Protestant Union
The Protestant Union , also Union von Auhausen , German Union or rather disrespectful Protestant Action Party , was a union of eight Protestant princes and 17 Protestant cities in the Holy Roman Empire, founded in Auhausen ( Principality of Ansbach , today district of Donau-Ries , Bavaria) .
prehistory
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Since the Peace of Augsburg , the Catholic and Lutheran creeds were considered equal in the empire. At the end of the 16th century, the relationship between the denominations was increasingly filled with distrust. The disputes intensified and escalated in the Cologne War and the Strasbourg chapter dispute . Efforts by the reformed Palatinate Elector Friedrich IV to unite the divided Protestants in an alliance against the perceived "Spanish threat" initially failed due to the resistance of the Lutherans led by the Electorate of Saxony . In 1606/07 the situation in the cross and flag battles worsened when the council and citizens of the predominantly Protestant imperial city of Donauwörth disrupted a Catholic procession . Emperor . Rudolf II imposed the imperial ban over the city and transferred the execution of the Bavarian Duke Maximilian I - the law, as measures against the Swabian town would be the responsibility of the Protestant Wuerttemberg run Swabian circle was. Maximilian took the opportunity to take possession of the city in December 1607 and subsequently to recatholicize it. At the Reichstag , opened in January 1608 in Regensburg , the Protestants expressed their disapproval and demanded a formal confirmation of the Augsburg religious peace. Attempts to reach an understanding failed; Having become incapacitated, the Reichstag ended on April 27, 1608 without a Reich adoption .
Establishment of the Union
The events in Regensburg confirmed the Protestants' distrust of the institutions of the Reich. In their eyes, the emperor no longer represented the interests of the empire, but those of the Catholic Church and the House of Habsburg. At the beginning of May 1608, Margrave Joachim Ernst from Ansbach invited the Protestant princes of southern Germany to consultations in Auhausen. The meeting started on May 12th. In the course of the five-day negotiations, the princes signed several agreements, such as the actual Union Treaty on May 14, 1608. Friedrich IV of the Palatinate, represented by his representative Christian von Anhalt , the Württemberg Duke Johann Friedrich , Prince Wolfgang Wilhelm von Pfalz-Neuburg and the Margraves Joachim Ernst of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Christian von Brandenburg-Kulmbach and Georg Friedrich von Baden were involved . The pact, temporarily limited to ten years, was formulated as a purely defensive alliance: the members promised mutual help if one or the other of us [...] was attacked .
Members of the Protestant Union
| Founding members (1608): | Later accessions: |
| Pfalz Württemberg Ansbach Kulmbach Baden-Durlach Pfalz-Neuburg (left in 1617) |
Hessen-Kassel Brandenburg Pfalz-Zweibrücken Anhalt Oettingen 17 imperial cities (including Strasbourg, Nuremberg, Ulm) |
Further development
In 1608, more members joined the union: the entire house of Anhalt, Pfalz-Zweibrücken and Oettingen-Oettingen . It was not possible to bring Electoral Saxony into the alliance. Corresponding negotiations with Protestant imperial cities, on the other hand, led to success: Nuremberg , Strasbourg and Ulm joined the Union in May 1609, and two months later, through Nuremberg's mediation, the Franconian cities of Schweinfurt , Rothenburg , Weißenburg and Windsheim . In January and February 1610 the Union met in Schwäbisch Hall . Here, Elector Johann Sigismund von Brandenburg and Landgrave Moritz von Hessen-Kassel declared their accession, as did the cities of Hall, Heilbronn , Kempten , Memmingen and Nördlingen . Later came Esslingen , Aalen , Giengen , Speyer and Worms added.
In reaction to the union, Catholic princes and cities founded the Catholic League in 1609 under the leadership of Maximilian of Bavaria. In Jülich-Cleves succession dispute both camps mobilized their troops. The Union was anything but united. The tough position of Christian von Anhalt prevailed against the cities advising moderation, who from 1610 as Chancellor also officially determined the Palatinate's foreign policy. In 1613 two changes of denomination weakened the union: Johann Sigismund finally converted to Calvinism, Wolfgang Wilhelm, on the other hand, became Catholic and made a pact with Spain. Allies had become enemies. A war of European dimensions could still be prevented, but ultimately only postponed for a few years.
When negotiating an extension of the union, it was only possible to agree on a further three years, i.e. until May 1621. The cities saw themselves more and more as a plaything of the Palatinate's ambitions to bring the young Elector Frederick V to the Bohemian throne. With this attempt to shift the balance of power in the empire in favor of Protestantism, the Union headed for an open dispute with the emperor. After Friedrich was actually elected King of Bohemia on August 26, 1619, the break within the Protestant camp could no longer be avoided. On September 12, 1619, at the meeting of the Union in Rothenburg, a majority led by Württemberg advised Friedrich against accepting the election. The man from the Palatinate ignored the warnings, although by now it had to be clear to him at the latest that he had isolated himself. Under French mediation, the Union and the League signed the Ulm Treaty on July 31, 1620 , a neutrality agreement that did not extend to Bohemia. This enabled the Kaiser and the League to take action against Friedrich without the Union intervening. At Union Day in Heilbronn, the union was formally dissolved on April 24, 1621. The hope associated with the Ulm Treaty of restricting the war to Bohemia was not to be fulfilled. The fighting in the Electoral Palatinate flared up as early as 1622 - another stage of the Thirty Years War , which devastated large parts of the empire.
literature
- Albrecht Ernst and Anton Schindling (eds.). Union and League 1608/09. Confessional Alliances in the Reich - Setting the Course for Religious War? (Publications of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies, Series B, Vol. 178). Stuttgart (W. Kohlhammer Verlag) 2010. ISBN 978-3-17-020983-1
- Dieter Mertens : Württemberg. In: Meinrad Schaab , Hansmartin Schwarzmaier (ed.) U. a .: Handbook of Baden-Württemberg History . Volume 2: The Territories in the Old Kingdom. Edited on behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-608-91466-8 , pp. 121-125.
