Original subtitles

(tense music)

- [Narrator] A land of mists and of mystery,

where the cross had yet to reach.

Beyond the pagan frontier of medieval Europe,

where the old gods confronted the new,

Christian Crusades, yet far from the deserts of Palestine.

A wilderness of forests, ice, and snow.

The Northern Crusades.

- The Crusades didn't only go east to the Holy Land,

they went northeast to the Baltic.

- [Narrator] Lost castles, last stands,

no quarter asked, nor given.

- It's a war with no holds barred.

- [Narrator] A war nearly two centuries long

fought by one of the most powerful military orders.

- One of the most important religious military orders.

- [Narrator] A savage war and an inhuman trade.

- These people had been slaves of the devil.

They are now the slaves of God.

(tense music continues)

- [Narrator] For God and for the empire,

they bore the cross of Christ.

The Brothers of the German Hospital of Saint Mary

who became the Order of the Teutonic Knights.

(dramatic music) (fire crackling)

The Black Cross of the Teutonic Knights is one of the icons

of the Christian Crusaders in the medieval period.

They were one of the major military orders

in the latter years of the Crusader era.

They came into being almost a century

after the taking of Jerusalem in the First Crusade

when the first of the new military orders were formed,

the Templars and the Hospitallers.

- The Teutonic Order is quite different

from either the Templars or the Hospitallers.

They did combine the Hospitaller and military functions

from an early time in their history.

- [Narrator] The Templars and Hospitallers recruited

from numerous nations across medieval Europe,

mostly in France, Italy, and England.

But the Teutonic Order was different.

- The Brothers of the German Hospital of Saint Mary.

The Teutonic Knights are the only order

that are known as a Teutonic Order, as a German order.

The others are known as French orders or whatever.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] The German order rose

to eventually become one of the most powerful

of the Middle Ages.

They grew into far more than just a military order.

They became virtually an independent autonomous state.

(dramatic music continues) (weapons clanging)

Their zenith was in the 15th century,

by which time the whole of Europe had changed

so much since the days of the original Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The written word, trade, and gunpowder

had brought new ideas, emergent nations,

and new alliances.

Inevitably, today the word Teutonic evokes images

of the worst of the 20th century.

The imagery and romanticized legends of the order

were appropriated by the Nazis to enhance the myth

of their Aryan heritage.

- It would be wrong to put into this period

some of the racist attitudes that developed later,

and which are sadly still around.

It was not like that.

On the other hand, the German knights,

and they were mostly Germans,

did see themselves as superior,

but this was on the basis of culture

and religion and so on.

(machinery whirring)

- [Narrator] During the Second World War,

places associated with this mythical Aryan past

became targets for the enemies

and eventual overthrowers of the Third Reich.

And so much of what remained

of the original Teutonic Order was lost.

It's the job of professional historians

to see back beyond the associations of the 20th century,

to find what factual evidence remains

and build up an unbiased picture of this period

in European history,

especially in the order's historical heartland.

- Teutonic Order created a very modern

and rich structure here in Prussia, in the Baltic region,

as a eternal enemy of the Polish state,

of the Polish kingdom in the Middle Ages.

And this history was so fascinating,

the wars, the battles, diplomacy, politics.

So when I decided what to do in my life,

it was simple for me.

To be a historian of the Teutonic Order,

to know its history

and to explain why so small group of knights

built so powerful state in medieval Europe.

(tense music)

- [Narrator] It's a vast and complex area of study.

But historians now are bringing dedicated research

to shed new light on the real story of the Teutonic Knight.

The order's origins lay in the Third Crusade.

Through the 1180s, the Muslim leader, Saladin,

had steadily regained most of

what the First Crusaders had established in Palestine

just over 80 years before,

including the holy city of Jerusalem.

(tense music) (weapons clanging)

At the Battle of Hattin,

Saladin had also virtually destroyed the main force

of the original military order, the Knights Templar.

In 1189, the three most powerful monarchs

in Western Europe set out

to retake the holy places for Christianity.

Richard I, the Lionheart, of England,

Philip II of France,

and Frederick Barbarossa, emperor of Germany.

