# The Knights of the Cross/Volume 2/Chapter 79

* CHAPTER LXXIX.
* At dawn the wind not only did not cease, but it rose to such a degree that men could not pitch that tent in which from the beginning of the expedition the king had heard three holy masses each day. At last Vitold ran up with entreaties and the prayer to defer service to a more fitting time in forest quiet, and not to delay the advance. His wish was in fact gratified, for it could not be otherwise. At sunrise the armies moved in a body, and behind them an endless train of wagons.
* After they had marched an hour the wind went down somewhat, so that the flags were unfurled. And then the fields to an immense extent were covered, as it were, with flowers of a hundred colors. No eye could embrace the legions, or that forest of various banners under which the regiments moved forward. The land of Cracow advanced under a red banner with a white, crowned eagle; that was the grand banner of the kingdom, the chief standard of all the troops. It was borne by Martsin of Vrotsimovitse, a knight mighty and famous. Behind it marched the household regiment; one body had the double cross of Lithuania above it, the other a knight with a sword raised to strike. Under the banner of Saint George marched a powerful division of mercenaries and foreign volunteers, formed mainly of Moravians and Bohemians. Many of these had volunteered for that war, since the 49th regiment was made up of them exclusively. Those men were properly infantry, which marched behind the lancers; they were wild, unruly, but so trained to battle, and so terrible in encounter, that all other infantry when they struck on these sprang away as quickly as possible, just as a dog starts back from a porcupine. Battle-axes, scythes, common axes, and especially iron flails formed their weapons, which they wielded in a manner that was simply terrible. They took service with any one who paid them, as their only element was war, plunder, and slaughter.
* At the side of the Moravians and Bohemians marched under their own banner sixteen regiments of the Polish lands, among these one from Premysl, one from Lvov, one from Galicia, three from Podolia, and behind them infantry from ​the same lands armed mainly with pikes and scythes. The princes of Mazovia, Yanush, and Ziemovit led the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd regiments. Next marched the bishops', and then the nobles' regiments to the number of twenty-two. Hence Yasko of Tarnov, Yendrek of Tenchyn, Spytko Leliva, Kron of Ostrovo, and Mikolai of Mihalov, and Zbigniev of Brezie, and Kuba of Konietspole, and Yasko of Ligenza, and the Kmitas, and the Zakliks,—and besides them the houses of Gryfits, and the Bobovskis, and Kozli Rogi, and others who assembled in battle under a common escutcheon and "watchword." And so the land bloomed beneath them, as fields bloom in spring. A sea of horses moved forward, and a sea of men, above them a forest of lances with colored streamers, like small flowers, and in the rear, in clouds of dust, the townspeople and the free earth-tillers' infantry. They knew that they were going to a dreadful battle, but they knew that it was "necessary," hence they advanced with willing hearts.
* On the right wing moved the legions of Vitold, under banners of various colors, but with the same device, the Lithuanian knight with upraised sword. No eye could take in all the legions, for they marched through fields and forests for a width of almost five English miles.
* Before midday the armies came near Logdau and Tannenberg, and halted at the edge of a forest. The place seemed to be suited for rest and secure from sudden attack; for on the left flank it was protected by the water of Lake Dombrovna, on the right by Lake Luben; before the armies an expanse of field was open to the width of five miles.
* In the centre of that expanse, rising gently toward the west, were the fields of Grünwald, and a little to the right stood the gray straw roofs, and the empty melancholy fallow lands of Tannenberg. The enemy, who could descend toward the forest from the height, might be seen easily, but it was not supposed that they could come up sooner than the day following. So the armies halted there only to rest; but since Zyndram, skilled in matters of war, had preserved, even while marching, the order of battle, they took position so that they might be ready for action at any instant.
* At command of the leader they sent forward immediately, on light and swift horses, scouts in the direction of Grünwald and Tannenberg, and still farther to examine the region around. But meanwhile the chapel tent was pitched on the ​lofty bank of Lake Luben, for the king was eager for divine service, so that he might hear his usual masses.
* Yagello, Vitold, the Mazovian princes, and the military council betook themselves to the tent. Before it had assembled the foremost of the knights, both to commit themselves to God before the dreadful day and to look at the king. And they saw him as he went in coarse campaign clothing, with a serious countenance on which grievous care had settled visibly. Years had changed his form little, and had not covered his face with wrinkles or whitened his hair, which at that time he put behind his ears with the same quick movement as the first time when Zbyshko saw him in Cracow. But he walked as if bent beneath that tremendous responsibility which weighed on his shoulders, and as if he were sunk in great sorrow. In the army men said to one another that the king wept continually over the Christian blood which was to be shed, and it was so in reality. Yagello trembled in view of war, especially with men who bore the cross on their mantles and banners, and he desired peace with all his soul. In vain did the Polish lords, and even the Hungarian mediators Stsibor and Gara represent to him the haughtiness and confidence of the Order, with which the Grand Master Ulrich was filled. Ulrich was ready to challenge the whole world to battle. It was in vain that the king's own envoy, Peter Korzbog, swore on the cross of the Lord, and on his own escutcheon that the Order would not hear of peace, and that Count von Wende, the comtur of Gniev, was the only man inclined toward it; other knights of the Order covered Count Wende with ridicule and insults, and still the king had hope that the enemy would recognize the justice of his demands, spare human blood, and end the terrible dispute with a just treaty.
* He went, therefore, to pray for this object in the chapel; his simple and kindly soul was tormented with immense fear. In former days Yagello had visited with fire and sword the lands of the Order; that he had done, however, when he was a pagan prince of Lithuania, but now, when as a Polish king and a Christian he saw burning villages, ruins, blood, and tears, he was seized with the fear of God's anger, especially since that was only the beginning of war. If it might stop even there! But to-day or to-morrow nations would exterminate each other, and the earth would be steeped in blood. That enemy is unjust indeed, but still he carries the cross on his mantle, and he is defended by such great ​and holy relics that the mind draws back before them in terror. The whole army also thought of these relics with fear. Not spears, nor swords, nor axes did the Poles dread chiefly, but those holy relics. "How raise a hand on the Grand Master?" asked knights who knew no fear, "if on his armor he bears a reliquary, and in it the bones of saints and the wood of the cross of the Saviour."
* Vitold was burning for war, it is true; he urged to it and he hurried to the battle, but the pious heart of the king became cowardly when he thought of those heavenly powers with which the Order had shielded its injustice.