Don’t you know that we are your Pope, for our Pope is the Sword, and our Pope is never far from you.
In many ways, the Northern Crusades, a general term applied to the campaigns undertaken by various Catholic powers in Germany, Poland, the Baltics and Finland, though obscure today, produced the longest lasting and most significant consequences of any of the medieval Crusades, and also gave birth to traditions and institutions that lasted well into modernity. The need to recruit Crusaders from Europe to come and take part in never-ending warfare at the edge of the world also caused the evolution of very creative war fighting and marketing techniques that survive to this day.
The most fascinating of these were the Reisen, the great safari like trips that the Teutonic Order organized and marketed in the West to lure Western knights to this desolate land to take part in a great chivalrous adventure and hone their martial skills while cleansing their souls with the blood of the unbelievers. The deliberate mythology of the Reise, cultivated by the Teutonic Order, spread to every corner of Europe and the "Reysa" is even mentioned by Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales. Curious?
I will first lay out the basic background on the Northern Crusades and the major participants, and then go into the phenomenon of the Reisen. If anybody needs more background than what is contained below, I will be happy to provide it in the comments.
I. History of the Teutonic Order
The Northern Crusades were launched by many parties, from petty German barons to the Kings of Sweden and Denmark, and resulted in relatively quick conquests of the littoral lands, where the invaders’ control of the sea was most useful. Launching a Crusade, as opposed to a regular war of conquest, gave important advantages – the Crusading prince would typically be allowed to tap into the revenues of the Catholic Church in his territories to fund it, and would also have access to an international pool of willing fighters who did not require pay, because they were fighting for glory and also were being compensated via the Papal grant of indulgences, which absolved various defined sins of the grantee. Crusading in the eastern Baltic was very significant to the emerging national identities of Denmark and Sweden, and their national flags even today bear the Crusader cross as a tribute to that time. Denmark claims to have received its flag, the oldest national flag in the world bearing a red cross on a white field, during a battle against the pagan Estonians, when it drifted down from heaven to encourage the hard pressed Danish Crusaders.
In addition to these national ambitions of the regional Catholic powers, the Northern Crusades became a pan-European enterprise in proportion to the waning and loss of hope in the Crusades for the Holy Land, where the initial successes of the First Crusade in 1096 soon turned into an unbroken string of humiliating and dispiriting defeats (it was difficult not to view a defeat in wars for Christ’s tomb as a rebuke from Christ himself and a judgment on the sinfulness and unworthiness of the Crusade participants). By the 13th century, Northern Europeans were no longer willing to make the pointless and frustrating trek to the Near East, but grew increasingly enthusiastic about the prospects for enlarging Christendom and their own possessions at the expense of the eastern Baltic pagans. A multi pronged assault ensued, and relatively quick initial conquests of the Crusaders included Estonia, Latvia, Finland and modern northern Poland, then referred to as Prussia.
The question of government of areas conquered during a Crusade was always an interesting one. In the Holy Land the Crusaders had created up several independent feudal principalities, but these had shriveled on the vine by the 13th century. Sweden simply annexed Finland into its kingdom, which was easy given that the two countries shared a border and Sweden had a far larger population and economy. Denmark attempted to rule Estonia directly, but, separated by 1,300 kilometers of often icebound sea, quickly became content to simply tax the revenue coming from upstream trade with Novgorod, and did not provide adequate protection or governance. Livonia was initially ruled as an independent entity by the Bishop of Riga, but, lacking military strength, the bishop created the Order of Christ in Livonia, a regional military order that was colloquially referred to as the Sword Brethren because of their insignia. After a century of absentee control, the King of Denmark gave the Sword Brethren control over Estonia as well.
Gradually the Sword Brethren, being the only significant military power on the Baltic coast, became corrupted and began to oppress both the native population and the German settlers who had arrived to take part in the lucrative trade with the interior. As the population appealed to him for protection, the Bishop of Riga came to rue the day he created this arrogant organization, and a struggle for power paralyzed Livonia. The quote with which this diary begins was directed by the Sword Brethren to the Bishop and his supporters, who had in vain resorted to appealing to the Pope for protection. When the Pope sent a legate to reign in the Sword Brethren, these soldiers of Christ actually imprisoned him until such time as he became willing to depart the territories. Eventually, the Sword Brethren got too cocky and allowed themselves to be surrounded and annihilated while returning, laden with booty, from a raid too deep into Lithuanian territory. After this debacle, this Order was dissolved and reformed as a junior branch of the Teutonic Order, which by then was in control of Prussia and was the only Catholic power in the region which had the resources and the will to protect Livonia and to wage the Crusade there.
