History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 210, the Baltic Crusades, the Levonian Crusade Part 16, to Alberts.

Hello again.

Last week we saw the field of conflict shift from Livonia to Estonia with the Germans and the Russians clashing in the Estonian region of

Ungarnia. When we left last week's episode, the Christianized Unganians had requested German assistance

against Russian aggression.

And as a result, a bunch of German fighters had made their way to the fortified stronghold of

Odimpair and were preparing to make a stand against the Russians. They didn't have too long to wait. Russians from

scoff and Novgorod invaded the region and along with their Estonian allies besieged Odompere.

Now this seems to have been a major incident involving many thousands of fighters.

A chronicler, Henry of Livonia, reports that the Russian forces numbered around 20,000 men.

And in his book, the Baltic Crusade,

William Urban suggests that this may not have been an exaggerated figure.

The Germans had made many enemies in Estonia,

and Henry of Lavonia reports that many pagan Estonians and even a number of baptized

Latin Christian Estonians joined the Russians in their attack on O mare, hoping to free themselves from the German yoke.

So 20,000 fighters are currently surrounding the fort of Odompere, which is being

defended by a mixture of Sword Brothers, German arches and Unganians. The siege lasted for 17 days before a relieving German force of 3,000 men came to the

assistance of Odenpare.

Now, the 20,000 strong Russian army had Odenpare totally surrounded,

had cut off supplies of food going into the fort and had also managed to poison its water

source, dropping the corpses of unfortunate pagan Estonians from the surrounding region into the water catchment

...