Battle of Grunwald, about ; links

... about Grunwald Battle

... The huge army of Poles and Lithuanians left Dabrowno before dark on 15 July, and by sunrise they had reached Lake Lubien. This time the Grand Master found the army of Jagiello and Vytautas, and for second time planned to oppose the enemy, on Tuesday 15 July, at the villages of Grunwald, Stebark and Lodwigowo near Lake Lubien. The land around here was heavily forested with wood suitable for concealing the Polish-Lithuanian army.

When the sun rose on that fateful day, 15 July, one could have imagined all Europe holding its breath to see who would win the titanic battle that had so long been expected. Everyone understood its tremendous significance...

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In 1386 the marriage of Jadwiga, King (sic) of Poland, to Jogaila, pagan Grand-Duke of Lithuania, baptised as Wladyslaw Jagiello, initiated the Lithuanian union, inspired by the common purpose of resisting the Teutonic Order. Then, in 1410 at the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenburg), Wladyslaw Jagiello crushed the Teutonic Order.
The Catholic Polish knights were a minority in an army made up of Lithuanian pagans, Orthodox Christians, Lithuanian Muslim Tartars and "heretical" Bohemian Hussites. This victory helped strengthen the bond between the Poles and the Lithuanians and, in 1413, led to the Treaty of Union at Horodlo.( http://www.silesia2000.pl/)
...unions with neighbouring states: ...Only the Lithuanian union succeeded, creating a state which dominated east-central Europe until the seventeenth century (the Polish Commonwealth).

The Battle of Grunwald (July 15, 1410)

On July 15, 1410, a decisive battle, one of the biggest in the Middle Ages, took place near the village of Grunwald (also known as Tannenberg). On one side were the Teutonic Knights with West European mercenaries, about 27,000 soldiers commanded by Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen. On the other was a larger army of Jagiello and Vitaut, supported by Czech and vassal Tartar contingents, of about 39,000 men. The allied forces included a unit from Bierascie. By the end of the day, the Teutonic Knights were defeated. Some 8,000 of them were slain, including the Grand Master of the Order.

