u/5h0rgunn

Windau

It is August, 108 AD. We turn northward, for just as the Prussian branch of the Teutonic Order must withstand the assaults of the Prussians, so too must the Livonian Order face all-out war. Here in Latvia, the war begins with the rebellion of the Northern Curonians. Prior to the Battle of Durbe, the Big Men of Northern Curonia had reached out in secret to their Southern kin, swearing to defect in exchange for the safe return of their families. Having thus been the catalyst for the defeat of the Teutons at the Battle of Durbe, the Northerners know they can't simply go back to being the vassals of the Christians.

Instead, the Northerners renounce their Christian faith on the spot. Their elected war leader, Ramis, offers sacrifices to the old gods on behalf of his people and all the Northerners eat the meat of the sacrificial animals. Together with the Southern war leader, Skaisdis, Ramis agrees to launch a joint invasion of Curonian lands occupied by crusaders. Specifically, they intend to invade the Bishopric of Courland. Courland is an alternate name for Curonia and is ruled by Bishop Heinrich von Lützelburg, who is a vassal of Albert Suerbeer, Archbishop of Riga. Lützelburg's own forces took part in the Battle of Durbe, leaving Courland vulnerable as of their destruction. He implores Suerbeer for aid, but Riga and the Livonians are reeling from the disaster at Durbe and will be unable to gather another army until the spring of 109. In the interval, the Semigallians besiege Doblen once more. Situated much closer to Riga, Doblen is a far higher priority than distant Courland.

Lützelburg is therefore left to fend for himself as the free Curonians invade his territory. Their first action is to sweep over the countryside like a wave destroying settlements and killing German colonists. Special attention is paid to any churches and monasteries they find. All are utterly destroyed, burned, and picked apart stone by stone. Any priests or monks who fall into Curonian hands suffer a terrible fate.

Curonian villages, meanwhile, are mostly spared destruction. As in the south, those who revert to paganism are welcomed with open arms, their warriors joining the marauding army, while those who remain Christian are distrusted and often killed along with the hated Germans. Of particular note are the so-called Courland Livs. Living in far northern Courland, these people are actually a branch of the southern (Livonian) branch of the Estonian people. Bilingual in both the Curonian and Livonian languages, the Courland Livs keep to their Christian faith and remain loyal to Lützelburg.

As the Curonian raiders advance, Lützelburg withdraws his forces to his two mightiest fortresses: the castles of Windau and Pilten, both along the Venta river. Here, he'll make his stand. Other castles are abandoned without a fight, but Windau and Pilten will be held until the last dying breath of their defenders.

It is now March, 109 AD. Ramis and Skaisdis strategise on how best to capture the bishop's last two strongholds. Strategy must bend to the dictates of geography, and here the geography is dominated by two features: the Baltic Sea coast and the Venta River. Beginning in Semigallia, the Venta meanders toward the coast but then swings northward, running parallel to the sea before turning west to join the Baltic. Windau is located on the left bank of the river mouth, leaving it vulnerable to attack from the south—which would be perfect for the Curonians except for the fact that Pilten is situated on the right bank of the Venta where it runs parallel to the sea. An army besieging Windau could easily be cut off by men from Pilten trapping them between the river and the sea. Pilten, however, cannot be effectively besieged without command of the river—which might as well be a highway for delivering supplies directly into the castle's storehouse—but the river can't be controlled so long as Windau remains under the bishop's control.

To solve this double bind, then, Ramis and Skaisdis decide to besiege Windau first, leaving a detachment of men behind at the river crossing near Pilten to block any attempt to cut off the main army. Meanwhile, a large Curonian fleet follows the army up the coast. Thus is Windau placed under siege from land and sea. Ramis, leader of the Northerners, has served with the Livonian order for years and is therefore intimately familiar with their tactics, a fact that he uses to insist that he should be in command of the siege. Skaisdis, however, doesn't trust Ramis for the same reason Ramis is so familiar with crusader tactics. Fearing the Northerner may switch sides again, Skaisdis refuses to take orders from Ramis. As a result, the two of them compromise by splitting the siege into two zones; the Southerners besiege the western side of the castle while the Northerners besiege the eastern side.

Desperate to relieve Windau, Bishop Lützelburg, holed up in Pilten, sends messengers to Riga, and from there to Sweden asking for help. Sweden has taken interest in the Northern Crusades from time to time, but hasn't been a major player. Now, however, the spectre of Curonian resurgence rears its head. Sweden and Curonia have a long history of conflict going back at least to the Viking age. Just like the Vikings, the Curonians set forth in ships to sail over seas and up rivers in search of vulnerable targets to strike. Often, those targets were in Sweden. When the Vikings converted to Christianity and left their Viking ways behind, the Curonians carried on the tradition of seaborne raiding, all but indistinguishable from their Scandinavian neighbours. For over a century since the Christianisation of Sweden, the Curonians have raided Swedish coastal communities, kidnapping Christians to sell to merchants who take them across Rus' lands and all the way to the Muslim world. All that was, if not brought to an end, then at least mitigated by the Baltic crusaders invading Curonian lands. The last thing Sweden wants is for Curonian raids to resume in full force.

Swedish politics at the time are complicated, but the short of it is that the previous king had died without an heir and was succeeded by a boy named Valdemar Birgersson and his father, Birger Magnusson became the regent. Even in 109 AD, when Valdemar had grown into a man, Birger remains the real power behind the throne. Calling the men of Sweden to crusade, Birger spends the spring gathering an army. In June, he sets sail for Courland.

When they arrive, the Curonian fleet scrambles to turn around and face the approaching enemy. There are no chokepoints to funnel the Swedes into, nor any islands the ambush them from behind; there is only the open sea and the adjacent shoreline. Warfare on the Baltic Sea in this era means one thing. The ships exchange arrow-fire as they close on one another, then they lash their ships together, creating a series of floating platforms on which Swedes and Curonians proceed to fight one another.

