Artillery

The earliest reference to the use of artillery by the Teutonic Knights would appear to date to 1341, when Grand Duke Gediminas of Lithuania was killed by a cannonball fired from one of 2 fortresses built by the Order to blockade Vilnius. Cannon first accompanied a field-army during the winter-reysa of 1381, and before long individual commanderies had them (for example, Marienwerder by 1384). Reval in Livonia had as many as 32 cannon delivered c.1430, while 3 small Livonian commanderies visited by a traveller in 1442 are each said to have contained 6-8 guns. A field force of as few as 80 brethren and 300 other horsemen sent to assist Zygimantas Kenstutis of Lithuania’s rival Svidrigiello in 1432 was accompanied by ‘firearms’, presumably artillery. The transport of their artillery was frequently by river, or along the coast of Livonia aboard Hanseatic ships.

The guns fielded by the Order at the Battle of Tannenberg were drawn from Marienburg. None of the sources give any idea of their number, other than to remark that there were ‘many’, but all seem to agree that they were ineffective, firing no more than one or two salvos (apparently because a shower had dampened their powder, so that it kept failing to ignite). Since their cannon were drawn up in front of the Order’s battle array, the crews were apparently massacred in the first Lithuanian charge, and Sienkiewicz wrote that the Lithuanians captured the guns and hauled them away after the battle.