The Crusade reversed many of Saladin's gains,

though Jerusalem itself was not recaptured.

Worse, Frederick Barbarossa died

before he even reached the Holy Land,

causing many of his leaderless soldiers to return home.

But not all.

Some continued on to honor their commitment

and their dead emperor.

- You have the survivors of the German part

of the Third Crusade reach the Holy Land

and attach themselves to the French and to the English,

because they are too few

and now too disorganized, too vulnerable

to really operate on their own.

It is they who become the Teutonic Knights

after the Crusade.

- [Narrator] In the newly recaptured Crusader city of Acre,

these knights established themselves

as the Brothers of the German Hospital of Saint Mary.

(ominous music)

From the end of the 12th century and through the 13th,

the brothers received sanction from the Pope

and thus became the Teutonic Knights.

Like the Templars and Hospitallers before them,

the order created its own rule,

the guide and laws by which its brothers had to abide.

And in this lies a factor that helps historians today

in researching the Teutonic Knights,

by comparison with the other two major military orders.

- They were a much more literate order than the other two.

Perhaps because they started off using the vernacular.

- [Narrator] Being almost entirely of one nationality,

the Teutonic Order wrote down its rules and histories

in vernacular German, the language of the everyday brothers,

rather than the more exclusive language

of the clergy and papacy, Latin.

- Although the other two start off

with their documents in Latin

and then translate them into the vernacular,

the Teutonic Order appear

to have started with material in the vernacular

and then translated it into Latin for wider distribution.

So they produced more material

than either the Templars or the Hospitallers did

for their own brothers to read,

saints lives and histories.

- [Narrator] The Templars never wrote down their own history

and the Hospitallers legend made outrageous claims.

The Teutonic Knights, by contrast, were more realistic.

- They didn't make up the myths like the Hospitallers did.

They stuck to recent history.

So in that respect,

they come across as being quite a rational order,

rather than one that invents miracles,

although their stories do have miracles in them.

But they feel like an order

much more has their feet on the ground.

(tense music)

- [Narrator] The city of Acre was the capital

of the Crusader state

for almost exactly 100 years until, once more,

resurgent Muslim forces recaptured most of the Holy Land.

Acre was the last city to fall.

Most of the remaining members of the other military orders,

including the Templars and Hospitallers,

went down fighting on the wall,

but not the Teutonic Order

with their perhaps more rational ethos.

(tense music continues)

- All the military orders who existed in Acre

at the time of the final siege and the fall of Acre,

they all fought and the city fell.

We know, however, that the Teutonic Knights' headquarters,

which they called their convent,

actually negotiated its surrender

to the victorious Muslims, the Mamluk army,

which had broken in.

And the survivors left.

So in a way, the Teutonic Knights went out

with a bit of a whimper, rather than a bang.

However, once Acre had fallen

and the survivors had reached Cyprus,

which is where most of them went,

they all had the same problem.

What to do now?

(tense music)

- [Narrator] All the military orders had to reassess

and look for new purpose, new frontiers

where they could defend Christendom or expand it.

For the Teutonic Order,

the distant East had been reluctantly abandoned.

Its new goal lay much closer to its homelands in Germany.

- The Crusades were not just a phenomena of the Middle East.

Crusading didn't just go east to the Holy Land.

It obviously went south into what is now Spain and Portugal.

But the most of dramatic of these other Crusades

were the Northern Crusades in the Baltic.

(dramatic music) (weapons clanging)

- The Northern Crusades, which took place around the Baltic,

were concentrating on converting the pagan peoples

around the Baltic to Christianity,

'cause they hadn't been converted to Christianity,

and taking over valuable territory.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] The Baltic region in the Middle Ages,

relative to the parts of Europe it bordered,

was a wilderness.

Settlement had changed relatively little since Viking times.

Society was tribal and clan based,

yet running through the region

were important trading routes.

From the Baltic Sea all the way along the great rivers

to the Black Sea and far beyond,

furs, ivory, silver, gold.