On shore, the Southern Curonians mostly abandon their siege forts in order to hop into boats and row out to the fleet to fight the Swedes. The Northerners, further away from the coast, hear about Sweden's arrival last and are slow to react. Ramis decides to stay put, rather than row out to the fleet, because soon after the Southern Curonians leave, the garrison of Windau sallies forth and starts setting fire to the Southerner's siege forts. Ramis counterstrikes the garrison, driving them back into the castle, but the damage is already done.

Out on the sea, the battle lasts for hours. Gradually, however, the larger number of Swedish soldiers and sailors prevails over the outnumbered Curonians. With their land forts burned behind them, all the Curonians can do is disengage and withdraw with what ships they still have. Abandoned by his allies, Ramis lifts the siege and retreats back home as well. Each man blames the other for the defeat and, as the Swedish threat looms over Northern Curonia, Skaisdis refuses to send aid, preferring to focus instead on liberating a smaller pocket of Lützelburg's bishopric that borders Southern Curonia.

Birger Magnusson, meanwhile, spends the summer reoccupying crusader castles in Courland and launching raids into Northern Curonia. At the end of September, Birger returns to Sweden with his fleet, but leaves a detachment of the army behind in Courland.

Arise

It is September, 108 AD. Lithuanian Duke Treniota and Samogitian war leader Alminas, along with their Semigallian and Curonian allies, have recently struck the Teutonic Knights with the worst defeat they've ever suffered in the Northern Crusades. One hundred fifty brothers are dead, along with forty other knights.

In Nadruvia, one of the two remaining free Prussian tribes, a priest known as the kriwe-kriwaito receives the news with elation. Christian chroniclers will describe the kriwe as a “pagan pope” who presides over the whole pagan religion of all the Balts from Prussia to Latvia. He resides in a temple built around the sacred tree Romuva—named, in an act of irony, after Rome—where he and a cadre of male priests and female vestal virgins keep watch over the tree and an eternal flame. All pagans anywhere in the Baltic donate a third of the booty they capture in war to the kriwe, who burns it in honour of the “pagan trinity” Patrimpas, Perkūnas, and Patulas, who likenesses are ensconced in the most holy place of the temple at the foot of Romuva itself.

Anyone who knows anything about the nature of pagan religion will know that this is false. There is no pagan trinity and there certainly isn't any pagan pope. Patrimpas, Perkūnas, and Patulas are simply three of the most important cult figures in the Baltic religion, so it's unsurprising if they appear together, and with a deep veneration for nature, it's no surprise for religious gatherings to take place around a sacred grove. In truth, the kriwe-kriwaito is far from a pope and is instead a local Nadruvian landowner named Dargis, who moonlights as a priest. Nevertheless, Kriwe-Kriwaito Dargis is the most influential priest in Nadruvia and is one of the most important religious figures in Prussia (but not the rest of the Baltic).

The kriwe calls upon all pagans to unite and drive the Christians into the Baltic sea. Answering his call are Skomants, elder duke and elected war leader of the Yotvingians, and Diwanis, leader of the Bartians. Dargis himself, meanwhile, is elected war leader of the Nadruvians in a popular assembly. Joining forces with Skomants, the kriwe invades Sambia, which has fallen under Teutonic occupation as of the summer campaign of 103. Refraining from looting the local villages as armies are wont to do, the army instead targets German settlements for destruction along with the German colonists themselves. Sambians revert to paganism and join the army in droves.

After a quick campaign of manoeuvre, Dargis and Skomants split up, each one laying siege to different Teutonic castles guarding the frontier.

To the south, the Bartian leader Diwanis joins forces with a Galindian army and lays siege to Schippenbeil, a Teutonic castle built on Bartian land. Back in the 1240s, the Teutons had briefly seized control of Bartia before the Bartians rebelled and mostly drove them out, and the Bartians have been trying to complete the liberation ever since by capturing Schippenbeil, but the castle has resisted them thus far.

Besides the movement of the large armies, a wave of pagan reversion washes over the Teutonic dioceses covering the traditional lands of the Natangians, Warmians, Pogesanians, and Pomesanians. Bands of reverts roam the countryside burning German villages and killing their Christian inhabitants. Indeed, the two religions in conflict have become extremely political because what is at stake not simply whether one acknowledges Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour or if one prefers to deal with the spirits of the forest; what is at stake is whether one sides with the crusaders or with the indigenous Balts. Prussians who converted to Christianity—whether out of fear for their lives or genuine desire to convert—must now choose whether to stand by that decision or not. To many, reversion to paganism is synonymous with loyalty to the anti-crusader cause, but there are also those who dedicate themselves to both Christ and fighting the crusaders. Such people are viewed with suspicion by pagans, often ostracised, and sometimes outright killed for their assumed sympathy with the enemy.

With their entire frontier under siege and threatening to collapse, Teutonic Grandmaster Anno von Sangerhausen calls upon the Catholic world for help. However, the Teutons' most recent ally, the Margravate of Brandenburg, is currently tied up with internecine conflict with the Polish duchies in Greater Poland to the east and the Duchy of Slavia to the north. Pope Clement IV issues a call for aid on their behalf, but Brandenburg's rulers, John I and Otto III, are disinclined to listen to the pope because he's aligned with Brandenburg's principal rival, Emperor Ottokar.

Fall turns to winter, which gives way to spring 109 AD, at which point Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, and Holstein all send troops to aid the Teutons, but in all cases the contingents send are a scant few token men, only a couple thousand in total. Crusading in the Baltic seems a small thing when the great Heathen Empire is directly across the river occupying rightfully Christian land. Denmark, another ally of the Teutons, is currently locked in a struggle of its own as the queen-regent fights to keep her son on the throne, so they are unable to send any aid.

