Battle in Obertoggenburg

Battle in Obertoggenburg

Part of: Old Zurich War

Overview map of the Old Zurich War

date	August 24, 1445
place	Wildhaus-Alt St. Johann , Obertoggenburg , Canton of St. Gallen
output	Werdenberger victory

Parties to the conflict
Holy Roman Empire Hzt. Habsburg – Austria Gft. Werdenberg and Sarganserländer	Confederation of VII Places Toggenburg ( Raron )
Commander
Count Wilhelm von Werdenberg – Sargans	Mr. Petermann from Raron
Troop strength
unknown	unknown
losses
11 dead	18 dead

The battle in Obertoggenburg was a military conflict that took place on August 24, 1445 in the course of the Old Zurich War in Upper Toggenburg , Switzerland .

The opponents were on the one hand troops of Freiherr Petermann von Raron , who as Lord of Toggenburg stood on the side of the federal places , and on the other hand troops of the Habsburgs , primarily the Count of Werdenberg-Sargans .

prehistory

The county of Toggenburg , whose country people came into the land rights of the federal places Schwyz and Glarus in December 1436 , was ruled by Petermann von Raron since November 14, 1437. This entered into the land law of the two places on March 15, 1440 and officially on November 2, 1440 on the side of the federal places in the war. By entering the war of -facing resort Appenzell on April 30, 1444, the war admissions of Count Henry II. Of Werdenberg-Sargans († ca. 1447) and the Feldkirch Vogts Wolfhart V. von Brandis on 30 November 1444, and the resulting battles In the St. Gallen Rhine Valley (→ battle near Koblach ) and in the Sarganserland (→ Siege of Sargans ), the warfare increasingly shifted from the Zurich area to today's eastern Switzerland.

On June 11, 1445, the Austrian side made two major advances against Appenzell and Toggenburg, which were repulsed by the latter in the battle near Kirchberg and the Battle of Wolfhalden . In August, Count Wilhelm von Werdenberg – Sargans, captain of Walenstadt , had a footpath built over the rocks of the Chäserrugg to the Alps in upper Toggenburg, located above the source of the Thur (near today's community of Wildhaus-Alt St. Johann ) in order to transport it from Accessible from the south.

course

On August 24, 1445, a contingent of soldiers from Feldkirch , Walenstadt and Sargans came from Feldkirch , Walenstadt and Sargans to steal cattle on the newly built path . At the news of the enemy approach, the alarmed Toggenburgers rushed to ward off this incursion. The exact course of the battle at the level of the Voralpsee is unclear, but Count Wilhelm succeeded in stealing over 600 head of cattle on Alp Sellamatt above Alt St. Johann . The own losses amounted to 11, those of the Toggenburg to 18 fallen.

consequences

The battle itself remained an episode. In return, the Toggenburgers succeeded, together with people from Wil, in a raid on the newly laid footpath in the Alps above Walenstadt, in which the Toggenburgers 80 head of cattle fell into their hands. In the border area between Toggenburg and the County of Sargans , there were no major incidents until the end of the war. In September 1445, the Confederates launched a major raid from Pfäffikon deep into the Thurgau , in which 300 Toggenburgers joined the garrison of Wil (→ battle near Wigoltingen ). At the end of December 1445, the Appenzeller conquered the small town of Rheineck and the Vogtei Rheintal , thereby pushing the federal-Austrian border de facto as far as the Rhine. For reasons unknown, the Toggenburgs stayed away from the skirmishes that culminated in the Battle of Ragaz on March 6, 1446 . One of the last bellicose undertakings in the Old Zurich War was a half-hearted Austrian action against the lower Toggenburg on May 23, which should have damaged the Lichtensteig market. Two days later, on May 25, cattle was stolen in the Kirchberg area . 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.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

1. ^ Karl Wegelin: History of the Toggenburg Landscape 1830.
2. ↑ Hans Fründ : Chronicle of the Old Zurich War from 1447.
3. ↑ Johannes Wieland: History of the war events in Helvetia and Rhaetia, Volume 1 1827, p. 198