Grunwald on www.belarusguide.com

After Alherd's death in 1377, his younger son Yahaila (Jagiello) became the Great prince, in accordance with the treaty between Alherd and his wife. This caused great discontent in Alherd's older son, Andrei, and in the population of the western parts of Lithuania who hoped that the throne would be accepted by Alherd's brother and councillor Keistut. In a short struggle for the throne, Keistut won; he imprisoned Yahaila and proclaimed himself the Great Prince, and soon released his nephew. Shortly after that Yahaila started a revolt against Keistut and occupied a part of the Vilnia region. He invited Keistut and his son Vitaut to Kreva for negotiations, and when they arrived, he captured them and killed Keistut five days later. Vitaut managed to escape from the execution having dressed in woman's clothes. He turned for help to the crusaders who were always ready to participate in Lithuanian internal discords in order to weaken their competitor. Therefore Yahaila, trying to avoid conflicts with the crusaders, allowed Vitaut to return home and gave him the Harodnia(Hrodna) principality.
Still Yagaila's position was not stable since he was surrounded by crusaders from the north and west and Muscovites and Tatars from the east. That's why he decided to unite with neighboring Poland, which had the same problems with the crusades. He asked to marry the Polish princess Jadzwiga, and though she had already been engaged to the Austrian prince Wilhelm, Polish aristocracy, which had always been searching for influence in Lithuanian ruling circles, decided to promote Yahaila's proposal. Before their marriage in 1385 in Kreva, a dynasty union was signed between Lithuania and Poland, according to which the Great Prince also became the Polish king and ruled the two countries. Yahaila agreed to change his confession to Catholicism and also baptized the still Pagan tribes of Zhmudz and Aukshtota. He hoped to convert the Belarusian population to Catholicism, too, but only a small part accepted. According to the Kreva union, both countries still had their independent internal governments, but defense and international affairs were united. In the Polish-Lithuanian union, Lithuania was stronger and bigger, and the cultural development was also higher in Lithuania. When Yahaila moved to Krakow, the Polish capital, he took with him many Belarusian painters to work decorating his palace. Until the end of his life, Yahaila couldn't speak Polish and used his native Belarusian. His second wife, Sonka, was a Belarusian patriot; she brought up her sons, Wladyslaw and Kazimir, in the spirit of love of Belarus.
But for most of the Belarusians, the Kreva union was not satisfying. They believed that it tied Poland and the Great Principality too closely, and were apprehensive that in the future, the Polish king could be of non-Belarusian origin and he would nevertheless rule Lithuania. Yahaila's cousin Vitaut was especially discontented, and in 1392 he managed to occupy the Great Prince's throne by force. Yahaila, seeing that a fight with Vitaut would not be easy, had to accept him as an independent Prince under his wardship. Thus Vitaut became the Great Prince of Lithuania.
The first thing Vitaut did as the Great Prince was to calm the princes under Lithuanian influence who didn't want to obey anybody and were always ready to ask the crusaders or the Tatars for help. Vitaut succeeded in establishing his power over most of them and joined new lands to Lithuania. Smolensk and parts of the Tula and Kaluga principalities became territories of the Great Principality; the Ryazan principality and republics of Great Novgorod and Pskov - the states of congeneric Kryvichy - became Lithuania's protectorates. The Tatars of the Golden Horde respected Vitaut and even invited him to be a judge in Tatar internal conflicts. In 1398 the Golden Horde was invaded by a new conqueror from Middle Asia - emir Timur (Tamerlan) who, together with his huge army, was ready to take the field against Europe. The Khan Takhtamysh of the Golden Horde asked Vitaut for help, and the Great Prince agreed, seeing the possibility of expanding his influence up to the Volga river. He started thorough preparations for the war. He signed a peaceful union with the crusaders and gathered an army, which included in addition to the Belarusians, knights from all of Christian Europe. This force met Timur's army in 1399 near the river Vorskla (in modern Ukraine). The cruel and bloody battle didn't bring victory to anybody - Vitaut's soldiers were defeated, but Timur's troops were also weakened so that he did not feel strong enough to continue his campaign against the West and returned to Asia.
After this battle the crusaders renewed their raids on Lithuania and northern Poland, having grown bolder after Vitaut's failure to defeat Timur. Sometimes these raids turned into real wars. The Great Prince Vitaut and the Polish king Yahaila decided to stop the raids, and gathered a huge army of 100, 000 warriors, which included representatives of all the East European peoples, and under the command of Vitaut this united army moved to Prussia, the nearest crusaders' state. The battle which took place on July, 15, 1410, near Grunwald (now in northern Poland) was hard and severe and the crusaders were utterly defeated by the united troops. After this battle, the Great Lithuanian Principality expanded its borders to the Baltic Sea and became the most powerful state in Eastern Europe. It occupied large territories from the Baltics to the Black Sea, having many neighboring states as vassals. The Moscow prince Vasily was Vitaut's grandson, and the princes of Tver and Ryazan called him their master. In addition, the Czechs wanted to grant him their crown; in response to which Vitaut sent his nephew to be a regent in Prague.

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There were also many important political and other events taking place in the town Inowrocław, including a famous trial in 1320-1321 with the Teutonic Knights over the ownership of Pomorze Gdanskie. This lucrative situation wasn't ended by 5 years of Teutonic occupation, which was the result of a revenge attack in 1332. The significance of the town was also proved during the famous war against the Teutonic Knights, when the castle in Inowroclaw was the main residence of king Wladyslaw Jagiello. It was from there that he led his army into the famous Battle of Grunwald. However things started to go wrong with the Teutonic attack of 1431 and the town was no longer able to hold onto its generous royal privileges, especially as trade development on the Vistula river promoted the growth of other centers of commerce. After the regaining of Pomorze, Inowroclaw stopped being such a strategically important border town and became merely an average town, which wasn't worth strengthening and adapting to the system of artillery defense. The only traces of its former splendor lay in the status of the province before the first partitioning of Poland and the existence of impressive buildings, such as the beautiful townhall tower.

The History of Poland Slav Origins: Most Scholars agree that the original Slav homeland lay within the boundaries of modern Poland in the Odra (Oder) and Wisla (Vistula) basins. The Slavs subsequently expanded into territories to the east, south and west and became increasingly differentiated until, by AD 800, three main geographical and linguistic divisions had arisen; the East Slavs inhabiting a large part of European Russia, the South Slavs who settled in the Balkan Peninsula, and the West Slavs who settled in what is now Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. The West Slavs suffered different fates; the Lusatians and Veleti were absorbed by German expansion, the Czechs and Moravians merged to form the nucleus of the Czech Kingdom, whilst the Slovaks became part of the kingdom of Hungary. The remaining tribes, including the Polanie, Wislanie, Pomorzanie and the Mazovians, joined together (in time) to form the Polish State.

