At this, Count Wende, a man grave in years and wisdom, said:
“Truly, my words have already been mocked here—and mocked by those who will likely flee from this field where I shall fall (and here he looked at Werner von Tetlingen)—but nonetheless, I will say what my conscience and love for the Order command. It is not courage the Poles lack, but, as I know, the king expects envoys of peace until the very end.”
Werner von Tetlingen said nothing, only snorted with contemptuous laughter, but the Master too found Wende’s words unpleasant, so he spoke:
“Is it time now to think of peace? We have another matter to discuss.”
“It is always time for God’s work,” replied von Wende.
But the cruel Komtur of Człuchów, Henryk, who had sworn to have two naked swords carried before him until he stained them in Polish blood, turned his fat, sweating face to the Master and cried out with terrible anger:
“Death is dearer to me than shame! Even if I stand alone, I will strike at the entire Polish army with these swords.”
Ulrich frowned slightly.
“You speak against obedience,” he said.
Then, to the Komturs:
“Counsel only on how to draw the enemy from the forest.”
So they advised variously, until finally the Komturs and the foremost knightly guests favored the opinion of Gersdorf: to send two heralds to the king with the announcement that the Master was sending him two swords and challenging the Poles to mortal combat, and if the field was too small for them, he would withdraw his army somewhat to enlarge it.
The king had just ridden down from the lakeshore and gone to the left wing among the Polish banners, where he was to knight a whole throng of warriors, when suddenly word was given him that two heralds were riding from the Krzyżak army.
King Władysław’s heart beat with hope:
“They come with a just peace!”
“God grant it,” replied the clergy.
The king sent for Witold, while the heralds, unhurried, approached the camp.
In the bright sunlight they were clearly seen riding on huge warhorses covered with caparisons: one bore on his shield the imperial black eagle on a gold field, the other, who was the herald of the Duke of Szczecin, a griffin on a white field. The ranks parted before them, and they, dismounting, stood after a moment before the great king and, bowing their heads slightly to show him honor, delivered their message:
“Master Ulrich,” said the first herald, “challenges your majesty, lord, and Prince Witold to mortal battle, and to stir your courage, which you evidently lack, sends you these two naked swords.”
Having said this, he laid the swords at the king’s feet. Jasko Mążyk of Dąbrowa translated his words to the king, but scarcely had he finished when the second herald, with the griffin on his shield, stepped forward and spoke thus:
“Master Ulrich also commanded us to announce to you, lord, that if the field is too narrow for battle, he will withdraw his troops to give you room, so that you do not languish in the thickets.”
Jasko Mążyk again translated his words, and silence fell, only in the king’s retinue the knights began to grind their teeth quietly at such insolence and insult.
Jagiello’s last hopes dissolved like smoke. He had expected an embassy of accord and peace, but instead it was an embassy of pride and war.
So, raising his tear-filled eyes upward, he replied thus:
“Swords we have enough, yet I accept these as an omen of victory sent to me by God Himself through your hands. And the field of battle He will also appoint—to whose justice I now appeal, lodging my complaint against my wrongs and your iniquity and pride—amen.”
And two great tears flowed down his sunburned cheeks.
Meanwhile, knightly voices in the retinue began to call:
“The Krzyżak are retreating. They’re giving us the field!”
The heralds departed, and after a moment they were seen again riding up the hill on their huge horses, gleaming in the sunlight from the silks they wore over their armor.
The Polish forces emerged from the forest and thickets in orderly battle formation. At the front stood the so-called “foremost” squadron, composed of the most terrible knights; behind it the main squadron; and behind the main squadron, the infantry and hired men. This created two long lanes between the squadrons, along which Zyndram of Maszkowice and Witold galloped. The latter, bare-headed, in splendid armor, resembled a sinister star or a flame driven by the wind.
The knights drew breath and settled more firmly in their saddles.
The battle was about to begin.
Meanwhile, the Master gazed at the royal armies emerging from the forest.
He looked long at their vastness, at the wings spread like those of a giant bird, at the rainbow of banners stirred by the wind, and suddenly his heart tightened with some unfamiliar feeling. Perhaps he saw with the eyes of his soul heaps of corpses and rivers of blood. Not fearing men, perhaps he feared God, who already held the scales of victory on high in the heavens.