The neighboring and expanding kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden,

Poland, and the German Empire had all made inroads

into the Baltics, at least since the 12th century.

The Christian cross was a convenient banner.

- They're not trying to recover territory

that had been Christian.

They're trying to take over territory that wasn't Christian

and, they say, win it for Christ.

Or at least the Latin church will take it over.

Or to be a little bit more blunt,

the merchants of the Baltic area will take it over

because these areas opened the door

into the vast trade routes of Central Asia.

- [Narrator] For the military orders and the church,

what made this easier to contemplate was

that the Baltic peoples, so close to Western Europe,

were still far from Christian.

- Paganism survived in Northeastern Europe

for a very, very long time.

Well into the 14th century.

The eastern shoreline of the Baltic,

that's what's now the Baltic states,

but also Finland,

this was pagan territory

well into the 12th century for all of it.

And then it becomes the new Crusade frontier.

So the Crusade idea, as it were,

got a second wind, a second life in the Baltic.

- [Narrator] The distant Holy Land was forgotten

with so many unrepentant pagan states so close

to the European heartland.

And so the Crusading idea was reborn.

(dramatic music)

- The Northern Crusades went on for much, much longer

than the Holy Land Crusades did.

They became a way of life, almost self perpetuating.

And in fact, the Northern Crusades went on for so long

that they structured the whole

of the Eastern Baltic around them.

So what exists today, the states which exist today

and the tensions which still exist today,

can be traced back to the Northern Crusades.

(somber music)

- [Narrator] One state in the region did not survive

to this day as a sovereign nation.

When Teutonic Knights were aiming

to expand towards the Baltic,

Prussia lay directly in their sights.

It's now associated with Germany,

but in the 13th century, Prussia was ferociously independent

and it bordered Christian Poland.

- The Prussians, the original Prussians, are not Germans.

They're another Baltic people.

The Poles didn't seem to be able to cope

with these very fierce pagans on their northern frontier,

so they invited in Western knights to help them.

The Teutonic Knights filled this gap.

- The Poles would've liked

to have got their hands on Prussia.

They brought the Teutonic Order in to help them,

which possibly was a mistake.

- [Narrator] All the main military orders faced the problem

of being dependent on existing nations.

(ominous music)

For the Templars, always under the eye of the French kings,

it led to their downfall.

The Hospitallers, perhaps, learned from this

and based themselves on the Island of Rhodes.

Prussia was the opportunity the Teutonic Knights

had been waiting for

to establish their own territorial state.

- Start from scratch if you can.

This they were able to do in the Baltic area

by getting a castle, one castle,

from the King of Poland because he needed their help.

But on the agreement,

only on the agreement that they were independent

in this one castle.

And it was from this one castle

that the whole of the Teutonic Knights' state,

which was quite big eventually, grew.

(tense music)

- [Narrator] The fortress of Kulm

was on the Polish frontier facing the pagan Prussians.

The Teutonic Knights took over the castle

and began an extraordinary period

in the history of the military orders.

Over more than 100 years, the Teutonic Order built up

and consolidated what became virtually

an independent medieval state.

Far enough from the German emperor

and even further from the Pope

that they could do as they pleased.

(tense music continues)

Some of what remains of the Teutonic state

can still be seen across the modern-day Baltic countries.

A state required a capital.

And in modern-day Poland, Malbork Castle is a reminder

of the Teutonic Order's strength and influence.

For any Teutonic warrior who had seen the Holy Land,

he would've thought the warfare

in the Baltic drastically different.

- The environment, the ecology of the area was so different

that you can imagine warriors who had some experience

of the Middle Eastern Crusades having a certain mindset.

Finding themselves in the Northern Crusades,

trying to use this method of warfare,

and then having very quickly to modify it

because that world is totally, totally different.

(ominous music)

- [Narrator] We have an image of Crusaders fighting in armor

in the arid terrain of the Middle East.

Water supplies for armies was a constant problem,

and the military orders

of the Kingdom of Jerusalem spent decades learning how

to campaign in such conditions.

- Transfer this to the Baltic area.

