What is the Teutonic Order?

Founded in 1 192—— Pope and Emperor loyal to the Holy Roman Empire: Armed Monks of the Roman Catholic Church (1 192- 1929 was a military monks' society) Headquarters: Aka (1/kloc) The first Heinrich Walpot von Bassenheim, a famous commander in White Ground, was the last of the three knights. 1 187 After Harding's war, the holy city of Jerusalem was quickly captured by Saladin's army. The Vatican called on the new Crusaders to recapture the Holy City, which was the third Crusade. At that time, Emperor Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire led the German army to Asia Minor first. Unfortunately, Red Beard's expedition fell by the wayside, and his son Duke Schwaben continued his expedition. The Teutonic Order was established in this context. 1 190, the Crusaders fought hard and finally captured the important town of Ako. Some German knights set up a health care organization in Ako to do good deeds, which became the Teutonic Knights. But at the beginning of its establishment, there was no military task, just taking care of the wounded. 1 198, the Teutonic Order was transformed into a military order, following the example of the Knights Templar and implementing the same canon as the Knights Templar Hospital. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to record the establishment time of Teutonic Order as 1 198 in some materials. During the Third Crusade in Asia Minor, the Teutonic Knights developed slowly, which was not the same as the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospital. To some extent, the Teutonic Order was established at a bad time, and the era of the Holy City has passed. It is not an endless stream of pilgrims who go to Asia Minor, but an army led by a European monarch. Under these powerful monarchs, it is too difficult for the Knights to develop as an independent organization, not to mention the well-known Knights Templar and Hospital Knights. The experience of Asia Minor is really lacking for the Teutonic Order. [Edit this paragraph] However, times are always changing rapidly, and history soon provides them with new opportunities. 12 1 1 year, King Andreas II of Hungary invited the Order to help suppress the Kumanin people, at the cost of giving Burzenland, south of Sibenburgen (now Romania), to the Order as a fief. Later, many people thought that Andre II had done something stupid, lured the wolf into the room and brought the knight to Eastern Europe. I am deeply convinced! ) 1225, because Teutonic knights tried to establish an independent country on their fiefs, Andre II expelled them from the country. The knights are in trouble again. However, things soon turned around. At that time, Konrad von Masowien of Poland tried to expand to the north of Kurmoran, but was defeated by the local indigenous Prussians. His territory did not expand, but was occupied by the Prussians. Conrad was depressed, so he called for a crusade against the heretics in Kurmoran in the name of religion, but other Polish governors ignored him and seemed to be waiting for a joke. The Prussians there are very fierce, and his army is losing ground. In desperation, Conrad turned to the Teutonic Order for help, hoping that the Order could help him conquer the Prussians. If Andre II asked the Knights to help him suppress the Kumanlei people because of ignorance, Conrad can only describe it as stupidity when he asked the Knights to help him conquer the Prussians. Of course, other Polish vassals are also involved. If they had helped Conrad earlier, Conrad wouldn't have to invite wolves into the house, and they all became victims in the end. After receiving this invitation, Teutonic Knights readily agreed, but they didn't want to repeat the story in Hungary. Hermann von salza, head of the Knights Order, first went to see the Holy Roman Emperor Fetley II and got a golden edict from the emperor: Teutonic Knights have the right to occupy the land given by Conrad and the land acquired after conquering Prussia, and the attack on the Knights Order's territory will be severely punished by the Holy Roman Empire. With the written guarantee of Fitzgerald II, Teutonic knights will properly occupy the land they conquered. Conrad began to regret it at this time. In order to prevent the Teutonic Knights from taking root around him, Conrad organized a Knights-Prussian Christian Knights to personally crusade against Prussians. This time he failed again. He can't even hold his core territory. Conrad had to bow his head and admit defeat. 1230, in the treaty he signed with the Teutonic Order, he promised that if the Teutonic Order conquered Kurmoran, he would give the land to the Order permanently. This means that Teutonic knights have the ownership of Kulmerland, not the fief-the ownership of the fief still belongs to the monarch. 1234, Pope Gregory IX issued a golden decree, recognizing the ownership of the land conquered by the Knights, and at the same time asking them to Christianize the local indigenous people. In this way, the Teutonic Knights got a triple written promise that all they had to do was conquer this land, which was obviously their best. The Teutonic Knights conquered Prussia from 1226. After more than 50 years of bloody slaughter, by 1285, the Teutonic Order finally completed its conquest. On this land, they established a powerful regime-the Knights Kingdom, and Prussia was the center of the Knights Kingdom. 1237, Livonia and the Knights of Livonia merged and became the other wing of the knight kingdom. Like Prussia, the knights built a series of castles in Livonia as fortifications. Although the Teutonic Order focused its work on the eastern colonization, its activities in Asia Minor did not stop, and its headquarters was always in Ako. 129 1 After the fall of Arco in, the Teutonic Order took the Knights Templar and the Hospital Order to Venice instead of Cyprus. 1309, the headquarters of the Order moved to marienburg, Prussia, and they became a completely independent country. [Edit this paragraph] The expansion of Teutonic Order in the East was not smooth sailing. 