The Teutonic Order had begun as the Order of the Hospital of St. Mary in Jerusalem, a fighting international order of warrior monks patterned after the Templar and Hospitaller Orders of the Holy Land and designed to fight the infidels in Palestine and to protect pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. However, as the Holy Land was gradually lost, the Teutonic Order reinvented itself as a primarily German institution focused on war in the Baltic region. Crusading princes were only too happy to hand over their distant and hard to hold winnings to the wealthy and aggressive Teutonic Order, which could afford to build castles and maintain garrisons in the new territories. Quickly, the Teutonic Order came to combine in itself the functions of a military order, a religious organization, and an administrative state apparatus, motivated by an insatiable land hunger and the need for total control of its territory. Trusting its religious mission, Poland asked the Order to help it secure Pomerelia, Poland’s only outlet to the Baltic Sea, with a key fortress and port at Danzig. However, after seizing control of this area, the Teutonic Order refused to hand it back to the Poles, instead making Danzig into one of its major strongholds and beginning a struggle with Poland that would last over three centuries.
The Ordenstaat (the State of the Order), as Prussia under the Teutonic Order came to be called until its dissolution during the Reformation (Livonia was governed somewhat differently by a junior branch of the Teutonic Order, the Livonian Order), was a German speaking and cultured state unique in Europe, because it was in theory a meritocracy, governed by a Grand Master along with an Officers’ Council. Teutonic Knights were promoted up the ranks for their abilities, rather than any sort of hereditary nobility, though obviously if a nobleman joined the Order while simultaneously making a grant of some lucrative holdings in Europe, they would not be asked to clean the stables or serve your way from a knight’s sergeant like a cadet from some poor family would be required to do. The brethren took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to the Order’s rules and the orders of superior officers, but in practice, few of the noblemen who joined the Order gave up for long the luxurious lifestyle to which they were accustomed.
To provide itself with revenue in addition to that provided by the lands donated to it by pious nobles throughout Europe (but mostly in Southern Germany), the Order encouraged settlement of its lands by German immigrants, and founded and supported thriving commercial ports at Konigsberg (today Russian Kaliningrad), Danzig (today Polish Gdansk) and Riga (capital of Estonia), which controlled the mouths of vital rivers that carried Lithuanian, Russian and Polish produce to the Baltic Sea. These efforts were remarkably successful, and the modern Baltic states of Latvia and Estonia are still distinctly German in character, with their tense relations with Russia continuing the long tradition of animosity dating back to the Crusade era. But the Order was not content to rule its territories and to provide for economic prosperity of its population. Its raison d’être was to spread Christianity, and to wage an endless Crusade against the non-Catholic evil doers that menaced Christendom on all sides. Its mission and its destiny was war.
For a time the Ordenstaat was one of the best governed and wealthiest principalities in Europe, but by the 15th century its wars had become too expensive and it began losing ground to its archrival Poland, which succeeded in finally converting and making allies of the dreaded Lithuanians through a marriage union of the two countries’ royal houses, which allowed Poland to exploit the dynastic resources which the Order could not to tap into Lithuania’s military might and to surround the Order’s lands. In 1525, an unscrupulous Grand Master reinvented himself as a Protestant secular prince and submitted to the Polish King to hold Prussia asa Plish fief, ironically making the fervently Catholic Ordenstaat the first Protestant principality of the Reformation. Even after the surrender of Prussia, the Teutonic Order still held many estates throughout Europe, and lingered on, fighting with the Emperor against the Protestant in the Counterreformation, and Teutonic Knights served as officers in the Empire’s wars with the Ottomans. The Order’s holdings were not confiscated until the time of Napoleon Bonaparte, and it survives to this day as a ceremonial organization devoted to charitable works, and permitting old German men to play dress up.