In the summer campaign of 109 AD, a number of Teutonic castles fall. With primitive siege weaponry and limited institutional knowledge of how to conduct siege assaults, the Prussians rely mainly on the slow method of building a fort surrounding the castle to cut off resupply and starve the defenders out. In this way, the castles of Wehlau, Rössel, Bartenstein, and Beisleiden all fall, breaking the frontier wide open. Skomants takes his Yotvingians across a swathe of the Teutonic Diocese of Warmia, bringing death and destruction to Germans and liberation to Prussians. Dargis, meanwhile, links up with Sambian rebels and besieges the former Sambian capital of Twangste, which is now the Teutonic fortress of Kaiserberg.

The reinforcements from Germany arrive in theatre and join a Teutonic army marching to relieve Kaiserberg. Along the way, they split in two, with one portion continuing toward Kaiserberg while the other half heads inland into Natangia. In order to more effectively clear out the many small bands of rebels roaming the area, this portion of the army splits a second time. One half remains in camp while the other half marches out in pursuit of a nearby rebel band led by Erksmants, elected leader of the Natangians. Erksmants, however, had anticipated this move. He disappears into a swamp, marches through it and reappears behind his pursuers, who've completely lost track of him. He then ambushes the other half of the army while it's still in camp, killing everyone and seizing the baggage train. The rest of the army retreats.

Meanwhile, the Teutonic army headed toward Kaiserberg encounters a group of Yotvingian scouts, who inform Skomants of their location. Skomants makes use of local guides to take a shortcut through a wooded area and attack the Teutons from behind, destroying the army. Only the cavalry escape the slaughter.

From this point on for the next several years, the War of Prussian Reversion becomes a series of static sieges. Several castles have fallen, but many more are still on the road to Elbing. Most important of the many sieges are Kaiserberg and Schippenbeil. If those two fall, the rest will follow.

Erksmants goes up to Kaiserberg to offer his expertise to the besieging army. Having lived a decade as a hostage in Magdeburg, Erksmants speaks fluent German, reads both German and Latin, and is probably more knowledgeable about their culture and tactics than anyone else in Prussia. Not only is he accepted in the siege camp, he's quickly elected leader of the siege.

The biggest problem is that the defenders are able to keep themselves supplied via the Pregel River, on which Kaiserberg is situated. Glande, leader of the Sambians, blockades the river with his fleet, but a fleet from the Free and Imperial City of Lübeck runs the blockade, bringing supplies to the defenders. Glande then lashes his ships together across the river, turning them into a platform which he reinforces with palisades and towers. This floating fortress seals Kaiserberg off from the sea. The Lübeck fleet tries to burn the fortress during a breakout attempt, but the fleet itself is destroyed instead, with the survivors retreating back to the castle.

Grandmaster Anno von Sangerhausen rounds up as many men as he can; brothers and men-at-arms of the Order, a handful of summer crusaders, mercenaries, and Christian Prussians. In June, 110, he leads this army on a second expedition to relieve Kaiserberg. A ring of Prussian forts surrounds the castle to prevent approach of supplies and reinforcements, but these are small and primitive forts made of earth and wood. Camping at the edge of the ring of forts, Anno intends to attack the next day. However, during the night, the Prussians withdraw and hide in a nearby forest. In the morning, the Teutons find the forts abandoned and conclude the Prussians have fled. Believing the siege to be over, the garrison opens the gates and runs out to celebrate with Anno's men, who have brought grain and beer for the starving garrison.

A small band of Christian Prussians scout the nearby forest and spot the pagans hiding inside. Most of the scouts are killed, but one wounded scout manages to make it back to the castle and sound the alarm, giving the Teutons a few precious minutes to get ready for battle. Charging out of the treeline, the Prussians launch a frontal assault against the Teutons gathered outside the gates of Kaiserberg. Terrified by the sudden appearance of the enemy, the Teutons all try to get inside the gates at once, shoving and trampling each other as they do so. Those inside the castle mount the ramparts with crossbows in hand and start shooting down at the attackers in a bid to drive them off. Hundreds of the Order's men are slain, but thanks to a brave rear guard led by Grandmaster Anno himself and the crossbowmen on the wall, the Prussians are unable to overrun the Teutons completely.

Ultimately, Erksmants calls off the attack. The remaining Teutons withdraw into the castle, but Anno's camp and the supplies he'd brought for the garrison fall into the besiegers' hands. Inside the castle, the reinforcements are not a welcome sight, since they only bring more hungry bellies to share the castle's dwindling supplies.

Several months pass. Anno gets progressively more frustrated with the whole situation while waiting for some kind of relief from somewhere. In September, relief is finally spotted on the horizon. Coordinated by the Teutonic field marshal of Prussia, another fleet from Lübeck has arrived to attempt to break the floating fortress and resupply the castle. However, although the fleet is able to burn parts of the fort and inflict extensive damage to it, the Prussians keep the fires under control. Glande is in the thick of the action directing his men and putting out fires. Erksmants reinforces Glande's men with a section of his Natangians, who join the Sambians on the fort's towers. After two days' worth of assaults, the fort remains standing—or, rather, floating. Seeing the futility of their attacks, the Lübeckers withdraw to a distance. The most important damage they've been able to inflict is to severely injure Erksmants, who is forced into convalescence and relinquishes command back to Kriwe-Kriwaito Dargis.

Watching the Lübeckers retreat, Grandmaster Anno decides there's nothing else to do now but sally forth and break out of the siege—or die trying. Donning armour and unsheathing weapons, the knight-brothers of the Teutonic Order raise their banners and march out the gates of Kaiserberg to send the pagans to Hell or to meet Christ, whichever fate Providence has ordained for them. Across from them, Dargis and the Prussians form up.

