Battle of Legnica

On April 9, 1241, at the Battle of Legnica, Mongol raiders in Poland routed a European army containing Christian knights from the military orders of the Teutonic Knights, the Hospitallers, and the Templars. The raiders had been sent to Poland as a diversion from the Mongolian invasion of Europe through Hungary and afterward rejoined the Mongol army there.

After the Mongol victory at the Battle of the Kalka River, some 40,000 Cumans fled into Hungary, converted to Christianity, and requested the protection of the Hungarian king, Béla IV. The Mongols claimed the Cumans as their subjects and used these events as a cause to invade Europe. Under a daring invasion plan drawn up by General Subutai, three armies totaling 80,000 men—led by Batu, Shiban, and Subutai himself—would invade Hungary. A fourth force of 20,000, commanded by Princes Kadan and Baidar, was to be sent into Poland with the aim of destroying opposition there before sweeping southward to reunite with the main force.

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The plan was put into effect in winter/spring 1241: in Poland, Kadan and Baidar won a string of victories and on Palm Sunday, March 24, burned the Polish capital, Cracow. Polish resistance was weakened by rivalry between competing lords, but Duke Henry II the Pious of Silesia succeeded in raising an army of 25,000–30,000, which met the Mongols at Liegnitz (now known as Legnica). This army contained poorly equipped infantry raised from the local peasants, but also members of the Teutonic Knights and a small group of Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller from France, some of the most redoubtable mounted warriors in the Christian world. Meanwhile, a second European army—50,000 strong—was a few days’ march away under the command of King Wenceslas of Bohemia. Kadan and Baidar determined to engage Duke Henry’s army before it could link up with Wenceslas’s troops, who were only a day away.

At Liegnitz, on April 9, a lightly armed Mongol vanguard advanced toward Duke Henry’s archers, then turned and feigned retreat, drawing Henry’s knights into an attack. The Mongols then created a smokescreen that effectively cut off Henry’s cavalry from his infantry. Confused by the smoke, the European knights rode around trying to find the enemy but came under heavy fire as Mongol archers unleashed a hail of arrows. Next, a group of Mongol light cavalry attacked the now-isolated European infantry from the flanks. Finally, the Mongols sent in the heavy cavalry.

Throughout these maneuvers, the Mongol archers kept up a deadly storm of arrows, and—according to some accounts—also used rockets fired with gunpowder. The European army was virtually wiped out. Duke Henry attempted to flee, but was captured, killed, and beheaded; the Mongols paraded his head around the town of Liegnitz on the end of a spear. As was customary among the Mongols, the number of fallen victims was counted by cutting off one ear from each, these being collected in sacks.

Afterward, hearing of the catastrophic defeat, King Wenceslas retreated to Bohemia. The Mongols sent a small army to pursue him, but this force was driven off by the Bohemian cavalry at Klodzo. Then Kadan and Baidar broke up their army into raiding parties that terrorized the Polish people and ravaged the countryside before heading southward across the Carpathian Mountains to join General Subutai and the main army in Hungary, where it would soon defeat the army of Béla IV at the Battle of Mohi.

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Losses: Mongol, unknown of 12,000–20,000 engaged; European, entire army of 25,000–30,000.