Foundation: 966-1138. The Polish Baptism of 966 came about as a result of the concerns of Mieszko, or Mieczyslaw I, chief of the Polanie, raised by the establishment of the German Empire of Otto I (962). He decided to marry Dobrava, the daughter of Boleslav I of Bohemia, and accepted Christianity for himself and his people, thus preserving their independence. In 1000, at the Congress of Gniezno an independent Polish Church organisation was set up with the agreement of Otto III, but formed according to the Czech, rather than German, system. Thus the Polish Church could turn directly to Rome, and the Pope, for protection and would not fall under the influence of the Germans. The Coronation of Boleslaw Chrobry (the Brave) As the first king of Poland, in 1024, established Poland's right as an independent kingdom. Disintegration and Reunification: 1138 - 1370. In 1138 the Testament of Boleslaw III shattered the precarious unity of Poland by dividing the realm among Boleslaw's sons. This was the start of 150 years of dynastic struggle, in which the Church played a vital role in maintaining some semblance of national unity. In 1226, Duke Konrad of Mazovia invited the Teutonic Order to combat pagan Prussian tribes from the base a Chelmno, thereby introducing a much more formidable enemy on the crucial Baltic coast. In time the Order turned on the Poles and began to grab large chunks of Polish territory, finally invading Gdansk in 1308 and massacring its Polish inhabitants. At the same time, a steady influx of German colonists helped to consolidate the Order's wealth and power. 1241, 1259 and 1287 saw devastating Tartar invasions. During the consequent reconstruction many new urban centres developed whilst older ones expanded. As part of the process of repopulation large numbers of foreign settlers arrived and rural colonisation took place. Many of these new settlers were Germans and, whilst some were gradually "Polonised" others merely helped strengthen German political influence (especially in Silesia). It is during this period that the first Jewish settlers came to Poland where they were treated with more tolerance than in the rest of Europe, so-much-so that the Polish Synod was berated by the Papal Legate, in 1266, for allowing Jews to dress like anyone else and being able to live without restrictions in Poland, and for a royal charter having been granted them by Boleslaw the Pious in 1264. A brief period of Czech rule from 1300 - 1305, under Vaclav II, reunited a main part of Poland, stimulating a national reconstruction led by Wladyslaw Lokietek. Then, in 1320, Wladyslaw I (Lokietek) was coronated; the first ruler of the reunited kingdom. In 1333-1370 Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki) built Poland into a major Central-European power, increasing her territory 2.5 times, bringing it's size up to 270,000 sq.kms. There is a saying that "he found Poland built of wood, and left her in stone," so great was his activity as founder and planner of towns. Under Casimir, in 1346, the first Polish Legal Code was made, and in 1364 the foundations of Krakow University (the second oldest in central Europe) were formed. Trade also became important due to Poland's position on the commercial routes leading from East to West and from South to North.

Kur's Fraternity originated in Cracow ...

It was an overguild city organisation, created to train townspeople how to use arms. This kind of training was necessary, because they had a duty to defend the city in case of danger. The name of the organisation originates from a wooden bird figure called colloquially "Kur", which was a target in shooting contests. Other names for this organisation were "Shooting Society", "Shooting School". Kur's Fraternity had its own seat on the eastern border of the city until 1794. It was behind Mikolajska Gate and called "Celestat" (from German - Zielstat = shooting box). After loosing independence and occupation of Cracow by the Prussians on the 14th of August 1794, Celestat was burnt. In the first quarter of the XIX-th Century, when the city walls were destroyed, Fraternity decisively gave up its activity.

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___http://www.halat.pl/poland.html___ ( pls. : local mirror )
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Poland - one of the older European states - has been more 'normal' than its younger neighbours. This is specially true of its history . For hundreds of years, Poland was an open, tolerant country with many races and religions. The power of the kings was limited by charters and agreements, and great matters were frequently decided by debates and votes. But on either side of it there slowly grew up the more primitive states of Prussia (a military kingdom demanding rigid obedience from its subjects) and Russia, with its tradition of hopeless servility before God-given tyrants. Between these neighbours an enlightened and progressive Poland, in many ways having more in common with western Europe, tried but eventually failed to survive
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Poland is a very strange country, in which I always feel at home. So said the French director Claude Lanzmann, who spent a long time filming in the remote Polish countryside.