Not a horse is to be found among the crusaders; they were eaten months ago. Astride the ground on their own feet, the Teutons nevertheless advance with heads held high. Anno marches at the head of the army with his banner-carrier beside him. Forward, they march, then break into a run. Charging, they break open the pagan lines in front of them. Running, the pagan flee to the village of Kalgren, south of the castle. Stopping, the pagans face the Teutons again. Facing them, they stand firm. A second charge breaks against pagan lines like a wave on the seashore. Exhausted and starving, the men of the Order fall one by one. Back to back, the warriors of Christ fight surrounded by the men of swamp and forest. Silhouetted against the sunset, Christ welcomes each one home before the sun's last rays fall on the field. Surrender is a rare luxury in the War of Prussian Reversion, enjoyed only by a few Balts willing to sacrifice the soul of their people for the physical salvation of those not already dead. No quarter is given and none is asked for.

Thus falls the Teutonic fortress of Kaiserberg in September, 110 AD. Glande of the Sambians takes possession of Kaiserberg and give it back its old name of Twangste, using it as his home base from then on.

Down south, the Siege of Schippenbeil ends in a similar manner, with the Teutonic brothers sallying out to to face death at pagan hands instead of dying with a whimper behind the walls. Twenty brothers are killed at Schippenbeil and another thirty-five at Kaiserberg. Together with the losses at Durbe, this represents most of the Teutonic knight-brothers in the Prussian branch, which is the largest branch of the Order.

A month later, in October, the Teutonic castle of Thorn, on the border with Poland, is besieged by the duke of Kujavia. It is at this point that the Teutons begin to consider giving up.

Vengeance

It is January, 1250 AD. Or is it 98 AD? Yes, we've finally come back to the Act of God. There was no immediate effect here in northeastern Europe, far from the Rhine and Danube rivers. Weeks passed before anyone even heard about what'd happened. Months went by before people began believing it. Years were gone by the time people even began to grasp the full implications of the Act of God.

In the years following the incident, the knights, men-at-arms, and mercenaries of Germany were all tied up fighting in William of Holland's wars in the Rhineland. Hardly anyone wanted to go fight in the cold swamps of the Baltic with the Heathens directly across the river. Some still went, of course, especially those from the northeastern domains like Brandenburg, Lusatia, and Rostock, but the Northern Crusades could no longer draw in anything like the numbers they'd seen in the 1230s and '40s.

We move forward to 103 AD. This year sees a contingent of men arrive from Bohemia under orders from Emperor Ottokar. Ottokar does not deign to come himself, of course. He's far too busy for that. However, after letter after letter begging for help, he has finally seen fit to quiet the Teutons' pleas by giving them at least a little help.

With the Bohemians' aid, the Teutons are able to invade Sambia and seize their principle fortress of Twangste. Sambians are slaughtered without mercy until the few remaining survivors have all either fled eastward or converted. Twangste is refurbished as a German town. A German-style castle is built, German settlers are brought in, and it's renamed Kaiserberg in honour of Emperor Ottokar in hopes that Ottokar will send more aid next year. Ottokar doesn't, but the margrave of Brandenburg sends help instead, aiding the Teutons in conquering the Skalvians.

These conquests are not random; they're part of a targeted, coordinated effort. The Teutons in Elbing and the Livonians in Riga are separated by a vast swathe of pagan-controlled coast, so the two have long had a plan to connect their territory by conquering the whole of the Baltic coast between them. In the way of this goal stand several pagan tribes, but the largest and most intractable is Samogitia. Remove Samogitia from the board and the other pieces will fall.

To this end, the Teutons built Memel Castle in 100 AD a short distance from the western boundary of Samogitia, on territory that once belonged to the Curonian tribe of Pilsāts. Alas, the Pilsāts are no more; all have been slaughtered or scattered into Samogitia. Continuing to tighten the screws, the Teutons have conquered Skalvia, which runs along the Neman River and points like a dagger at the soft underbelly of Samogitia. High up the Neman, further than Christian soldiers have travelled before, the Teutons build the castle of Georgenburg. Meanwhile, the Livonians subjugate Semigallia, forcing the pagans to convert. They then build Doblen Castle on Semigallian land.

In the vagaries of fighting, however, the Teutons decide to conclude a peace treaty with Mindaugas in 99, which they hope will put a stop to Lithuanian aid being sent to other pagans in the region. In the treaty, Mindaugas makes certain promises, namely, that he'll hand Samogitia over to Teutonic control and relinquish all claims on it, and that he'll convert and be baptised. In return, the Teutons promise to keep the peace with him and give him a coronation worthy of any Catholic monarch. That same year, Mindaugas is attacked by his own nephews and a Samogitian duke, who intend to overthrow him for collaborating with the Teutons. He fends them off, however, and the baptism/coronation takes place in Vilnius in 101, presided over by the Bishop of Kulm and attended by a number of Teutonic brothers.

However, the Samogitians didn't agree to being handed over to the Teutons. Samogitians follow their own path and only listen to the king when it's convenient for them. Repudiating the handover and the peace treaty alike, the Samogitians elect Elder Duke Alminas as their war leader. Alminas invades Teutonic territory in 105 and attacks Memel Castle, where he kills twelve Livonian brothers. In 107, he invades Northern Curonia, which is under Livonian control, and on the way home he defeats the Livonians again in the Battle of Skuodas, where thirty-three Livonian brothers are killed.

Inspired by this victory, the Semigallians rebel. Livonians attack the principal Semigallian fortress of Tērvete, but are repulsed. Spurred on, the Semigallians attack Doblen, intending to drive the Livonians out of their lands. Despite multiple repeated assaults on the castle, however, the attack fails with heavy casualties.

Seeing the Semigallian failure to take a castle by storm, the Samogitians try a different strategy in dealing with Georgenburg. Forming the very tip of the dagger pointed at Samogitia's belly makes Georgenburg an excellent jumping-off point for the Teutons to strike deep into Samogitia, but that also makes the castle incredibly exposed. Building their own fortress downriver of Georgenburg, the Samogitians neatly cut the castle off from reinforcement and communication with the wider Order.

