Battle of Legnica

The Battle of Legnica (Template:Lang-pl), also known as the Battle of Liegnitz (German: Schlacht von Liegnitz) or Battle of Wahlstatt (German: Schlacht bei Wahlstatt), took place on April 9 1241 in Legnickie Pole (Wahlstatt) near the city of Legnica (Liegnitz) between the invading Mongols and a combined force of Poles and Germans under the command of Henry II the Pious, Duke of Silesia, supported by the feudal nobility and military orders. Despite the Mongol victory, this was the furthest west their forces reached due to political destabilization inside the Mongol empire.

Battle of Legnica
Part of the Mongol invasions
Date April 9, 1241 Location Legnickie Pole (near present day Legnica, Poland) Result Mongol victory
Belligerents
Mongols (Mongol Empire)	Poland Teutonic Knights Knights Templars Knights Hospitaller
Commanders and leaders
Kaidu	Henry II the Pious
Strength
20,000	28,000
Casualties and losses
Unknown	10,000-40,000

Dispute

As with many historical battles, the exact details of force composition, tactics, and the actual course of the battle are lacking and sometimes contradictory.

The historical interpretation of the battle has been revised. Traditionally, the battle was seen as a victory for Henry, who sacrificed his own life, as the Mongols did not advance further westward. However, the battle is now seen as a crushing defeat for the allied forces; the Mongols had no intentions at the time to extend the campaign westward, while their retreat was because of the death of Ögedei Khan, the Khagan (Grand Khan), not because of suffering excessive casualties.

Background

The Mongols considered the Cumans to have submitted to their authority, but the Cumans fled westward and sought asylum within the Kingdom of Hungary. After King Béla IV of Hungary rejected Batu Khan's ultimatum to surrender the Cumans, Subutai began planning the Mongol invasion of Europe. Batu and Subutai were to lead two armies to attack Hungary itself, while a third under Baidar and Kaidu would attack Poland as a diversion to occupy northern European forces which might come to Hungary's aid.

The Mongols sacked Sandomierz and Kraków in 1241, but were unable to capture Wrocław after an assault. While considering whether to besiege Wrocław, Baidar and Ögedei's grandson Kaidu received reports that King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia was two days away with an army of 50,000. The Mongols turned from Wrocław to intercept Henry's forces before the European armies could meet. The Mongols caught up with Henry near Legnica at Legnickie Pole (Polish for "Field of Legnica"), also known as Wahlstatt (German for "battle place").

Composition

The Mongol diversionary force, a detachment (no more than two tumens) from the army of Subedei, demonstrated the advantages of the tactical mobility and speed of horseback archers over heavily armored but slow opposition. The Mongol tactics were essentially a long series of feints and faked withdrawals from widely dispersed groups, which were designed to inflict a constant slow drain by ranged fire, disrupt the enemy formation, and draw larger blocks away from the main body into ambush and flank attacks. These were standard Mongol tactics used in virtually all of their major battles; they were made possible by continual training and superb battlefield communication, which used a system of flags. The Mongol commander found the highest ground at the battle site, seized it, and used it to communicate to his noyans and lesser commanders their orders for troop movement. The Mongol system was a stark contrast to the clumsy European systems, in which knights advanced with basically no communication with supporting forces.

The numbers involved are difficult to judge. European accounts are prone to outrageous estimates of Mongol numbers - some accounts suggest in excess of 100,000 at Legnica alone. These gross overestimates were excuses for the slaughter of the elite Polish gentry and knights of the military orders sent by Pope Gregory IX to halt the invaders. However, the Mongols were almost certainly outnumbered - given the weaknesses of 13th century Mongol logistical support, current estimates suggest the Mongol force numbered, at most, 20,000 in a mix of light and very light archer-cavalry.

What Mongol sources remain state that the Polish invasion was a raid in force, of two tumens (20,000 men), and part of Subutai's master plan to destroy the European armies one at a time, rather than allowing them to mass in force.

According to James Chambers, Henry's force consisted of approximately 25,000 troops. Lesser trained troops included an army from Opole under Duke Mieszko II the Fat, Moravians led by the Margrave of Moravia's son Boleslav, conscripts from Greater Poland, volunteer Bavarian miners from Złotoryja. Henry's better trained troops were his own Silesians, mercenaries, and small contingents of French Knights Templar and Hospitallers. Some Teutonic Knights may also have been under his command, although there is no clear evidence they were at the battle. A legend that the Prussian Landmeister Poppo von Osterna was killed during the battle is false, as he died at Legnica years later while visiting his wife's nunnery.

