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Battle of the Ice
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The Battle of the Ice (; ; ; ), also known as the Battle of Lake Peipus , was a battle between the Republic of Novgorod and the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Knights on April 5, 1242, at Lake Peipus.
The battle was a significant defeat sustained by Roman Catholic crusaders during the Northern Crusades, which were directed against pagans and Eastern Orthodox Christians rather than Muslims in the Holy Land. The crusaders' defeat in the battle ended campaigns against the Orthodox Novgorod Republic and other Russian territories for the next century.
Background Hoping to exploit the Russians' weakness in the wake of the Mongol and Swedish invasions, the Teutonic Knights attacked the neighboring Novgorod Republic and occupied Pskov, Izborsk, and Koporye in the autumn of 1240. When they approached Novgorod itself, the local citizens recalled to the city 20-year-old Prince Alexander Nevsky, whom they had banished to Pereslavl earlier that year.
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The Battle of the Ice (; ; ; ), also known as the Battle of Lake Peipus , was a battle between the Republic of Novgorod and the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Knights on April 5, 1242, at Lake Peipus.
The battle was a significant defeat sustained by Roman Catholic crusaders during the Northern Crusades, which were directed against pagans and Eastern Orthodox Christians rather than Muslims in the Holy Land. The crusaders' defeat in the battle ended campaigns against the Orthodox Novgorod Republic and other Russian territories for the next century.
Background Hoping to exploit the Russians' weakness in the wake of the Mongol and Swedish invasions, the Teutonic Knights attacked the neighboring Novgorod Republic and occupied Pskov, Izborsk, and Koporye in the autumn of 1240. When they approached Novgorod itself, the local citizens recalled to the city 20-year-old Prince Alexander Nevsky, whom they had banished to Pereslavl earlier that year. During the campaign of 1241, Alexander managed to retake Pskov and Koporye from the crusaders.
The battle In the spring of 1242, the Teutonic Knights defeated a detachment of Novgorodians about 20 km south of the fortress of Dorpat. Led by Prince-Bishop Hermann of Dorpat, the knights and their auxiliary troops of local Ugaunian Estonians then met with Alexander's forces by the narrow strait that connects the northern and southern parts of Lake Peipus (Lake Peipus proper with Lake Pskovskoe) on April 5, 1242. Alexander, intending to fight in a place of his own choosing, retreated in efforts to draw the often over-confident Crusaders to the frozen lake.
The crusader forces likely numbered somewhere in the area of 500 to 1000 . Most of them were probably Chud (Estonian) levies. The Russian force in contrast numbered around 5,000 soldiers: Alexander and his brother Andrei's bodyguards (druzhina), who numbered around 1,000, plus the militia of Novgorod and a mongolian contingent.
According to contemporary Russian chronicles, after hours of hand-to-hand fighting, Alexander ordered the left and right wings of his archers to enter the battle. The knights by this time were exhausted from the constant fighting and struggling with the slippery surface of the frozen lake. The Crusaders started to retreat in disarray deeper onto the ice, and the appearance of the fresh Russian cavalry made them run for their lives. When the knights attempted to rally themselves at the far side of the lake the thin ice started to collapse, under the weight of their heavy armour, and many knights drowned.
CasualtiesAccording to the First Novgorod Chronicle,
Prince Alexander and all the men of Novgorod drew up their forces by the lake, at Uzmen, by the Raven's Rock; and the Germans and the Estonians rode at them, driving themselves like a wedge throughout their army. And there was a great slaughter of Germans and Estonians... they fought with them during the pursuit on the ice seven versts short of the Subol [north-western] shore. And there fell a countless number of Estonians, and 400 of the Germans, and they took fifty with their hands and they took them to Novgorod.
According to the Livonian Order's Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, written years later,
The [Russians] had many archers, and the battle began with their bold assault on the king's men [Danes]. The brothers' banners were soon flying in the midst of the archers, and swords were heard cutting helmets apart. Many from both sides fell dead on the grass. Then the Brothers' army was completely surrounded, for the Russians had so many troops that there were easily sixty men for every one German knight. The Brothers fought well enough, but they were nonetheless cut down. Some of those from Dorpat escaped from the battle, and it was their salvation that they fled. Twenty brothers lay dead and six were captured.
Legacy The Battle of the Ice has been described as an event of major significance, especially by Russian historians. The knights' defeat at the hands of Alexander's forces prevented the crusaders from retaking Pskov, the linchpin of their eastern crusade. The Novgorodians succeeded in defending Russian territory, and the German crusaders never mounted another serious challenge eastward. Alexander was canonised as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church in 1574.
More recently, historian John I. L. Fennell has called into question the focus on and glorification of the battle, arguing that it was not as important nor as large as has sometimes been portrayed. Most of the Teutonic Knights were engaged elsewhere in the Baltic, and the aforementioned Livonian Rhymed Chronicle gives the figure of only 20 knights killed, which Fennell argued was "hardly indicative of a major encounter even if we take into consideration epic minimalization of the home-team's side." Furthermore, the Russians had suffered a much more serious defeat and conquest at the hands of the Mongols in 1237-1240, and Alexander Nevsky's (and his father's) policy of accommodation or collaboration with the Mongols (or Tatars as they are known in Russia) did much more to harm Russia than his victories on the Neva and on Lake Peipus did to help it. His collaboration, while politically understandable given the power of the Mongols and Russia's relative weakness, was certainly not in keeping with the image he acquired as a brave protector of Russian freedom.
Recent archaeological evidence at the site lends to the now growing belief that the battle wasn't actually a battle at all. It was just a minor skirmish between opposing forces and in no way at all affected the Teutonic Knights future campaigns, as the actual casualties involved were so few. Many now belive that what was actually just a minor skirmish between a couple of hundred men was embellished for propaganda reasons by Alexander Nevsky and his supporters, and in reality there was no such thing as the Battle on the Ice or the Battle of Lake Peipus.
Popular cultureThe event was glorified in Sergei Eisenstein's historical drama film Alexander Nevsky. The movie, bearing propagandist allegories of the Teutonic Knights as Nazi Germans, has created a popular image of the battle often mistaken for the real events.
During World War II, the image of Alexander Nevsky became a national Russian symbol of fighting against German occupation. Today, there exists in Russia an Order of Holy Alexander Nevsky, a medal given for outstanding bravery and excellent service to the country.
Heavy metal band Aria composed a song "Ballad of the Russian Warrior" for "Hero of Asphalt" album in 1987. The songs describes the battle from a participant's point of view.
Further reading - Military Heritage did a feature on the Battle of Lake Peipus and the holy Knights Templar and the monastic knighthood Hospitallers (Terry Gore, Military Heritage, August 2005, Volume 7, No. 1, pp.28 to 33)), ISSN 1524-8666.
- Basil Dmytryshyn, Medieval Russia 900-1700. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973.
- John France, Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades 1000-1300. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.
- David Nicolle, Lake Piepus 1242. London: Osprey Publishing, 1996.
- Terrence Wise, The Knights of Christ. London: Osprey Publishing, 1984.
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