There are large areas not only of marsh and forest,

but also of heathland,

relatively dry, relatively open.

That's the bit you can get through,

but you only have to go relatively few kilometers,

you'll find yourself in another forest

and then you have to hack your way through it.

You can't really make a road,

because by the time you come back

to do a similar campaign the following year,

it's all overgrown again.

So a large part of these raiding campaigns

were just hacking your way through the undergrowth.

- [Narrator] Their opponents too were different

to those the Crusaders faced in the Holy Land,

where war was propagated on both sides by knights

or at least nobles, and professional soldiers.

- Wars in Prussia and Livonia

were against an enemy who didn't play

by the same sort of rules as the Arabs and the Turks.

The Turks and the Arabs were from the same sort

of warrior background.

When you're fighting against the pagan Prussians,

they are warriors, but they don't mind burning

their captives alive on their horses, for example.

And the Muslims wouldn't do that.

So it's more of a war with no holds barred

and a much more violent war than that

in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Crusader states.

(tense music)

- [Narrator] In Palestine,

warfare had been dominated by cavalry.

The military orders came into being as horsemen

who could protect the pilgrim routes from Western Europe,

ranging long distances along the frontiers,

protecting against enemy raiders.

In Prussia, though, this role was reversed.

- In the Baltic, the kind of warfare

that they were conducting

was really just a development of raiding.

A classic strategy of the Middle Ages

was what was known as a chevauchee,

which is like a flying column of cavalry

and its supports used to raid

and put pressure on a population.

And of course that's what happened

in the Baltic states a lot.

(tense music)

- [Narrator] The chevauchee was used to great effect

by English troops during the Hundred Years' War

where they would penetrate

for miles through enemy-held territory,

plundering and causing chaos as they went.

For the Teutonic raiders,

it was the ideal way to destabilize Prussia

and to gradually take it over.

But it also brought another commodity

beyond just looted food or silver.

- This is a form of economic warfare.

You're destroying the enemy's crops,

you're capturing their livestock,

you're capturing their people.

So, in fact, taking captives as slaves

was very, very important for both sides.

So we have these Christian knights,

members of a military order, on slave raids.

(ominous music)

- [Narrator] It's a mistake to think warfare is ever clean

when it's being done under a religious banner,

and not just the Teutonic Order,

but several neighboring Christian kingdoms.

For us, looking back now, it's even harder to accept.

- The Northern Crusades look much more like colonialism

than the Crusades to the Holy Land

because those that go there are going to trade

and take slaves to exploit the area.

They did settle there.

They did set up holy sites there to bring in pilgrims,

but it's not land that's traditionally been Christian.

And the emphasis was on getting resources out

for the benefit of Germany, Denmark, Sweden.

(reverent music)

- [Narrator] Since the Knights Templar

became the first military order,

the technology of war had also changed considerably.

- Technology and technological advantage and superiority

was as key to medieval warfare as it is to modern warfare.

(reverent music)

- [Narrator] In the early days of the Kingdom of Jerusalem,

knights fought dress little different to Viking warriors

with virtually the same weapons.

- The Teutonic Knights of the early 15th century

were unrecognizable for the original Templars,

and you are talking about people with full plate armor,

exactly the kind of armor

that was worn at Agincourt, for example,

and heavily armored horses as well,

conducting warfare usually against

much more likely armored opposition.

- [Narrator] As with all the military orders,

knights, the main armored soldiers

who comprised the Teutonic Order's core battlefield troops,

were relatively few in number.

(tense music)

Yet in the Northern Crusades,

the armored knight on horseback could never dominate

in the terrain of the Baltic.

They needed the support of infantry.

- Who were these infantry?

Well, some of them were sergeants,

brother sergeants, others were mercenaries.

Others were low-status associates of the order.

There were also levies

from the towns under the control of the orders.

- [Narrator] But one kind of weapon

gave infantry even more killing power.

(weapons clattering) (tense music)

- In the 15th century,

there's no doubt that infantry becomes stronger

in relation to cavalry,

and because they possess more missile weapons

and they're capable of standing their ground.

