THE GERMANS IN OLD RUSSIA. •
[To THE EDITOR or env "SPELTAT011."] Sza,—The following account of earlier German inroads into Russia, which I quote from the introductory cbapter of The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016-1471 (Camden Third Series, Vol. XXV.), may perhaps interest you (p. 27).— " The relations of Novgorod with the Nenttsy (Le., foreigners of Teutonic race) are among the latest in historical order, on the political side—though of respectable antiquity on the mercantile. There is no clear reference in the Chronicle to the Teutons of the Continent, as opposed to the Scandinavians, before the time of the third crusade (1188). And, in the next century, the stirring events of 1201 and the years following—when the Knights of the Order of Christ, better known as the Brethren or Bearers of the Sword, are called in as temporal helpers by Bishop Albert of Riga; when historical Rigs ie founded; and when the Riga Gulf lands and country of the old heathen Prussians are conquered by these German Crusaders and their colleagues of the Teutonic Order or Order of St. Mary—all pass unnoticed. in the Norgorodskaya Lyetopis. But in 1211 the Novgorod Annals notice how ' Nemtsy from beyond the Rea' succour the city with corn and flour after a terrible famine, when 'already near its end.' And in 1237 the union of the two German Order., under the Feufonic title, is apparently recorded an a piece of good news. ' In this year the Nenttsy came. . . . from beyond sea to Riga;
and all united'here. . . . The men of Pleskov sent aid . . .
end they .went against the godless Litoa . . (Lithaanians). But soon the Nemtsy appear among the most dreaded foes of 'Novgorod and Russia. In 1242 the Swedish victory of Alexander Nevsky is followed by Alexander's revenge upon the German Order on the ice of Lake Chudskoe—`lest they should boast, saying, we will humble the Sloven race under us—for is not Pekoe taken, and are not its chiefs in prison f ' (April 5th, 1242). Much lost ground is thus recovered, and Novgorod is saved from German dominion, in politics if not in trade. But it is a salvation which has to be worked out again and again in the next two centuries. Thus in 1268 (after an agreement with the bishops and godly nobles' of the Teutonic Order, in which these godly men, in the Russian view, purposed only deceit) the men of Novgorod fight a desperate drawn battle with `iron troops' of Nemtsy on the Kegola river, massed at one point in a 'great wedge like a forest to look at . . . it was as if the whole nation of Nemtsy had come together.' Almost every decade of later Novgorod history gives us some notice of conflict, negotiation, treaty, or commerce with the Nemtsy, mainly represented by the Teutonic Order and the Hanseatic League. But though lands and towns near or within Novgorod frontiers are in German occupation throughout this period (1200.1450) Cr great part of it; though the whole Baltic roast, from Danzig to the Gulf of Finland, is at one time held by the Order; and -though such near neighbours as Pskov fall at intervals into German grasp—yet the German peril is kept at -arms' length, and Novgorod is never beleaguered (far less taken) by the -Knights, even if her trade passes in great measure under Hansa control. And from the German fear Novgorod is finally delivered by the onion of Poland and Lithuania, and the triumph of the new Slav power over the Teutonic Order. The Novgorod Annala, which so constantly neglect decisive events of neighbour- ing history, do not forget the battle of Tannenberg, which marks the ebbing of the German Bran nook Osten, so active and of such consequence since the twelfth century—first apparent in the tenth. `This year (1410) on July 15th, King Yagotlo and Prince Viloot fought with the Prussian Nemtsy, in Prussia . . . and killed the Master and the Marshal and the Commanders, and routed the whale Nemtsy army.' Thus begins a Slavonic Revival which, under Polish or Russian leadership, lasts till the nineteenth cen- tury; and a Germanic depression which continues till the rise of Brandenburg-Prussia under the Great Elector."
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