For the first time it occurred to him what a terrible day had dawned, and for the first time he felt what immense responsibility he had taken upon his shoulders.
So his face paled, his lips began to tremble, and abundant tears flowed from his eyes. The Komturs looked with astonishment at their leader.
“What ails you, lord?” asked Count Wende.
“Truly, this is a fitting time for tears!” exclaimed the cruel Henryk, Komtur of Człuchów.
And the Grand Komtur, Kuno Lichtenstein, pursed his lips and said:
“I openly rebuke you for this, Master, for now you should raise the hearts of the knights, not weaken them. Indeed, we have not seen you thus before.”
But the Master, despite all efforts, let tears stream continually into his black beard, as if someone else were weeping within him.
Finally he regained some composure and, turning stern eyes on the Komturs, cried:
“To the banners!”
So each galloped to his own, for he had spoken very powerfully, and he stretched out his hand to his squire and said:
“Give me my helm.”
Already hearts in both armies beat like hammers, but the trumpets had not yet given the signal for battle.
There came a moment of waiting, perhaps heavier than the battle itself. On the field, between the Krzyżak and the royal army, there rose from the Tannenberg side several ancient oaks, onto which local peasants had climbed to watch the struggle of these armies, so vast that the world had not seen their like since time immemorial. But aside from that one clump, the whole field was empty, gray, dreadful, resembling a dead steppe. Only the wind walked across it, and death rose above it. The knights’ eyes turned involuntarily to that ominous, silent plain. Clouds passing across the sky occasionally obscured the sun, and then a deadly darkness fell upon it.
Suddenly a wind rose. It roared in the forest, tore off thousands of leaves, burst onto the field, seized dry blades of grass, raised clouds of dust, and carried them into the eyes of the Krzyżak army. At that same moment, the air was shaken by the piercing sound of horns, pipes, and whistles, and the entire Lithuanian wing rose like an immense flock of birds taking flight. They charged at once, according to their custom, at a run. Horses, stretching out their necks and flattening their ears, tore with all their might straight ahead; riders, brandishing swords and lances, flew with terrible cries against the left wing of the Krzyżak.
The Master was just beside that wing. His emotion had already passed, and from his eyes, instead of tears, came sparks. Seeing the galloping Lithuanian swarm, he turned to Friedrich von Wallenrod, who commanded on that side, and said:
“Witold has struck first. Begin then, you also, in God’s name!”
And with a gesture of his right hand he set in motion fourteen banners of iron knights.
“Gott mit uns!” cried Wallenrod.
The banners, lowering their lances, began at first to advance at a walk. But just as a rock rolled down a mountain gains ever greater speed as it falls, so they passed from a walk to a trot, then to a gallop, and moved on, terrible, irresistible, like an avalanche that must crush and shatter everything before it.
The earth groaned and bent beneath them.
The battle was about to spread and blaze along the entire line at any moment, so the Polish banners began to sing the old battle hymn of Saint Wojciech. A hundred thousand iron-covered heads rose toward heaven, and from a hundred thousand breasts came one enormous voice like heavenly thunder:
“Mother of God, Virgin,
“Glorified by God, Mary,
“From Thy Son, our Lord,
“Mother chosen, Mother only,
“Grant us—forgiveness of sins!...
“Kyrie Eleison!...
And at once strength descended into their bones, and their hearts became ready for death. And there was such immense, victorious power in those voices and in that song, as if thunder truly began to roll across the sky.
The lances quivered in the knights’ hands, the banners and pennons quivered, the air trembled, the branches swayed in the forest, and the awakened forest echoes began to resound in the depths and call out and repeat to the lakes and meadows and to the whole land, far and wide:
“Grant us—forgiveness of sins!...
“Kyrie Eleison!...
And they sang on:
“Thy Son’s Baptist, the blessed time,
“Hear the voice, fulfill man’s thoughts;
“Hear the prayer which we beseech Thee:
“May it please Thee to grant what we ask:
“Give on earth a blessed sojourn,
“After life, a heavenly dwelling,
“Kyrie Eleison!”
The echo replied: “Kyrie Eleisooon!”—and meanwhile, on the right wing, a fierce battle already raged and drew ever closer to the center.
