15 - Sixteenth Century, The Reasons For The Decline Of The Teutonic Knights

There were many reasons why the Teutonic Order declined.From microcosmic angles, their military reforms' lag made them far fall behind with their opponents' military technology, system and thinking. From the 14 century, all European were undergoing major military changes: appearance of the solid castles and cannon, improvements in mercenary armies' fighting capacity, flexibility of the infantry, changes in tactics and so on, which the Teutonic Order ignored. On the contrary, their main match, Poland. Lithuania seized up on the developing chance tightly, positively reformed their military, as a result, the Teutonic Order failed in the battle of Tannenberg, so the failure in military was the most direct reason for the decline of the Teutonic Order, the battle of Tannenberg acted as the prelude.The deeper reason is the economic development and improvements in European raised new claim for the super-structure, however, the Teutonic Order weren't used to such new requirements, in the late Middle Ages, the two factors played the more important role in social politics and economic life: strengthening of the urban forces and the foundation of the center financial system. It was for the cities that the worldly political forces competed with each other, thus whether the cities supported or not influenced worldly regime looks. The Teutonic Order governed too many cities, which required provide sound political environments for its development, as the result of the increases in their military expenses, especially of their strong desire for money aggravating these cities' burden, finally the cities were changed from their supporting powers to the rebelling ones. In terms of the center financial system, the Teutonic Order was richer than their match, but they are inferior to their match in making use of the finance, the center financial system acted as the machine for accumulating wealth by unfair means , business and financial activity, but not the powerful tool for power construction, finally the Teutonic Order's advantages were turned into the disadvantages when European worldly regimes set up their own financial system and took their advantage thoroughly.The Teutonic Order was one of members in rebuilding European order of the Middle Ages, which pushed a whirlpool movement, meanwhile they couldn't master their own fate in the whirlpool, The European history of the Middle Ages was the rebuilt one after the collapse of the western Roman Empire. The Christian church and the worldly political power played their own roles individually, instead the Teutonic Order was a strange embryo that emerged in the course, so when the Christian church illuminated ignorant, dark world with God's brilliant rays, the Teutonic Order was a positive pushing force, while the Teutonic Order became a power which held back the social development, when worldly political forces rebuilt European political order. To this point, the decline of the Teutonic Order was the necessity of history development.