First battle near Erlenbach

First battle near Erlenbach

Part of: Old Zurich War

Depiction of the battle near Erlenbach in Diebold Schilling's illustrated chronicle (1470)

date	October 13, 1444
place	Erlenbach , today the canton of Zurich
output	Zurich victory

Parties to the conflict
Imperial City of Zurich Hzt. Habsburg Austria	Confederation of VII. Locations : Schwyz Unterwalden Glarus City and Office Zug
Commander
Hans Stüssi Hans von Rechberg
losses
27-28	16-170

The First Battle of Erlenbach , also the Battle of Erlenbach (often referred to in older literature as the Battle of Ehrlibach ), was a military conflict and was fought in Erlenbach ( Switzerland ) in the course of the Old Zurich War on nominally urban Zurich territory .

The opponents were troops from the Swiss town of Schwyz on the one hand and troops from the imperial city of Zurich and the Habsburgs on the other . This battle was the first military encounter in this war in which the Zurich troops were able to record a clear victory.

prehistory

The dominion of the city of Zurich was largely occupied by the Confederates after the permanent places Regensberg and Grüningen ZH had fallen in 1443 and Greifensee in 1444 . Besides the city of Zurich itself, Rapperswil was the last remaining bulwark; the city has been besieged for the second time since April 1444, so that supplying it via Lake Zurich was the city's most pressing goal. In the years 1444 to 1445 there were many battles for supremacy on the lake. The struggle for maritime domination was accompanied by raids on both sides of the lake.

Towards the autumn of the grape harvest, the Schwyzers undertook their first looting campaign with their ship “Schnecke” against the Zurich vineyards on the lakeshore near Erlenbach in order to avoid the Zurich people's wine embargo. They surprised the local farmers during the grape harvest and brought the captured grapes, barrels and other material unmolested across the lake back to Pfäffikon .

course

On October 13th, the Schwyz fleet left again and landed a second time in Erlenbach. She posted a few guards and left her armor and firearms on the ships to facilitate her work with the grape harvest and partly for convenience. While the grapes were being read, she was attacked by villagers and a contingent from Zurich under Hans Stüssi, who had been informed of the danger in advance. This led to a first heated battle, in which the Schwyzer initially withstood after initial losses. When the people of Zurich finally got an influx of the Austrian cavalry under Hans von Rechberg , the resistance of the Schwyz collapsed and they withdrew to their ships in complete disorder; many jumped into the water and tried to hold on to the edges of the ship. Some were pulled onto the ships, but the Schwyzers themselves are said to have cut off their hands themselves, so that the lake even with the land gantz rot farw was covered with itlly blood . Those who made it onto the ships were still under fire from Zurich's firearms, so that those struck fell into the lake and drowned.

After the Schwyz were out of reach and had recovered from the initial shock, they decided to take revenge and drove down the lake to Küsnacht with the intention of landing there and cutting off the Zurich's way back to Zurich. The people of Zurich recognized the danger and followed the people of Schwyz overland. They therefore decided to go back to Erlenbach without having achieved anything, where they landed again to rescue their dead. The returned Zurich attacked again and forced the enemy back on the ships.

Losses and consequences

The loss information in the chronicles fluctuates particularly on the federal side. While the chronicler Hans Fründ only reports 16 deaths, Gerold Edlibach recorded 170 deaths. The losses on the Zurich side are given as 27 to 28 men.

Hans Fründ writes that the people of Zurich forced their enemies to flee for the first time , which was only due to the existence of the ships. Without this, the Confederates would have stayed together. For the people of Zurich it was a moral success, as it was the first military encounter in this war that clearly went in their favor. A Zurich chronicler said: So it was so twisted that you had to drink water to win. Iron arrowheads were found in the Erlenbach vineyards long after the battle.

Almost exactly one year later, on October 6, 1445, a second battle apparently took place near Erlenbach at the same location .

See also

• List of wars and battles in Switzerland

Web links

• E. Stauber: The war fleet on Lake Zurich. 1914.
• A. Zeer: War images from Lake Zurich. 1904.
• Martin Illi: Old Zurich War. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Peter Niederhäuser, Christian Sieber: A "fratricidal war" makes history. 2006.
2. ↑ Hans Fründ : Chronicle of the Old Zurich War (from 1447)
3. ↑ Gerold Edlibach : Zurich and Swiss Chronicle. 1485/1486.
4. ^ Gerold Ludwig Meyer Von Knonau: The canton of Zurich historically, geographically, statistically portrayed. 1846.