Slitherine

http://uploading.com/files/ad33d55m/Bat ... gnitz.rar/

Hi guys, its my and Ardashir's scenario based on what we think is the most likely order of battle for this battle.

As a short description: When Batu Khan's armies were overruning Hungary, a smaller mongol army - a 10 000 strong Tumen invaded the polish principalities. In several battles and skirsmishes they defeated the forces gathered by the nobles of Lesser Poland and sacked the city of Kraków. When the mongols moved west they faced a combined force of Silesian knights, templars, and local german or polish burghers and peasants including volunteers from the mining city of Goldberg (pol: Złotoryja). There was also a large army under the Czech King Vaclav that was supposed to link with the silesian forces, but the Czech never arrived and the silesians stood against the mongol onslaught alone. The Mongol army won a decisive, yet bloody victory. The overall commander of the christian army, Henryk the Pious (a Silesian prince), was captured and beheaded.
From that point on polish lands would suffer some 100 years of sucessive Mongol raids and mothers would scare naghty children with visions of the "Devil's Horsemen" as the Mongols were called. At Liegnitz the european armies have met their betters and suffered one of their greatest defeats against an "exotic foe". Later on these experiences led to a revolution in the Polish and German way of waging war.

This battle is the object of one of the great modern historical controversies, with historians heatedly debating on the size of the forces involved. While the modern consenus on the size of the Mongol army is about 8000 (with possibly some allied cumans or russians), the numbers for the christian army range from 1 000 to even 12 000. We have assumed that the Christian army was some 4000 strong. Thus the Mongols have an edge in numbers, mobility and shooting capabilities, while the europeans face a tough, but not impossible challenge and can still triumph using their superior meelee capabilities.

This is supposed to be a historical scenario, so the balance of power is tilted to the Mongol side (as we think was in history). The map is based on battlefield site research made by mr.Zalewski of "Taktyka i Startegia" military magazine, while the army composition is mostly based on what one can find in the period sources for this battle (Długosz's chronicle and "Historia Tatarorum")

I myself was opting for at least 1 Cuman LH unit and some Russian Kn units, but Sabratha said that the christian side is outmached as it is and there is no need to bolster the Mongols beyond what we can explicitly find in the sources.

Anyways, we hope you enjoy it.

Good work, thank you.

fantastic scenario, great work and thanks.

Thanks for the kind words.

Note to those who happen to own or played "Devils' Horsemen" a tabletop game of the "Great battles of history" series published by GMT games:

- In the GMT version Kadan one of the Mongol commanders in this battle. However, in 1241 he was still just a small child and it is very unlikely if he was give any sort of real command. So we didn't include him.

- The prince of the Oppeln principality (roughly on the border between Upper and Lower silesia) who was present on the battlefield was anmed Mieszko (nicknamed "otyły" - "fat"), not Mieceslaw as in the GMT game.

- There were no Teutonic knights at the field. This comes from Długosz chronicle's mistake taht erroneously states that order master Poppo died in this battle. In reality, we know from the Teutonic Order's sources that he died of long age many, many years later and just happened to be buried in the Liegnitz cemetary. There was likely a small continget of Templars and Joannites present, but seeing that there was just a few brothers living in the region, I doubt that their combined contingents (adding volunteers, entourage etc.) would be larger than 300 men.

- GMT has two Mongol Tumens present with a 25 000 chrisitan army. So that would make it a battle with 45 000 men in the field, which would make it the largest battle in eastern Europe for many centuries to come.
We find it very, very unlikely. In 1329 (so almost 100 years later) the army gathered from almost all polish lands was little over 6 000 men strong. During a contemporary battle (bouvines), the largest country in Europe (France) was able to field some 15 000 men total. I find it very hard to believe that several small silesian principalities (even bolstered by some volunteers and order knights) were able to field and army almost 2 times larger than France.

In 1241 Poland was not a single kingdom, but divided into a series of small principalities. The christian army at Liegnitz was limited to soldiers from lower silesia, from one upper silesian principality, what little remained of the Lesser Polish forces (after the many battles they alredy fought against the mongols ann their own land). Each such principality could IMHO field some 600 - 1200 mounted men (knights and entourage) maximum. Some historians even argue that even those kind of figures are too high.
In general, historians are still heavily debating on the numbers involved, with the most modern sources stating that the christian side had no more than 2000 men total, while some older historians are arguing for an army up to 12 000 men or more. We personally believ that an army of some 4500 men strong is the most likely variant, give or take 1500 (depends on how large was the infantry force, how large the Greater Polish contingents were and how many men did the Moravians send). We assumed that the moravian contingent was pretty symbolic, (no more than 20-50 men total) while that the Greater Polish contingent was some 600 knights, while the silesian infantry was 1200 all in all (including Goldberg Volunteers).

We may do a "larger battle" option. Ardaeshir suggested also making a "The Czechs arrive" variant as well.

Thanks for the background. It adds some life to the battles