Winter passes into spring and we come again to June, 108 AD. Eight thousand men stand poised at Memel Castle, ready to strike when given the word by Master Burkhard von Hornhausen of the Livonian Order and the Field Marshal Heinrich Botel of the Prussian branch.

Unbeknownst to them, however, a pagan army has already crossed over into Northern Curonia and is devastating the area while the Northern Curonian men are all at Memel. This army is led by Treniota, nephew of Mindaugas. However, the two don't see eye to eye. Treniota is a staunch pagan dedicated to the downfall of the Teutons, and is therefore aligned with the Samogitians. He's brought his own men along, but the bulk of the pagan army is composed of Samogitians, who follow the commands of their own elected leader, Alminas. There are also contingents of warriors from the Semigallians and the Southern Curonians.

Of the eight original Curonian tribes, only six are left, and several of them are much-reduced compared to pre-crusade times. Three of these tribes, the Bandava, Ventava, and Miera Kursa, surrendered to the Livonians in 1230 and converted. Although they became Livonian subjects, their old tribal institutions persist. The other three tribes, the Piemare, Duvzare, and Ceklis, remain pagan and free, and are closely allied with the Samogitians.

Descending upon Northern Curonia, the pagan alliance army finds no resistance as they raze villages. Rather than simply killing those they come across, they deliberately target the families of the most important Big Men of Northern Curonia and take them into custody. Hundreds of women and children are captured in this way.

In Memel, Master Burkhard hears about the marauders and immediately decides to head north instead of east to deal with the Samogitian fortress blocking the way to Georgenburg, as he'd originally intended to do. On the way, the Northern Curonians marching with him hear word that their families have been kidnapped and are being held in the camp of the pagan army. Meeting with Burkhard, the Big Men implore him to refrain from attacking the pagans until they can negotiate the release of the hostages. Burkhard, however, turns them away, stating that he won't hamstring his whole operation on account of a few mewling hostages. The Northern Curonians seethe, but they return to their tents, knowing there is nothing they can do.

Unless...

…

Because Southern Curonia is between Memel and Northern Curonia, Burkhard decides the best way to bring the pagans to battle is to raid Southern Curonia, which he does with great relish. Returning to face the crusaders, the pagan army encamps outside the principle fortress of the Piemare Curonians, which overlooks the southern shore of Lake Durbe. Burkhard cooperatively encamps nearby.

It is now July, 108 AD, and the two armies are prepared for battle. Northern Curonian captives have been safely tucked away inside Fort Durbe and the 4,000 men of the pagan alliance has formed up, each tribe heeding the commands of their own leaders and all of them answering to Treniota. Lithuanians and Samogitians take the centre while Semigallians stand on the right flank and Southern Curonians on the left.

Across from them are the 8,000 men of the Teutonic army: 150 Teutonic and Livonian brothers in addition to men-at-arms who serve the order, 40 knights from Danish Estonia and elsewhere, men-at-arms from the Archbishop of Riga, and warriors from converted Baltic tribes.

In the centre of the Teutonic formation stand the brothers of the Order, who have dismounted. Decades of fighting in swamps has taught them that they're better off on foot. The Danes, however, are too proud to dismount, as are the summer crusaders, no matter how strongly the Teutons stress the importance of doing so. They stand in reserve. On their flanks are the men-at-arms from the Order, from Riga, and from Danish Estonia, as well as the non-knightly summer crusaders. On the wings of the army stand the converted Baltic levies, with the Northern Curonians on the right flank and the Estonians and Latgallians on the left.

The Battle of Durbe opens with the Lithuanian light cavalry testing the Teutonic formation with javelins. Fleet of foot and much lighter than the heavy chargers of the Danish knights, the Lithuanian horses have no trouble even in the swampy terrain. At length, the pagan alliance advances on the much larger Teutonic force. As the two sides come close to clashing, the Teutonic army is dealt a severe blow before the first spear clatters against the first shield. Northern Curonians, on the right flank of the Teutonic army, break off and stand at a distance, where they simply watch the fighting unfold. Southern Curonians, on the pagan left, walk right past the Northerners unmolested and strike the exposed Teutonic flank. Over on the Teutonic left, the Estonians and Latgallians see their fellow Balts abandon the fight and quickly lose heart. Soon, they turn tail and flee the field, leaving the Semigallians free to strike the exposed Teutonic left flank.

The Danish and summer crusader knights, held in reserve until now, try to charge into the Semigallian rear, but they get stuck in a mud pit instead. Lithuanians and Semigallians surround and kill them all. Seeing this, the men-at-arms from Danish Estonia lose heart and flee, opening another gap for the pagan alliance to exploit.

Then, at last, the men-at-arms from the Order and from Riga begin running, intending to melt into the countryside and disappear, but as they flee the Northern Curonians finally lurch forward—not toward the pagans, but toward the fleeing Christians, whom they slaughter to a man.

At the end, only the Teutonic knights are left. One hundred fifty brothers of the order stand back to back, completely surrounded by pagan warriors. One by one, they fall. Heinrich Botel and Burkhard von Hornhausen are struck down with their men. None are spared, not for mercy nor for ransom. Every Christian knight's life is snuffed out. Alminas then has his men comb the bodies of the knights and slit every one of their throats just to be sure.

When at last the dust has settled, when all the bodies of the slain have been stripped of valuables and thrown in a pit, when every pagan's injuries have been tended to, then the gates of Durbe are thrown open and the hostages handed over to their families. A reward well-deserved for a service flawlessly rendered.

At the end of that hot July day in 108, the Teutonic army has been destroyed, along with around half of all the knight-brothers of the Order in the Baltic. In the Battle of Durbe, the pagans have won a crushing victory so total no battle before it can compare. The disaster for the crusader cause cannot be overstated.

