That kind of masquerade is not new in German history: in the thirteenth century, the Order of the Teutonic Knights of Cross requested and obtained the right to settle in Polish Pomerania, on the Baltic coast, for the purpose of converting the neighbouring pagan Prussians to Christianity. But the Teutonic Knights gradually forgot their monastic vows of poverty and chastity, and began to follow. secular aims. They exterminated the Prussians from whom they took everything, including the name, invaded the left bank of the Vistula and captured Danzig in 1308, massacring the Slav inhabitants.
Only when defeated by Polish and Lithuanian troops in the great battle of Grunwald in 1410, did they abandon all their possessions on the Baltic coast, except East Prussia, the dukes of which remained Poland's vassals until 1701, when Prussia be-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.