Who won the Battle of Płowce?
The Battle of Płowce was fought on 27 September 1331 between the Polish army of King Władysław I the Elbow-high and the Teutonic Order. The Poles attacked a detached part of the Teutonic army, routed it and took its commander prisoner, but when the main Teutonic force arrived the fighting ended without a clear victor. It is remembered as a morale victory and a symbol of Polish resistance to the Order.7
In 1331 the Teutonic Knights were raiding deep into Poland, burning and plundering towns on their way, among them Sieradz and Łęczyca. When their army split on the march, the elderly King Władysław I the Elbow-high saw his chance and struck at one part of it near the village of Płowce.8
A kingdom under attack
Władysław the Elbow-high had reunited the Polish kingdom and been crowned in 1320, but the Teutonic Order held Pomerania and Gdańsk and was at war with him. In 1331 a Teutonic army invaded, ravaging Kuyavia and Greater Poland.9
The invasion was planned with King John of Bohemia, the Luxembourg ruler who also claimed the Polish crown and would later die, blind, at Crécy in 1346. The two allies agreed to strike Poland at the same time, the Order from the north and John from the south, and to divide its lands afterward: the Order was to take Kuyavia and the Bohemian king Greater Poland.10
Sławomir Leśniewski puts the Teutonic army at about 7,000 men, including some 2,000 heavy cavalry and about 200 knight-brothers, with Prussian horsemen, a Livonian contingent and knightly guests from Western Europe. It was led by Otto von Lauterberg, commander of the Kulm (Chełmno) district, with the grand marshal Dietrich von Altenburg and other leading officers of the Order.11
In September the Teutonic army crossed the Vistula near Płock, took Uniejów and sent detachments to burn Sieradz and Łęczyca, but Kalisz held out, and King John, held up in Silesia, came too late: without waiting for him, the Order's army turned back toward its own lands, slowed by wagons loaded with plunder. Władysław followed with troops from Kuyavia, the lands of Sieradz and Łęczyca, Lesser Poland and Greater Poland, about 4,000 men by Leśniewski's estimate; on the evening of 24 September his vanguard skirmished with the Teutonic rearguard near Konin.12
The Order divides its army
As the Teutonic army moved through Kuyavia it split into separate groups. The Polish king, shadowing it, caught a part of the force between Radziejów and Płowce on 27 September, while the main body under Otto von Lauterberg was some distance away.13
At dawn on 27 September, in camp near Radziejów, the Teutonic commander sent the larger part of his army on toward Brześć Kujawski. A smaller force of about 2,000 men under the marshal stayed behind to guard the baggage as a rearguard. A thick fog lay over the fields, and the two sides ran into each other almost blindly.14
The first clash
The Poles attacked and, after hard fighting, broke the Teutonic group they had caught. Its commander, the marshal Dietrich von Altenburg, was among those taken prisoner, and many knights fell or were captured.15
Leśniewski describes a long, stubborn fight that turned when a crossbow bolt struck the horse of the marshal's standard-bearer and the great banner of the Order went down, spreading confusion and then panic. Fifty-six knight-brothers were killed, among them the commanders of Gdańsk and Elbląg, and the marshal, badly wounded in the face, was taken prisoner. Teutonic propaganda and German chroniclers later claimed that many prisoners were killed on the king's order; Polish historians deny it, and Leśniewski notes that the Order's internal correspondence does not mention any such killing.16
The second phase
Later the main Teutonic force came up, freed most of the prisoners and renewed the battle. The fighting went on into the afternoon without a decisive result; the Poles then withdrew, and the Teutonic army fell back toward Toruń. Prince Casimir, the king's son and the future Casimir the Great, also left the field during this phase, sent away by his father according to some accounts. Chroniclers and later historians disagree about the details and the losses.17
The second clash began around 1 p.m. near Płowce, when Lauterberg's main force, warned by the marshal's messengers, hurried back. Its units reached the field in waves, and at first the Poles had the better of it, taking several dozen prisoners, among them the commanders of Balga and Golub; Heinrich Reuss von Plauen, commander of Balga, was later brought to Kraków. As more Teutonic troops came up from Brześć the tide turned. The standard-bearers of the lands of Kraków and Sandomierz fell, the Lesser Polish knights broke, and the Greater Poles under Wincenty of Szamotuły held out longest. The fighting died down around 3 p.m., and the Order's army held the field, recovering its marshal and its lost banners. The Poles withdrew, according to Bogusław Bogucki, with 40 prisoners, leaving about 100 Poles in Teutonic hands. The next day the Teutonic army, after a march of some 50 kilometers, reached Toruń.18
How many soldiers died at Płowce?
