Teutonic Knights

“ The knights of Christ and the knights of the sword, instituted to subdue the pagans of Livonia, with the Teutonic knights, who in Palestine rivalled in power and glory the two other orders of the Temple and the Hospital, at the first signal flocked to the standards of the army assembled to invade Prussia, and convert its inhabitants: this war lasted more than two centuries. In this sanguinary struggle, if the Christian religion sometimes inspired its combatants with its virtues, the leaders of this long crusade were much more frequently influenced by vengeance, ambition, and avarice. ”

“ Their land is the home of religious free thought within orthodox Russia. German influence prevails among them on this account, although it is doubtful whether it extends to the point of their preferring German to Russian rule. Evil memories of the attempts of the Teutonic Knights to conquer the immemorial seat of the Lettish and Lithuanian populations survive throughout their forests and marshes. Neither people has forgotten that its ancestors were [106] refugees who sought the shelter of their boglands as a last recourse from Teutonic aggression. ”

“ Many of these men said to me, "The sinking of the Lusitania is the greatest German defeat of all [46] the war. Its consequences will be far-reaching; its impression, deep and lasting."
The Teutonic Knights, from whom the ruling class of Prussia is descended, kept the Slavic population in subjection by a reign of physical terror. This class believes that to rule one must terrorise. The Kaiser himself referring to the widespread indignation caused by German outrages of the present war, has said: "The German sword will command respect." ”

“ The Teutonic Knights conquered Prussia, Livonia, and Courland, and in 1283 became masters of the whole territory between the Vistula and the Niemen. In 1309 they abandoned Venice, where, twenty years earlier, their grand master had fixed his ordinary residence, and selected Marienburg as their head-quarters. At that date the order had reached the culminating point of its prosperity, and its sway in Germany had the most fortunate results for Prussia. But luxury soon began to undermine the religious faith of the knights ”

“ In course of the fifteenth century, Russia grew in strength, by her alliance with the Tartars, and she too began to press upon the Teutonic knights. The knights were gallant fighters in these days of their adversity, and just after the end of the century they won a victory over the Tsar's forces which led to a fifty years' truce. But the terms of the truce did not give the victors any increase of territory. ”

“ Indeed, but for the unceasing simultaneous struggle with the Teutonic knights, the burden of which was heroically borne by Kiejstut, Russian historians frankly admit that Lithuania, not Muscovy, must have become the dominant power of eastern Europe. ”

“ The Teutonic Knights had their origin in the Crusades, but afterward made the S. E. and E. shores of the Baltic the theater of their activity. These religious associations have mostly been abolished or have fallen into disuse, though some still subsist as orders of knighthood. ”

“ The fame and brilliancy of the prince's court had drawn the knights-errant and pursuivants-of-arms from every part of Europe. In the long lists by the Garonne on the landward side of the northern gate there had been many a strange combat, when the Teutonic knight, fresh from the conquest of the Prussian heathen, ran a course against the knight of Calatrava, hardened by continual struggle against the Moors, or cavaliers from Portugal broke a lance with Scandinavian warriors from the further shore of the great Northern Ocean. ”

“ In the beginning of 1409 he concluded a treaty with Jagiello at Novogrudok for the purpose, and on the 9th of July 1410 the combined Polish-Lithuanian forces, reinforced by Hussite auxiliaries, crossed the Prussian border. The rival forces encountered at Grünewald, or Tannenberg, and there on the 14th or 15th July 1410 was fought one of the decisive battles of the world, for the Teutonic Knights suffered a crushing blow from which they never recovered. ”

“ Christian charity claimed all the affections of the knight, and demanded of him a perpetual devotion for the defence of pilgrims and the care of the sick. It was thus that were established the orders of St. John, of the Temple, of the Teutonic Knights, and several others, all instituted to combat the Saracens and solace human miseries. The infidels admired their virtues, as much as they dreaded their bravery. Nothing is more touching than the spectacle of these noble warriors, who were seen by turns in the field of battle and in the asylum of pain ”

“ The Teutonic adventurers were not less formidable in white mantle and red cross than they had been in the dress of the pagan Norsemen, and were hardly less ferocious, but they had to retreat before the stalwart Novgorodians. In the fourteenth century, however, the united Lithuanians and Poles crossed into Russia and added to the miseries of the people. Only half a dozen of the Russian principalities could hold out against the invaders. The Tatars were now in decay, and the red spears of the Lithuanian knights were even seen as far south as the Black Sea. ”

“ The Germans of to-day, whether they live on the farms or in the cities, are for the most part descendants of the peasants who survived, not of the brilliant knights and sturdy foot soldiers who fell in that mighty conflict. Knowledge of this great past when Europe was Teutonic and memories of the shadowy grandeur of the Hohenstaufen Emperors, 187who, generation after generation, led Teutonic armies over the Alps to assert their title to Italian provinces, have played no small part in modern German consciousness. ”

“ No country was more desolated by private war in the middle ages than Germany; and chivalry, instead of ameliorating the mode of warfare, acquired a character of wildness from the perpetual scene of horror. [215]
Avarice of the Germans.
There was no Bertrand du Guesclin, no Black Prince, no Manny, no Chandos, in Germany: there was a rudeness about the knighthood of the Teutonic cavaliers different from its state in other nations. ”

“ They stay like a wall, man beside man, in their iron armor. They advance in one compact body. They strike, and the Litwa are scattered like sand, or throw themselves flat on the ground and are trampled down. There are not only Germans among them, because men of all nations serve with the Knights of the Cross. And they are brave! Often before a battle a knight stoops, stretches his lance, and rushes alone against the whole army. ”

