The Piast dynasty did most for Poland

Poland's Piast dynasty united the West Slavic tribes on present day Poland's land into a common nation. It's princess and later kings expanded it's borders westward and eastward. By the end of the last and most famous Piast's Casimir the Great's rule, Poland had become a rich, modern in comparison with its contemporaries, and respected country in all of Europe.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland_during_the_Piast_dynasty

I don't know much about the Piast dynasty and found 2 books in English on the subject. Which is the better of the two books; Gronowicz's or Jasienica's?

both ok, but try reading Rise of the Polish Monarchy: Piast Poland in East Central Europe, 1320-70 by Paul W. Knoll

I wonder what would happend if Poland would not unite with Lithuania and continue being under the Piast rule.

Poland would invade Lithuania.

Total annihilation of Poland. Lithuania saved Poland. It was a smart move.

Thats a lie Nathan, Lithuania had about the same population as Ukraine at that time, which is about 1/10th of the population of Poland, its military was (as with ukrainian one) stuck in XIIth century, among the most realistic estimates out of the 40.000 combatants on the Polish side only 6000 were Lithuanian.

To be specific there are plenty figures but the most realistic now point to a 40.000 allied army comprised 30.000 Poles, 6.000 - 7000 Lithuanians, 500-1000 Kievans and around 2000 Bohemians.

On the other side there was a force comprising 25.000 Germans, 5.000 Bohemians and around 5.000 Italian, French, Austrian or Polish knights.

Lithuania was at the time a sideshow.

Nope. By invading Lithuania and then Poland, Russia saved them both from petty bickering and mutual anihilation.

Thank you, Russians.

Russia didn't excist back then if I can recall

You are certainly right. :):):)

So did you think an other time period or were you hoping inside yourself that Russia would emarged sooner to "connect" the Lithuanians with the Poles in a different way or?

Novgorod?

Oh no no Nathan. That's bull, are we talking about the Teotonic Order threat if you read proper history about the battle not Lithuanian or other eastern fables you'd know that most of the fighting force and the one who did most of the fighting during the battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) was Polish:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grunwald#Battle_begins:_Lithuanian_attack_and_retreat

So Poles actually saved the Lithuanians since they and Żmudź (Latvia) pagan lands were under threat of Teotonic conquest. In later years after Polish-Lithuanian unification Poland always raised an army two to three times larger than the Lithuanians were able to, in fact wars with Sweden or Russian when Lithuania was invaded were saved by Polish forces.

Even if 7,000 out of 40,000 - it is a significant force even in battles which took place hundreds of years later when the armors began to play a more important role. It was 15%, Sokrates, to say that it was a sideshow is huge understatement.


I don't buy "saving" crap in the historical context. Whoever grabs the land later says: "Oh, we saved it from these or those villains", while the bastards are the invading force themselves. Everyone wants to save ;)

In regards to my statement of Polish annihilation I obviously overstated and Poland wouldn't evaporate. I don't know the exact numbers to argue here seriously.

When we consider that this 33,000 was in the Crown, and 7,000 in Lithuania and after union there was 40,000 for both countries we have weakening of Crown - Lithuania was far bigger then Crown so some of this 33,000 had to protect Lithuanian borders.

Of course, if you increase your territory, you are running higher risks. You cannot have everything on the platter. But obviously it was more profitable than otherwise, right? Resources, land, people etc. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't happen.

You tried to say that it was improvement of military power of Crown - I correct you that it was not because of reasons you wrote:)

Poland was the main force which defeated the Teotonic Knights that's a fact, the Lithuanians try to exaggerate their participation. It was the main Polish force which fought with the Teutons for hours and hours in the hot sun while the Lithuanians retreated off into the woods and came back later, then the Teotons threw into battle the most of their reserves AND Poles their reserves. You see even later in the battle without Poles and their reserves the Lithuanians would have perished. Plus Poland later was sucked into Lithuania's wars if it stayed the size as the Crown was at that time it would have been pretty much safe.

How addition of 7,000 fighters is not an improvement to a 33,000 army? I am not convinced a bit.


Lithuanians should have sided with the Teutons. Would Poland be defeated then?

Crown was smaller then Lithuania. I don't know exact numbers of land so just example:
33,000 soldiers defending 100,000 km square in the Crown gives 33 soldiers /100 km square.
After union we have for example additional 150,000 km sqr which gives 250,000 km sqr.
So right now we have 40 soldiers / 250 km square = 16 soldiers / 100 km sqr.
Force dispersal.


Lithuania was under threat of Teutons which resulted union. Despite that - Crown was Catholic, Lithuania not. Teutons were crusaders carrying Christianity(in theory, everybody know the real goals:) ).

They didn't wash much and the enemy could smell them two miles away. That's why the Lithuania's retreated during the initial stages of the battle.

It is not about square mileage. It is about how many soldiers can you gather for a single decisive battle. It wasn't like today that you have to defend every centimeter from illegal crossing. Nobody defended the fields. Therefore, they build castles and they were the strongholds. An enemy could enter your territory with no immediate answer from you. The sieges were frequent occurances. So, it didn't mean that Poland had to spread its army all over the territory. The numbers carry the importance. The land only when it is overly huge.

The Piasts were also responsible for the fragmentation of Poland, and one branch of the Piasts split off its part altogether and joined a different country.

History is, as always, a bit more complex.

Doesnt matter it had more than ten times the population and was more than 300 years ahead in military technology.

Apart from the fact that Lithuania had a tiny population another fact is omitted, these guys were technologically at about 12 century level, they didnt have heavy cavalry in the true sense, they didnt use or know how to produce plate armor and unlike the Scots a pike was an unknown weapon to them. at the time of the union Lithuania didnt have even one stone castle, thats how huge the difference was

After the Battle of Grunwald king Jagiełło had to delegate a thousand polish knights just to escort the lithuanian army back home.


True but you have to remember that back than nations didnt exist, also its the Silesian Piasts that are responsible for elevating Poland back from its fragmentation and into power.