1242, they lost to the Russian Coalition forces in the Battle of Ice Lake. This battle is also called the Battle of Pepsy. The forces invested by both sides are not clearly recorded in the history books. Now it is generally estimated that there are about 10 thousand people here, with the heavy cavalry of Teutonic Order as the core. Russian Coalition forces 15000 to 17000, mainly infantry, commanded by Alexander Dangel Cod, Duke of Novograd; Yaroslav. Russian Coalition forces formed a wall array (I estimate it is a square array), guarding the east bank of the ice lake. The knights began to attack with a wedge array. Specifically, heavy cavalry is the pioneer of assault, followed by infantry, and the wings and rear are protected by light cavalry. This wedge array is a common tactic used by knights. Its advantage is that it has strong assault ability and can quickly tear open the defense line of the other side. If the military literacy of the defenders is not high, it is easy to cause a little tear and the whole line will collapse. However, it also has its own shortcomings. The defensive power of its wings is limited. If the defense line can't be torn quickly, the wings will be slowly eroded. Alexander knew the characteristics of this tactic very well, so he arranged the main light infantry in the coalition in the middle, arranged it as a thickened phalanx, killing the assault ability of the knight's heavy cavalry, and put his own elite infantry in the two wings. The knights' attack was successful at first, but the dense phalanx of Russian Coalition forces made it difficult for them to completely tear open the defense line. Geographical disadvantage may be the biggest trouble encountered by the knights. Because the bank of the lake is tilted and frozen, it is difficult for the heavy cavalry of the Knights to effectively exert their impact ability, so the attack is gradually deadlocked. At this time, the weak wings of the wedge array began to expose its shortcomings, and slowly compressed from both sides to the center under the pressure of Grad's elite infantry. The knights began to fall into the encirclement of the Coalition forces. As a final blow, Alexander sent his best pro-guard cavalry to attack the Knights from the right rear. The encirclement of the allied forces is getting smaller and smaller. Although the heavy cavalry of the Order has a strong personal combat capability, due to the smaller and smaller display space, its combat effectiveness cannot be exerted and it can only be supported. Allied infantry forked the knight off his horse. Because the ice could not bear the weight, many cavalry wearing heavy armor fell into the ice cave and could not climb up again. In the Battle of Binghu, only a few knights escaped from the encirclement of the Russian Coalition forces and fled to the west. Most of them died in battle, including about 500 knights, and more than 50 nobles were captured, including the head of the Order. It is said that 3500 people were killed and about the same number were injured in the Russian Coalition forces. The devastating defeat of the Battle of Ice Lake weakened Teutonic Knights, and their continued eastward expansion stopped. Poland, to the south of the Knights, was originally divided, not an opponent of the Knights. But in the first half of the14th century, Poland was reunited under the leadership of King Wladislaw I, and the relationship with the Knights became tense. 1308 The Knights occupied Danzig and Pomeran, which made the relationship between the two countries deteriorate sharply. Even though Poland admitted the Knights' occupation of Pomeran in the 1343 Karisch Peace Treaty, the hostility between the two sides still existed. Poland's hatred of the Knights is an important potential threat to the Knights. However, in spite of this, in the second half of14th century, the knight kingdom reached its most powerful period under the leadership of its head, Wenrich von Kenney Prode (135 1- 1382). 1370, they defeated Lithuania, the main enemy of the Oriental Order. Faced with the strong pressure of the Knights, Lithuania and Poland gradually came together. 1386, 38-year-old Lithuanian Grand Marquis Jagelo married Polish Queen Hedwig, who was only 13 years old (this little girl is very poor. According to records, she is beautiful and talented, and she can speak five languages-unfortunately, not including the language that her husband can speak. Her husband is not only old but also rude. The poor woman died at the age of 26. ) After marriage, the Grand Marquis of Lithuania was crowned King of Poland, and Lithuania and Poland formed a United front, together with the Knights Kingdom. 14 10, a large-scale battle broke out between the Knights and the Polish-Lithuanian alliance near Tanenburg, which was the largest knight war in medieval European history. There are different records about the strength of the two sides participating in the war in different documents, but one thing is certain: the strength of the knights is less than that of the Coalition forces. The strength of the Order may be 65,438+0.65,438+0,000 to 27,000, and the commander is ulrich von Jungingen, head of the Teutonic Order. The strength of the Polish-Lithuanian side may be 16000 to 32000, mainly Poles and Lithuanians, as well as Russians and Tatars. The joint forces were commanded by Polish King Yagello and Lithuanian Grand Marquis Wei Tolde, and Wei Tolde was Yagello's cousin. Giancarlo divided the whole army into three fronts, with the first line stretching for 3 kilometers. The joint forces of Lithuanians, Russians and Tatars in Tolde are on the right. At the beginning, the Knights Army was also deployed on three fronts. However, when Da Tourong saw the long front of the allies, he realized that it might be surrounded, so he changed to two fronts (from here we can basically infer that the ratio of the knights to the allies is about 2:3). The warring sides divided the cavalry into flag teams (the combat units of the medieval army, about 400 to 600 people) and left the infantry in the camp. On the front line, the knights were also