Boleslaw the Brave
This warrior king forged Poland into a major European power through wars of conquest against Germans, Russians and Slavs
An army of armoured knights from Poland, Saxony and Bohemia, supported by Pecheneg horse archers, arrived on the banks of the Western Bug River in Red Ruthenia on 23 July 1018. The army, under the leadership of Duke Boleslaw I Chrobry, was en route to the metropolis of Kiev to secure the city for Boleslaw’s son-in-law Prince Sviatopolk, who had been dethroned two years earlier.
After they stopped for the day, Boleslaw ordered his knights to hunt game and have their servants prepare a feast to boost the morale of his troops before they went to battle against Sviatopolk’s nemesis, Prince Yaroslav of Kiev. While the servants were gutting the animals, they came under fire from Kievan archers on the opposite bank.
The servants grabbed their arms, waded through the shallow waters, and routed the enemy archers. When word reached Boleslaw that there was fighting underway, he ordered his army to assemble for battle. Mounted Polish knights and sergeants splashed through the river and thundered towards the enemy camp in the distance.
Before Yaroslav’s troops could form up for battle, Boleslaw’s men were upon them. The Rus fled for their lives. It was truly a decisive victory as Yaroslav fled Kiev for the safety of Novgorod 600 miles to the north. Boleslaw triumphantly entered the heavily fortified city unopposed. During the course of his occupation, he amassed plunder and on the return march secured new territory as compensation for his troubles.
Fox-like cunning
Twenty-five year-old Duke Boleslaw I Chrobry inherited the Principality of Greater Poland from his father Mieszko upon his death in 992. Mieszko had converted to Roman Catholicism in 966. After his conversion, he established a bishopric at Gniezno to promote Christianity throughout his lands and submitted to the authority of the Holy See. He unified Poland through a combination of coercion and conquest.
Like Mieszko, Boleslaw ruled Poland as a vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor. However, Poland was an affiliate member, not a full member of the empire. Disliking this arrangement, Boleslaw vowed to reduce his obligations; namely, taxes and military service.
Boleslaw’s mother was Bohemian Princess Doubravka, but his father Mieszko had sired three more sons with his second wife, the German noblewoman Oda of Haldensleben. In his will, Mieszko had divided his realm among all his sons
In the first two years of his reign, Duke Boleslaw seized the territories left to his half-brothers. He crushed his opponents within Poland and seized control of their lands with “fox-like cunning” according to German chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg.
Strategic alliances
Boleslaw was favourably inclined towards youthful Holy Roman Emperor Otto III because Otto seemed likely to agree to freeing the Poles of some of their imperial obligations.
The 19-year-old emperor arranged for Rome to elevate Gniezno to Metropolitan See with its own archbishop. This boosted Poland in the eyes of Latin Christendom and liberated the Polish Catholic Church from the Germancontrolled Archbishop of Magdeburg.
Otto journeyed to Gniezno in early 1000 to visit the burial site of Saint Adalbert, the former Bishop of Prague who had been martyred three years earlier trying to convert pagan Prussians to Christianity.
Otto sought Boleslaw’s support for his dream of expanding the Holy Roman Empire. To enlist Boleslaw’s support for this initiative, Otto recognised Boleslaw as Poland’s sovereign ruler – legitimising his reign.
In a ceremony before he departed from Gniezno, Otto placed a crown on Boleslaw’s head. But the Holy See rejected Boleslaw’s subsequent request for an anointed coronation by the Archbishop of Gniezno.
During this period, Boleslaw established a monarchical system of government to rule over Poland. He also sought to establish strategic alliances through marriage. He eventually succeeded in forging such ties with Bohemia, Hungary and Kiev.
