Kluser Handel

date	September 20, 1632
place	Balsthal
output	Victory of the Solothurn farmers
consequences	Settlement through mediation

Parties to the conflict
Solothurn	Bern
Troop strength
	50
losses
	8 - 9 dead

The Kluser Handel was a conflict between the Catholic town of Solothurn and the reformed Bern during the Thirty Years' War . A skirmish broke out in front of the gate of the small town of Klus near Balsthal , which caused a huge upset and threatened the confessional peace in the Old Confederation .

prehistory

The denominational relationships between the Reformed and the Catholic places of the Old Confederation had been regulated in the Second Kappeler Landfrieden since 1531 . The Catholic side, however, had political hegemony , which animated the relationship with suspicion, especially since the Counter-Reformation , and which was reinforced during and after the Thirty Years' War. The city of Mulhouse , which had been allied with the Old Confederation since 1515 and its four Protestant cities of Bern, Zurich , Basel and Schaffhausen since 1586, and which was heavily pressed by the war, turned to its allies for help in 1632. In the autumn they decided to send an aid contingent of 200 men to the city.

course

In September the Bern squad of 50 men was on the move and wanted to march via Solothurn via Basel to Mulhouse. The Solothurn Council approved the march through on September 20. However, the Solothurn bailiff Philipp von Roll on Bechburg decided to take an unauthorized approach and tried to block the way for the Bernese migrating in the cliff in front of the town of the same name . Since Bern had not obtained permission to march through beforehand, and additionally through an accidentally fired shot, there was a misunderstanding in which the passionately excited Balsthal and Oensinger farmers attacked the Bern auxiliary force and dispersed them. 8 to 9 Bernese fell victim to this attack.

consequences

Bern reacted angrily and threatened Solothurn with war if it did not respond to Bern's demands for severe punishment of the guilty. The dispute threatened the peace in the Old Confederation, which stayed out of the Thirty Years' War, because both parties were counting on the support of their Protestant and Catholic allies. At the beginning of 1633 the general civil war was about to start. Due to the influence of Duke Henri II of Rohan , who was stationed in the Three Leagues of France during the Graubünden turmoil, and the participation of the later Basel mayor Johann Rudolf Wettstein , who had traveled three times to Bern and Solothurn, an escalation could be avoided. The fugitive Landvogt Philipp von Roll was exiled for 101 years , and Solothurn had to punish three compatriots with the death and pay 5,000 crowns in damages. The impending civil war was thus prevented, but broke out in the Swiss Peasants' War in 1653 and in the First Villmerger War in 1656.

literature

Franz Fäh : The Kluser trade and its consequences, 1632–1633. Zurich 1884.

Web links

Erich Meyer: Kluserhandel. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .