Just want to share some history and some eye-candy with you. This diorama is build by Udo Speng primary using miniatures from Northern Crusades Miniatures, but also one from my former psychical range of 1/72 scale (he did scale down the 28mm figure before printing. Have fun, learn a little history and enjoy the amazing work by Udo.
The tekst below is from Danish site: https://milhist.dk/slaget-paa-isen-1242/ translated by ChatGPT
The Battle on the Ice, 1242 Created by Milhist on 03/11/2017 in Jens, Conflict Zone Baltic Sea | 2,028 VIEWS
When the Danish knights, mercilessly bombarded by the Kipchak-Turkish archers, broke down, the battle was effectively decided. The Battle on the Ice on April 5, 1242, was the largest Danish military effort since the Battle of Lyndanisse in 1219, where the Dannebrog “fell from the sky,” and Estonia was conquered. In the battle, the military quality of the Western knights was trumped by the legendary Russian mass army and a few elite forces. The battle had a decisive impact on the border delineation of our present day
To attack in the name of the Lord In the years leading up to 1242, the pope had called for war and mission in the Baltic region. Denmark was a willing participant, and a planned crusade based in Estonia, which Valdemar 2. “Victory” had reacquired for the Danish crown in 1238, against the pagan Balts, was intended to put Denmark back on the map as a great power and a leading crusader nation in the Baltic Sea region. When the king died in 1241, it did not come to fruition, but forces from the Danish duchy of Estonia still participated in campaigns alongside the Teutonic Order, a religious and military elite force of knights, aimed at the pagan Balts. And indirectly against the Russian Orthodox Novgorod, which the pope viewed as heretics. The attacks in Novgorod’s sphere of interest forced the trading city to react.
Alexander and Novgorod counterattack An attack from the Danish part of Estonia to the Vod region near the Gulf of Finland, where a Danish-German-Estonian force built a strong fortress, threatened to cut off Novgorod’s trade route to the Baltic Sea. A subsequent conquest of the city-state of Pskov further south, with the help of a pro-Western elite within Pskov itself, also neutralized a former ally of Novgorod. Novgorod had to strike back. The commander Alexander Nevsky, with the wind in his sails from a victory over a Swedish invasion force at the Neva River in 1240, from which the nickname ‘Nevsky’ originated, moved out with an army from Novgorod and his own ‘druzhina,’ i.e., personal guard, supported by warriors from the marshes of Ladoga, Karelia, and Ingria. First, they captured the fortress at the Gulf of Finland, and later they took Pskov by a surprise attack on March 5, 1242, when the city was held by only two German order knights and a garrison of 50 soldiers. The rest of the crusader force had been withdrawn to help fight a Mongol army that had invaded Poland and Hungary.
The Russians are coming! But it was not enough to recapture what they believed was Novgorod’s. The invasion of the Western crusaders had to be avenged in a way that would command respect, something a show of power on the enemy’s own territory could achieve. With this purpose in mind, three army forces from Novgorod penetrated the territory of the Teutonic knights and ravaged the Christian bishopric of Dorpat, the neighboring area to Pskov. Alexander Nevsky probably did not have any long-term ambitions with the campaign, as a prolonged war with the crusaders was unwanted. At the same time, a more pressing threat hung over Novgorod; the same Mongols whose armies had penetrated Poland and Hungary for decades had exerted heavy pressure on the Russian regions east of Novgorod. An eventual showdown with the Western Christians could wait.
But misfortune struck. During the campaign in Dorpat, an advanced force was surprised and heavily battered by a force of German knights, supported by a local Estonian militia hidden in the dense forests of the area. The survivors hastily retreated through the forests to seek safety with the Russian main force, located a few kilometers further southeast. The crusaders pursued the Russian force immediately but chose later to turn north with the prisoners from the encounter to join their main force.
The numbers vary drastically – from up to 10,000 to 2,500 – but the latest estimates indicate the strength to consist of around 350 knights and riders from the German crusaders of the Teutonic Order, in addition to around 300 knights and rider soldiers from Wierland, a part of the Danish king’s domain in Estonia, supported by perhaps 600 Estonian militia. It was not entirely clear who the king of Denmark was, for Valdemar 2. “Victory” had died the year before, and a power struggle was underway. But in the sources, they are referred to as ‘the king’s men,’ as they, as Danish vassals, whether they originally hailed from Denmark itself or Westphalia or Saxony in Germany, where many German settlers originated, had an obligation to perform military service for Denmark. The Danish and Teutonic Order force was accompanied by around 300 German knights and riders from Dorpat, supported by maybe 1,000 Estonian militia, and the entire army of about 2,500 men was under the command of Bishop Hermann Buxhövden from the diocese of Dorpat, who was on his way south to put an end to the Russian ravaging. The two crusader forces met at the village of Rasina, and, probably based on information from prisoners about the Russian main force, chose to move eastward to position themselves to attack the Russian force, which was also moving eastward, from the flank. Both main forces, now aware of each other’s close presence, were rapidly moving eastward, separated only by a wide area of dense forest.
The Armies Of the approximately 950 knights and riders, few were “real” knights in armor and plate, but there might have been a couple of hundred. Especially the knights of the Teutonic Order were of great military value, as strongly believing warrior monks, they had dedicated their lives to training and battle. They were the elite. The rest were mostly well-equipped riders with helmets, shields, and armor, residing in the crusaders’ areas in the Baltic region, and with their experience and training, they would constitute a valuable part of any army. Additionally, there were the so-called seasonal soldiers, who fought for money and excitement for a few months at a time. Besides, of course, the salvation promised by the pope to all who participated in crusades against the pagans in the Baltic region, much closer to the eastern Mediterranean, where most crusader orders were now based, after losing the Holy Land in 1187.
The Estonian militia may not have been as well-equipped, but they were lightly armed troops armed with spears, bows, and long knives. If they had horses, they were used as scouting troops and for gathering supplies when the army was on the move. Otherwise, they were used to fill the defense to protect the other forces. Motivated mostly by the prospect of plunder and rape (which the others were not necessarily averse to either), they had limited military value.
Alexander Nevsky’s army is said to have been around 5,500 men at the latest, where his ‘druzhina’ or guard numbered about 1,000 men. The force consisted of noble leaders from the realm with their retinues of well-equipped and professional horsemen. They had significantly greater military value than the main force of the army, which comprised maybe 4,000 militia soldiers from the various regions of Novgorod’s extensive realm, without much training or experience. Their greatest value was in their large numbers.
They were accompanied by a small but important force of up to 600 horse archers, probably of Kipchak-Turkish origin, a nomadic people hired for military service from the region north of the Black Sea. The riders sent massive showers of arrows towards the enemy, who could easily be hit in their tight formations. If the enemy chose to break out of the formations to pursue them, they were difficult to “catch” on their small, agile horses, and at the same time, the enemy became vulnerable to counterattacks from other forces. If the enemy’s formations broke down partially or completely into disorder or chaos under the rain of arrows, they moved in with scimitars and spears; a tactic also widespread in the Middle East and had plagued many crusader armies since the First Crusade in 1096-1099.
The Battle on the Ice After moving eastward, Alexander Nevsky’s force crossed the frozen Lake Peipus just north of Pskov. Here, they formed up on the lake’s shore, where they were protected by a natural defense in the form of large and irregular ice floes created by the westerly wind along the lake shore, which would help break up an attacking enemy’s organization. After reaching the lake, they cautiously moved across the frozen and slippery lake. Presumably, the Danish contingent was the northern flank of the army, while the force of the Teutonic Order took up the central part of the front, protected to the south by the force under Bishop Buxhövden. The Estonian militia was behind them. Alexander’s force was deployed with the large militia force in the middle, horse archers on each flank, with the Kipchak-Turkish riders opposite the Danish force. The elite force, the druzhina, stood in reserve at the back, ready to deliver the decisive attack.
The battle began, according to the Novgorod Chronicle, with a fierce frontal attack against Alexander’s central force. The few hundred armored knights thundered into the massive crowd of Russian militia with their heavy horses and lances, killing and wounding many hundreds. Despite being clearly outnumbered, it was expected that the knights, deployed in the usual attacking formation in the form of a spearhead intended to penetrate and split the defense, would split and smash the Novgorod militia. The goal was probably to cut through the infantry to reach Alexander and kill him. The death of the only 20-year-old but already famous army leader could very well spread panic and force the rest of the army to flee.
The Novgorod Chronicle writes:
“An army of Germans (‘nemtsy’; a term for northwestern Europeans) and Chuds (Estonians) came against them, and they fought their way through the army in a wedge. And there was a great battle with Germans and Chuds, with the sound of shattering spears and the clash of swords, so even the frozen lake moved, and the ice could not be seen, for it was covered in blood.”
The Danes fall to a rain of arrows Despite the massive losses that the knights’ attack, supported by the rest of the cavalry, surely caused, the militia held up under the pressure. The Russian mass triumphed over the German military quality. After fighting to break through the mass of foot soldiers for a couple of hours, and perhaps unable to break free properly to deliver another powerful attack, the Danish-German knights faced a new assault when showers of arrows from the Kipchak-Turkish archers, whom Alexander now deployed on the flank, began to rain down on the Danish force. After some time, they had suffered such heavy losses that they had to withdraw from the battle – perhaps they definitively withdrew after close combat with the Kipchak Turks. This meant that the German knights’ flank was now exposed, which Alexander exploited and sent the druzhina into battle. On the opposite flank, where the German force under Bishop Buxhövden had also been halted, the rain of arrows was also too strong, and they too had to retreat. The German knights were now completely surrounded. The Estonian militia chose not to engage in the battle, even though a counterattack from them could have helped get the German knights out of trouble. But since the sources state that only 20 knights were killed and six captured, in addition to 50 others, they must still have managed to exploit their military superiority and fight their way out. During the pursuit of the Turkish and Russian riders, they reached the other side of the lake, where they could set up a new defense, where Alexander Nevsky apparently – perhaps considering the more serious Mongol threat – chose to let the battle end. Around 400 other crusaders were said to be killed, according to the Novgorod Chronicle, in addition to numerous militiamen. It is unknown how many from the ‘druzhina’ or the archers perished. The fact that the crusaders could save themselves to safety, to live and fight another day, meant that the balance of power between Novgorod and the Western crusaders remained unchanged. An envoy to Alexander Nevsky from the Teutonic Order promised to respect Novgorod’s suzerainty over the regions of Vod, Luga (between Vod and Novgorod), Pskov, and Lettgallia (south of Pskov). This effectively meant that any crusading activity against the east was discontinued. As a result, the contemporary borders between the Western crusaders’ territories and the Russian Orthodox Novgorod were frozen – so much so that they largely constitute today’s borders between Estonia/Latvia and Russia.
A very famous film, “Alexander Nevsky,” from 1938 by the Russian director Sergei Eisenstein, shows that the ice was supposed to have broken under the weight of the combined mass of the crusader army’s horses, knights, and equipment. However, none of the early sources or sources from the 13th to 14th centuries mention such a disaster. A few riders or knights may have gone through the ice; the story has thus been distorted and magnified. The myth of the disaster may have arisen in the worship of Alexander Nevsky, who was canonized in the 16th century, as the leading Russian Orthodox opponent in the fight against the Western crusaders.