Western offensive
Emperor Otto died prematurely from illness in January 1002. Following his death, Germany became embroiled in a bloody succession crisis since the emperor had died childless. Three contenders for the throne of Germany were Duke Herman of Swabia, Duke Henry of Bavaria and Margrave Eckard of Meissen. Duke Henry’s supporters assassinated Margrave Eckard of Meissen, a relative of
“IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS OF HIS REIGN, DUKE BOLESLAW SEIZED THE TERRITORIES LEFT TO HIS HALF-BROTHERS. HE CRUSHED HIS OPPONENTS WITHIN POLAND AND SEIZED CONTROL OF THEIR LANDS”
Boleslaw’s, who many considered the leading candidate for the throne. Henry succeeded in seizing and holding onto the throne despite the support of the German nobility.
Boleslaw saw the succession crisis as an opportune moment to pluck valuable lands on the German frontier for Poland. He mobilised Polish forces and overran the Saxon East
Mark. Turning south, he seized the strategic towns of Bautzen, Strehla and Meissen. These conquests he garrisoned with Polish troops. He even went so far as to have border posts driven into the bottom of the Elbe and Saale rivers to mark Poland’s new southwestern frontier.
Boleslaw attended a diet of the Saxon nobility in Merseburg on 25 July 1002. Henry, who had been elected king the previous month, was present at the meeting. He offered to allow Boleslaw to retain both Upper and Lower Lusatia as German fiefs, but he demanded the return of Meissen.
As Boleslaw began his journey homeward, he narrowly escaped being assassinated by Henry’s agents. Enraged by Henry’s treachery, Boleslaw torched the town of Strehla in Meissen and refused to surrender the region. Henry was preoccupied with other crises and unable to take immediate action against Boleslaw.
First war with Germany
The first of three wars between Germany and Poland erupted in 1003. Boleslaw wanted to protect the southern flank of his forces in Meissen, so he invaded the Duchy of Bohemia and installed a pro-polish tyrant in the first year of the war. When the tyrant embarked on a reign of terror, the Bohemians beseeched Boleslaw for relief. The Polish duke removed the tyrant, and then he took control of the duchy himself.
Henry launched a major offensive the following year with the aim of taking back all of the territory Boleslaw had annexed.
After invading Lusatia, he assembled a large German army and fought his way to Prague. Boleslaw narrowly escaped from Prague before it fell to the Germans. Henry then marched north into Meissen and besieged Bautzen, the capital of the margravate. Although the Polish garrison fought valiantly, it eventually capitulated.
For his invasion of Greater Poland in 1005, Henry allied himself with the pagan Luticians to strengthen his army. Many Germans disapproved of an alliance with heathens to wage war against the Christian Duke of Poland. German soldiers resented marching alongside unbelievers whose standards bore pagan idols. “How can you reconcile persecuting a Christian [Boleslaw] and maintaining a friendship with a pagan people?” German Bishop Bruno of Querfurt asked Henry. “How can a holy lance be carried next to satanic banners drenched in human blood?”
When the Germans reached the Oder, they found Boleslaw’s troops guarding the principal crossing at Crossen. German scouts found an unguarded ford and outflanked the Poles.
The weight of the German advance forced Boleslaw to fall back on the defences of Poznan in the face of the larger German army. Henry’s advance stalled. In the weeks that followed, Polish light troops repeatedly struck Henry’s supply line.
In the peace treaty concluded that year, Henry took possession of Upper and Lower Lusatia and Meissen, while Boleslaw was allowed to keep only Moravia.
“HOW CAN A HOLY LANCE BE CARRIED NEXT TO SATANIC BANNERS DRENCHED IN HUMAN BLOOD?”
March to Magdeburg
Henry sent substantial funds to the Bohemians to enable them to defend themselves against Poland. In April 1007, Henry demanded additional territorial concessions from Boleslaw. When the Polish duke refused, Henry nullified the existing peace agreement. The second Polish-german war would drag on for six years.