Traditionally, the top positions in the Teutonic Order were filled by representatives of each of the seven German bailiwicks in proportion to the Order’s holdings in Germany, which were concentrated predominantly in southwestern Germany, while the Livonian Order consisted mainly of north Germans. Over time, the Order became a microcosm of German society, inheriting its prejudices and divisions, and the Germans’ disdainful attitude toward Poland, though it was also a Catholic country. German was its official tongue, and, with the majority of Europe’s nobility and knights speaking French, this led in the long term to the Order’s isolation and the loss of interest in its affairs by non-German Catholics. But during its glory days of which I write, the Order was still flourishing and enjoyed a great reputation in Europe as a bulwark of Christendom and, more interestingly for our purposes, the provider to the knightly class of Europe of a unique chivalric experience known as the Reise (German for journey, Reysa in Old English, plural Reisen).
II. Dynamics of the wars waged by the Teutonic Order
The Teutonic Order’s defining struggles were the centuries long wars against the pagan Lithuanians and the Russian Orthodox principalities of Novgorod and Polotsk. These enemies were not primitive tribesmen like those by the initial Western forays into the region, but powerful, wealthy and warlike states who regarded their Catholic neighbors as a dangerous plague to be exterminated from the region, and who, if not attacked, would attack in turn, carrying out devastating raids throughout the lands of Poland, Bohemia, Prussia and Livonia and intervening in their Catholic neighbors’ internal disputes with great effect. Waging an endless Crusade against these dangerous foes allowed the Order to raise money and soldiers in Western Europe, and to keep on the Pope’s good side in the interminable lawsuits brought before the Papal courts against the Order by its subjects and its Catholic neighbors.
The geography of the area is extremely inhospitable, with dense forests and swamps stretching for hundreds of miles, separating the fertile river valleys where civilization and towns were clustered with what the Germans called Wildernesse. That far north, the summers are cold and have days that last 20 hours, while the winters are simply brutal with 20 hour nights. During the spring thaw that lasts well into summer, the terrain is impassable mud, and the same is true until everything freezes solid by January. Clouds of millions of mosquitoes attack every living thing that dares step foot in the forests, the sky is grey, the sea is grey, and there is a special quality of directionless light that gives an otherworldly and unreal appearance to everything.
Because of their vast under populated territory, many enemies and restive subjects, the Teutonic and Livonian Orders needed most of their available manpower for garrisoning the hundreds of forts that were needed to secure the river valleys and other key passages through this wilderness. Most of these fortresses were nothing more than a wooden hilltop structure manned by a knight and a few crossbowmen, usually mercenaries on long term contract. The natural inclination of the mercenaries was to avoid risking their lives and paychecks, and instead their job was to detect and if possible interdict small raiding parties, and to report large enemy movements along the chain of nearby forts back to headquarters, where a response could then be mounted. In addition, many troops were needed in the west and south of Prussia away from the frontier, to protect the land from attacks by the always hostile Poles itching to regain their sea outlet.
The need to maintain so many defensive positions did not leave much manpower for offensive operations, which were nevertheless vital in order to achieve victory. The offensive strategy of the war was simple – to enter enemy territory, kill or capture as much of the enemy’s civilian population as possible, engage small units, avoid engagement with units larger than your own, destroy enemy villages, towns and fortified points, and set up your own forts in key defensive locations to deny the enemy the use of the cleared land in the future, thereby weakening its long term capacity to wage war. This necessarily meant a very slow and plodding war, as was typical in the Middle Ages, when belligerents were typically too weak to wipe out their opponents outright or to take any truly large fortified towns. Wars turned into endurance contests, with the sides trading body blows against each other’s civilian centers and sources of revenue in an attempt to wear the enemy down. This period in Western Europe was characterized by the interminable Hundred Years’ War, and some refer to the contest between the Teutonic Order and the Lithuanians as the Other Hundred Years’ War.
In order to launch these vital offensive raids, therefore, the Order needed an outside source of troops. This was provided by the Crusaders from Europe who would arrive in Prussia or Livonia seeking action and forgiveness of their sins through Crusade indulgences. The Pope had earlier granted the Teutonic Order the right to dispense indulgences releasing Crusaders of their sins, both retroactively and prospectively (that’s a great deal if you can get it) for taking part in any of its campaigns, and the right to use some church revenues for that purpose, without the need to issue a special call for a Crusade. However, the low profile of these Northern Crusades, compared to the cause célèbre of the struggle for Holy Land or even Constantinople or Egypt, meant that, if the Order hoped to depend on significant numbers of Crusaders coming to its aid, it would have to lure them in somehow, and thus, one of Europe’s earliest marketing campaigns was born.
