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Well, here it goes - the beginning of my first TL! Whoo! Go easy on me!
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1382 in the year of our Lord, near the Lithuanian town of Trakai: Jogaila of Lithuania regarded the fortified town of Trakai, between two lakes and surmounted with a castle, in the crimson glow of the dawn. Today would be a day of reckoning, of blood, and his traitorous uncle would pay. He signaled to his vassals to begin the march on Duke Kestutis's army. *** Two prisoners were kneeling on the bloodied turf in the center of the battlefield. One was old, battered, bereft of dignity in defeat; this was Kestutis. The other was trembling with fury, pure hate and malice etched in the caked lines of his face. Vytautas wanted nothing more than to break his bonds, to continue the fight, regardless of their defeat. At least that would be the honorable way to die, to give his life for the men he had lost this day. "Son, now is the time for humility-" "Screw humility! Damn him, damn my cousin to hell!" The older man regarded Vytautas and shook his head slowly. "We can only wait, for now. Be quiet!" Just then the ring of guardsmen parted and a retinue of knights pushed forward, headed by the triumphant Jogaila. Solemn in victory, he stepped forward to regard his uncle and cousin. "Where hast yon pride fled to, my kinsmen? What do you intend to do now, in your just defeat?" Impossibly, Vytautas's grimace deepened, until all gasped as if he were a devil now and not a man. "Pride! Glory! Such are the titles of the victorious, but not the living!" With those words, Vytautas's bonds loosened, and his hands came around with a hidden dagger as he began to lunge upward, towards Jogaila. All were shocked, and time slowed to a syrupy thickness, as Kestutis looked on in horror at what his son was doing. Unlike his retainers, Jogaila reacted by drawing his sword, but by the time it left the scabbard it would be too late; Vytautas was moving with the speed of a demon. Jogaila would be cut down. Except that his vassal Galimantas, quickly realizing the situation, lunged in front of his liege lord, before Vytautas's assault. Time quickened back to normal as a groan escaped Galimantas's throat. Jogaila pulled his vassal out of the way and decapitated Vytautas with one powerful stroke, blood spewing over his armor like a tide. All looked on in shock at what had just happened, all frozen except for Jogaila and Kestutis. Each regarded the other, Kestutis with horror and building grief, Jogaila with nothing except rage. "You will pay for your son's sin this day, uncle." *** A grey morning greeted Kestutis as he gazed, unfocused, at the sky. He stood, hands bound, on a pauper's scaffold, awaiting the next few moments. He would soon see his son. The nuce was stretched around his neck, and his gaze did not waver. He did not care that he would receive a dishonorable death; he no longer cared for this world. The trap below him gave, and all was at an end.
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"The wearers of the Cross have a holy duty to uphold it, even in the face of death; for the Kingdom Eternal awaits those who stand, not those who waver."
-Anonymous
"Our gods have truly left us."
-Jogaila, witnessing the sack of Vilnius
TERMS OF THE TREATY OF DUBISSA (Abridged Version) 1. Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, solemnly promises to convert himself and those of his tribe to the One True Faith of the Roman Catholic Church, and recognize the Bishop of Rome as the Successor to St. Peter and sole Ruler of this World; 2. Jogaila, in his capacity as Grand Duke, will cede the territory of Samogotia to the Teutonic Order; 3. The Teutonic Order will immediately cease its holy crusade into Lithuania, as Lithuania is now of the True Faith; 4. The territories of the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania shall be respected now and for ever by both parties.
