The Battle of Ruda - 1370
The Battle of Rudau (German: Schlacht
bei Rudau, Lithuanian: Rūdavos mūšis) was a medieval pitched battle fought between the Teutonic Knights and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on 17 or 18 February 1370 near Rudau village
north of Königsberg (now Melnikovo village in the Kaliningrad oblast). According to
the Teutonic chronicler Wigand of Marburg and the Livonian chronicle of Hermann de Wartberge,
the Lithuanians suffered a great defeat. The Teutonic Knights had waged a crusade against the pagan Lithuanians since the
1290s in order to Christianize the country. Each side would organize military expeditions against each other and then retaliate.
In August 1369 the Knights burned a Lithuanian fort in the mouth of the Nevėžis River;
109 people perished in the fire. During truce negotiations Kęstutis, brother and right-hand man of the Grand Duke Algirdas,
warned the Prussian Marshal Henning Schindekop that he would organize a retaliation. This gave time for the Knights to prepare
for an attack and they organized their army in Königsberg.
Kęstutis and Algirdas led their army, composed of Lithuanians,
Samogitians, Ruthenians, and Tatars, to Prussia earlier than anticipated by the Knights. The Lithuanians took and burned Rudau
Castle. Grand Master Winrich von Kniprode decided to take his army from Königsberg to meet the Lithuanians near Rudau.
Contemporary Teutonic sources do not give details about the course of the battle, which is somewhat unusual. Details and battle
plans were later provided by Jan Długosz (1415–1480), but his sources are unknown. The Lithuanians suffered a defeat.
Algirdas took his men to a forest and hastily erected wooden barriers while Kęstutis withdrew into Lithuania. Marshal
Schindekopf pursued the retreating Lithuanians, but was injured by a spear and died before he reached Königsberg. The
Lithuanian noble Vaišvilas is presumed to have died in the battle.
Losses and aftermath
Teutonic sources exaggerate the Lithuanian losses, claiming that
1,000 to 5,500 men perished due to wounds, freezing weather, and starvation. That such numbers were exaggerated is shown
by several robust Lithuanian military campaigns in the same year: a raid to Ortelsburg (Szczytno), large advances in the Galicia–Volhynia
Wars, and the second raid to Moscow. The Teutonic Knights also suffered heavy losses: they
lost several of their officers, including the marshal and two komturs. That the victory
was not so one-sided as claimed by official Teutonic sources is also supported by a local legend that at a critical moment,
when the Knights were about to give in to Lithuanian pressure, apprentice shoemaker Hans von Sagan replaced the fallen standard-bearer
of Marshal Schindekop and led the Knights to victory. The victory was attributed to the Virgin Mary
and in her honor Kniprode established the Augustinian convent at Heiligenbeil (Mamonovo).
The battle marked the last serious threat from the Lithuanians in Prussia in the 14th century.