History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 235, the Baltic, the Baltic Crusades, the Mongol invasions.

Hello again.

Last week we took a look at the four Prussian Bishoprics and we also saw the Teutonic Knights tested by a major uprising when Duke Schvellek of neighboring Polish

Pomeralia in the north joined with the native Prussians to attempt to eject the Teutonic order from Prussia.

This uprising, which incidentally is known to history as the first Prussian insurrection was ultimately unsuccessful,

but for a while it looked like it could go either way. In fact you may be thinking why didn't some of the

other Polish dukes provide military support to Dukeukes feltopelk. Surely it would be in Polish interests to see

the Teutonic Knights ejected from Prussia. The kingdom of Poland after all controlled the region to the west of Prussia and to the south of Prussia. Wouldn't it be better for everyone if Poland could somehow extend its influence

across Prussia as well? Well, I'm sure the Piast rulers of Poland would love to have seen this happen, and I'm sure that if they

had men available, they may well have gone to Duke Schvelter-Pelk's assistance, but the fact was they didn't have any men available.

And this wasn't due to the ongoing Civil War.

No, something much worse than Civil War was about to descend on Poland because the Mongols were coming.

Remember how Prince Alexander Nefsky of Novgorod was suddenly free to turn his attention to the

Crusaders because the Mongols inexplicably turned away

from Novgorod and directed their attentions elsewhere? Well, that was terrific for Alexander Nevsky who was able to concentrate on

defeating the Crusaders and driving them out of Russia but it wasn't so great for the regions about to experience their own Mongol invasion.

In this episode, if you haven't guessed already, we will be taking time out from the Crusades

to examine the Mongol invasions into Eastern Europe. Now technically the Mongol

invasions had no direct impact on the Baltic Crusades but they are an important background event and besides who doesn't want to know

about the horsemen from the step regions pushing all the way into Latin

Christendom. If that's not an interesting event, I don't know what is. So here we go.

...