Republic and Empire

This AH was inspired by Morgan Harvey’s “The Rise of the Teutonic Empire (Part 1)”. That AH has in it what I consider a serious flaw: he appears to be under the impression that the Teutonic Order consisted of Protestants! In fact, it was Catholic; Protestantism didn’t exist in the 14^th century, and when Protestantism did appear, Grand Master Albrecht von Hohenzollern almost immediately secularized the Order’s Prussian lands as the Duchy of East Prussia.

I’m postulating a different PoD, therefore. In 1410, Wladislaw II Jagiello of Poland inflicted a crushing defeat on the Knights at Tannenberg (Grünwald). Internal disorder in Poland prevented him from following up in victory, but the First Peace of Thorn laid an immense financial burden on the Order, which the Grand Masters met by heavy taxation of the Order’s lands. This caused the previously loyal Germans of Prussia to revolt against the Order, and allowed Casimir IV of Poland to defeat it again, imposing the Second Peace of Thorn, definitively subjecting it to Poland.

On 15 June 1410 an alliance of Poles and Lithuanians decisively defeated the Teutonic Order at Tannenberg or Grünwald[1]. Reliable numbers are almost impossible to find; the Order’s army may have totaled about 25,000-30,000, and the Polish-Lithuanian about 35,000-40,000. The reasons for the defeat appear to have been three-fold:

1. Western (apparently German) volunteers repeated the arrogant stupidity seen at Nicopolis and elsewhere and, with too much confidence in their own prowess, charged until they were ambushed and overwhelmed by Polish and Lithuanian cavalry. These ironhats may have made up as much as a third of the cavalry present on the Order’s side.

2. The Polish infantry (said to have numbered 4,000) was extremely effective, inflicting numerous casualties and deciding the battle by killing the Order’s Grand Master[2], Ulrich von Jungingen. On the other hand, the Order’s infantry, although described as well trained, broke at the first Polish-Lithuanian assault. The Order’s cavalry is said in some sources to have ridden down their own infantry in disgust!

3. A lull occurred late in the battle, occasioned either by a brief but heavy rainstorm or by a fight between Wladislaw and a Knight of the Order. This lull allowed Grand Duke Vitovt of Lithuania to rally and re-organize his dispersed cavalry, and lead it into the Order’s rear. When Wladislaw launched his attack on the Order, and von Jungingen ordered a withdrawal in consequence, Vitovt took the Order’s army in the rear; the Order was divided into two groups and the battle degenerated into a slaughter, ending with the death of von Jungingen.

The casualties to the Order at Tannenberg were immense; the Grand Master, 203 of the 250 Brother Knights (full members of the Order) present, and 8,000-18,000 other troops, whilst 14,000 soldiers of the Order were held for ransom[3]. The Polish-Lithuanian army lost about 5,000 dead and 8,000 wounded. Surprisingly, this defeat did not result in the immediate destruction of the Order; Wladislaw’s difficulties with his nobles meant that he could not exploit it. The First Peace of Thorn (Torun) exacted only the province of Samogitia as a territorial penalty. However, the Order was also landed with an immense indemnity, besides its need to ransom the captives[4]. This effectively bankrupted the Order; the exactions on its lands necessary to pay that indemnity and to maintain its administration led to revolt by the Prussian nobility and burghers 1454-1466. In 1466, Bohemian mercenaries held Marienburg, seat of the Grand Master. Going unpaid, they decided to collect money from Casimir IV, to whom they sold the fortress. This enabled Casimir to impose the Second Peace of Thorn; western Prussia and Pomerania were ceded to Poland; eastern Prussia was held by the Order as a Polish fief. Both the Order’s German commanderies, and its North Baltic (essentially, modern Latvia and Estonia) ones, refused to take orders from a Grand Master who was a Polish vassal; the unity of the Order was nominal until East Prussia was secularized by Albrecht von Hohenzollern, the last Grand Master.

It is not necessary for Tannenberg to be converted into a victory for the Teutonic Order, merely a less decisive defeat. I propose, therefore, that the lull late in the battle be eliminated. The Order’s heavy cavalry, personally commanded by von Jungingen, smash into the Polish heavy cavalry, handling it roughly indeed but unable to force a breakthrough to the person of Wladislaw. When von Jungingen realizes that he is overextended, Vitovt has not had time to rally his Lithuanians, nor are the Poles in condition to offer a counter-attack. The Teutonic army, although badly weakened by its losses, is able to retire in good order.

There are no thousands of captives to be ransomed, so the Order need not raise taxes so high that Prussia is provoked to revolt. More importantly, though, von Jungingen is disgusted with the rash behavior of the German volunteers (military discipline was excellent, although in other matters the Order’s behavior was wide open to criticism). He decides, therefore, both to require a longer military novitiate, and to recruit more from the Order’s own lands.

This last will be an important point. Although it could not be realized at the time, the flow of knights from the West was about to dry up. The Lithuanians – the last pagan nation in Europe -- had been nominally Christianized at the time of Jagiello’s acceptance of the Polish throne (and the hand of the Polish queen, Jadwiga d’Anjou[5]), although pagan observances continued into the 16^th century. The re-opening of the Hundred Years’ War under Henry V will shortly convulse Western Europe. There is no reason to go east, and every reason not to. The Order had serious difficulties recruiting in the half-century after Tannenberg, not merely because of its poverty, but because their was, effectively, nobody to recruit. The sources differ on how “really” German the Order considered the Prussian nobility to be at this point, but all agree that few members of the Order were recruited there. This led to the Order’s stagnation and diminution and to its isolation from its subjects when it could least afford it.

