Siege of Kaunas

Date: April 17, 1362 • Location: Kaunas, Lithuania

Lithuanian Crusade: After a month-long siege, the Teutonic Order captured and destroyed Kaunas Castle, which was defended by troops of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The Lithuanian Crusade was a series of campaigns by the Teutonic Order and the Livonian Order under the pretext of forcibly Christianizing the pagan Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Livonian Order occupied Riga in 1202 and in the 1230s they settled in Chełmno Land, a fief of Poland. They first conquered other neighboring Baltic tribes—proto-Latvians and Old Prussians—in the Livonian and Prussian crusades.