On 15 July 1410, on ground the Poles call Grunwald, the Germans Tannenberg and the Lithuanians Žalgiris, the Teutonic Order met the joined armies of Poland and Lithuania and stopped being a great power. It was among the largest battles fought anywhere in medieval Europe — the higher Polish estimates put thirty-nine thousand men on one side against twenty-seven thousand on the other, though the numbers are argued over. Before it began, Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen sent messengers across with two naked swords, offered to King Władysław Jagiełło and Grand Duke Vytautas to assist them in the battle: an insult and an invitation in one gesture. By evening von Jungingen was dead, and with him almost the entire leadership of the Order — somewhere between two hundred and three and two hundred and eleven of the two hundred and seventy brother-knights present. At the Peace of Thorn the following year the Order gave up very little land and never recovered anything else, ground down afterwards by reparations and its own quarrels. The two swords are Polish national symbols to this day.

Tradition of London mount their king in full red barding strewn with the white eagle of Poland, crowned helm carrying an eagle crest, sword up and the horse rearing off a rocky base — the moment of the charge rather than the parade. He is the mounted counterpart of King of Poland on foot, and the two together make a neat display of the same monarch at rest and in action. For the other side of Grunwald, King & Country's The Teutonic Flagbearer carries the black cross that lost that day, and Joan of Arc belongs to the same generation at the far end of Europe. A mounted figure with a rearing horse wants height and space in a diorama — put him on a rise, with the ground falling away in front.

Model: MK04 / Tradition of London / 54mm (1/32) scale / 1 piece set

All hand painted Toy Soldier sets packed in the Classic Tradition Red Boxes. All Toy Soldiers cast in quality white metal, and individually hand painted in gloss enamels.

Please allow 2-3 weeks delivery.