- [Narrator] Here again, technology was on the side

of the Teutonic Order.

- This was not just their castle building activity

and the speed and effectiveness of that,

it was also things like siege machines,

and, almost above all else, crossbows.

(tense music)

- [Narrator] English longbowmen

had proved time and again,

that disciplined infantry armed with missile weapons

could dominate the medieval battlefield.

Yet the longbow took years of training to master,

whereas the crossbow was simpler to use.

It was a leveler that almost anyone could learn

to use relatively quickly,

like the firearms of future centuries.

- To understand the role of the crossbow-armed infantry,

it might be good to see them

as a sort of early form of musketeer.

These are not repeating weapons.

Takes time to reload, span, aim, shoot.

So you need teamwork.

You have a front rank, you have loaders.

It's also not like longbow archery,

and certainly not like the archery techniques

of Asia and the Middle East

where they are shooting rapidly,

and they shoot and they shoot and they shoot.

It's not like that with a crossbow.

It's one aimed shot, punchy, hugely powerful,

takes time to reload.

- [Narrator] Prussia was steadily overwhelmed

and its lands came under Teutonic control.

It was a process of penetrating as far as they could

through the Prussian interior,

then establishing small forts,

bases from which they could operate.

These were often in remote areas

with building materials in short supply.

- The first castles, if they were in an important location,

would then be rebuilt with more permanent materials.

Sometimes stone, but most typically of brick.

Because this is a low-lying marshy area,

you don't find much good stone.

- [Narrator] Brick isn't normally thought of

as being a medieval material,

even though it had been around since Roman times,

and perhaps still less for building castles.

But bricks could be either made in country

or transported quickly on the rivers.

It meant forts could be thrown up quickly

by teams of bricklayers, almost like sandbag defenses

in 20th-century war.

(somber music)

- Those forts and castles gradually grew

in scale until they reached the size

of the magnificent remnants

that we have now in Poland and elsewhere.

(tense music)

- [Narrator] It took many years and huge resources,

but Malbork Castle, the Teutonic Knights' capital,

was steadily built up

and expanded into one of the greatest fortresses

of any of the military orders.

- Yes, Malbork is the biggest castle, brick castle,

in the world.

The Teutonic Order started

construction works at the end of the 13th century

and finished in the first half of the 15th century.

So more than 120 years.

More than 6 million bricks were used to build this castle.

It's about 20 hectares,

and this castle in the Middle Ages

was never taken by the enemy forces.

- [Narrator] It's staggering to think though,

that just 75 years ago,

this exceptional castle lay in ruins.

(somber music)

As the second World War drew to a close,

Malbork castle was used as a stronghold

by Nazi German troops.

It overlooked the railway the Germans were using

to evacuate troops from the Russian front.

This and the castle's associations

with the Nazis' Teutonic propaganda meant

that the Red Army spared little thought

for Malbork's value to posterity.

But since the war,

a huge project saw the rebuilding of Malbork

to something like its original architectural grandeur.

Archeologists and historians worked together

to interpret what they found in the process.

Karol Polejowski is a curator at Malbork Castle.

- The Teutonic Order engineers took the decision

to build the first part of the castle, this part.

- [Narrator] He's exploring here the vaulted chambers

beneath the high castle,

the first parts built by the Teutonic Knight engineers.

- We are at the moment

in the oldest part of the castle in Malbork.

The construction works started here

about 1278, '79.

- [Narrator] Even this far underground,

the walls have been partially restored.

But this reveals detail of some

of the original building materials

- We see here the original stones from the 13th century,

original bricks from the same period.

But here we can see the modern bricks

from the the 20th century

used during the reconstruction works.

- [Narrator] The Teutonic Order didn't want Malbork

to be simply a stronghold.

They were a religious order, so it was also their convent.

The entrance to the castle's church,

the order's cathedral,

contained a reminder that as soldiers of God,

their original spiritual home still lay

in the far-off Holy Land.

- This is the Golden Gate,

the main entrance to the Teutonic Order's church

in the Castle of Malbork.