Nor can the elation at the victory when news of it spreads throughout pagan lands. Rejuvenating life pours into the heart of every pagan warrior and of every forced convert oppressed by Christian masters. Having switched sides, the Northern Curonians repudiate their conversion and openly practice paganism again while rebelling against the Livonians en masse with help from the Southerners. The Semigallians go home, rally their people, and lay siege to Doblen again while Samogitians tighten the noose on Georgenburg. Prussians gather their strength and march west to retake their lands. Even King Mindaugas renounces his new faith and reverts to paganism.

Everywhere, pagan hearts swell and wills fix on their goal. Arise, men of forest and swamp! Now is your time!

Paganism

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Disclaimer: This chapter is less of the usual alternate history fare and more of a historical, geographical, and cultural review to set up the background and the players on the stage in a fairly obscure part of Medieval Europe.

1. Yes, I have strong opinions on the subject
2. Don’t get your history from an alternate history blogger
3. This post isn’t intended to be anti-Christianity as a whole (or Germans for that matter), but it is anti-genocide and whatever ideological framework is used to justify it.

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It is June, 108 AD, and we are at Memel Castle on the shores of the Baltic Sea. The Teutonic Knights wish to be free of distraction as they make war upon the indigenous Baltic peoples, so they've signed a peace treaty with the Polish Duchy of Mazovia. Marshalled here is all the might the Teutonic Order can muster: 150 brothers of the Order are here, along with dozens of so-called “summer crusader” knights as well as the Order's allies, the knights of Danish Estonia and the men-at-arms serving the Archbishop of Riga. Additionally, they have with them the warriors of various indigenous tribes they've subjugated already. Eight thousand men stand poised to strike; the two halves of the Order—both the main branch of the Order located in Prussia and the autonomous Livonian chapter to the north in Terra Mariana—are poised to strike, waiting only for their commanders to finish discussing where they shall march this season.

Georgenburg, to the southeast, is under threat by the Samogitians, so the Livionian master and the Teutonic field marshal agree that they should march there. However, as they're about to depart, they hear word that the Samogitians and their allies have invaded Northern Curonia, which is under Teutonic subjugation, and so the Knights march north instead.

But in order to properly explain what's going on here, we're going to have to wind the clock back to the Act of God in 1250/98 AD. At this time, the crusade was at its peak. Teutons marched over Baltic lands, forming the speartip of huge armies of summer crusaders come to do their part for God and glory, razing Baltic towns and killing everyone who wouldn't forsake the wicked worship of pagan gods in favour of—

Actually, no, scratch that. We're going to have to wind back to 1226, when the Duke of Mazovia invited the Teutonic Knights to come settle in the castle of Kulm on the northern frontier of his territory so they could serve as a bulwark between himself and the Baltic pagans, with whom he was near-constantly at war. The Teutons moved in and, in the 1230s, began launching major campaigns into pagan territory to kill pagans and conquer their lands so that good Christian Germans could be brought in. Meanwhile, in the north, the Sword-Brothers were in a bad way after a severe defeat and disbanded, with the remaining hardline—

No, no, that won't do either. We actually have to wind all the way back the 10^(th) century and the reign of Emperor Otto the Great, often considered to be the founder of the Holy Roman Empire (the HRE really doesn't have a single moment in time in which it was created, but that's a whole topic of its own). At that time, the Elbe River, now deep within Germany, was roughly the border between German-speaking lands and those inhabited by speakers of various Slavic languages. Cities like Meissen, Brandenburg, Havelburg, and Oldenburg, now such deeply-rooted bastion of German culture that one could be forgiven for thinking it was always so, did not exist. Furthermore, the lands that they now occupy were inhabited by Slavs.

There were, however, few meaningful differences between the Germans and Slavs. Both had pale skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair, both were farming societies led in peacetime by big men who owned a disproportionate share of the land, and in war those big men wore chainmail and wielded swords and lances, often from horseback. The biggest difference was the fact that on the west side of the Elbe they spoke German, while on the east side they spoke Slavic languages.

That and the fact that the Slavs practiced a traditional, largely animistic religion whose origins are obscured by the mists of time while the Germans had converted to a new religion started in the Middle East by a crucified Jew.

Under the patronage of Otto and his successors, things began to change. Over the next few centuries, the Germans moved eastward, pushing the German-Slavic border ever beyond the Elbe. In those days long past, the warfare between Christians and pagans was not of an overtly religious nature. Religious leaders sent their missionaries into pagan lands, to be sure, but they primarily sought to convert them with words. It was the German nobility that insisted upon raiding and invading pagan lands year after year, even as the pagans counter-raided them. Both sides always had a grudge, could always point to a village burned, a family member slain by a member of the other side, blood that called out for vengeance. There was always a reason to go kill someone on the other side of the river and take his things.

Things took a dramatic turn in the late 11^(th) century, after the First Crusade to the Holy Land became a resounding success and the legend of it spread throughout the Catholic world. In Germany, the idea of a crusade sounded very appealing. It was, after all, essentially what they'd already been doing.

The primary justification became the very fact that the Slavs were pagan, and therefore evil beyond comprehension, and thus deserved to be killed. The lands they inhabited, however, were the best in the world, overflowing with “meat, honey, corn, and birds”, according to the anonymous Magdeburg Letter circulating Germany in the early 12^(th) century. Lands belonging to the pagan Slavs was, the letter argued, “our Jerusalem”. Thus Germans justified killing every pagan for any reason, elevating base profit motive to the level of a holy deed, all so good Christians could take pagans' belongings and fatten themselves on the fruit of the land watered by Slavic blood spilled in the name of a man who'd once told his disciple not to defend him with the sword.

Not only the Germans, but even Christian Slavs joined in the following crusades. The primary distinguishing factor between the two sides was, after all, not language or bloodline, but religion. But since so many pagans were killed and the depopulated lands colonised with German settlers, the effect was population replacement.