equipped with mortars that fired stone bullets. At noon on July 14 10, the Battle of Tanengbao began. Before the war, Rong Jingen, the head of the Knights, sent two swords to King Jacello of Poland, saying that a contest between knights would be held. The knights' artillery fired at the allies first, but it didn't achieve any results. Because of the rain, the gunpowder was wet by the rain. Lithuanians and Tatars on the allied right launched an attack on the Knights under the command of Wei Tolde, but the Knights quickly repelled their attack and fought back. The Tatars in the Allies started to flee first, and the right wing of the Allies soon lost its defense. At this time, the Allies are facing a very unfavorable situation: the German flag team of the Knights broke through the right wing of the Allies and attacked the Polish main force of the Central Allies, and other flag teams of the Knights also started to charge from the front. Both sides put the troops belonging to the second and third lines into battle, because as we all know, success or failure is at stake. The balance of victory and defeat finally fell to the allied side, only because of an accident on the battlefield: Rong, the head of the Knights Order, was killed in battle. After losing the supreme commander, the knights began to fall into chaos, and many knights fled the battlefield in a hurry. The Allies seized this opportunity to charge and defeated the Cavaliers. [Edit this paragraph] The Battle of the Fallen Tannengburg caused a devastating blow to the Knights, and its significance was similar to Harding's battle for the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The kingdom of the Knights embarked on the road of decline. After the foreign war suffered a fiasco, the Knights Kingdom fell into civil strife from top to bottom. The peasants rebelled against the knight's exorbitant taxes and levies. The power struggle within the Order is becoming more and more fierce. Urban and local aristocrats are required to participate in decision-making because they pay high taxes. 1440, 53 nobles and 19 cities established the Prussian Union in marienburg to resist the arbitrary rule of the Knights. 1453, the Prussian Union formed an alliance with Poland, which triggered a continuous war in 13, and it didn't end until the signing of the second Thorne Peace Treaty in 1466. This peace treaty made the Order lose many territories, including marienburg. Politically, it caused great controversy within the Order, that is, the Order countries should recognize their obedience to Poland. The German Legion hoped for the support of the Holy Roman Empire and the Holy See. 1494, the head of the German regiment admitted to surrender to Maximilian I, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. At this time, the kingdom of the Knights was at the end of its tether. Luther's religious reform made the Knights once again embark on a watershed in history. 15 1 1 year, Albrecht, 2 1 year old from Hohenzolon family, was elected as the 37th head of Teutonic Order, and he was also the last head of Teutonic Order as a military order. 1520, because Albright refused to surrender to Poland, the Knights Kingdom broke out with Poland and the Knights Kingdom was defeated. Depressed Albright returned to Germany. At that time, Germany was undergoing a vigorous religious reform, and Albright was quickly attracted by Luther Protestantism and met Martin Luther, the founder of the religious reform. At Luther's suggestion, Albright resigned as the leader of Teutonic Knights, secularized the Knights' country, changed it into a principality, and carried out religious reform at home, but refused to have a vassal relationship with Poland. Conservative forces within the Order and Catholic nobles in Germany were very dissatisfied with Albright's conversion, but Albright married the daughter of King Fetley I of Denmark, a northern power, in 1527, and the opposition could do nothing about him. Albright's transformation ended the history of Teutonic Order as a military organization. Prussia, which originally belonged to the Order, has been re-educated by albrecht, Livonia has been occupied by Poland, Estonia has been annexed by Sweden, and the Order has no territory of its own. In this situation, the Teutonic Order basically gave up its military mission and focused on managing its own industry. Since then, it has only existed as a religious organization. 1809, after Napoleon invaded Germany, he announced that the Teutonic Order was banned, and the Order only had a place in Austria. Until 1834, the Austrian emperor rebuilt the Order and made it a religious charity. 1929, the Teutonic Order was reorganized into a pure religious order, and its name was changed from OT (Ordo Teutonicus) to DO (Deutscher Orden). At present, the German Order has about 1000 members, mainly engaged in charity, including caring for the sick and the elderly. At present, the Order is managed by five provinces: Italy, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic and Slovenia, and its headquarters is in Vienna, Austria. At the beginning of the establishment of the Templars, the Pope approved them to wear the same white robe as the Templars, but it was embroidered with a black cross as the difference between them. Since then, the black cross on a white background has become a symbol of Teutonic order. The cross on the Teutonic Order's flag is different from the general cross. It leans to the left, not to the left and right. If you pay attention to the flags of the Nordic countries, you will find that the flags of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland and other countries all have this left-leaning cross, which is called the Scandinavian cross. Although the Teutonic knight kingdom has perished, the knight's black cross symbol is still inherited and continued. On the flags of the Second Reich, Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, the black cross is an important symbol, which represents the military tradition of Teutonic knights. The slogan of Teutonic Knights is "Helfen, Heilen, Wehren".