“ But the Imperial power never reached such height as under this imperious, commanding Teuton; who exists now as a half-mythic hero, honored in picture, statue, song, and legend throughout Germany. His reign was a splendid fight against the two antagonists which were finally to be fatal to the Empire—Italian nationality and the Papacy.
The knighthood established by his Saxon predecessor, in 930, had during the Crusades expanded into great orders of chivalry throughout Europe. Frederick Barbarossa fostered and brought the chivalry of Germany to great splendor. ”

“ But what can three hundred traitors do against eighty German nobles, fighting for the honor of their name, in the cause of their sovereign? If I had with me only ten loyal knights, I would prove to the world, that, in Germany, courage and chivalry are not mere empty names! ”

“ They are supposed (with reason) not to have been a race or tribe at all; but a confederation of warriors, who were simply ‘Franken,’ ‘free;’ ‘free companions,’ or ‘free lances,’ as they would have been called a few centuries later; who recruited themselves from any and every tribe who would join them in war and plunder. If this was the case; if they had thrown away, as adventurers, much of the old Teutonic respect for law, for the royal races, for family life, for the sacred bonds of kindred, many of their peculiarities are explained. ”

“ If Germany should not prevail, no matter how much she may be humbled by defeat, she will start over again, with all the latent strength of her people, to rebuild from the ruins a more powerful military nation than she has ever been. With the record before us of what Germany has accomplished since the close of the Thirty Years' War, can anyone deny that a great Teutonic military power might again be developed from the ashes of a ruined nation? ”

“ Men would be withdrawn to make up the losses incurred upon the battlefield. Thus we were brought into contact with the various types of Germans which constitute the Teutonic Empire. Some were certainly not ill-disposed towards us. They mounted guard over us according to their own interpretation of this essential duty. But others slavishly followed the rigid instructions which were laid down, notably the Prussian guards, who were about the most brutal and despicable blackguards it is possible for the whole of Germany to have produced to mount watch and ward over us. ”

“ If we were able—at this hour, when, through the act of the Teutonic Empire, the world may witness unnamable deeds—if we were able to cite the most odious of them, we should say that, after the massacre of innocent people and all the assaults on the rights of mankind committed by the German armies, the worst has seemed to us the shameless manner in which the superior intellects beyond the Rhine have dared to cover up these crimes. ”

“ The duke even took the occasion to give the honor of knighthood to several young warriors.
The day was a hot and close one, the season being that of harvest, and the sun pouring down its unclouded and burning rays upon the combatants. This sultriness was a marked advantage to the lightly-dressed mountaineers as compared with the armor-clad knights, to whom the heat was very oppressive.
The battle was begun by the Swiss, who, on rising from their knees, flung themselves with impetuous valor on the dense line of spears that confronted them. Their courage and fury were in vain. ”

“ But, in spite of the existing confusion, there was no epoch of human history when the influence of thought is more plainly manifest than in the time of the Teutonic upheaval that left no stone unturned. There was no German knight who did not endeavor to adopt some shred of the Roman Empire which he helped to tear to pieces. ”

“ Investing a young warrior with the arms of manhood has always in fighting communities been the normal ceremony of the youth's coming of age and his recognition as a member of the clan. The binding on of the young Teuton's sword in the assembly of his people was an historical antecedent of the making of a knight. In all the lands of western Europe—France, Germany, Anglo-Saxon England, Lombard Italy, and Visigothic Spain—this ceremony appears to have remained a simple one through the ninth and tenth centuries. ”

“ The signal for retreat was given, and in utter terror and dismay they fled for their horses. Alas, too late! The attendants, seeing the condition of their masters, and filled with equal terror, had mounted the horses, and were already in full flight.
Nothing remained for the knights, oppressed with their heavy armor, exhausted with thirst and fatigue, half suffocated with the scorching heat, assailed on every side by the light-armed and nimble Swiss, but to sell their lives as dearly as possible. In a short time more all was at an end. The last of the Austrians fell. ”

“ New nations or confederacies, bearing, for the most part, names unknown to earlier times, begin to be far more dangerous than the smaller and more scattered tribes of the earlier times had been. These movements{85} among the German nations themselves, hastened by pressure of other nations to the east of them, caused the Teutonic attacks on the Empire to become more and more formidable, and at last to grow into Teutonic settlements within the Empire. ”

“ The German way of looking at the relative strength and positions of the belligerents as modified by the vicissitudes of the campaign was realistic and statesmanlike. Starting from the principle that a people of about a hundred millions, animated by a lively faith in its own vitality and mental equipment, can neither be destroyed nor permanently crippled, they argued that the worst that Fate could have in store for them would be a draw. But before that end could be achieved the Teutonic armies must have been pulverized and Germany and Austria occupied by the allied troops. ”

“ Although for some ten years after the Franco-German War it was a poor country, it was nevertheless laying the foundations of that preparedness for eventual attack upon others, which it felt would be necessary in order to consolidate its position of prominence. After 1880 the great growth in material prosperity facilitated the extension of armed power, whilst national pride, which before had been reasonable, now grew into an extraordinary conception of the Divine right of Teutonic aspirations. ”

“ In these border provinces the population is very much mixed. On the German side there are many men who through forty years of enemy rule have never lost their true nationality. On the French side one hears many German names, sees many Teutonic faces. Here naturally was an opportunity which during all these years the Wilhelmstrasse wasn't likely to neglect. Who is to draw the line? Who is to say that this Teutonic type is a loyal Frenchman or a German spy? ”