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As a crusading force moving into hostile lands, castles were essential for the Teutonic Order’s survival in Prussia. Undeveloped and swampy, there was only a limited amount of stone available, which all went to building foundations. Naturally, early castles were constructed of wood, and this gets a little description, and one art plate reconstruction. More sturdy structures were all made of of red brick, which lends them a very different look, and make it an interesting field of study.

The overall history is presented well in a short format, as is usual for Osprey books. We get a quick look a life in the order, and some of the more prominent campaigns, starting with the initial invasion of Prussia to the fall of the Order to Poland.

One lack is any sort of description of a “typical” castle of this type. The Teutonic Order had learned all about siege warfare in the Holy Land, so these are fairly advanced, but we only get oblique discussion of what this means. Indirect approachways and machicolations are mentioned, but not discussed. The typical arrangement of gatehouses is not discussed, nor normal thicknesses of walls and the like. It is implicitly assumed that you already know something of Medieval siege engineering. Which, for a short book on a rare subject in English, is not a bad assumption, but I’d still like some more technical details.

On the other hand, we have a map showing where all the castles were, and plenty of photographs. This is from a transitional period for Osprey; they no longer need to confine the color to one signature partway through the book, but much of it is still in black-and-white, so there is mix of color and B/W photographs. All of them are clear and reproduced well, though size can be an issue for details.

The Order’s main headquarters, Marienburg (currently Malbork), gets a two page spread art plate detailing its layout (shown on the cover), and two color photographs showing views across the river. There are are also five B/W photographs and two color showing further details, such a a covered well, and another long shot.

Lochstadt (which is completely ruined today) gets a color plate, which doesn’t quite match to the two floor plans reproduced for it. Those show one corner as having a projection at one corner for a watchtower that also squeezes the path inside the outer wall into a natural choke point, while the art doesn’t have that, and instead has a wall and gate set back from that corner.

Thorn (Torun) has a color plate showing the several layers of defenses, plus a small color shot of a model of the town around it, and color long shot of the site, a detail B/W photo of the dansk, or sewage tower, which is still preserved, and a (dark) color shot of the ‘leaning tower’, which was part of the defenses and is now a pub.

One color plate depicts a large riverside granary at Graudenz (Grudziadz). This particular place still has twenty-six granaries, and a color photograph shows the main line of them going down to the river.

There’s a couple of plates depicting sieges, which are good looks at what that was like, and well executed. Marienwerder (Kwidzyn) has a color photograph of a model of the old castle, plus three B/W and one color photo. Some fourteen other locations have one or more photos showing them (mostly one, Neidenburg—Nidzica—has three photos). There’s also a couple of details of old illustrations showing castles that no longer exist.

Overall, it’s about as useful a book as you’re going to get in this format. I’d like some more detail to chew over, that would need concentrating on one or two locations and diving deep into that. For an introduction which is needed for almost any native English-speaker, it covers things very well if you already know something about siege warfare.