Battle of Cedynia

Date	24 June 972
Location	Cedynia, present-day Poland
Result	Decisive Polish victory

Belligerents

Polans

Saxon Eastern March

Commanders and leaders

Duke Mieszko I

Margrave Odo I

Strength

Unknown, not more than 4000

About 3000 soldiers and 1000–1300 cavalrymen

Casualties and losses

Quite small

Heavy

In the Battle of Cedynia or Zehden, an army of Mieszko I of Poland defeated forces of Hodo or Odo I of Lusatia on 24 June 972, near the Oder river. Whether or not the battle actually took place near the modern-day town of Cedynia is disputed in modern scholarship.

Mieszko I, Poland's first documented ruler based in Greater Poland, had successfully campaigned in the Cedynia area, then a West Slavic tribal territory also coveted by Holy Roman Emperor Otto I and German nobles. While Mieszko's differences with Otto I were settled by an alliance and payment of tribute to the latter, the nobles whom Otto I had invested with the former Saxon Eastern March, most notably Odo I, challenged Mieszko's gains. The battle was to determine the possession of the area between Mieszko and Odo. Records of the battle are sparse, it was briefly described by the chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg (975−1018), whose father participated in the battle (Chronicon II.19), and mentioned by Gallus Anonymus in the 12th-century Gesta principum Polonorum.

About 937 the Saxon margrave Gero had conquered vast territories east of the Elbe river, where he subdued the tribes of the Polabian Slavs. The German forces thereby reached the Oder river and the western border of the young Polish country. After several clashes of arms the conflict for the present was settled by an agreement in 963 whereafter Duke Mieszko had to pay a recurrent tribute to Emperor Otto.

Upon Gero's death in 965, his vast Marca Geronis was divided into several smaller marches, while the power in the area was exercised by unchecked warlords. Duke Mieszko took the occasion to capture the lightly defended and economically important estuary of the Oder on the Baltic Sea, in order to secure his influence in Pomerania up to Wolin. In turn Odo I had been vested with the Saxon Eastern March (the later March of Lusatia) by Emperor Otto I and was responsible for gathering tribute of the tribes which were Mieszko's point of interest.

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