Chapter Two - A Noble's Death and the Battle of Danzig.
Chapter Two – A Noble's Death
For the first half of the year of our lord 1454, very little happened, however once June arrived, the court appeared to explode with emissaries, and representatives from foreign courts. The Grand Master was extremely busy over this time and it appeared to have an effect on his health, as he came down with a fever often. And yet although he was extremely ill he still managed to find time to insult half of the dignitaries at the court to the point where war was threatened upon us by more than half of Europe, including, of course, Poland. He also managed to drive the Duke of Austria to ally against us after the Emperor’s death.
Teuton-Polish Relations take a turn for the worse
We did manage to gain one ally in the shape of the Duke of Mecklenburg, who for some peculiar reason decided it would be a superb idea to ask us for an alliance, which we gladly accepted, as we needed all the allies we could get if we went to war with Poland.
After the death of the Habsburg Emperor, the new Emperor, Adolf I of Holstein granted the Port-City of Danzig special dispensation to join the Holy Roman Empire, and the King of France sent his youngest son Philippe, aged just 8 to the Brothers to receive tuition in both spiritual manners as well as to receive arms training. In return for this the King promised to support us against Poland and the heathens in Novgorod.
The Current State of The Empire
The Autumn of the following year, 1455 was disastrous, although it did have some unforeseen consequences. First of all the Grand Master’s own brother lead rebellion in Danzig with the Prussian Confederacy and a large amount of discontented knights, a siege was lain to the city. Just 5 days later, we received terrible news from Rome, the Pope had died at the hand of an assassin, after being persuaded to call a crusade against the Ottoman. The death of the Pope ensured that the letters to all the rulers of Christendom were not sent and so no crusade happened, which led to the destruction of Albania, by the Turks.
A New Pope
The Battle of Danzig
It took until April for the Grand Master to summon the army, and to corner the rebels on the battlefield, despite his Physician advising him against leading the army himself, he took his stand on the battlefield, dressed in fully plated armour with his white mantle and black cross swaying in the wind. The two forces lined up with the Gdania River on our right flank and a small hill to the left.
The Grand Master sent a scouting party to the top of the hill, to gain a vantage point on the rebels, and suddenly it sank in that the Grand Master had massively underestimated the size of the rebel army. Several thousand troops compared to our single thousand, however he was still confident of victory, as our army was a trained body full of nobles and men-at-arms, whereas they were simply peasants and merchants, what chance did they stand against the an army of Warlords?
Unfortunately the Grand Master had forgotten that his Brother was nothing short of a military genius, and so would not have been so foolish as to have set up for battle without a strategy. Both the Grand Master, and his advisors, all neglected these facts, the advisors simply agreed that a battle would be won easily. We had arrived too late, to attack the rebels that day, and so we pitched camp for the night.
Early the next morning, we were approached by Markus von Erlichshausen, he Grand Master’s brother, who warned the Grand Master that he should resign if he does not want his army to be destroyed, and his reputation to be destroyed. The Grand Master simply laughed him off and told his brother to leave that camp, and warned that if he ever saw him again, he would personally behead him. Markus von Erlichshausen turned around and mounted his destrier before leaving for his own camp. Over night it had poured with rain, and the battlefield had become a swamp. Even so it was decided by the war council, that we would go ahead with the battle, even though conditions were not in our favour.
The Battle started with our infantry advancing toward theirs, once they were within several hundred paces the rebel archers drew there bows back, and released yard long arrows into our infantry, dozens of armoured men collapsed immediately, I was correct, Markus hadn’t simply brought an army of peasants, he had hired mercenaries from across Europe, including English and Welsh longbowmen, after their King had signed a truce with France. Many more men fell before the longbowmen fell behind the rebels own heavy infantry, armed with billhooks, and pikes. With an almighty clash of iron on steel, the two lines collided into each other.
The screams of dying men echoed around the battlefield and sword on shield sounded like thunder crashing. All of a sudden the river started to surge, and lightning struck the hill on our left flank. The rebel army retreated, and our heavy infantry followed them, but couldn’t keep up in their heavier armour. The Grand Master ordered a cavalry charge, kicking up blood and soil as they did. Just second before the charge struck home the pikemen turned around and formed a pike wall as solid as any I’ve ever seen.
Men tried to turn their horses, but the momentum was too great and the muddy ground caused man and horse alike to keep travelling towards the bristling wall no matter how hard they tried to change direction. Horses collided with the spears, which pierced straight the chest, throwing their riders off towards the wall, where archers worked their daggers between chinks in the armour, finishing off any survivors. About half of the cavalry died in the charge, and the other half were routed, fleeing back towards our camp.
Out of the forest on our left camp came a counter charge, not on destriers, but on ponies, bought from the Steppe Tatars including Markus himself. These ponies were quicker and much more nimble in the wet conditions. Some of the Knights tried to fight off the attackers, but the pony’s agility made the Knights easy kills. Several dozen of the Knights and maybe one hundred infantrymen escaped the slaughter and fled across a small bridge over the river. Amongst our dead were the Grand Marshall and most of the rest of the war council, of which there was only one survivor, Martin von Hohenzollern, the nephew of the Margrave of Electorial-Brandenburg, who was the only person who was brave enough to speak out against the battle plan and was a young but brilliant man.
Several days after the battle the Grand Master’s condition worsened, to the point where his Physician told me that I would have to start writing his obituary for the history books. The Physician was right, a week later the Grand Master had died, the cause of his death, remains unknown, with some saying that it was caused by embarrassment, whereas other would say it was sorrow that his brother betrayed him, personally, I think he simply wasn’t up to the job, and that he was probably going insane before his death, and would have had to have been locked in an asylum had he not died due to the stress. The Physician agrees.
The young Knight, Martin, received great praise for attempting to dissuade the former grandmaster from entering the battlefield, both in the sense of battling the rebels at that place, and from entering the battle personally, as he was the only knight in the order that took any praise from the battle in the entirety of the Order, he was unanimously selected to be the next Grand Master, even though he was only aged 30.
His first action as Grand Master was to form a new council, to replace those advisors, who had either died, or proven to be incompetent, and Markus von Erlichshausen was selected to be the Grand Marshall, and my friend the Physician was one of the few people who kept his role in the reshuffle. Martin was given the title, Grandmaster Martin I von Hohenzollern, and appears to be an extremely competent leader, who has a wise head on his young shoulders, even in battle, though he is more skilled in diplomacy, and in his administrative skills.
Estimate Troop Loses and Grandmaster Martin I von Hohenzollern
