Battle at Wigoltingen

Battle at Wigoltingen

Part of: Old Zurich War

Overview map of the Old Zurich War

date	September 5, 1445
place	Wigoltingen , Thurgau , Switzerland
output	Victory of the Confederates

Parties to the conflict
Holy Roman Empire Hzt. Habsburg – Austria city ​​of Frauenfeld	Confederation of VII. Locations : Schwyz Glarus Uri Unterwalden and Toggenburg ( Raron ) City of Wil
Commander
	Ulrich Wagner
Troop strength
unknown	about 900 men
losses
100-300 dead	3 dead

The battle near Wigoltingen was a military conflict that took place on September 5, 1445 during the Old Zurich War in what is now the Canton of Thurgau . The opponents were on the one hand troops of the federal places and the Toggenburgs , on the other hand troops of the Habsburgs and their allies.

prehistory

When Appenzell entered the war on April 30, 1444 and the fighting in the Sarganserland and the St. Gallen Rhine Valley , the warfare increasingly shifted from the Zurich area to today's eastern Switzerland. In the space of the northeast front, the alliance with the Swiss city were Wil and since 1437 under Petermann Raron standing Toggenburg in a particularly exposed position and suffered from the ongoing Befehdungen that after entry into the war Werdenberger and Brandiser exacerbated on November 30, 1444 when they expelled the Confederates from the Sarganserland on December 1st .

At the end of January 1445, a contingent under the command of Hans von Rechberg appeared and lay down in front of Wil to plunder the surrounding area, followed by a counter-offensive by the Confederates (→ battle near Koblach ), which ultimately led to an unsuccessful siege of Sargans . On 20./21. May was Wil besieged again , on June 11, there was a major offensive against the Austrian side Appenzell and Toggenburg by these in Kirchberg and in Wolfhalden were blocked. On August 24th, the Werdenbergs took action against the upper Toggenburg , during which the Werdenbergers captured a lot of cattle.

On September 3, 200 men from Schwyz as well as contingents of 100 men each from Glarus , Uri and Unterwalden gathered in Pfäffikon and advanced over the Rickenpass to Wil , where they arrived on September 4. There the teams were reinforced by 300 Toggenburgers from Baron Petermann von Raron. The Wiler city governor Ulrich Wagner, a Schwyzer farmer, added the Wiler city contingent of about 100 men to the army and took over the supreme command of the troops.

course

Early on Sunday, September 5th, the approximately 900-strong army advanced to Frauenfeld in Thurgau ; from there they followed the course of the Thur and set the surrounding villages, namely Langdorf and Kurzdorf as well as Wellhausen and Mettendorf , on fire. From the latter places one crossed the Thur to Pfyn and on to Müllheim , which was also sacked along with the surrounding villages. The deployed Thurgau Landsturm , which gathered and followed the federal troops via Pfyn, reached them at Wigoltingen , whereupon Captain Ulrich Wagner turned his army against the enemy, who was supposedly outnumbered (according to Johannes Stumpf , he was outnumbered ) and took them by storm attack. The Thurgauers got confused right at the beginning of the battle, so that panic arose and a general escape movement began. In the subsequent persecution, the Swiss are said to have killed between 100 and 300 opponents. Schwyz, on the other hand, only gives 3 dead, but they are named, namely Heinrich Lindauer, Konrad Bussard and Hans in Schnürinen. The confederates captured a large number of weapons and armor , the city ​​banner of Frauenfeld also fell into the hands of the Schwyzians and was displayed as a trophy in the parish church of their main town .

consequences

The Confederates turned back after the battle and arrived late at night in Weinfelden , where they took up quarters and returned to Wil the following day. There the booty was divided among those involved and the army subsequently disbanded.

The rest of the year remained comparatively quiet until the Appenzell family conquered the small town of Rheineck and the Vogtei Rheintal at the end of December 1445 , thereby effectively pushing the federal-Austrian border up to the Rhine. The last federal campaign in the Sarganserland in February 1446, which culminated on March 6 in the victorious Battle of Ragaz , did little to break the stalemate in eastern Switzerland . The armistice of June 12, 1446 ended the fighting and thus the Old Zurich War de facto, although the peace negotiations lasted for another four years.

See also

• List of wars and battles in Switzerland

Web links

• Martin Illi: Old Zurich War. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Aegidius Tschudi : Chronicon Helveticum Part 2: Anno 1415-1470 Basel 1736, p. 453
2. ^ Karl Wegelin: History of the Toggenburg Landscape 1830, p. 259
3. ↑ Hans Fründ : Chronicle of the Old Zurich War from 1447.
4. ^ Ildefons von Arx : Stories of the Canton of St. Gallen: Volume 2 1811, p. 279
5. ^ Community of Müllheim: History
6. ↑ Johannes Stumpf : Common praiseworthy Eydgnoschektiven Stetten Landen and Völckeren Chronik wirdiger thaaten beschreybung 1547/1548.
7. ^ Heinrich Bullinger : Works: Section 4: Hist. Writings vol. 1: Tigurinerchronik p. 914.
8. ^ Johannes Wieland: History of the war events in Helvetia and Rhaetia, Volume 1 1827, p. 201
9. ↑ Thomas Fassbind: History of the Canton Schwyz, Volume 2 1833, p. 372