I am of the opinion that this gate, Golden Gate,

this is the gate to the golden Jerusalem.

For the Teutonic Knights,

it was very important to connect their new capital,

convent, capital castle with the Jerusalem.

Because the Teutonic Order,

it was the Order of the Saint Mary of the Germans

in Jerusalem,

- [Narrator] Only members of the Teutonic

and military orders or important churchmen

or dignitaries could pass here

into the Church of Saint Mary,

the main church in the Teutonic Order's state in Prussia.

- This is the most important place

in the Teutonic Order castle in Malbork.

And this is the most important church in the Teutonic Order.

The first construction works were done in the 1280s

of the 13th century.

And during the 14th century,

the church was richly decorated.

- [Narrator] Very little survived the Second World War

or the Red Army's occupation in the aftermath.

But it's thought that the order's holy relics

were stored or displayed here,

including a tangible link to the crucifixion itself.

- The most precious, the most important,

was the fragment, the piece, of the True Cross.

We know that the Teutonic Order received it

from the King of France in the 70s, 80s of the 14th century.

It was so important to have relics in the churches

because the people need to contact with the saints,

with the objects connected with the Passion of the Christ.

And it was important to collect

for pilgrims who arrived here in the 14th

and 15th century.

- [Narrator] Pilgrims were vital to the order,

as they brought with them money in the form of donations.

And in return, the brothers showed off the order's relics.

(somber music)

They included nobles from across Europe,

including in 1390, Henry Bolingbroke,

future King Henry the IV of England.

The raison d'etre of the order, as they saw it,

was holy war,

and pilgrims brought more than just their money.

- Teutonic Order is known also as a military organization.

We can see here two long swords

from the first half of the 14th century.

- [Narrator] These swords were found nearby the castle,

and they bear the telltale inscriptions

of religious warriors.

- This sword is very interesting

because we can see here the Jerusalem cross.

This is the symbol of the Crusades.

Crusades, of course, to Palestine.

But in the 14th century,

the knights coming here from Western Europe

were Crusaders too.

They fought in the name of Christ against the pagans,

against the Lithuanians.

- [Narrator] Lithuania was the next country

that the Teutonic Order coveted and invaded.

(soldiers shouting) (metal clattering)

Like the Prussians,

the Lithuanians too were Baltic pagans.

Their land as well was of wilderness,

even further from Western Europe.

But beyond lay the trade routes to Russia and to Asia.

(dramatic music)

The distances were greater,

and so one kind of transport became even more important.

- A striking feature of the Teutonic Knights

and their campaigns in the Baltic

was how they used rivers in order to move more rapidly.

(tense music)

- The main rivers of the Baltic states area,

Northern Poland, were, and to some extent,

remain major arteries of trade.

At the time of the Northern Crusades,

they were also major arteries of warfare,

raiding, counter-raiding,

supplying your forces in the field.

In winter, the rivers freeze, even the big ones.

So you end up with a smooth, icy,

reasonably accessible route

from where you are deep into the enemy territory.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] The order pushed north and east from Prussia,

and historians and archeologists

can now trace the route they took.

(metal clanking)

- That is why most of the castles which survive,

the locations were on rivers.

They're not just scattered around.

This was to secure the rivers,

secure crossing points of the rivers,

secure junctions of rivers.

These castles were put in places with great thought.

- [Narrator] But some of the castles the order built

in Lithuania are more than just ruined.

Trakai Castle was built by the Teutonic Knights

and has survived intact.

Today, it's one of Lithuania's

most important heritage sites.

Like Malbork, it was built from stone and brick,

and it was both a stronghold

and an administrative center for the order.

The campaign lasted decades.

The fighting was bitter, bloody,

and, above all for the Teutonic Knights, expensive.

They needed a breakthrough.

In the 1380s, the order launched an offensive

that led to what one historian now regards

as the possible beginning of the end

for the Northern Crusades.

In 1384, the Teutonic Knights recaptured a castle

at Kaunas in what's now Central Lithuania.

The confluence of the two rivers here,

the Neris and the Nemunas,

makes the site strategically vital.