III. The Reisen
To ensure a steady stream of Crusaders for its campaigns, the Order set up permanent recruitment offices, mostly in Germany, Bohemia and the rest of the Holy Roman Empire, but also in France and England, to lure knights to take part in the Northern Crusades. The recruiters did not limit themselves to passing out pamphlets or preaching the Crusade, but specifically targeted European noble and knightly classes by appearing at all the major chivalric events, such as feasts and jousts, and touting the romantic appeal of a voyage to a far away land, where a man could prove his worth by pitting himself against ferocious pagans and diabolical schismatics (as the Orthodox Christians were viewed), while also earning indulgences for his sins. There a man could earn himself both a glorious reputation for his lifetime, and eternal salvation for his immortal soul. This period was the apogee of chivalric culture, with its culture of Romances and gallantry, and the promise of heroic adventure excited the blood of otherwise practical and dynastically minded nobles and impoverished knights alike.
Once a man was committed to the Crusade, he took the customary solemn vows, and prepared to depart for the front. Getting to Prussia by boat was easy and fast, and made a much better journey than the long passage to the Holy Land. The marketing campaigns focused predominantly on the wealthier nobles, such as the Dukes of Burgundy or Holland, who would bring hundreds of knights with them on their trip and pay their way for the duration of the campaign, using the funds made available to them by their local church for their Crusade as well as their personal wealth. The arrival of such a major lord, with his personal army and wealth, could make the difference between remaining on the defensive for the season or venturing forth and striking a strong blow against the enemies of the faith. Smaller noblemen travelling without a retinue would be asked to pay a bulk fee which would cover their sea journey and the costs of their campaign. Knights without money were also welcome because they could still render valuable military service and could even remain in the region in the hired service of the Order for more than a single campaign season, though their treatment and entertainment would obviously be much less lavish than that afforded paying customers.
When the paying nobles arrived, they were treated to an elaborately planned out and rehearsed series of entertainments which were designed to provide a most stirring Crusade experience which would hopefully keep these Crusaders coming back and lure in new Crusaders through positive word of mouth. There would be receptions in the dark and magnificent castles of the Teutonic Knights, feasts, appropriately themed musical and theatrical performances, jousting tournaments, feats of strength, and mystical religious services inducting the arrivals into the ranks of the blessed Crusaders. The knights would kneel and have crosses sown on their tunics, they would take solemn vows of loyalty and bravery, they would swear oaths of chivalry to dedicate their gallant deeds to their respective Ladies (every self respecting knight had a Lady to whose glory his exploits accrued), and then everybody would ride out in glorious procession into the forbidding landscape of the Baltic, to seek adventure, plunder and the opportunity to kill some pagan evildoers.
On campaign, the Knights of the Order, who were familiar with the terrain and the enemy, provided the top officer corps and led the expedition, though a noble of sufficiently high rank, such as the King of Bohemia or Hungary, both of which were regular visitors, could expect to be given the respect and command commensurate to his status. Native porters were provided, so that the knights could continue enjoying a very pleasant journey until they actually encountered enemy resistance. The offensives typically commenced on Marian feast days, as the Orders and the Baltics in general were under St. Mary’s special care, and this regularity allowed veteran Crusaders to plan their Reisen to arrive for the beginning of an expedition. The Summer Reisen departed on August 15, after the bogs had had a chance to dry in whatever sun there had been, and the weather outlook was hopefully dry. The war parties, numbering hundreds of knights and thousands of retainers, crossbowmen and camp followers, usually travelled up the river valleys, mostly the Vistula which was the main river of the Lithuanians, but sometimes took alternative routes to catch the enemy off guard. As the Reise progressed, the knights would encounter small forts that they would destroy, enemy villages which they would burn, and possibly even some actual pagans that they could perform feats of gallantry with, which feats ranged from heroic one on one combat by challenge to the systematic rape and enslavement of women and children to the torture and execution of any pagan priests they might encounter.
