Customer Reviews

The Teutonic Knights: A Military History

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As a Latvian, the German Knights figured prominently in the history of the Latvian tribes. But, until I read this book, I had no clear understanding of the "German Knights" or the "Baltic Crusades."

Since this book is a military history of the Teutonic Knights, the author poses this in the Introduction. "Why a book on the military history of the Teutonic Knights? Why not earlier?...One answer is the best historians of the crusades have traditionally concentrated their attentions on the Holy Land; most medieval historians in recent decades have lacked much interest in military affairs; and amateur historians in the English-speaking world are not prepared to handle the many languages involved in studying Baltic and East Central European history....Another good answer, perhaps more fundamental, is that the English-speaking public was generally unaware that there had been crusades in the Baltic, and, moreover, for many years also lost interest in the medieval efforts to recover Jerusalem. No demand, hence no response by authors and publishers." page xi

I knew very little of the Teutonic Knights and the Swordbrothers. I knew, from my Latvian history Saturday school studies, that my ancestor Lett tribes/clans were Christianized by the sword. Because the Letts fought amongst themselves and did not seek unity, that is why they were absorbed in contrast to their fellow Balts, the Lithuanians. Before I read this book, I never really realized that the Pope had blessed a crusade against the heathen Balts. So, what happens with all of this activity? I was always under the impression that only German knights took part. That was not the case. Knights from Ireland, Scotland, England, Denmark and other places participated in converting the heathen.

Why did military campaigns take place in winter? In Lithuania, there were swamps and rivers. Knights and their horses could not navigate the Lithuanian area. When the water and ground was frozen, then the Knights moved out of Prussia into Lithuanian territory.

How did the Lithuanians resist the Order? Well, their leaders would "convert" to Christianity, in times of danger. Then when the danger passed, it was back to the pagan ways. When danger appeared again, it was time to be Christian. This went back and forth until the Lithuanians, once and foreall became Christians. Since Lithuanian nobility aligned itself with Poland, that is how Lithuania became one united body. Lithuania used its ties with Poland to counteract the push of the Order.

The Knights brought Christianity to the last Balt tribe/people, the Prussians. As a result of this and that the order was based in Prussia lead to the germanization of the Prussians. Old Prussian became a dead Baltic language.

The book is organized thus: 1 The Military Orders; 2 The Foundation of the Teutonic Order; 3 War in the Holy Land; 4 The Transylvanian Experiment; 5 The War against Paganism in Prussia; 6 The Crusade in Livonia; 7 Territorial Rivalries with Poland; 8 The Lithuanian Challenge; 9 The Conversion of Lithuania; 10 The Battle of Tannenberg; 11 The Long Decline and the End in the Baltic; 12 The End in Livonia; 13 Summary; Appendix A Major Figures in the History of the Teutonic Order; Appendix B The Grand Masters to 1525.

I would recommend this book, especially those readers, who have ancestors from Prussia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Estonia. This book gives light to the Crusades that "did" not take place in the Holy Land. I look forward to reading the author's next work.

This book does a good job of explaning the Teutonic Order to a modern audience, very much needed. The author, a professional historian, has set out to write a fairer history of the Teutonic Knights. They are best known for their defeats, Lake Peipus and Tannenberg, were their adversaries have been cast as the "good guys". Here he proves that history is so much more complex. He follows their history from the foundation of the order until they become secular landwoners in the fifteenth century. The order did not exist in a political vacuum: northern Europe was a hotbed of intrigue where the knights were just one part. The author carefully explains the complex politics surrounding the unification of Poland and the christianization of Prussia and Lithauinia. We also find out that there were hardly any teutonic knights present at the famed battle of Lake Peipus, and that the defeat at Tannenberg was not the death knell of the order: it was the political infighting in the order afterwards!
The order was not worse than any other of their contemporaries, oftentimes they were even more humane and civilized. As with all medieaval histories, we lack details. Something the reader just will have too live with.
I have some complaints: The maps seem to exist without any connection to the text, and then, the narrative just stops. The author just explains that there exists no research on the order's later activities in the Balkans. The order still exists (there were involved in the opposition against Hitler), but that is not mentioned. This should be remedied in future editions.