In the mid-1140s, church leaders called for a Second Crusade to the Holy Land, but the northern Germans were reluctant to go, owing to their ongoing conflict with the pagan Slavs. So it was agreed that two crusades would be launched; one to the Holy Land and one to the Baltic, with those participating in both crusades being given equal indulgence—forgiveness of sin. Thus began, in 1147, the Wendish Crusade, first of the Northern Crusades, which would continue until 1250 and beyond.

Although the Wendish Crusade began and ended in 1147, campaign after campaign was launched into the lands of the pagans living along the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic sea throughout the rest of the 12^(th) century, though none of these were officially sanctioned as crusades. As they were crusaded against, the Baltic pagans became ever more ruthless in turn. Unwilling to play pure defence, the pagans struck back at the hated Christian enemy in kind. Just as Christians razed pagan villages and enslaved their people, the pagans razed Christian villages and enslaved theirs. The whole of the Baltic region became a massive slave mill exporting enslaved human beings of both faiths to places as far away as North Africa. Violence breeds violence and brutality only encourages brutality in return.

By the twilight of the 12^(th) century, the Baltic Slavs had more or less all been killed or converted to Christianity. Slavic tradition lived on, to some extent, in the Duchy of Slavia, which was part of the Kingdom of Germany. Here, the Slavic nobility had converted to Christianity. They started speaking German, used German names, and built German towns were Germans colonists settled and lived under German law, all while Slavic peasants were forced to live in shanty towns outside the walls.

But even conversion and cultural integration (by the nobility, at least) wasn't enough for some Germans. Some Germans, most notably the margraves of Brandenburg, carried on attacking Slavs long after their conversion. Slavia will slowly be eaten by Brandenburg in a series of feudal feuds, while the Polish duchies will have to contend with a slowly eastward-expanding Brandenburg for generations.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. In 1199, a papal bull was issued affirming that those who fought in wars against the Baltic pagans were considered to be crusaders on par with those who fought Muslims in the Holy Land. This was, effectively, a declaration of permanent crusade in the Baltic.

At the dawn of the 13^(th) century, then, the city of Riga was founded as the seat of a Catholic bishop and the crusaders went forth to fight against the local Livonians and Latgallians. Soon, a holy order of knights was established under the name of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, or Sword-Brothers for short. Most of the Sword-Brothers were German, although they often worked hand-in-hand with the Kingdom of Denmark, who established their own crusading base in Reval, which they used to conquer much of Estonia and organise it into the Duchy of Estland.

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Now that he Northern Crusades are in full swing, we must introduce the major players on the board.

Beginning in the far southwest, there are the Prussians, who are divided into nine tribes that bicker with each other from time to time, but close ranks against Christians who attack them. To their east are the Lithuanians, also traditionally divided into many tribes under the leadership of “dukes”, but they've recently been united under a man who calls himself king, the man named Mindaugas. However, the rule of Mindaugas is loose in many parts of the kingdom, none more so than in Samogitia, whose people are fiercely independent and only listen to the king when it helps their cause against encroaching Christians. Between the Lithuanians and Prussians are three tribes we might term Prusso-Lithuanian, since they speak dialects that have elements of both their neighbours, yet are distinct in their own right. Most prominent of these are the Yotvingians.

North of the Lithuanians are the Latvian tribes. West to east, these are the Curonians, of whom there are eight tribes (often called “counties”), the Semigallians, Selonians, and the Latgallians, of whom there are two main tribes (in this case, called “principalities”).

All of these peoples, the Prussians, Yotvingians, Lithuanians, and Latvians, speak languages in the Baltic family. Although each has their own distinct language, they are all closely related, and so they share many linguistic similarities even if conversation between speakers of different languages is impossible. North of the Latvians, however, are a people whose language is utterly unintelligible.

I speak of the Estonians, who can be divided into three principle groups: the Livonians, the Oeselians (who live on the islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa), and the Estonians proper. Estonian is a language in the Uralic family, closely related to the neighbouring Finnish. However, the Estonians are firmly Baltic in the geographic sense, and have a strong cultural affinity with the other Balts. In a geographic and cultural sense, then, it's proper to refer to the Estonians and “Balts”, even though they speak a language that doesn't belong to the Baltic language family.

In all the Baltic lands there are no kings (except Mindaugas) and no formal nobility, no states and no governments enforcing laws and levying taxes. Instead, there are only Big Men who live in big houses and own big farms. Big Men have access to a great deal more resources than they can make use of on their own, so they grant access to land, ploughs, mills, and other capital to the Little Men who live nearby, in exchange for those little men's labour and political allegiance. Although this is all deeply reminiscent of the system of serfdom practiced in Germany, we must also take notice of the differences. In the Baltic lands, most peasants do, in fact, own their own land, it's just that they own so little of it that they require access to more in order to feed their families—hence the need to rent land from the Big Men. Little Men are not legally tied to their land, nor can they be traded from one lord to another without their consent. They negotiate deals with Big Men of their own volition, and if they feel they're being mistreated, they can negotiate with a different Big Man. This makes the Big Man reminiscent of a mafia godfather or a gang boss, each with a shifting network of clients tied to him, each seeking to poach clients from rival Big Men while keeping hold of their own. Some Big Men are bigger than others, and a few are big enough that their network of clients includes other, smaller Big Men.

Two institutions take the place of the state in these lands: the council of elders and the popular assembly. Each of the tribes discussed above have their own versions of these two institutions with endless variations on the details. As a general rule, “elder” refers to the Big Men, and usually primarily to the biggest of the Big Men, and has nothing to do with the age of those who hold the title. The assembly, meanwhile, is filled out by the Little Men. In order to get things done, the elders meet separately and discuss issues. Ideally, they'll all agree upon a course of action. After this, the assembly is called and the elders make their case while the members of the assembly are asked what course of action they prefer. Because most of the Little Men in the assembly are tied to one or another of the Big Men, they typically agree with whatever their Big Man has to say. Consequently, the calling of the assembly mainly serves as a consensus building exercise where the elders get all their clients on board with whatever decision the elders have already made.