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1253
Great Prince Mindovg (Mindaug) becomes king (crowned in his residence of Novogrudok).

1270-1282
Traiden rules in Great Lithuanian Principality

1293-1316
Viten rules in Great Lithuanian Principality

1295-1296, 1304
Crusaders attack Grodno land

1298
Union agreement between Great Lithuanian Principality and Riga

1314
Army under command of Grondo warden David inflicts a defeat upon crusaders in the vicinity of Novgorod

1316-1341
Gedimin rules in Great Lithuanian Principality

1318
Grodno forces under command of warden David make an anabasis to Prussia

1320
Vitebsk Principality is included into Great Lithuanian Principality

1322-1323
Forces of Grodno warden David inflict a defeat upon German and Danish knights in the vicinity of Pskov

1341-1345
Yavnut rules in Great Lithuanian Principality

1345-1377
Algerd rules in Great Lithuanian Principality

1363
Forces of Great Lithuanian Principality led by Prince Algerd vanquish Horde forces near Sinie Vody

1377-1392
Yagailo rules in Great Lithuanian Principality

1380, September 8
Kulikovskaya Battle. Andrei Algerdovich (from Polatsk), Dmitriy Algerdovich and Dmitriy Bobork Volynskiy take part in the battle

1385, August 14
Kreuskaia Unia that is a Union agreement between Great Lithuanian Principality and the Kingdom of Poland

1386
Polatsk Prince Andrei Algerdovich (Andrei Polatski) declaimes against Prince Yagailo

1386
Great Lituanian Prince Yagailo is elected Polish king

1387, February 20, 22
Charters of Polish King and Great Lithuanian Prince Yagailo on privileges for Catholic feudalists is Great Lithuanian Principality

1387
Volno Catholic episcopate is formed

1389-1392
Prince Vitaut struggles against the Kreuskaia Unia and Prince Yagailo

1390
Brest gets the Magdeburg Law

1391
Grodno gets the Magdeburg Law

1392, August 5
Vostrovskoe agreement between Yagailo and Vitaut on division of powers

1392-1430
Vitaut (Vitovt,Witold ) rules in Great Lithuanian Principality, he made the Grand Duchy into a prestigious state, reaching from the Baltic to the Black seas.

1399
Forces of Great Lithuanian Principality headed by Vitaut suffer a defeat in the battle against tartars near the Vorskla river

1401, Jan 18 - Mar 11
Vilensko-Radamskaya Unia - a state and political union of Great Lithuanian Principality and the Kingdom of Poland

1409-1411
'Great War', a war of the Kingdom of Poland and Great Lithuanian Principality against the Teutonic Order

1410, July 15
Grunwald battle: the Teutonic Order is smashed by combined forces of the Kingdom of Poland and Great Lithuanian Principality

Polish and Lithuanian forces proceeding toward the order's stronghold, Marienburg, met its army between the villages of Grunfelde (Polish: Grunwald) and Tannenberg. ... Eventually the Germans were circled and broke. Polish and Lithuanian cavalry charged as they ran capturing their tents and continuing the charge many km's past the battle zone.

By the end of the 10-hour clash, the order's forces had been crushed and its grand master, most of its commanders, and 205/250 of its knights had been killed. About 8,000 dead + 2,000 taken into captivity. Subsequently many Prussian castles controlled by the order surrendered to the Polish-Lithuanian force, though Marienburg, which was defended by Heinrich Reuss von Plauen, did not fall. It was one the most strongly built and defended fortresses in the whole of Europe. By September 1410 the Polish-Lithuanian army withdrew.

Sources are wild on actual numbers of this battle, though its safe to say Polish-Lithuanian armies were at between 30,000 and 50,000 men, whilst the Germans had around 25,000. Whatever the stats of this battle is considered to be the largest and bloodiest of the medieval era in the whole of Europe.

1413
Gorodelskaya Unia - Union of Great Lithuanian Principality and the Kingdom of Poland

1201
the name of Lithuania was mentioned in the Latin chronicle "Annales Quedlinburgenses" (Annals of Quedlinburg).