The Winter Reisen were even more impressive, and attracted the cream of European chivalry, from the Kings of Bohemia and Hungary to the high nobility of Burgundy and France. Setting out on February 2, when everything was covered in a sparkling hard layer of snow and the days lasted only a few hours, the knights, bundled in blankets beneath their plate armor, with horses similarly blanketed, would travel in the darkness, in cold that typically hovered around -20 Fahrenheit during the day, to reach and destroy various enemy positions. In the comfortable tents, around roaring fires during the long nights, the Crusaders would psych themselves up for the glorious combat to come, while Catholic priests reminded them of the great value of their service and its heavenly rewards. The Winter Reisen were typically more productive, because the civilian population could not hide out in the forests during the winter due to the intense cold and the improved visibility of leafless trees, and were more likely to be in their villages with their farm animals when the Crusaders came. Falling upon populated villagers or towns netted more captives, more loot, and a greater sense of accomplishment. A countryside that was systematically depopulated and razed during the winter would likely remain unpopulated for the next few years and could yield the enemy no revenue or resources. This carnival like atmosphere did not detract from the fact that the knights, childlike and gullible as they often were in cultural and religious affairs, were also extremely efficient killing machines, and the merry band of Crusaders spread a swath of death and destruction deep into the lands of the enemy and were a formidable opponent to any relieving army which they might encounter.
Although encountering a large enemy army in the field was rare, and most of the operations proceeded against helpless civilians, hard fighting against experienced and devious foes could also be expected, and that would give the knights bragging rights upon their return and well prepared them for action in Western Europe. The Lithuanians and Russians who were the main opponents, though inferior to the Crusaders in armor and equipment, were tough and tenacious fighters, and the combat experience to be had "a la Prusse" was highly respected in the West. A man who distinguished himself and obtained command experience in the Crusade could expect to rise quickly in the ranks back home. The Teutonic Knights tended to form a small minority of the field army, and saved themselves for decisive actions, allowing the rank and file Crusaders and native infantry and archer auxiliaries to bear the bulk of the fighting. The outcome of the battles was not always predictable, and along with many victories there were some bloody and even catastrophic defeats, such as famous so called Battle of the Ice, which was immortalized in the classic film, Alexander Nevsky. I hope the linked description of this battle gives the reader an idea of the sort of hard winter fighting and danger that often characterized the Northern Crusades, and why the fighting experience gained by knights on these Reisen was so valued across Europe.
Returning from a successful Reise, the Crusaders would be in high spirits, knowing that their sins had been forgiven, their Christian duty done, and hopefully that they had captured some valuable pelts, amber and other pagan goodies and had their fun with a few of the comely blond Lithuanian girls or boys. The Crusaders would then sail for home to Western Europe spreading fantastic tales of their adventures, of the power and wealth of the Teutonic Order and the rigid discipline and prosperity of the Ordenstaat, of the strange natural wonders of the Baltic, of the savage pagans and beautiful women they encountered on their Reise, of the heroic deeds done in the name of Christ. These tales fit perfectly into the then popular format of the Provencal Romance, and could easily be made into ballads that could be sung again and again by troubadours at castles all over Europe, enticing young and old men alike to take part. The aura of romance, and of course the not insignificant promise of the forgiveness of all sins as the reward of the Crusader, were adroitly exploited by the recruiters of the Teutonic Order, who would use these tales to attract new generations of Crusaders to come to Prussia and make the Reise. To the knightly class of Europe, raised knowing only war and the fear of God, the lure of this siren song was irresistible and thousands of men came from far and wide, at great personal expense, to offer their swords in return for salvation. Families as far as England would have an intergenerational tradition of service in the Northern Crusade, and each generation would be expected to prove its mettle and show that they were not inferior to their fathers and grandfathers in martial valor and Christian devotion.
