Battle of the Ice The Battle on the Ice ( ; ; ; ) , also known as the Battle of Lake Peipus ( ; ) , was a battle between the Republic of Novgorod and the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Knights ( whose army consisted mostly of Estonians ) on April 5 , 1242 , at Lake Peipus . The battle is notable for having been fought largely on the frozen lake . The battle was a significant defeat sustained by Roman Catholic crusaders during the Northern Crusades , which were directed against pagans and Eastern Orthodox Christians rather than Muslims in the Holy Land . The crusaders ' defeat in the battle marked the end of their campaigns against the Orthodox Novgorod Republic and other Russian territories for the next century . Background . Hoping to exploit the Russians ' weakness in the wake of the Mongol and Swedish invasions , the Teutonic Knights attacked the neighboring Novgorod Republic and occupied Pskov , Izborsk , and Koporye in the autumn of 1240 . When they approached Novgorod itself , the local citizens recalled to the city 20 - year - old Prince Alexander Nevsky , whom they had banished to Pereslavl earlier that year . During the campaign of 1241 , Alexander managed to retake Pskov and Koporye from the crusaders . Details of the battle . In the spring of 1242 , the Teutonic Knights defeated a detachment of Novgorodians about 20 km south of the fortress of Dorpat ( Tartu ) . Led by Prince - Bishop Hermann of Dorpat , the knights and their auxiliary troops of local Ugaunian Estonians then met with Alexander ' s forces by the narrow strait that connects the northern and southern parts of Lake Peipus ( Lake Peipus proper with Lake Pskovskoe ) on April 5 , 1242 . Alexander , intending to fight in a place of his own choosing , retreated in an attempt to draw the often over - confident Crusaders onto the frozen lake . The crusader forces likely numbered around 4 , 000 . Most of them were probably Estonians ( Chud es ) . The Russians fielded around 5 , 000 men : Alexander and his brother Andrei ' s bodyguards ( " druzhina " ) , totalling around 1 , 000 , plus the militia of Novgorod . According to contemporary Russian chronicles , after hours of hand - to - hand fighting , Alexander ordered the left and right wings of his archers to enter the battle . The knights by that time were exhausted from the constant struggle on the slippery surface of the frozen lake . The Crusaders started to retreat in disarray deeper onto the ice , and the appearance of the fresh Russian cavalry made them run for their lives . When the knights attempted to rally at the far side of the lake , the thin ice began to give way under the weight of their heavy armour , and many knights drowned . In 1983 , a revisionist view proposed by historian John I . L . Fennell argues that the battle was not as important , nor as large , as has sometimes been portrayed . Fennell claimed that most of the Teutonic Knights were by that time engaged elsewhere in the Baltic . He also states that the apparently low casualties suffered by the knights according to their own sources is indicative of the small magnitude of the encounter . Russian historian Alexander Uzhankov , who cited a number of authors and primary sources , suggested that Fennell distorted the picture by ignoring many historical facts and documents . In order to stress the importance of the battle , he cites two papal bulls of Gregory IX , promulgated in 1233 and 1237 , which called for a crusade to protect Christianity in Finland against her neighbours . The first bull explicitly mentions Russia . The kingdoms of Sweden , Denmark and the Teutonic Order built up an alliance in June 1238 , under the auspices of Danish king Valdemar II . They assembled the larger western cavalry force of their time . Another point mentioned by Uzhakov is the 1243 treaty between Novgorod and the Teutonic Order , where the knights abandoned all claims to Russian lands . Uzhakov also emphasizes , with respect to the scale of battle , that for each knight deployed on the field there were eight to 30 combatants , counting squires , archers and servants . Casualties . According to the Novgorod First Chronicle , Prince Alexander and all the men of Novgorod drew up their forces by the lake , at Uzmen , by the Raven ' s Rock ; and the Germans and the Estonians rode at them , driving themselves like a wedge through their army . And there was a great slaughter of Germans and Estonians . . . they fought with them during the pursuit on the ice seven verst s short of the Subol [ north - western ] shore . And there fell a countless number of Estonians , and 400 of the Germans , and they took fifty with their hands and they took them to Novgorod . According to the Livonian Order ' s " Livonian Rhymed Chronicle " , written in the late 1340s , The [ Russians ] had many archers , and the battle began with their bold assault on the king ' s men [ Danes ] . The brothers ' banners were soon flying in the midst of the archers , and swords were heard cutting helmets apart . Many from both sides fell dead on the grass . Then the Brothers ' army was completely surrounded , for the Russians had so many troops that there were easily sixty men for every one German knight . The Brothers fought well enough , but they were nonetheless cut down . Some of those from Dorpat escaped from the battle , and it was their salvation that they fled . Twenty brothers lay dead and six were captured . Legacy . The legacy of the battle , and its decisiveness , lies in the fact that it halted the eastward expansion of the Teutonic Order and established a permanent border line through the Narva River and Lake Peipus dividing Eastern Orthodoxy from Western Catholicism . The knights ' defeat at the hands of Alexander ' s forces prevented the crusaders from retaking Pskov , the linchpin of their eastern crusade . The Novgorodians succeeded in defending Russian territory , and the German crusaders never mounted another serious challenge eastward . Alexander was canonised as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church in 1574 . Popular culture . The event was glorified in Sergei Eisenstein ' s nationalistic historical drama film " Alexander Nevsky " , released in 1938 . The movie , bearing propagandist allegories of the Teutonic Knights as Nazi Germans , with the Teutonic infantry wearing modified World War I German Stahlhelm helmets , has created a popular image of the battle often mistaken for the real events . Sergei Prokofiev turned his score for the film into a concert cantata of the same title , the longest movement of which is " The Battle on the Ice " . During World War II , the image of Alexander Nevsky became a national Russian symbol of the struggle against German occupation . Today , Russia has an Order of St . Alexander Nevsky , a medal given for outstanding bravery and excellent service to the country . Heavy metal band Aria composed a song , " Ballad of an Ancient Russian Warrior " , for their " Hero of Asphalt " album in 1987 . The song describes the battle from a participant ' s point of view . In a 2009 Russian - Canadian - Japanese WWII - related anime , " First Squad " , the Battle on the Ice plays a vital part in the plot .