Control this spot and you control movement

to and from the Baltic Sea on two axes

for hundreds of miles inland.

Both sides knew this was a position they had to hold.

The order immediately began rebuilding the defenses,

while the Lithuanian leader, Grand Duke Vytautas,

set about laying siege to try to take the castle

before it was completed.

The Teutonic Knights called the new stronghold

after their patron figure, the Virgin Mary.

Marienwerder.

Its exact site has been lost for centuries.

The peninsula on which it stood

has been fought over many times since.

The partially ruined Kaunas Castle

that still stands today dates

from the period after Marienwerder,

and the remains of earlier fortifications can

also still be seen.

It's a confusing puzzle of battlefield archeology.

Kaunas historian Vytenis Almonaitis

has researched the matter for many years.

(Vytenis speaking in foreign language)

- [Narrator] 20 years later,

when Vytautas turned the tables

and besieged the Teutonic Knights' Marienwerder,

the fight was no less bloody.

(somber music)

The siege opened with hails of missile fire

from both defenders and besiegers.

Both sides used traditional siege engines

and, notably, many new gunpowder weapons.

The Teutonic Knights rained crossbow bolts

on the Lithuanians,

but this would be a battle settled

by a savage artillery duel.

(dramatic music)

A chronicle describes

that the Lithuanians lay great store in a large trebuchet

which hammered down huge stone balls

on the incomplete brick walls.

The Teutonic gun commander responded

and himself laid the shot which destroyed the trebuchet.

His victory was brief.

(explosion booms)

Commander was beheaded by Lithuanian shot.

The Teutonic Knights fought on a while longer,

but in the end, they were forced to surrender the castle.

The Grand Duke was victorious and became Vytautas the Great.

The castle of Marienwerder disappeared from history,

until perhaps now.

(Vytenis speaking in foreign language)

(somber music)

- [Narrator] Time and tides mean

that the river banks here are different now

than in the late 14th century.

It's likely there was a small island or natural cove,

which the order exploited for its castle.

The place would be ideal for reinforcement from its ships,

which likely brought in every single brick used

to build the defenses.

The low water in 2015 revealed clues.

(Vytenis speaking in foreign language)

(tense music)

- [Narrator] The Battle of Marienwerder is perhaps

the greatest Lithuanian victory.

Never again would the Teutonic Knights

hold the rivers here at Kaunas.

Never again would they penetrate as far east into Lithuania.

Within the German Empire and the papacy,

questions were asked of the order

and its seemingly endless war in the Baltic.

- By the time you get to the late 14th century

with the conversion of the big powerful Duchy of Lithuania

to Christianity, there's no more pagans to fight.

But the Teutonic Order is still there,

and it will be there for several more centuries.

So what's it for?

Its raison d'etre seems to have disappeared.

Its main initial raison d'etre has disappeared.

No more pagans to fight.

- [Narrator] Just over 20 years later,

some 50 miles west of Kaunas,

the fate of the order was sealed.

(weapons clattering)

The Germans called it Tannenberg.

The Poles, Grunwald.

To the Lithuanians, Zalgiris.

Teutonic troops faced

an opposing allied Lithuanian and Polish army.

- The Teutonic Knights overreached themselves

and were destroyed at the Battle of Tannenberg

by a combinations of Poles and Lithuanians and so on.

But that was really a political misjudgment

as much as a military failing.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] The Teutonic army was defeated.

It was a crushing victory for the Lithuanians and Poles,

the greatest ever inflicted

on the Christian military order.

- The end of the Teutonic Order is at the hands

of fellow Christians.

(somber music)

- [Narrator] In 1929, the Teutonic Knights

as a military order were once and for all dissolved.

Yet the order remains today

as a charitable organization in many countries.

With the benefit of hindsight and history

it can now perhaps be seen in perspective.

- I think that the Teutonic Order is still important

in the religious life of the people in Western Europe.

For Polish people,

Teutonic Order is not only a eternal enemy.

Now we can say that Teutonic Order

was a element of the medieval life in Europe.

(somber music continues)

(dramatic music)