Making the decision to join the Crusade easier was the fact that the tactics and strategy used in the Reisen were not unfamiliar to the medieval knights. The bulk of the fighting in the Hundred Years’ War, for instance, also took the form of the Cheval Cherie (the Beautiful Ride) when a strong mounted army would set out into enemy controlled territory to pillage, destroy, and terrorize the enemy population and try to capture some strong points or build some castles in order to shift the long term military advantage along the front. But while the Reisen were uniformly celebrated, the Chevalcheries and other expeditions undertaken against other Western European Catholics were condemned as sinful and a misuse of the power given by God to the knightly class. The concept of just war, which had evolved during this ear, could on occasion be used to justify warfare against other Christians, but at best this meant that the souls of the soldiers would not be damned, but neither would they be saved, and of course all the peripheral activities accompanying a military campaign, the whoring and drinking that occupied the time of the knights when not in combat, would still accrue to taint the immortal souls of all involved.
Upon their return, the knights would be celebrated, their sins were held to have been absolved, and upon their return west they would brag of their Crusader status and the experience of hard fighting they gained against the treacherous pagans of the North. This experience could be useful when angling for positions of prestige or command during wars closer to home, or in general to earn the Crusader the respect of those around him, and to give him better access to business opportunities or lucrative marriages. However, as discussed at more length below, an examination of the risks and costs of the Reisen with their practical benefits leaves us to conclude that the decision to undertake a Reise cannot be explained by practical, or even religious motivations.
IV. A Question of Motivation
We are now left with the question regarding what motivated those Europeans who came on the Reisen time and time again, from thousands of miles away, at great personal expense and risk, jeopardizing their holdings back home in order to strike a blow against an obscure and distant enemy in the name of a faith the tenets of which the Crusaders had no trouble ignoring for the majority of their lives. The same pious Burgundian, French or English barons who made the Reise time and time again would not hesitate to ignore a papal verdict regarding their claims to ownership of the neighboring estate, or to wage war against their fellow Catholics despite repeated Papal prohibitions. The German knighthood, which formed the bulk of the Northern Crusaders was always manoevering between the Emperor and the Pope, switching sides in a heartbeat in order to maximize their personal advantage and on occasion marching on Rome itself to compel the Holy Pontiff to see things their way. In the end, even the Grand Master and the top officer corps of the Teutonic Knights themselves had no problem switching to Lutheranism in order to preserve their personal status during the final collapse of the Ordenstaat. Therefore, to argue that the Crusades were waged out of personal piety does not provide us with an adequate answer, although doubtlessly the promise of indulgences was certainly valued by the Crusaders even if they did not allow religious concerns to dominate their lives and interfere with their ambitions.
Similarly, the desire for gain cannot be used to explain the motivation of the Crusaders. While some pillage was to be had, and Crusaders received significant tax breaks, property protections and even on occasion subsidies from the Catholic Church as a reward for their service, the Reisen were a net drain on the pocketbooks of most of the nobles making the journey, and their prolonged absence endangered all of their holdings and gains back home. Although there were significant trade routes traversing the Baltic region, the wealth of the population and of the rudimentary trading towns dotting the northern rivers was incomparably smaller than the wealth that could be found in the Middle East or in Spain, the other crusading theaters. So we are left with the fact that people who otherwise did not allow religious concerns to dictate their behavior, and had no trouble defying the Pope outright and facing excommunication if their interests demanded it, would risk their lives and wealth to spend half a year in the mosquito ridden forests and swamps, or subzero temperatures and endless nights in a poor and distant region, and would return to it time and time again, drawn by some powerful motivation.
What kept Crusaders coming back was that the Teutonic Order developed a shrewd understanding of the principle that neither simple profit nor even the dictates of religion or duty will excite the man-child inside every warrior more than martial rituals, like a jousting tournament to get the competitive juices flowing and the endless singing of the praises of the heroic warrior as he feasts surrounding by awestruck commoners. Once this realization was made, the Teutonic Order developed a professional recruiter corps and devoted significant funds and energy to maintaining this appealing façade to their wars, and made sure tales and ballads of the Reisen spread far and wide throughout Europe, so that ever new generations might hear of the heroic exploits to be had and would dream of them, fantasize about taking part and performing the heroic deeds of which the troubadours sang, until such day as they were in a position to sign up themselves.