This author writes a scholarly and comprehensive history of the Teutonic knights. This book is packed with fact and helps destroy the myths around the undeserved reputation that the knights had acquired. The book is not an easy read; don't expect to finish this quick. I rated this book 4 stars because of its scholarly contributions, had it flowed a little easier I would have rated it a 5
Terry Tucker, Professor Military History, US Army, Ret, Richland, TX

There are a few books out there that briefly cover the Teutonic Knights and their campaigns, mostly their shorter history in the Holy Lands. And there is some reference to them in Prussia.

This book fills in many gaps that the average reader may have regarding the Teutonic Knights. The book traces the history of the Teutonic Knights, from their founding forward by their military campaigns in Eastern and Northern Europe.

Seeing the "A Military History" on the cover made me consider the content of the book and how other "military history" books have been rough reading. But I was very pleasantly surprised as I got into the material. There is much more here than just the medieval Military History.

This book is very extensive in the history it provides. It does a very good job at giving us the big picture of the areas of Prussia, Rus' (Russia) and the areas of Livonia and Lithuania. The author is fair in his depiction of the Teutonic Knights.

The book is professionally put together, with much more information than you would think. It is well thought through, nicely laid out with good cross referencing. For research purposes, it's very good. I recommend this book for the High School level reading and up. For interest, there is much that will hold your attention. medievalcrusadesbabe

I have very conflicted feelings towards this book. Mr. Urban does a good job of trying to depoliticize the history of the Teutonic Knights, a tough job indeed. He has favorite figures on both sides of the stuggle, and you never get the feeling that he's manipulating the past. Overall, the book gives an impression of being an unbiased report. The scholarship behind the work seems solid. The author does a good job of conveying his passion for the subject to the reader.

Those strengths are offset by significant weaknesses. The most significant weakness in this book is its organization. The chapters are organized by topic (One chapter dedicated to the conquest of Prussia, one to the conquest of Livonia, a few to the struggle with Lithuania, etc.) This makes the book very difficult for a newcomer to follow, as the topics are interrelated and aren't easily divided. Urban is constantly referring to people who he doesn't fully introduce into later chapters. One chapter will end in 1310, the next begins in 1210. This problem is compounded by the fact that he doesn't even maintain chronological order within his topics. It's difficult for a reader who is new to the topic to grasp the big picture, because you don't know what is going on in the other areas of the TK's realm.

This poor organization also enhances the other major problem with this book: Urban's tendency to name drop. Although this book is divided into territorial topics, the actual TK leadership seemed to be more fluid. Someone who was in Prussia at time A was likely to be in Livonia at time B. Urban will introduce a figure at time A (which is at page 50), and then name drop him at time B (which is at page 130). In between those times, Urban has covered 100 years of history in one area and introduced 35 more figures. By the time you get to point B you have forgotten who that man was. Urban drops his name, but you have to go back to the earlier chapter to determine who he was. What's even worse is that, at times, Urban will name drop the guy at point A and then not fully introduce him until point B, dozens of pages later. When you're dealing with dozens of people, many of whom have the same names, many more of whom have names that are alien looking to English speakers, and almost all of whom are obscure historical figures unfamiliar to U.S. readers, you have a situation where it really takes a few read throughs to fully understand what is going on.

I know that it wouldn't be perfect, but I think that this book would have been easier to read had it been organized chronologically rather than topically. Those uninitiated in the history of medieval Baltic Europe should look elsewhere. Those with some degree of familiarity with the topic might enjoy it.

The Teutonic Knights: A Military History is the true story of the Christian order of Teutonic Knights of central Europe during the medieval era. Covering roughly the 1200's through the 1500's, including the order's rise and fall, The Teutonic Knights examines both the order's strengths and its inequities, which have been to some degree exaggerated by propagandists, nationalists, secularists, and Protestants. A handful of black-and-white photographic plates illustrate this meticulously documented historical text, embellished with a bibliography and index. The Teutonic Knights brings the era and daily life alive, as surely as it illuminates power struggles between factions, Christian orders, noblemen, and nations, and is a superb contribution to medieval and military history shelves.

This is the first title I have read by William Urban, but I am thoroughly enjoying it. I was a little put off by some of the less-than-stellar reviews, but I am glad that I decided to read The Teutonic Knights anyway.

