It was an attempt by King John of Denmark and his brother Duke Frederick, who were co-dukes of Schleswig and Holstein, to subdue the peasantry of Dithmarschen, who had established a peasants' republic on the coast of the North Sea.

The ducal army consisted of the "Great Guard", 4,000 Landsknechts, commanded by a petty noble (Junker) named Thomas Slentz, 2,000 armoured cavaliers, about 1,000 artillerymen, and 5,000 commoners.

Crammed together on a narrow road with no solid ground on which to deploy, the ducal army was unable to make use of its numerical superiority.

The cult reached its peak in the Nazi era, when local party members used the names of the battle participants for their propaganda.

They were presented in St. Nicholas Church in Wöhrden until Frederick II of Denmark, victorious in the Last Feud against Dithmarschen in 1559, forced the Ditmarsians to return them.