Once discovered, these basic recruiting principles have been passed down through European history, and any Western state that relies on a volunteer army will replicate this pattern of propaganda as a primary method of selling its wars to prospective recruits. To speak of grim duty, of the commandments of God, of practical rewards and pension benefits, is all well and good, but until you make the recruit’s pulse quicken with the promise of adventure and the possibility of heroic deeds, you have not made your sale. No doubt, the fact that you will be able to pillage a few villages/earn money for college is a good motivator, and the fact that you will be able to save Christendom from a pagan threat/save democracy from the terrorists is very stirring as well, while family or community pressure is always much appreciated, but the would be warrior’s inner child won’t be satisfied until he hears the sound of thousands of boots marching in unison and gets to blare the sounds of Limp Bizkit’s Let the Bodies Hit the Floor while he rides his Humvee through the desert at 100 miles an hour as Iraqi civilians scatter for cover.
The almost safari like package in which these military campaigns were offered to the European nobility and knightly class and the festival like atmosphere in which they proceeded, at least until the armies got deep into enemy territory is very reminiscent of the old marketing campaign of "Join the Navy and See the World." In many ways, the recruiting tactics used by the Teutonic Order, of selling war as a "journey" or "war ride," a heroic experience of a lifetime to separate the men from the boys, of tapping into the romantic fantasies of the period, foreshadowed recruiting techniques used by the professional armies of today, the "Be All You Can Be" Army advertising campaigns and the pageantry of Marine Corps commercials in which the Marine, swinging his ceremonial sword, vanquishes a dragon and turns into a medieval knight. More directly connected, the accoutrements and visual effects perfected by the Teutonic Knights to impress the arriving Crusaders have been resurrected by numerous German regimes in order to enhance the psychological conditioning of their troops. The Nazi Third Reich, the leaders of which placed a great deal of faith in the power of the properly motivated human will to achieve wonders, borrowed an enormous amount of ritual and symbolism from the Teutonic Order and used it to raise the morale and motivation of its elite SS formations; although, interestingly enough, the actual Teutonic Order, which had survived as a ceremonial vestige, was banned under the Nazi regime. More recently, the newly independent Baltic republics have resurrected some of the Crusading and Teutonic Order imagery, as well as Crusade era animosities toward their Russian neighbors, in their effort to forge new national identities.
These similarities and imitations do not have to result from conscious imitation, or from some Jungian archetypes lurking in the European collective unconscious, but from the fast that the marketing principles used by the Teutonic Knights are universal and as viable today as they were in the Middle Ages. They are also not limited to military recruiting, any salesman will tell you that while the practical benefits of a product help you make the sale, it’s the "wow factor" that closes deals and gets people buying great quantities of products they don’t even remotely need.
For this reason, the concept of war is and will always remain, in the hands of astute propagandists and recruiters, a heavy layer of glamorous fantasy overlaying a gruesome and inglorious reality, and those that seek to attract new bodies to their bloody enterprise succeed in direct proportion in which they can sell the glorious fantasy while obscuring the ugly reality. And the uglier the reality and more unnecessary the war from any practical perspective of the prospective recruit, the more resources and energy the recruiter must put into creating and maintaining the deceptive glamour. It takes little to motivate men to fight a ruthless invader threatening the homes of his loved ones, but it takes a relentless and well funded marketing campaign, whether in the form of romantic ballads or television ads and video games, to induce a person to leave their home and their humanity behind to take service in some distant war of aggression against a foe they never met in pursuit of an ephemeral and ill-defined but ever so glorious victory.
To end on a hopeful note, the corollary of this marketing principle, which the Teutonic Knights also discovered to their great chagrin, is you can’t keep selling the same bullshit forever. The Reisen sold for two centuries, which is a good track record for any consumer fad, and a great record for an unwinnable war. But eventually, jousts and romantic ballads fell out of fashion, as did the Catholic Church, new specters began to stalk Europe, and storming the same Russian forts again and again began to seem silly and unnecessary. Dark warlike tapestries and gothic rituals no longer appealed to a nobility enamored with Italian paintings and neoclassical architecture. The steady flow of Crusaders to the Teutonic fortresses slowed to a trickle, donations to the Order fell and people in Germany began to grumble that the vast estates owned by the Order throughout the country might be better used for purposes other than an endless wasteful war on the eastern frontier. Gradually, the Order found itself and its products and services simply obsolete, a medieval artifact in a Renaissance world. The era of the Crusades was over.