The Treaty of Dubissa was significant because it was never ratified, and thus became a source of conflict between Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights. The civil war raging in Lithuania came to an abrupt end with the death of Vytautas and the execution of Kestutis; the next five years would see a brutal war where Lithuania stood mostly alone against a state that many, even in the Catholic West, regarded as bloodthirsty and ruthless. It was this war that saw the destruction of Vilnius, the massacre of the entirety of Minsk's population, and the spread of the conflict into Tver and Pskov. It was only in the winter of 1386-1387 that the war came to an end, and it was an end that no one, not even Jogaila himself had anticipated: the taking of Marienburg and the collapse of the entire Order. By the summer of 1387, Lithuania, battered, bruised, but not beaten, stood triumphant in the East. The War of Velnias, as it came to be known in Lithuania, had its roots in the civil conflict that erupted between the brothers Jogaila and Skirgaila, and their uncle and cousin, Kestutis and Vytautas. The decisive battle occurred outside of Trakai, and ended with the capture of Kestutis and Vytautas; Vytautas's attempt on Jogaila's life was barely averted, and both Vytautas and Kestutis died shortly thereafter in prison, allegedly by the machinations of Skirgaila[1]. Seeing all of their hard work in Lithuania die with Vytautas, the Teutonic Order pressed Jogaila to follow the terms of the Treaty - which he now had no reason to follow. Exasperated, the man in charge of relations with Lithuania, Konrad von Wallenrode, declared war (under the term "crusade," as Lithuania was still technically pagan) and invaded in early 1383. By late 1384, most of core Lithuania was in the Order's hands, Vilnius had been razed after a seven-month siege, and Jogaila found himself fighting a slow withdrawal into Lithuania's Ruthenian lands. Although the popular tales of German knights raping Lithuanian and Ruthene maidens and organizing hunts of innocent peasants may certainly be exaggerated, the main tragedy of the War - the massacre of Minsk - cannot be denied, as the old city still lies barren to this day, and even Luther of Burgundy makes note of it in his accounts fifty-odd years later. The massacre can be attributed to no one man, but its result was the mass indignation of most of Ruthenia and the solidifying of Jogaila's support amongst those people. In the deepening months of late 1384, the forces under the command of von Wallenrode found themselves trapped in a brutal winter and a seething countryside; the accounts of one German knight, Hermann of Danzig, tell of some of the first known guerilla attacks in recorded history by Ruthenian peasants. The cycle of increasing violence between the occupying knights and the populous of the Grand Duchy severely weakened the Knights' campaign to the point that, in 1386, when the Knights desperately tried to take Smolensk, a Lithuanian vassal, they were routed by Skirgaila's men and forced back to Vilnius. Smolensk was not a part of the Grand Duchy before the War, but, like Pskov, Tver, and Poltava, soon came under Jogaila's vassalage from fear of further Teutonic gains. The later years of the War, when Jogaila relied on the loyalty of Ruthenian nobles to keep the war effort afloat, deepened the bond between the Lithuanian State and the Ruthene peoples to the point that Jogaila converted to Greek Orthodoxy in early 1386[2]. The general retreat of the Order's forces from the disaster at Smolensk turned into a slow dissolution of the stability of the Order itself, most dramatically with the peasant uprisings in Estonia and Prussia; by October of 1386, two large groupings of the Order remained in Livonia, centered on Riga, and Prussia, which remained largely untouched. This, too, changed when Poland unexpectedly declared war on the order, and began a general invasion of Teutonic Prussia and Pomerania. This was the result of secret machinations between Jogaila and Jadwiga, Queen of Poland[3], mediated mostly by Skirgaila, whereby Teutonic Prussia and Pomerania would pass to Poland and the Order's Livonian and Estonian territories would pass to Lithuania. By February 1387, Marienburg itself was under siege and the majority of the Order's northern territory was in Lithuanian hands. The great battle of Marienburg, with the forces of Duke Siemowit, Grand Duke Jogaila, and even a sizable detachment of Czechs under the young Jan Zizka[4] successfully routed the last of the Order's forces in the field, under von Wallenrode himself, when they attempted to break the siege. In March of 1387, the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Konrad von Jungingen, surrendered Marienburg to Jogaila personally, and the Monastic State of the Teutonic Order ceased to exist. The earlier terms of the secret treaty between Jogaila and Jadwiga were upheld, and Prussia went to Poland, and Livonia-Estonia went to Lithuania. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was now larger than it had ever been, all threats from the north and west had been removed, and Lithuania gained a valuable ally in Poland, which would secure its western borders for years to come. Perhaps more importantly, Jogaila came to realize the importance of his Ruthenian subjects, and would begin a process of strengthening those ties that would continue for centuries to come. Jogaila now had only three neighbors to worry about: Novgorod, the Golden Horde, and the newly ascendant Muscowy[5]. There would soon be a reckoning for each.
"We now have no more devils upon our coastline."
-Skirgaila, after the Peace of Marienburg
[1] - Yes, there will be differing accounts, and no, that will not stop until a decent historical method emerges (much like in OTL). [2] - This, of course, is disputed, but most sources generally agree that Jogaila at least paid lip service to Orthodoxy; more importantly, Lithuania soon became mostly Orthodox after the War. [3] - The thirteen-year-old Jadwiga was already betrothed to Duke Siemowit IV of Masovia, who did not become King but remained Duke-Consort; Jadwiga would continue to rule as "King" Jadwiga until her death, setting the precedent for female monarchs in Poland for centuries to come. [4] - I simply couldn't resist. Oh, you'll see more about the happenings in Bohemia later on, don't you worry. [5] - Yes, you'll soon see the battle that is at the very heart of this TL.