Danish-Hanseatic War (1426–1435)
| date | 1426 to 1435 |
|---|---|
| place | Denmark (especially Copenhagen, Zealand, Bornholm), Schleswig (Flensburg), German Baltic Sea coast (Stralsund) |
| Casus Belli | Sund inches |
| output | Danish defeat |
| consequences | Holstein wins Schleswig, the Hanseatic League is exempted from the Sundzoll, the fall of the Danish King Erik VII , the Kalmar Union breaks up |
| Peace treaty | Peace of Vordingborg |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
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supported by Pommern-Barth |
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| Commander | |
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The Danish-Hanseatic War from 1426 to 1435 , also known as the Kalmar (isch) -Hanse (atic) War, the Schleswig War or the Sundzollkrieg , was a military and economic conflict between the Kalmar Union , which was dominated by Denmark , and the Hanseatic League . The main reason was the introduction of the sound tariff by Denmark. The war was closely interrelated with the Danish-Holstein War of Schleswig (1409 / 22–1435), the conflict between the Hanseatic League and Holland (1422–1441) and the Swedish revolt of 1434/36 . It ended with the Peace of Vordingborg and the overthrow of the Danish Union King Erik VII (1439).
prehistory
Since the Peace of Stralsund (1370), the Hanseatic League had exercised supremacy over Denmark and the Baltic Sea thanks to extensive privileges. At the beginning of the 15th century, however, the Dutch port cities had broken away from the Hanseatic League. With the benevolent approval of the Danish-Norwegian-Swedish Union King Erik VII. Dutch and English ships of the Hanseatic League began to dispute the monopoly in the Baltic Sea trade .
Resistance came mainly from the "Wendish" Hanseatic cities , from 1422 onwards there were violent conflicts. Dutch ships trying to penetrate the Baltic Sea were seized by Hansa ships in the Öresund , while Hansa ships in the North Sea were captured by the Dutch. Trusting in the combined strength of the three Nordic kingdoms, Erik intended to benefit from this weakening of the Hanseatic League and to abolish the privileges of the Hanseatic League. He used the geostrategic advantage of Denmark and made the possibility of forcing taxes on all non-Danish ships that had to pass through the bottleneck of the Oresund on the way between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea into one of the most important sources of income. For this purpose, he had a customs fortress built at the narrowest point near Helsingør and from 1426 the sound tariff was raised. While Lübeck and Hamburg were striving for a martial solution, Stralsund and Greifswald were still looking for a compromise. B. failed over the participation of the Hanseatic League in the Sundtoll revenue. Instead, Erik began to have Hanseatic ships brought up in the Sound.
In addition, Erik inherited a conflict with the County of Holstein-Rendsburg when he took office . Some areas in the Duchy of Schleswig had previously been leased to the counts , which the king wanted to redeem. Count Heinrich IV, however, wanted to be officially enfeoffed with Schleswig. Since 1405 and 1409 there was war between Denmark and Holstein, in which the Dithmarschener farmers (on the Danish side) and the Vitalienbrüder (on the Holstein side) were drawn into. Armistices and arbitral awards brokered by the Hanseatic League and the German Kaiser failed. When Erik's troops occupied Flensburg , previously held by Holsteiners, in 1426 , Count Heinrich and his brothers Gerhard and Adolf formed an alliance with the Hanseatic League, which was now willing to go to war.
War at sea
After the Hanseatic skipperers were arrested in Danish ports, the Hanse imposed a trade ban on all Danish, Swedish and Norwegian ports in 1426, which they began to enforce with the help of a sea blockade. In the North Sea, but especially in the Baltic Sea, there was an intense pirate war in which the Dutch, English and Vitalienbrüder also took part. In 1427 Hanseatic ships plundered the Danish islands of Læsø , Årø , Lolland , Møn and Bornholm (April), but failed with an attack on Flensburg (May). In the battle for a Hanseatic convoy, 36 large Lübeck and Hamburg ships under the command of Lübeck's mayor Tidemann Steen were defeated by a Danish-Swedish fleet under Barnim VIII of Pomerania and Greger Magnusson in a sea battle in the Øresund (July). After this failure, Steen was deposed and Wismar's mayor Johann Bantzkow was executed as commander of the Wismar ships. The mayor of Hamburg, Hein Hoyer , was taken prisoner by Denmark, and the Swedish councilor Greger Magnusson was taken prisoner in Lübeck.
In order to end the war quickly, the Hanseatic League planned the conquest of Copenhagen and the destruction of the Danish-Swedish fleet in the port by mercenaries and ships from Hamburg, Lübeck, Lüneburg, Rostock, Stralsund and Wismar. But the first attack in April 1428, led by Count Gerhard VII from Holstein , failed because of the fortifications prepared by the Danish Queen Philippa . Instead, the Hanseatic ships plundered the coasts of Skåne and Zealand. It was not until a second attack in June 1428 that the Hanseatic League succeeded in largely blocking the Danish fleet in the port and destroying a large part of it.
