On the day of St Maurice in 1236, which the editor Ernst Strehlke and modern historians give as 22 September, a Lithuanian army caught a crusader force near the land of Saule as it turned back from a plundering raid. Volkwin, master of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, had led it at the urging of pilgrim crusaders. Fighting in a marsh, the Christians were cut down; Volkwin died with 48 brothers in the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle's count, 50 in Hermann von Wartberge's and a papal bull's. Semigallians killed many who fled. In 1237 the surviving brothers were united with the Teutonic Order. Modern Lithuanian accounts call the victors Samogitians, and where Saule lay is still disputed.
Battle of Saule
22 September 1236 · 790 years ago
A summer campaign against Lithuania
Hermann von Wartberge's chronicle of Livonia writes that Master Volquin led an armed expedition into the land of the infidel Lithuanians with the lords of Haseldorf and the count of Dannenberg. Wartberge's editor, Ernst Strehlke, notes that the chronicler took this part of his account partly from papal bulls of 1237 and what he inserted between the excerpts mostly from the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle. The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle says that pilgrims who had come to Riga would not let Volkwin off a summer campaign and that a nobleman of Haseldorf and a count of Dannenberg urged him. The Universal Lithuanian Encyclopedia (VLE) gives the guests' leaders as Count Heinrich von Dannenberg and Theodoric von Haseldorf. VLE and the historian Artūras Dubonis both write that Volkwin was reluctant and gave way to the pressure of the crusaders and the papal legate, William of Modena.1
VLE and Dubonis read the papal bull of 19 February 1236 differently. For VLE, Pope Gregory IX, at his legate's request, proclaimed in it a crusade against the pagan Lithuanians, and the campaign was the first crusade into Lithuania. Dubonis writes that the bull "was not the organisation of a crusade of Christ against Lithuania" but the Holy See's response to Livonia's local needs, and that the pilgrims understood their service as a crusade against the Lithuanians.2
Estonians, Letts and men from Rus
In the Rhymed Chronicle Volkwin sent to the land of the Rus for help, and Estonians, Letts and Livs joined the pilgrims. The Novgorod First Chronicle, under the year its translators give as 1237, records that the men of Pskov sent 200 men with the Germans at Riga against the Lithuanians. VLE lists 55 knights of the order with their men, about 600; about 500 crusaders, mostly from northern Germany and Gotland; about 1,500 Estonians, Livonians and Latgalians owing military service; and 200 men sent by the prince of Pskov. It puts the whole army, as "it is thought", at about 3,000. Dubonis also gives an estimate of approximately 3,000 and names two hundred soldiers from Pskov and Navahrudak among the forces. Tomas Baranauskas, as Ričardas Dediala reports, estimates 8,700 on the Livonian side against 6,000 to 8,000 Samogitians or Lithuanians; Dediala calls such figures highly hypothetical (our translation).3
"We will not fight here"
According to VLE, in mid-September the army broke into northern Samogitia from the castle of Mežotnė and plundered the country for several days. The Rhymed Chronicle says they burned and plundered and then "kein Soule sie kârten wider / durch brûch und uber heide": they turned back kein Soule, through marsh and over heath (our translation). Earlier translators read kein Soule as "to Saule" or "from Saule"; Baranauskas, Dediala reports, reads it as "opposite Saule".4
At a stream they saw the enemy. In the chronicle Volkwin cried "nû strîten, des ist zît!", now fight, it is time, but the guests answered "wir enwollen hie nicht strîten", we will not fight here: if they lost their horses, they would have to stand on foot (our translation). VLE and Dubonis place this halt on 21 September.5
"The next day the Christians meant to ride away early", the chronicle goes on, but they had to fight "against their will"; their defense was weak in the marsh, and "man slûc sie nider sam die wîp", they were struck down like women (our translation). VLE writes that the main force, which arrived on 22 September, was led by Vykintas, then the most powerful Samogitian duke. Dubonis notes that the main argument for Vykintas is a passage of the Halych-Volhynian Chronicle for 1249; it is "not entirely reasonable" to call him the leader, he writes, but he most likely played a significant part.6
Felled with clubs
