello almost none, Von Eschl asked which side, the victors or the vanquished, stood in better condition right now, and when Kazimir tried to say that Poland did, the German laughed. So Kazimir asked: ‘Who will be your Grand Master now? Who will lead you to the greatness you foresee?’ and Von Eschl gave a surprising reply:
‘I know that if my family will not pay the ransom you demand, the Order will, because there was talk that I was to be the next Grand Master. And if I am, and if you continue to have the ear of your king, let us work together as partners, Gorka. Germany and Poland are natural allies. We complement each other in all respects: our leadership in so many areas; your strength in numbers and foodstuffs.
‘Also, we have no natural barrier separating us—no great river, no mountains, no impassable swamps. Germany blends naturally into Poland. The division line could be anywhere we set it between us, but I see no reason for a division line at all. Let us be one country, one unit. [And always in these conversations he introduced the phrase which infuriated Kazimir; Von Eschl was powerless to avoid it because he believed it so wholeheartedly.] You see the situation, Gorka. You will always require German guidance.’
From these talks, conducted with such frankness, Kazimir deduced that as long as Poland and Germany existed, each would fear the other: Germany would always suspect that indefensible Poland would be a pathway whereby Russian power, when it coalesced, would attempt to invade the German states; and Poland would always fear that its western border would be invaded by Germans whenever they saw an opportunity to use Poland as a buffer against the east.
Von Eschl proved a model prisoner, obedient to every rule his captor laid down, but as soon as the money arrived and he departed, Kazimir hurried to Krakow to report to the king: ‘The man terrified me. The defeat at Tannenberg taught him nothing. Already he’s plotting a return invasion, whenever he feels the Order has recovered its strength.’
Jagiello said that such recovery could not take place in fifty years, for all the German leaders were dead: ‘I saw them on the battlefield. You saw them.’
‘Sire, I saw the new leaders in my castle. Believe me, our permanent enemy will be the German states. Always we will be attacked from the west.’
In the meantime, Kazimir occupied himself by applying the ransom funds that Pawel delivered—a vast sum in those days—to the purchase of huge estates to the north and east, some of them hundreds of miles from the Vistula, and after he had acquired them, people began to speak of him as a magnate, one of the seventy or eighty men of immense power who really controlled Poland. Indeed, before long he was beginning to think of himself and his fellow magnates as Poland.
Pawel did not fare as well, but obedient to the principle that what was good for the master would also probably be good for the servant, he did gain three advantages from the battle in which he had played a heroic part: he had been formally knighted by the king himself and thus promoted from the rank of dubious to acknowledged gentry; he received a second village as a gift of thanks from Kazimir; and he came home with his own plus two captured horses, which, added to the one he had left behind, meant that he was now a respected member of the gentry with four horses.
Janko gained nothing from the battle, although in his own mercurial way he was as brave as either of his lords; it was not to be taken lightly when a man on foot armed with only an ashen stave studded with flint nodules attacked a knight on horseback, and by breaking the horse’s leg, caused the knight to tumble
so that his skull could be crushed. Such a feat required a special kind of courage, but because Janko was a peasant, supposed to do such things, it went unnoticed.
In fact, the Battle of Grunwald served Janko poorly, for it made him freedom-loving and outspoken and daring, and several times on the long ride home his master Pawel observed to himself: This Janko is going to be difficult to handle. And when the two reached Bukowo, Janko did strut about and talk of his role in the great battle and of how he had spent that waiting day with the Tatars, who were a good lot no matter what the legends of the village said: ‘I wouldn’t mind serving with those Tatars. They know how to have fun.’
Infected by the powerful excitement that stay-at-home men often find in wars that introduce them to strange lands, Janko began to experiment with freedom—stealing a chicken now and then, appropriating to his own kitchen fire branches fallen in the forest, and ultimately killing one of Pawel’s rabbits.
Some spy informed on him, not only about the rabbit but also about the chicken and the branches and several other offenses which might or might not have happened, and Pawel took advantage of this as an excuse to rid himself of a man he had grown to dislike. Ordering Janko brought before him in the little castle, he found him guilty of numerous crimes, and within twenty minutes of passing judgment, Janko was dragged to the public square, where a rope was suspended from a limb and he was hanged.
IV
From the North
The excitement of Castle Gorka was so intense the Magnate Cyprjan ordered not one but two hogs to be slaughtered, but when the carcasses were hung and he had inspected them he realized that he had more meat than the banquet would need, and in a fit of generosity inspired by the good fortune his daughter was having, he sent for his henchman Lukasz of the little castle at Bukowo. When that petty knight appeared, Cyprjan actually embraced him, which surprised Lukasz exceedingly, for magnates did not customarily embrace their minor gentry.