For a major invasion of Germany in 1007, Boleslaw ordered his nobles to assemble their druzhinas, or personal guard, and he also called up a general levy of freemen. The Polish army invaded the German Northern March and fought its way to the outskirts of Magdeburg. After laying waste to the lands on the right bank of the Elbe, he withdrew. Henry, who was dealing with a rebellion in Lotharingia, was unable to counter Boleslaw’s swift offensive.
In a move that would have major implications for Poland during the second half of his reign, Boleslaw wed one of his daughters that year to Kievan Prince Sviatopolk. After his successful invasion of the Northern March, Boleslaw recovered Upper and Lower Lusatia.
Henry assembled an army composed of Germans, Saxons and Bohemians in 1010 for a major offensive against the Poles. These forces invaded Silesia, but the attack stalled because of poor leadership and low morale.
Low-level warfare dragged on for the next three years until Henry and Boleslaw negotiated a treaty in 1013. As a result of the treaty, Boleslaw took possession of Upper and Lower Lusatia and swore an oath to hold them as German fiefs.
Relations improved for a short while. Henry even pledged to send a contingent of German
knights to support Boleslaw in his planned offensive against Kievan Rus. While Boleslaw went to war in the east, Pope Benedict VIII crowned Henry emperor in a ceremony in Rome on 14 February 1014.
Third war with Germany
Henry tried one last time to pry Boleslaw from Lusatia. After accusing Boleslaw in early 1015 of failing to perform his duties as a vassal, Henry crossed the Oder River at Krosno, but began withdrawing when a Saxon army failed to reinforce him. Boleslaw’s troops harried the Germans as they withdrew through Lusatia. The third war between the Germans and Poles changed nothing. Indeed, Boleslaw already was making preparations to invade Kievan Rus.
The inveterate foes concluded a final peace on 30 January 1018, in Bautzen. Boleslaw’s aggression paid handsome dividends. Henry allowed him to retain Upper and Lower Lusatia. Although they were technically held as German fiefs, that language was merely a face-saving measure for Henry.
Military offensives during the three wars consisted for the most part of sustained raids into enemy or disputed territory. Few pitched battles were fought. On the whole, Boleslaw kept his armies intact and made Henry pay a substantial cost in troops and property trying to hold onto the German marches on the middle Elbe.
Kievan succession crisis
Boleslaw had forged an alliance with Grand Prince Vladimir of Kiev in 1007, but five years later the Kievans imprisoned his daughter and son-in-law Sviatopolk for alleged treason. Boleslaw led a Polish army to Kiev that succeeded in securing his release in 1013.
Upon Vladimir’s death in 1015, Sviatopolk ordered the execution of three of Vladimir’s sons. A fourth son, Prince Yaroslav of Novgorod, led the resistance to Sviatopolk, who the Kievans dubbed ‘The Accursed’. Yaroslav’s Novgorodians defeated Sviatopolk’s Kievan army in 1016 at Liubech on the
Dnieper River. Sviatopolk fled to Poland and Yaroslav took the throne of Kiev.
Two years later, Boleslaw once again marched into Kiev. At the frontier he routed Yaroslav’s army and put his son-in-law back in power. Boleslaw plundered Kiev, gaining “incalculable wealth” to use the words of Thietmar of Merseburg, and returned to Poland.
Boleslaw also took advantage of the Kievan instability to annex the so-called Cherven Cities, a group of fortified towns in western Galicia. This gave Poland a substantial buffer against Kievan aggression on its southeastern frontier. Although Yaroslav drove Sviatopolk from power in 1019, Boleslaw had profited from his son-in-law’s schemes.
Always the opportunist, Boleslaw took advantage of the instability of the empire following Henry II’S death in 1024 to be crowned the first monarch of Poland. After receiving the approval of newly elected
Pope John XIX, Boleslaw proceeded with the coronation. He was anointed and crowned by the Archbishop of Gniezno in a coronation ceremony held Easter Sunday 1025 in the Gniezno Cathedral. Two months later he died of natural causes at the age of 57.