Original List designed by Carl Luxford.

Amended by Peter Morrison

NOTES & COMMENTS by Carl Luxford

This list does not include Lithuanians for the later occasions when Lithuanians and Pagan Prussians fought together against their common enemies.

I used WB as Prussian warriors because William Urban says an early traveller, Ibrahim ibn Jacob, said that "in warfare the individual warrior would not wait for his friends to help him but would rush into combat, swinging his sword until he was overwhelmed. This beserk courage was apparently limited to the nobility, because the general evidence is that the ordinary fighting man slipped off into the woods when confronted by greater numbers, leaving his fellows to fend for themselves," [Urban page 48].

WB would give the impetus of the Prussian tribal clans,led by their chieftains and nobles, and some brittleness to reflect their followers falling away when their leaders fell. However they also excelled in ambush where the LHI category may better reflect this style of warfare, as there are no obligatory charges to spoil an ambush. Delbruck adds a footnote on the survival of a warrior spirit in the Prussian warriors (Delbruck page 106).

Bonus WB and Bonus LHI may not be fielded together, as I assume the grand-tactical plan is either an ambush or an open battle, of course this means I have excluded an open battle with an ambush!!

This either / or selection represents the fact that the Prussians sometimes fought open battles (but usually lost when they did) but most often resorted to ambush and raids. The Prussian’s notable successes were Rensen (1244), Krucken (1249), during the first ‘crusade’ by the Teutonic Order. However so far I have no details of these.

I have depicted some Prussian cavalry as LC [with an FV of 3] because of Paul Stein’s description which I shall quote here:

"Ian Heath’s description of the troops is very good.. and the following is offered as a supplement to it. The bow and spear appear to have been the predominant weapons. Prussian cavalry fought like Wendish ‘Rough Riders’. Mounted on small horses(ponies) they relied on speed and surprise, wheeling, hurling spears and charging unexpectedly. They possessed both stirrup and spurs." (Stein, page 18).

While Urban says of the Prussian cavalry "the nobles, who served as light cavalry with sword, spear, helmet, and mail coat. This equipment was less heavy than a western knight’s outfit but was well suited to the swampy, wooded lowlands and the rough, wooded hills of their native land." (Urban, page 48).

William Urban quotes Peter von Dusburg, a chronicler from the fourteenth century, who said one of the most powerful Prussian tribes, the Samlanders could raise 4000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry, while the Sudovians could raise 6000 horsemen, but other tribes more typically 2000 cavalry, and innumerable foot.

Norman Housley [in Maurice Keen (ed.)] says the Prussians "learnt how to use at least some of their opponents’ weapons." However he fails to explain which ones or identify his evidence.

The Prussians were a determined enemy, their first rebellion after 12 years of war with the Teutonic Order and others, lasted 11 years, from 1242 till 1253 during which time their biggest victory was at Krucken [u with an umlout]on 23^rd November 1249. In 1260 another rebellion broke out as Teutonic control spread eastwards in Prussian territory. This lasted 15 years! Hans Delbruck says of this war:

"In the field, the Prussians repeatedly held the upper hand, especially on one occasion in the Lobau, where the Vice Grand Master Helmerich was killed, along with forty brothers of the order, and the entire Christian army was destroyed (13 July 1263). In general the war was fought in repeated plundering and wasting expeditions on both sides, which brought the Prussians up to the walls of Thorn and led to their destruction of Marienwerder. But the final decision was once again brought about by the struggle for the fortified places. The Prussians captured the interior strongholds, except for Christburg. While their skill at siegecraft was only very small, even though they had learned something about the use of engines of war from their enemies, they sealed off the castles with counter-strongholds, which were garrisoned by alternating units, and thus succeeded in starving them out." [Delbruck, page 380]

On page 382 Delbruck briefly compares Caesar’s eight years of warfare to subjugate Gaul from Italy to the Rhine whereas it took the Teutonic Order [with its lesser resources] 53 years to subjugate a much smaller area, albeit a very inhospitable terrain of dense woods and bogs, with the Prussian farmers’ clearings, their tribal forts and the rivers which ultimately became the highways used by the Order to drive into Prussian tribal territory.

Bibliography

Medieval Warfare History of the Art of War, (volume 3), Hans Delbruck [with an umlout on the u], translated by W.J. Renfroe Jnr., University of Nebraska Press, 1982.

Medieval Warfare A History, Maurice Keen (editor), Oxford University Press,1999.

The Northern Crusades, Eric Christiansen, Penguin Books, 1997 [the ‘new’ edition].

The Teutonic Knights A Military History, William Urban, Greenhill Books 2003.

A cheaper option than these books [if still available, might need to shop around] with an excellent historical and military summary is the booklet:

Wargaming the 13^th Century Baltic Crusades, Paul Stein, published by the Society of Ancients in 1984.