The best figure is a count made a few days after the battle, when Maciej of Gołańcz, bishop of Włocławek, had the dead buried: 4,187 bodies, most of them from the Order's army. The Order also lost 73 of the roughly 200 knight-brothers who had set out, a very heavy loss; Leśniewski writes that their bodies were taken to Toruń.19
Medieval chroniclers inflated the numbers. Jan Długosz, who visited the field, wrote that more than 40,000 enemies were said to have fallen and only 500 Poles, a claim modern historians reject. Leśniewski argues that in proportion the Poles suffered worse, losing up to half of their army in killed against about 30 percent for the Teutonic force.20
Why is the result of Płowce disputed?
Because neither side won outright. The Poles won the morning fight near Radziejów, but the Teutonic army held the field in the afternoon, which by medieval custom made it the victor. Yet the Order then retreated, failed to take Kuyavia that year, and lost an unusually large share of its knight-brothers.21
Bogucki calls the battle unresolved, with a slight Teutonic advantage that was confirmed in 1332, when the Order overran Kuyavia. Leśniewski judges it indecisive as a military event but valuable to Poland in strategic, political and propaganda terms: it removed the immediate danger and ended the threat of joint Teutonic and Bohemian action.22
Did Prince Casimir flee from Płowce?
He left the field during the second phase, and the Order's propaganda accused him of cowardice. Bogucki writes that his father sent him away. The historian Paweł Jasienica, cited by Leśniewski, defended the move: the kingdom, newly restored, had only one legal heir, and losing him could have cost Poland its crown.23
Why Płowce mattered
Płowce did not end the war, which was settled only by the Treaty of Kalisz in 1343 under King Casimir the Great. But it showed that the Order's knights could be beaten in open battle, lifted Polish morale, and became a symbol of resistance remembered long before the great victory at Grunwald in 1410.24
In the short run the war went badly for Władysław. The Order had already seized the land of Dobrzyń in 1329, and in 1332 it overran Kuyavia; the truce that followed left both in its hands, and Poland did not recover Gdańsk Pomerania. The old king died in 1333, leaving the unfinished conflict to his son Casimir.25
How is the Battle of Płowce remembered?
Through a series of memorials on the field near Radziejów, rebuilt each time they were destroyed. A chapel, a plaque set up almost five centuries after the battle, a mound raised for the 600th anniversary in 1931 and the present 22-meter monument of 1961 all mark the site, and a staged reenactment of the battle now draws large crowds there.26
The bishop of Włocławek built a chapel on the battlefield, and almost five hundred years later a plaque designed by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz was set up; it was destroyed during World War I. For the 600th anniversary volunteers and soldiers of the 14th Infantry Regiment from Włocławek raised a mound, consecrated on 27 September 1931 before a crowd the press put at 13,000 to 18,000. After the German invasion of 1939 the occupiers had it dug away, and its earth was spread over the market square of nearby Osięciny.27
For the 630th anniversary in 1961 a new stone monument by the Toruń artist Stefan Narębski rose on the site of the old mound, and the cemetery of the fallen knights in the village was restored with a second monument by the same artist. The battle also lives in literature: Józef Ignacy Kraszewski based his novel Jelita (1881) on it, and Zdzisław Arentowicz wrote the drama Płowce for the 600th anniversary. For other battles of the age, see our guide to the greatest medieval battles.28
