Battle on the Ice
Lake Peipus, Russia, 5 April 1242
Novgorod, a wealthy trading city of northern Russia, was set in the midst of an incredibly hostile world. To the east lay the vast Mongol Empire, which had arisen suddenly in the Far East and swept westward, crushing all opposition before it. The hard-riding Mongols had only recently smashed a Russian army at the Battle of the Kalka River in 1223, and had thrown much of Russia under the yoke of a harsh tributary system.
To the north were hostile Swedes, and to the west, along the shores of the Baltic Sea, were the expanding territories of the Catholic German order of the Teutonic Knights. The knights had originally been established in the late 12th century to crusade against Muslim forces in the Holy Land but with the passage of time, it had switched its focus to northeastern Europe. Under the overall direction of a Hochmeister, or Grand Master, the zealous Teutonic Order ruthlessly battled the pagan Prussians and Lithuanians of the Baltic region as well as the Christian, but Orthodox, Russians.
Though never numerous, the knights - who were all drawn from the German aristocracy - were superb armoured cavalrymen and demonstrated a discipline on the battlefield unsurpassed elsewhere in contemporary Europe. Clad very simply in a white surcoat blazoned with a single cross of jet black and worn over armour, the Teutonic Knight was just as much a monk as a soldier, being celibate and adhering to a strict, monastic way of life. Personal possessions were few, even when counting weapons.
However, while the individuals may have lived frugally, the Teutonic Order itself was very wealthy. It had substantial endowments in many parts of Europe to fund its military activities. Also, whenever the Knights conquered Baltic lands, German colonists were quickly to follow. These settlers were taxed, further enriching the Order.
After Mongols began attacking Kievan Russian principalities in 1237, the Knights took the opportunity to grab more lands in beleaguered northern Russia. In early 1241, with papal approval, the Teutonic Knights of Livonia, an independent branch of the Order, together with other German knights and vassal knights of the king of Denmark, mounted a crusade against Novgorod. Prince Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky, then just 20-yearsold and living in exile, was recalled by the people of Novgorod to fend them off.
The prince was an excellent soldier and had been given the honorific of ‘Nevsky’ for a victory he had won over the Swedes at the Neva River in 1240. He had nonetheless been driven out soon afterward by Novgorodians unhappy with his rule. Seeing the Teutonic Knights attack as an opportunity to restore his own power, his first act on returning to Novgorod was to hang his political opponents. He then set off and then set out to scour his land of the German invaders, with the help of his elite druzhina bodyguards.
Despite the Crusaders martial prowess, Nevsky racked up victories. Suitably affronted, the Knights amassed a large force to defeat the prince once and for all. On 5 April 1242, the Teutonic Knights of Livonia, together with other German knights, their Estonian auxiliary troops and some allied Danish knights, totalling around 2,600 men, caught up with Prince Alexander’s 5,000-strong Russian army at Lake Peipus, which had frozen for the season. The Knights attacked the Novgorodian army, thundering across the ice. While it must have made an epic sight, their decision to do so was not as rash as it might sound; the Knights regularly used frozen rivers as roadways during wintertime campaigns.
But the heavily armoured Knights could not overcome the stout Russian defences and abandoned the field in defeat. The Novgorodian victory at Lake Peipus was significant in that it stopped the further progress eastward of the Teutonic Knights into Russia and helped establish the demarcation line in Europe between Western Christianity and the Orthodox East. Nevsky ruled Novgorod until his death in 1263, was declared an Orthodox saint in 1547, and remains a national hero.