Urban's style is a tad crotchety, but witty, and not overly so. At first I was a little shocked, but I grew to enjoy his musings rather than become annoyed with them. There have been a few times that I had to reread passages as well because I couldn't believe what Urban had just stated. It's never over the top though.

I love medieval history, as well as German history, and have read several of the books that Urban mentions as references (The Northern Crusades, etc.). I never felt confused by the narrative and really enjoyed Urban's writing style. And as mentioned in other reviews, Urban does a very good job at "de-mythifying" the Teutonic Order as well as playing down nationalism.

Ultimately The Teutonic Knights is a great book on a fascinating subject. If you have a budding interest in the medieval period, Eastern European history, and military history, you will enjoy this title.

The Teutonic Knights was a medieval order of crusaders, active in Palestine, Transylvania and the Baltic region. The order achieved its most lasting success in the latter area. For centuries, the Teutonic Knights ruled a virtual "crusader state" in Northern Europe. At its height, this state controlled Prussia, Livonia and Estonia. The knights waged crusades against the pagan populations of these regions, forcing them to adopt Catholic Christianity, either through the force of arms or through political pressure. However, their powerful state also angered the neighbouring Christian kingdoms, most notably Poland, and the popes themselves. Another formidable foe was Lithuania, originally an expansive pagan kingdom (the last in Europe) which later converted to Christianity. Allied with the Poles, the Lithuanians defeated the Teutonic Knights during the famous battle of Tannenberg in 1410. The crusader state itself did linger on for another century, but now constantly on the defensive.

William Urban has written a dense, confusing and at times contradictory history of these medieval braves. The book is as impenetrable as a Baltic forest. The causal reader will soon be lost among all the pagan tribes, the feudal bickering, and the detailed description of just about every knightly raid ever undertaken. Had I not read a lighter book in Swedish on the Northern Crusades, I would have been completely lost!

The most interesting chapters are about pagan Lithuania, the poetry, art and architecture of the Teutonic Knights, and the so-called Reisen, a kind of manhunts undertaken by the European nobility in the Baltic regions during the 14th century. Urban regards both sides in the pagan-Catholic conflict as equally brutal, but on balance seems to believe that the knights were at least marginally better. By defeating and converting the heathen, they at least stopped piracy on the Baltic Sea and the widespread pagan-Muslim slave-trade in the area. The attempted Polish-Lithuanian conquest of crusader-controlled Prussia after the battle of Tannenberg seems to have been a veritable orgy of rape, pillage and wanton destruction.

A disappointment was that Urban says very little about how the Teutonic Knights went to sea and conquered the island of Gotland (today part of Sweden). I've heard several different versions of that event, but the issue is only mentioned in passing in this military history, which otherwise seems almost bizarrely detailed.

"The Teutonic Knights" is probably a necessary read for hard-line medieval history buffs, but personally it made my head spin. For the effort, however, I'll nevertheless give it three stars.

William Urban is an excellent historian. His efforts over the past several decades have helped illuminate the Crusades in Northeastern Europe in a way no other English-speaking writer has to date. But about this book...

I was fortunate to obtain a first edition copy of Urban's "The Prussian Crusade," and if not for my recent memory using his "The Teutonic Knights: A Military History," I would not have realized what I did. Whole subsections, if not whole sections, are lifted word for word from his older book "The Prussian Crusade" and used, with the veneer of fresh originality, in his more recently-published "The Teutonic Knights: A Military History." Whether this was a conscious effort on the part of the author or publisher, the fact remains- rather than an entirely "new" survey of the Teutonic Order in the Baltic, this is instead a regurgitation of already published material. One hates to find this in historical studies, but it needs to be said to provide intellectual honesty. William Urban's The Teutonic Knights: A Military History" is a book best left unbought in favor of his older, original works or in favor of other historians altogether.

Urban, an expert in Baltic and East European history, has given us a comprehensive account of the rise and fall of a great military order. Most importantly, he has convincingly demostrated that the Teutonic Knights, or more accurately the German Order, was a Roman Catholic organization, like many others, dedicated to helping the sick and advancing Christianity via the crusade and not some kind of twisted forerunner of Nazi Germany. He takes generations of so-called historians and political leaders to task for creating and perpetuating this myth which does not honestly study the order's history but rather foments ethnic hatreds between Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, and Russians. Urban's history may not be exciting enough for many critics but at least it is real and not mythic!