Battle of Vistula Lagoon The Battle of Vistula Lagoon ( or ) was fought on September 15 , 1463 between the navy of the Teutonic Order , and the navy of the Prussian Confederation which was allied with the King of Poland , as part of the Thirteen Years ' War ( 1454 – 66 ) . The battle was the largest naval battle of the war , and one of the two battles ( along with Battle of Świecino ) which decided the final outcome of the war . The battle . The Grand Master of the Teutonic Order , Ludwig von Erlichshausen , led the Teutonic fleet , in an attempt to come to the aid of the city of Mewe ( Gniew ) via the Vistula river , which had been besieged by Polish forces since July , 1463 . The Teutonic knights assembled 44 ships , mostly fishing boats , along with several galleys , staffed by 2500 men , of which around 1500 were armed . The Prussian ships were led by privateer s Vincent Stolle , Matthew Kolmener , of Gdańsk and Jacob Vochs of Elbląg , with support from troops of the Polish king , Casimir IV Jagiellon . Initially the Gdańsk sailors , facing the incoming Teutonic flotilla alone , had only ten " szniks " ( light sail boats common in the Baltic in the 15th century ) which were staffed with five hundred men armed with crossbows and arquebus es . To delay the enemy they sank a galley at a narrow part of the Vistula which blocked the entrance from the lagoon to the river . Coming upon the obstacle , von Erlichshausen stalled long enough for the Elbląg ships to join up with those of Gdańsk . Together , the two cities had around 30 ships of various types , 600 to 700 armed men and a similar number of sailors manning the ships themselves . von Erlichshausen ordered a withdrawal into the lagoon itself where his ships bunched up close to the shore . The cities ' ships on the other hand , came out of the river into the lagoon and formed themselves into a crescent formation . Despite having fewer ships , the Prussians as experienced sailors were victorious , gaining control of the Vistula . Among the captured knights was Hans Hetzel , the komtur of Memel ( Klaipėda ) . Aftermath . As a result of the battle Mewe capitulated to Polish forces in 1464 , the Teutonic Navy was eliminated as a viable force , a number of mercenaries in the Order ' s service , including Bernard Szumborski , left the Teutonic side and signed an independent peace treaty with the Polish king , and the Poles and the Prussian Confederation seized the initiative in the Thirteen Years ' War . The war itself ended with the signing of the Second Peace of Toruń in 1466 and the incorporation of Royal Prussia , including Gdańsk and Elbląg into Poland . In chronicles . The battle was first described by the contemporary Polish chronicler Jan Długosz . However , Długosz , who was relying on two separate reports of the same battle , one from Gdańsk and the other from Elbląg , erroneously reported that two separate battles had actually taken place . Subsequent research by historians , based on the contemporary account of Jan Lindau , corrected the mistake . In literature . The battle is described in several works of historical fiction , among them " Znak Salamandry " ( " Sign of the Salamander " ) by Jerzy Piechowski , " Skruszona Potęga " ( " A Crumbled Power " ) by Kazimierz Traciewicz and " Bałtyckie Orły " ( " Eagles of the Baltic " ) by Józef Wójcicki .