Cherry war

This article explains an event during the Thirty Years' War in 1631. For the incidents in Heidenheim in 1920, see Heidenheimer Kirschenkrieg .

The cherry war is part of the Thirty Years' War , which fell from June 28 to July 11, 1631 during the cherry harvest and during the bloodless course of which Duke administrator Julius Friedrich von Württemberg wanted to fight the imperial family.

prehistory

After the Battle of Wimpfen on May 6th, 1622, a League of War people was garrisoned in Württemberg until 1625 . But then the warfare shifted. The imperial general Wallenstein and Count Tilly , the field captain of the Catholic League, subjugated northern Germany. The Protestant cause seemed lost. At the height of his power, Ferdinand II issued the edict of restitution in 1629 . He decreed that all former spiritual goods were to be returned to the Catholics.

The cherry war

Duke Julius Friedrich opposed this order, because he would have lost a third of his duchy, and in the early summer of 1631 convened the national selection . But when imperial troops of 24,000 men moved into the country from Italy, the duke sent his men back home before they could meet.
So the “cherry war” ended bloodlessly, but again brought hostile occupation to the country. Even if there was no battle, numerous villages and towns were plundered in this almost two-week period, as the examples Mössingen , Tübingen and Belsen show. Remnants of the cherry war can still be found on the Swabian Alb . Fortifications, mysterious trenches and walls, once built in the run-up to the expected battle in the Thirty Years' War, were supposed to protect the homeland.

literature

Hugo Gmelin: The war campaign of Count Franz Egon von Fürstenberg against Württemberg in 1631, the so-called cherry war , in: WürttVjhhLG NF 7, 1898, pp. 104–123