Crash, horse whinnies, terrible cries of men mingled with the song. But at times the cries fell silent, as if those men had lost their breath, and in one such pause the thundering voices could once more be heard:
“Adam, you God’s husbandman,
“You sit with God in council,
“Lead us, your children,
“Where the holy angels reign!
“There gladness,
“There love,
“There the vision of the Creator, angelic, without end.
“Kyrie Eleison...”
And again the echo crashed through the forest: “Kyrie Eleisooon!...” The cries on the right wing grew louder, but no one could see or discern what was happening there, for at that moment Master Ulrich, who watched the battle from above, launched twenty banners under Lichtenstein’s command against the Poles.
And to the Polish “foremost” squadron, where the foremost knights stood, Zyndram of Maszkowice rushed like thunder, and pointing his sword’s point at the approaching cloud of Krzyżak, cried so loudly that the horses in the front rank sat back on their haunches:
“At them! Strike!”
So the knights, leaning forward onto their horses’ necks and stretching their lances before them, charged.
But the Lithuanian forces bent under the terrible onslaught of the Krzyżak. The first ranks, best armed, composed of the greater boyars, fell like a bridge to the ground. The next ranks closed with fury on the Krzyżak, but no courage, no endurance, no human strength could save them from ruin and defeat. And how could it be otherwise, when on one side fought knights entirely clad in steel armor, on horses also armored in steel, and on the other side men, tall and strong indeed, but on small horses and covered only with hides?... In vain the stubborn Lithuanian soldiers sought to get at the Krzyżak hide. Lances, sabers, spear points, clubs studded with flint or nails, rebounded from the iron plates as from rock, or from castle walls. The weight of men and horses crushed the unfortunate Witold’s host; swords and axes hewed them, horse hooves trampled them. Kniaz Witold in vain hurled ever new hordes into that maw of death; in vain was their stubbornness, their ferocity, their contempt for death, and their rivers of blood! First the Tatars fled, then the Bessarabians and Wallachians, and soon the Lithuanian wall broke, and wild panic seized all the warriors.
The greater part of the army fled toward Lake Luboń, and the main Krzyżak forces chased after them, reaping such a terrible harvest that the entire shore was covered with corpses.
But the other part of Witold’s army, smaller, which included three Smolensk regiments, retreated toward the Polish wing, pressed by six Krzyżak banners, and subsequently by those returning from pursuit. But the better-armed Smolensk men offered more effective resistance. The battle turned into a slaughter here. Rivers of blood bought every step, every inch of ground almost. One of the Smolensk regiments was nearly annihilated to the last man. The other two defended themselves with despair and fury. But nothing could stop the victorious Krzyżak now. Some banners were seized by a kind of battle madness. Individual knights, digging in their spurs and rearing their chargers, hurled themselves blindly with raised axe or sword into the thickest throng of enemies.
Their sword and battle-axe blows became almost superhuman, and the whole mass, pressing, trampling, and crushing Smolensk horses and knights, finally came upon the flank of the main and foremost Polish squadrons, for both had been grappling with the Krzyżak for over an hour already, the Krzyżak led by Kuno Lichtenstein.
It did not go so easily for Kuno, for there was greater equality of weapons and horses, and equal knightly training. The Polish “lances” even pushed the Krzyżak back and drove them backward, especially since three terrible banners had struck them first: the Krakow banner, the pursuing banner under Jędrek of Brochocice, and the court banner led by Powała of Taczew. Yet the most dreadful battle blazed only after the lances were shattered and swords and axes were seized. Shield struck against shield, man grappled with man, horses fell, standards toppled, helms, pauldrons, and cuirasses burst under the blow of blades and bludgeons, iron was drenched in blood, knights toppled from their saddles like felled pines. Those Krzyżak knights who had already experienced battles with the Poles at Vilnius knew how “unyielding” and “fierce” this people was, but newcomers and foreign guests were seized at first with amazement akin to fear. More than one involuntarily reined in his horse, looked ahead uncertainly, and before he could decide what to do, perished under the weight of a Polish right hand. And just as hail pours mercilessly from a copper cloud onto a field of rye, so the terrible blows fell thickly—swords struck, axes struck, battle-axes struck, without pause or mercy, clanging like iron plates in a forge; death extinguished lives like a wind, groans tore from breasts, eyes grew dim, and white-haired young heads sank into eternal night.