Polish-Lithuanian–Teutonic War

Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War
Part of the Lithuanian Crusade
Battle of Grunwald by Jan Matejko (1878)
Date June 1409 – February 1411 Location Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights Result Peace of Thorn (1411)
Belligerents
State of the Teutonic Order Terra Mariana Duchy of Pomerania Kingdom of Denmark Duchy of Oels Support Holy Roman Empire	Kingdom of Poland Grand Duchy of Lithuania Support: Hussites
Commanders and leaders
Ulrich von Jungingen † Heinrich von Plauen	Władysław II Jagiełło Grand Duke Vytautas

The Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War or Great War occurred between 1409 and 1411, pitting the allied Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania against the Teutonic Knights. Inspired by the local Samogitian uprising, the war began by Teutonic invasion of Poland in August 1409. As neither side was ready for a full-scale war, Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia brokered a nine-month truce. After the truce expired in June 1410, the military-religious monks were decisively defeated in the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg), one of the largest battles in medieval Europe. Most of the Teutonic leadership was killed or taken prisoner. While defeated, the Teutonic Knights withstood the siege on their capital in Marienburg (Malbork) and suffered only minimal territorial losses in the Peace of Thorn (1411). Territorial disputes lasted until the Peace of Melno of 1422. However, the Knights never recovered their former power and the financial burden of war reparations caused internal conflicts and economic decline in their lands. The war shifted the balance of power in Eastern Europe and marked the rise of the Polish–Lithuanian union as the dominant power in the region.

In 1230, the Teutonic Knights, a crusading military order, moved to the Kulmerland (today within the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship) and, upon the request of Konrad I, king of the Masovian Slavs, launched the Prussian Crusade against the pagan Prussian clans. With support from the Pope and Holy Roman Emperor, the Teutons conquered and converted the Prussians by the 1280s and shifted their attention to the pagan Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For about a hundred years the Knights fought the Lithuanian Crusade raiding the Lithuanian lands, particularly Samogitia as it separated the Knights in Prussia from their branch in Livonia. The border regions became uninhabited wilderness, but the Knights gained very little territory. The Lithuanians first gave up Samogitia during the Lithuanian Civil War (1381–84) in the Treaty of Dubysa. The territory was used as a bargaining chip to ensure Teutonic support for one of the sides in the internal power struggle.

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