Battle of Durbe 1260
The battle of Durbe, fought on 13 July 1260 on the plain near the Curonian town of Durbe (modern Durbe, in Latvia), was a major defeat for the Teutonic Order in the southern Baltic. The combined forces of the Teutonic Order and the Livonian branch, on the one side, and the Samogitians, supported by Curonians and a contingent of Pskov Russians, on the other, met in a pitched battle that ended in the destruction of much of the Order’s field army in Livonia. The Landmeister of Livonia, Burchard von Hornhausen, was killed, and a substantial number of knight-brothers were killed or captured. The battle was the prelude to the great Prussian uprising of 1260–1274, and it marked a serious setback in the Order’s Baltic enterprise.
The Background of the Samogitian Campaign
The Teutonic Order’s interest in Samogitia — the territory between the lower Niemen and the lower Dvina, in what is now central Lithuania — was, by the late 1250s, an extension of the Order’s broader interest in the southern Baltic. The Samogitians, a pagan Baltic people related to the Lithuanians, had resisted Christianisation more effectively than the Prussians to the south, and the Order’s attempts to extend its control over the Samogitian territory had been a source of intermittent conflict for several decades.
The Order’s principal strategy in this theatre was the construction of a chain of frontier castles, supported by annual summer Reisen — raids into Samogitian and Lithuanian territory — designed to weaken the pagan resistance. The Samogitians were, in the military sense, a formidable opponent: their lightly-equipped cavalry, supported by infantry fighting in the broken terrain of the Samogitian forests, was well-suited to the defence of the region, and the Order’s heavy cavalry was, in the Samogitian theatre, at a significant disadvantage.
The Russian Alliance
The Samogitian campaign of 1258–1260 was, in part, a consequence of a Russian-Samogitian rapprochement. The Russian principalities of Novgorod and Pskov had, since the battle of Lake Peipus in 1242, been at peace with the Teutonic Order, but the political situation in the Russian north was, in the late 1250s, in flux. The Mongol invasions of Eastern Europe had, by 1258, brought the Russian principalities into a tributary relationship with the Mongol Empire, and the Russian princes were, accordingly, looking for opportunities to assert their independence.
The Russian-Samogitian rapprochement of the late 1250s was an anti-Teutonic alliance. The Russian principalities supplied the Samogitians with military assistance in the form of cavalry, in exchange for Samogitian support for Russian commercial interests in the southern Baltic. The rapprochement was, for the Teutonic Order, a serious strategic problem.
The Battle
The Teutonic Order’s response to the rapprochement was a major campaign in the Samogitian theatre, planned by the Landmeister of Livonia, Burchard von Hornhausen. The Order’s forces were drawn from the Livonian branch, with a substantial force of knight-brothers, supported by secular knights, Turcopoles, and a number of Curonian auxiliaries. The Order’s German allies in the southern Baltic also supplied substantial forces.
The two armies met on the plain near Durbe on 13 July 1260. The Order’s army, formed up in the conventional Latin order with the knight-brothers in the centre, opened with a charge by the knight-brothers and the Order’s German secular knights. The Teutonic charge, in the customary manner, broke through the Samogitian centre and engaged the Pskov Russian cavalry in the rear of the Samogitian line. The Pskov Russian contingent, however, held firm, and the Teutonic charge was halted. The turning point of the battle came when the Curonian auxiliaries on the Order’s left flank, who had been supplied by the bishopric of Courland, suddenly changed sides and attacked the Order’s flank.
The Order’s army collapsed. The knight-brothers in the centre were surrounded and cut down. The Landmeister of Livonia, Burchard von Hornhausen, was killed. A substantial number of knight-brothers were killed or captured. The surviving Teutonic forces retreated, in considerable disorder, towards the nearest Order fortress.
The Consequences
The battle of Durbe was a major setback for the Teutonic Order in the Baltic, but it was not, in the institutional sense, a catastrophe. The Order’s Livonian branch, although severely weakened, was not destroyed. The Order’s principal territorial base, in Prussia, was not directly affected by the defeat.
The battle was, however, the prelude to a much more serious crisis. The news of the Order’s defeat at Durbe reached Prussia in the late summer of 1260, and it was, in significant part, the catalyst for the great Prussian uprising of 1260–1274, in which the Prussian tribes revolted against the Order’s authority. The Order’s position in Prussia was, in the early years of the uprising, very seriously threatened, and the Order was on the defensive in both of its principal Baltic theatres.
The Order’s response was, successful. The Order’s position in Livonia was gradually reconstructed, in the 1260s and 1270s, by renewed crusading from the German lands, the construction of new fortresses, and the exploitation of the divisions between the Baltic peoples. The Order’s Baltic enterprise was, in the following decades, continued with renewed vigour, and the Order’s Baltic state was, by the early fourteenth century, the dominant political entity of the region.
Sources
- Biskup, Marian, and Gerard Labuda. Dzieje zakonu krzyżackiego w Prusach. Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Morskie, 1986.
- Boockmann, Hartmut. Der Deutsche Orden: Zwölf Kapitel aus seiner Geschichte. Munich: Beck, 1981.
- Ekdahl, Sven. Die Schlacht bei Tannenberg 1410. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2010.
Related Reading
For the wider context of the Order’s Baltic enterprise, see the article on the Northern Crusades and the article on the battle on the ice of 1242. For the parent context, see the History of the Teutonic Knights. The Livonian theatre is treated in detail under the Livonian branch and the Livonian Confederation. The Prussian state that emerged from the crisis of 1260 is examined under the Teutonic state in Prussia.