The new novitiate leads to an even smaller number of knights from Germany being accepted into the order than was the case in OTL. OTOH, the recruiting of the Prussian (and to a much smaller extent, the Livonian) nobility more than makes up for it. The character of the order slowly changes over the next generation. From being an essentially foreign body, it becomes a native one.

This change also leads to a change in the Order’s governance. Hitherto, the Grand Master had been elected by the Conclave (general assembly) of Brother Knights. In principle, he was the autocratic head of the Order...but its Rule required him to seek the advice and consent of the full Brothers in matters of importance. In 1436, then, the newly elected Grand Master, Friedrich von Fust, agrees to a new Rule, governing only with the immediate consent and supervision of the Order; a High Chapter of thirty senior knights is elected by the Brothers (now numbering a full thousand) to hold the initiative in law-making. The “five pillars of the Order” (the five senior officials) are elected by the Conclave for terms of one year[6]; the Conclave also has a final veto on the High Chapter. The Grand Master in essence reduced to commander-in-chief and executor of such religious functions, as the Papacy requires of him.

Not everyone finds these changes palatable, of course. There is a monthly exchange of oaths between the High Chapter and the Grand Master, in which the Grand Master swears to uphold the new rule, and the High Chapter to uphold the Grand Master. One senior brother comments in disgust, “Von Jungingen had rather been pulled down and slaughtered by Polish peasants[7] than seen this day”. The Popes vacillate between excommunicating the Grand Master and dispensing him from following the new Rule.

The Grand Masters and the Order are less concerned with formal agreement with Rome than they used to be, however. In OTL, a Bohemian religious reformer, Jan Hus, went to the council of Constance under a safe-conduct from the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund. In violation of this safe-conduct, Sigismund allowed Hus to be burned at the stake as a heretic. At this time, Sigismund’s alcoholic and incompetent half-brother, Wenceslas (Vaclav) IV, was king of Bohemia. On his death in 1419, the Bohemian reform movement refused to recognize Sigismund as king, and, known to history as “Hussites”, defied the Empire and the Church in campaign after campaign under Jan Ziska and Prokop the Great. In 1432, Hussite troops ravaged Prussia and reached the Baltic. The moderate faction of the Hussites (Calixtines) were formally recognized as Catholics of a non-Roman rite in 1436, and in turn accepted Sigismund as king; however, political, religious, and social dissention continued in Bohemia until the Thirty Years’ War. Although the OTL Order was never Hussite, individual knights were; the dissention thus caused was not unimportant in the final decline of the Order.

The High Chapter, upholding (and indeed owing its very existence to) the new Rule, sees in the Catholic-but-different Calixtines a natural ally against the Pope. One of the Four Articles of Prague, setting forth Calixtine demands for reform, however, was the exclusion of the clergy from temporal affairs. A rapprochement between the Calixtines and the Order can hardly help but lead to an even greater secularization.

The Prussian Revolt of 1454-66 of OTL does not occur. Taxation is heavy (the Order’s administration, although excellent in Germanized areas, was expensive), but not nearly as heavy as in OTL; moreover, the Prussian nobility are not paying taxes, but directing their use. The Teutonic Order has largely become a Prussia Order over the last two generations; moreover, the curious device of Fachadelschiff has come into use. To be a member of the Order (as in OTL), one must be noble; however, the Order confers nobility on selected recruits of peasant stock simultaneously with their acceptance into the Order. This device is by no mean universal; it does lead to a widespread democratization of either the Order or of Baltic society (save in the very narrow sense that a larger Order is, by definition, more democratic than a smaller one). It does, however, allow the Order to recruit from Prussia and Livonia (as has been true throughout OTL and ATL history, the latter is seen as semi-autonomous and semi-alien) more widely, according to its needs.

The rule of the Grand Masters (which has become largely nominal, real power having passed to the High Chapter) is not formally repudiated by the German and Livonian Masters, although the former, in particular, implicitly recognizes that the main interests of the Order are increasingly secular and local, and assumes more and more independence from Marienburg. The formal break does not come until 1521, when the famous German reformer, Philip Schwarzerde, announces his “One Hundred Articles” for debate at Leipzig. The Grand Master of the Order, Leopold von Francois (ironically enough, the last Grand Master was from Strasbourg, not Prussia), announces with support of the High Chapter that his title will henceforth be Grand Duke, not Grand Master. He is Grand Duke on the Venetian model, however, not the German or Russian. The age of the Teutonic Order has ended; the age of the Prussian Republic[8] has begun.

[1] The name of Tannenberg for the battle is used by German sources; Grünwald by Polish sources. The battle was used for propaganda purposes by both sides down to 1945.

[2] Often referred to as Hochmeister, the German term.

[3] Yes, I know; the total casualty figures could be greater than the number of troops said to be engaged. As I mentioned, reliable figures are almost impossible to come by.

[4] Individual knights, by the Order’s Rule, could not ransom themselves.

[5] The dynastic history of Eastern Europe from the 14^th to the 18^th centuries is unbelievably complicated.

[6] The sources differ on whether they had been appointed by the Grand Master or elected by the Conclave; again, though, all agree that they had served for life.

[7] The irony is intentional.

[8] Reichspolizia von Preussen. The term is, ironically enough, borrowed from the Polish Rzeczpospolita, although the recasting of the first syllable was deliberate.