From the remaining and other Swedish ships, Philippa formed a new fleet, which in May 1429 attacked Stralsund and plundered its port, but on the way back from Lübeck, Wismar and Stralsund ships under the command of Klaus von der Lippe in the sea battle Dänholm was defeated. Rostock and Wismar ships captured a Swedish transport fleet on the way to Copenhagen in June 1429.
Barnim VIII defeated the Hanseatic fleet in the Køgebucht (1427)
Queen Philippa presided over the defense of Copenhagen (1428)
Union King Erik VII was overthrown after the war (1439)
War on land
As early as 1427, Holsteiners and Hanseatic people tried to recapture Flensburg. However, a joint operation by land and sea failed; Count Heinrich IV of Holstein fell. The Hamburg councilor Johann Kletze was made responsible for the defeat and executed. It was not until 1431 that the Holsteiners and Hanseatic people, under the leadership of Heinrich's successor Adolf VIII, succeeded in conquering the city, including the Duburg , on which they had previously failed.
Armistice and Peace
The piracy operated by Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, English and Hanseatic ships as well as the Vitalien Brothers (1428 and 1429 plundering of Bergen) damaged the Hanseatic Baltic Sea trade and deepened their internal rivalries. The Hanseatic blockade and looting of the Scandinavian ports brought their export to a standstill and also triggered an economic crisis in the Swedish hinterland. Rostock first concluded a separate peace in September 1430, and then also Stralsund in Helsingborg in December 1430. After the conquest of Flensburg, Lübeck and Hamburg also agreed to an armistice and peace negotiations in 1432. A long struggle and bargaining began. In order to increase the pressure on Erik, Lübeck supported an anti-Danish revolt of the miners which broke out in 1434 because of the economic crisis in Sweden , which mine owners and landlords joined. The king then undertook a fleet demonstration off Stockholm in October 1434 and concluded a one-year truce with the Swedes in November 1434, and then the Peace of Stockholm in 1435.
Finally, Denmark, the Hanseatic League and Holstein agreed on the Peace of Vordingborg (1435) . Count Albrecht von Holstein received the desired enfeoffment with the Duchy of Schleswig. The Sundzoll was retained, but under the pressure of the Swedish revolt, Erik agreed not to exempt the Dutch and English from it and not to involve the Hanseatic League in it. As part of the special regulations following the peace treaty, Hamburg, Lübeck, Lüneburg and Wismar succeeded in completely exempting themselves from the Sundzoll in 1436, and a little later also Stralsund, Rostock and Greifswald. The Livonian and Prussian Hanseatic cities still had to pay this fee to the Danes, which led to tensions within the Hanseatic League. B. between Lübeck, but also Rostock and Wismar on the one hand and Danzig on the other.
consequences
With the fleet demonstration on the one hand and further far-reaching concessions to the Swedish nobility on the other, Erik succeeded at least formally in 1436 to restore his sovereignty over Sweden. Sweden's imperial administrator Karl Knutsson Bonde put down the uprising in Erik's name. The Swedes promised too much autonomy, however, undermined the king's position in Denmark. The Danish Imperial Council deposed the king who had fled to Gotland in 1439, shortly afterwards the Norwegian Diet and in 1442 the Swedish Imperial Council . Erik continued to rule on Gotland. Erik's place was his nephew Christoph III. elected king. Christoph first confirmed the privileges of the Hanseatic League, but then again supported the Dutch, who in 1441 also received special rights. After Christoph's death, Karl Knutson claimed the Swedish throne and Gotland for himself in 1448, while Count Adolf von Holstein's nephew Christian I became King of Denmark. There was renewed fighting between Denmark and Sweden, in which Norway was drawn. Gotland was handed over to Christian by Erik in 1449.
Engelbrekt , leader of the rebellious Swedes
Karl Knutsson Bonde , Swedish governor
Christopher III. , King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway
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literature
- Georg Wislicenus, Willy Stöwer: Germany's sea power along with an overview of the history of seafaring of all peoples , page 38f . Reprint-Verlag, Leipzig 1896
- Günter Krause: The sea battle before Copenhagen - The destruction of the Danish fleet by the Hanseatic League , In: Sport and Technology 1/1987, Military Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin 1987, p. 14f.
- Golo Mann, August Nitschke (Ed.): Propylaea World History , 6th volume. Propylaen-Verlag, Berlin / Frankfurt (Main) 1964, p. 416f.
- David Nicolle: Forces of the Hanseatic League, 13th-15th Centuries , 40–40 . Osprey Publishing 2014
- George Childs Kohn (Ed.): Dictionary of Wars , pp . 254f . Routledge 2013
- Ulla Ehrensvärd, Pellervo Kokkonen, Juha Nurminen: The Baltic Sea - 2000 years of seafaring, trade and culture . National Geographic, Hamburg 2010, pp. 56 and 252
- Harm G. Schröter: History of Scandinavia . CH Beck, Munich 2007, p. 34f.
- Robert Bohn : Danish History. CH Beck, Munich 2001, p. 35ff.
Web links
- european-heritage.org: The Chronicle of the Hanseatic League
- Bengt Büttner: Arbitration or War - The Development of Danish-Swedish Arbitration in the Age of the Kalmar Union
- Encyclopedia Britannica online: The Kalmar Union