However, all decisions must be agreed upon by mutual consent. If a few Big Men decide to do something that the others disagree with, they'll go do their thing while the rest do nothing. There is no state to strongarm the unwilling into compliance. Meanwhile, although the Little Men generally agree with their patrons, they do, on occasion, mutiny against the Big Men. The Big Men's voices may be loud, but if all Little Men speak as one, everything else is drowned out. If the assembly puts its collective foot down on any issue, they can override the will of even the biggest of the Big Men.

In the Lithuanian version of this system, the Big Men are called dukes and the biggest Big Men are called elder dukes (again, regardless of actual age). One of these elder dukes, a man named Mindaugas, somehow managed to get himself recognised as the leader of all Lithuanians at some point in the early 1230s, but this all happened in the shadowy forests beyond what literate Catholics of Europe would call civilisation, so few of the details are known. Lithuania, therefore, is an exception. Alone among all the Baltic lands, Lithuania is undergoing the early stages of state formation as Mindaugas seeks to reign in the elder dukes and establish a stable royal government to replace the old tribal institutions.

As for the natural environment of the Baltic region, the land itself is inimical to outsiders. Old-growth forests spread their canopies over a land choked with lakes and marshes. This is especially true in Lithuania and Prussia, where dense wetlands make for a natural fortress where pagans can ambush and slaughter the Christians who get stuck in the mud. Pagans know these lands like the backs of their hands. They know the forest trails, and they've built highways under the marshes. Called Kūlgrinda, the underwater marsh highways of the Baltic are built by placing stones or wood on frozen marshes in the winter and letting them settle to the bottom in summer. Once this has been repeated several times, the stones or wood logs form a solid base on the bottom of the marsh or stream, enabling merchants and warriors alike to traverse the marshes and cross roaring streams without getting stuck in the mud, falling, and drowning. Hidden underwater as they are, however, only the locals can make use of the Kūlgrinda, enabling them to run circles around invading Christians, who don't know the forest trails and to whom the marsh highways are invisible.

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Over the first few decades of the 13^(th) century, the Livonians and Latgallians were brought under subjugation by the Sword-Brothers and the Bishopric of Riga, who had a love/hate relationship. After they converted to Christianity, some of the Livonian and Latgallian Big Men became landed nobility. From then on, Livonians and Latgallians marched in the armies of the Sword-Brothers. Soon, the name of “Livonia” became so closely associated with the Sword-Brothers that they were mostly commonly known as simply “the Livonians”.

One of the earliest and most inveterate enemies the Sword-Brothers faced were the Samogitians. Staunchly pagan and fiercely independent, the Samogitians were always quick to leap into the fray, eager to join forces with any pagans, and ever-ready to kill Christian knights wherever they could be found threatening pagan lands.

In 1236, the Sword-Brothers invaded Samogitia alongside a group of crusaders from Holstein arrived for the summer campaign season. After plundering their way across Semigallia and into Samogitia, the crusaders encountered a pagan force at a river crossing near Šiauliai. Hampered by swampy terrain, the heavily-armoured crusaders were easily outmanoeuvred by the pagans, who slaughtered the near-immobile crusaders in the mud. 50+ Sword-Brothers were killed (including the grandmaster of the order), along with nearly 1200 others on the field of battle. Those who escaped the field were no luckier, as almost all of them were killed by pursuing bands of Semigallians.

The Battle of Saule struck a mortal blow to the Sword-Brothers. Most of the remaining knights returned to Germany, and the order disbanded. However, all was not lost in the Livonian crusade. A few knights remained. Joining up with the more recently-arrived Teutonic Knights, the former Sword-Brothers became an autonomous chapter of the Teutonic Order with distinctive heraldry and their own master and field marshal. Like a phoenix, the Sword-Brothers ascended once more, now known as the Livonian Order, which would cooperate with the main branch of the Teutonic Order in Prussia, but largely operated independently.

Meanwhile, to the south, the Teutonic Knights arrived in Kulm in the late 1220s. Every summer, they launched a campaign against neighbouring Prussian tribes. A pattern soon emerged. There was a core of permanent crusaders, made up of the Teutonic brothers and those who served them, and then there were the summer crusaders, who came every spring to participate in the summer campaign and then went home to Germany in the fall while the Teutons battened down the hatches in their castles and waited for spring.

The Prussians, too, received help from their neighbours in the form of the Yotvignians. Yotvingia fulfilled a similar role in the south as Samogitia did in the north. A large and powerful tribe, the Yotvingians lent aid to the Prussians whenever the Christians marched against them, and spent the rest of their time feuding with the Lithuanians, Poles, and Galician-Volhynians. With the Prussians between themselves and the Teutons, the Yotvingians considered it to be of vital strategic importance to keep the Prussians in the fight.

Year after the year, the summer crusaders came and inflated the crusaders' numbers so great the Prussians couldn't contend with them. One by one, the Prussian tribes fell; the Pomesanians, Pogesanians, Lubavians, Sasnians, Warmians, and Natangians all fell and were crushed underfoot. Many were killed. Those who survived were converted to the invaders' religion under threat of violence. German colonists were then brought in to build their German towns with Christian churches, ruled over by German laws. By the mid-13^(th) century, only the Bartians, Nadruvians, and Sambians remained. Driven away from the coast, the pagans were forced deep into the dark forests of the swampy interior, for the most part. Even the pagans were not overly fond of these lands. Marginal as it was, the swampy soil was no one's first choice of farmland. But it was only here, where there were no roads but the ones only the locals knew how to find, that the last pagans in Central Europe could make their stand.