The chronicle calls the victors "Littowen", Lithuanians: when the brothers' horses lay dead they fought on foot, until the Lithuanians at last felled them "mit boumen", with clubs, literally trees (our translation). Wartberge, too, writes that Volquin was killed by the Lithuanians. VLE calls the victors Samogitians; Dubonis writes of a Lithuanian, "or to be more precise, Samogitian", army. Those who fled for home, the chronicle says, were cut down by Semigallians; VLE and Dubonis say they were fleeing toward Riga.7
The chronicle counts 48 brothers who fell there. Wartberge has Volquin killed "cum L fratribus", with 50 brothers, and a bull of Gregory IX of May 1237, quoted by Wartberge's editor Ernst Strehlke, mourns the death "magistri et quinquaginta fratrum", of the master and fifty brothers (our translation). VLE and Dubonis give Volkwin and 48 brothers. Dubonis adds 2,000 crusaders and 180 Pskovian soldiers killed, and an unknown number from Navahrudak. The Novgorod chronicle ends its entry: "each tenth man came back to his home"; VLE says every tenth Pskovian returned. Albert of Stade records "a very great slaughter of pilgrims" in Livonia and that Theoricus of Haselitor is said to have fallen there (our translation).8
The day of St Maurice
Wartberge dates Volquin's death "die Mauricii", on the day of Maurice and his companions, without a year. Albert of Stade, under 1236, places the slaughter "circa festum Mauricii", around the feast of Maurice, and his editor J. M. Lappenberg notes that the church of Hamburg commemorated Theoderic of Haseldorf on St Maurice's day. The Rhymed Chronicle gives no date. Strehlke printed 22 September 1236 in his margin and called that day beyond doubt, citing Albert, the Hamburg necrology and the word noviter, recently, in the bulls of May 1237. VLE, Dubonis and the historians Dangiras Mačiulis and Mārtiņš Mintaurs give 22 September 1236.9
Where was Soule?
Wartberge places the death "circa terram Sauleorum", near the land of the Saulians; the chronicle names Soule. Strehlke identified Soule with the area of Rahden near Bauske, whose Latvian names he gives as Wezz- and Jaun-Saule. Dubonis writes that scholars identify Soule "with sound basis" as the area of Šiauliai, that Edvardas Gudavičius argued for a site southwest of it, and that the established Jauniūnai site, proposed by Friedrich Benninghoven, shows "the organisational abilities of people immortalizing this myth, and not historical realia". Dediala reports that Baranauskas and the archaeologist Gintautas Zabiela placed Jauniūnai in Semigallia, found no marsh there in soil probing or on old maps, and no material evidence of a battle; Baranauskas proposed Ilguočiai instead, reading Soule as Šiaulėnai, but the 2016 survey there gave no clear answer.10
From the Teutonic Order to Baltic Unity Day
Wartberge writes that the Curonians then fell back into their former unbelief. VLE adds revolts of the Semigallians and Selonians and says the order lost all the Baltic lands on the left bank of the Daugava it had conquered from 1208 to 1236. In bulls dated at Viterbo in May 1237, which Strehlke quotes, Gregory IX united the surviving brothers with the Teutonic Order, "post casum lugubrem", after their grievous fall (our translation). VLE and Dubonis also date the union to 1237.11
According to Mačiulis and Mintaurs, the date of the battle has been marked in Lithuania and Latvia since 22 September 2000 as the Day of Baltic Unity, by decrees of the two countries' parliaments. See also Grunwald, 1410.12
Battle of Rymnik, 1789: Suvorov and Coburg rout the Grand Vizier
22 September 1789 · 237 years ago
On the Rymnik river in Wallachia, Suvorov's Russians and the Austrians of Prince Josias of Coburg attacked a far larger Ottoman army under the Grand Vizier. The allies won a crushing victory in this Russo-Turkish war, with Austrian troops bearing much of the fighting.
Read the full story of Battle of Rymnik, 1789: Suvorov and Coburg rout the Grand Vizier ›Also on this day
1914: In the North Sea the German submarine U-9 under Otto Weddigen torpedoed the British cruisers Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy one after another. Aboukir was hit first, just before 6.30 a.m. in Corbett's British official history, at about 6:25 in the report of Cressy's Commander Bertram Nicholson; Hogue and Cressy were struck while their boats were picking up survivors. Corbett counts 60 officers and 777 men saved, and "as many officers and nearly 1400 men" drowned; Royal Museums Greenwich gives 1459 dead and 837 rescued by two Dutch merchant ships and two Lowestoft trawlers. Corbett writes that the third torpedo to hit Cressy seemed to come from another submarine, but concludes that, as the Germans claimed, U-9 had done the whole work alone; Weddigen, in an account the New York World said German Navy Headquarters had verified, and the museum also name U-9 alone.13
