POLAND

In the 14th century the most common Polish battle-array was en haye, i. e. in a line or a number of successive lines, with men-at-arms to the fore, usually 4-deep, and the strzelcy drawn up behind them. However, this proved too inflexible when fighting against a mobile, lightly-armoured enemy such as the Tartars or Lithuanians, so a new type of horned formation was subsequently adopted, with heavy cavalry in the centre and light cavalry (usually Lithuanians after the union of the two countries) on the wings, somewhat in advance of the centre. Wings and centre were all now comprised of a number of individual ‘banners’ (see notes on organisation) with gaps between them, thereby introducing much greater flexibility than had been possible when drawn up en haye, and enabling individual elements of the army to turn and face a new threat from any angle without disorganising their array. Each banner drew up with men-at-arms on the outside and strzelcy in the centre.

In battle the leading banners of heavy cavalry would charge the enemy centre, those following then deploying to attack his wings. The light cavalry forming the Polish wings would then encircle the enemy on one or both sides and fall on his camp and the rear of his battle-line. As mentioned below, if the Lithuanian light cavalry themselves tried to attack heavy cavalry they almost invariably came off the worse. This likelihood inevitably tempted the enemy to launch his own main attack at one of the Polish wings, which would gradually give way under his onslaught and then break in flight (feigned or otherwise). However, by this time the Poles’ own centre of heavy cavalry would have wheeled to counter the flank attack, and while it and the seemingly victorious enemy squared up to resume the fight the light cavalry would ‘rally’ and fall on the latter’s flank and rear, often cutting off his escape in the process. A variant of this tactic was employed at Tannenberg, where their Lithuanian light horse were drawn up only on the right flank, the left being protected instead by a forest and marshland.

Infantry where present tended to be drawn up to the rear of the heavy cavalry in the centre of the battle-array, from where they could launch themselves into the cavalry melee should the need arise. In this role they would concentrate principally on bringing down the enemy’s horses. They were also in a good position to protect the rear of their own heavy cavalry from any attempt at encirclement by the enemy.

At the beginning of this period Lithuania was one-quarter comprised of marshland and lakes and three-quarters of forest, so it is hardly surprising that its troops were predominantly light rather than heavy cavalry, who concentrated on skirmishing and ambushes. In the 13th century at least they appear to have often dismounted to fight in wooded terrain (the ‘Livonian Rhymed Chronicle’ actually says it was customary), but this practice had seemingly died out by the early part of this period, except where they fought from behind specially constructed barricades of felled trees and undergrowth somewhat akin to those utilised in similar terrain by the Irish (see volume 1, page 51). In more formal battle-array the Lithuanians drew up in 3 lines square-on to the enemy, with the armoured and better-mounted men positioned either to the front or in the middle of each squadron; the squadrons comprising each line fought in close order, but with some distance between individual squadrons. For all their lightness, arrayed thus they were prepared to take on even conventional Western European heavy cavalry such as might be fielded by the Poles and the Teutonic Knights (seemingly concentrating on unhorsing them by bringing down their mounts with archery and long lances), though admittedly they were seldom successful against them in the open field. Under certain circumstances they resorted to feigning flight; the Lithuanian retreat at Tannenberg in 1410, for instance, is claimed by some sources as a feigned flight, though others — such as the ‘Chronik des Landes Preussens’, which says the Lithuanians were ‘knocked off their feet’ — report it as a rout. (Either way it resulted in some degree of unnecessary panic in the Polish ranks, Dlugosz reporting that the Bohemians among them fled back to the forest behind their position.) By the end of the 14th century some artillery might also be fielded, occasionally in conjunction with wagons as at Worskla in 1399.

Under pressure Lithuanians would withdraw into their neighbourhood fortresses, in which garrisons were generally maintained by relays of recruits. Hard fighters at all times, it was in defence of these fortresses that the Lithuanians were at their most desperate, often fighting to the last man. It is recorded how at Pilene in 1336, after German crusaders had set fire to the wooden walls of the fortress, the Lithuanian defenders killed their families and then themselves — some 4,000 souls in all — rather than suffer the humiliation of capture. Other, similar incidents are also on record.