The battle

Henry divided his forces into four sections: the Bavarian miners led by Boleslav of Moravia; the conscripts from Greater Poland along with some Cracovians led by Sulisław, the brother of the killed palatine of Kraków; the army of Opole under Mieszko, possibly with some Teutonic Knights; and under Henry's personal command the Silesians, Moravians, Templars, and Hospitallers.

According to Chambers description of the battle, the Silesian cavalry initiated combat with the vanguard (mangudai) of the Mongol army. After the Silesians were repelled, the cavalry of Greater Poland, led by Sulisław, and the cavalry of Opole attacked the Mongols next. The vanguard feigned a retreat, inducing the allied cavalry to pursue, although this separated them from the Polish infantry. Although the mangudai fled, Mongol light cavalry flanked the Polish forces. A smoke screen was used to hide the Mongol movements and confuse the Europeans. While the Mongol light cavalry attacked from the flanks and the heavy cavalry attacked from the front, the Mongol archers peppered the Polish forces with arrows.

Erik Hildinger indicates the levies of Boleslav led the attack instead of the Silesians. He adds that after the Polish cavalry began their pursuit during the Mongols' feigned retreat, a rider shouted "Run! Run!" to the Polish forces, inducing Mieszko to withdraw the Opole contingent from the battle. This withdrawl led Henry to order his own reserves and cavalry into the battle.

The Mongols had much success in the battle by feigning their retreat. After the European knights detached from the main body of allied forces in pursuit of the fleeing Mongols, the invaders were able to separate the knights from the European infantry and defeat them one by one. Knights with heavy armor first had their horses shot out from under them, and were then slain by the lances of the Mongol heavy cavalry.

The Annals of Jan Długosz (see external links) also describes the battle, although it was written in the 15th century, not when the battle actually occurred. The army of Henry II was almost destroyed - Henry and Boleslav of Moravia were killed and estimates of casualties range from 10,000 to 40,000, essentially the entire army. The Templar Grand Master Ponce d'Aubon reported to King Louis IX of France that the military order lost nine brothers, three knights, two sergeants, and 500 men-at-arms. Mongol casualties are unknown; a perfect execution of the described tactics would have minimised losses but most reports state that their losses were higher than expected.

The Mongols cut the right ear off of each fallen European in order to count the dead; supposedly they filled nine sackfuls. Henry was struck down and beheaded while attempting to flee the battlefield with three bodyguards, and the Mongols paraded his head before the town of Legnica on a spear.

Conclusion

Despite the Mongol victory, this was the furthest west their forces reached. Wenceslaus of Bohemia fell back to gather reinforcements from Thuringia and Saxony, but was overtaken by the Mongol vanguard at Kłodzko. However, the Bohemian cavalry easily fended off the small Mongol detachment. As Baidar and Kaidu's orders had been to serve as a diversion, they turned away from Bohemia and Poland and went southward to join the troops of Batu and Subutai, who had crushed the Hungarians at Mohi. Once Subutai heard in 1242 that Ögedei Khan had died the previous year, however, the Mongol army retreated eastward, as Genghis Khan had made clear that all descendants of the Khagan (Grand Khan) should return to the Mongol capital of Karakorum for the kuriltai which would elect the next Khagan.

After Batu Khan returned from Mongolia, his relations with his cousins were so poor that not until the election of Möngke Khan did he again think about turning west, into Europe, but he died in 1255 before those plans could be put into motion. Led by Nogai Khan, the Mongols successfully raided Poland again in 1259 and unsuccessfully in 1287, but these later raids were only for plunder and not conquest. After the Mongols' retreat in 1241, Poland and Hungary were not seriously threatened again, although the Russian lands to their east remained under the Mongol yoke for the following centuries.

Further reading

• Amitai-Preiss, Reuven. The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1998
• Hildinger, Erik, Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia, 500 B.C. to A.D. 1700
• Morgan, David -- The Mongols, ISBN 0-631-17563-6
• Nicolle, David, -- The Mongol Warlords Brockhampton Press, 1998
• Reagan, Geoffry, The Guinness Book of Decisive Battles , Canopy Books, NY (1992)
• Saunders, J.J. -- The History of the Mongol Conquests, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1971, ISBN 0-8122-1766-7
• Soucek, Svatopluk -- A History of Inner Asia, Cambridge, 2000

External links

• The Annals of Jan Dlugosz - Sample Text
• Mongol Invasion of Europe in 1241

See also

• Battle of the Kalka River
• Battle of Mohi
• Golden Horde
• Mongol Empire
• Mongols
• Ögedei Khan
• Subutai