27.4 Europe: a.d. 1201 to 1300  (Page 12/14)

There were still some nine separate principalities in Poland under four dukedoms.

In 1241 the northern prong of the invading Mongols defeated both the Poles and the Teutonic Knights. The Mongols had sent only two tumens to take Lithuania and Poland with an aim to draw the northern European armies away from Hungary, but the Polish armies, under Vladimir, the Palatine of Sandomir and Cracow were no match for them and Cracow was abandoned on their approach and burned by the invaders. King Boleslav fled with his family and treasures to Hungary. The Mongol generals, Baidar and Kadan, met at Breslau, the capital of Silesia, where the citizens had already burned their own city and retired into a citadel. A final battle developed at Liegnitz (now known as Legnica) where the invaders met a 25,000 man army assembled by Henry of Silesia, many untrained and ill-equipped, contingents from Oppeln and Moravia, similarly poorly prepared, conscripts from Great Poland and detachments of the Knights Templar from France and the Hospitallers. The Mongols won and after the battle they cut an ear from each dead enemy's body and sent nine large sacks of them to General Batu, as a present. Although some European historians refer to Liegnitz as a Polish victory, this is untrue and due to misunderstandings encountered in translating oriental characters and reports. (Ref. 27 )

After the invasion and the Mongol withdrawal the Germans immigrated into Poland, giving a strong admixture of the German language, laws and blood. At the same time Poland welcomed thousands of Jews fleeing from pogroms in Germany. At the end of the century Poland united with Bohemia to form a single country- under King Wenceslas II of Bohemia.

Russia

"The Mongol invasion was perhaps the most traumatic event in Russian history."