History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 291, the Baltic Crusades, the Samagetian Crusade Part 23, Vit Tortoise victorious.

Hello again.

Last week we saw the Teutonic order install V. Tortoise in a fortress at Cowness, with instructions to conquer strongholds along the Namanas

river in Samagetsia for the Teutonic Order.

Vitortus managed to complete this task successfully and in January of 1391 some

Crusaders arrived to assist Vitortis to make a push into Lithuania. This campaign was wildly successful.

So successful in fact that it forced Yagila to totally rethink his current strategy.

He has now reluctantly concluded that he can't force Vitortis out of Lithuania and Samagetsia using only military means, so Yagila has now come

up with a bold plan. His plan was to get a message to V tortoise telling him that

Eagila would give all the lands which were once ruled by Kestutus and Algirdus to V. tortoise. In short, this meant placing not only Lithuania,

but Samagetia and the Russian principalities under the future leadership of V tortoise.

Now this you would have to say was a pretty tempting offer.

If it came to pass, it would mean that Vytortis would be the ruler

over a vast amount of territory, not as a vassal of the Teutonicorda, but in his own right.

It would also mean that Skirgila, Vittortis's number one rival inside Lithuania, would be left with no territory whatsoever.

There were two problems, however, which Vytortis spotted immediately.

Firstly, the Teutonic Order had already guessed that something like this may happen,

so it had forced V. Tortoise to hand over a number of

hostages when it had allied the order to him, and those hostages, which included V. Tortoise's brother-in-law, were now being

held in castles across Prussia. Should V. Tortoise take up Yagila's offer, some very nasty things were likely to happen to those

hostages.

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