Laxenburg Alliance

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The Laxenburg Alliance of 1682 was a district association of various imperial estates , imperial circles and the Emperor Leopold I as a reaction to the threat to the integrity of the empire by Louis XIV. It was preceded by the Frankfurt Alliance (also Frankfurter Union ) of 1679. After the alliance came to an end, the Augsburg Alliance came into being in 1686 .

prehistory

For some time there was in the realm alliances of Estates in connection with the French expansionism ( Reunionspolitik ). Thus in 1673 the Lower and Upper Saxon Reichskreis merged in the Quedlinburg Recess . This was expanded a short time later when the Franconian Imperial Circle joined the Mühlhauser Association.

However, these did not constitute an alliance against France. Ernst August von Hanover tried to create an alliance from Bavaria , Braunschweig and possibly Brandenburg . In the south there were talks between the Swabian , Franconian and Bavarian districts on a common defense policy.

Frankfurt Alliance

The actual initiative came from Georg Friedrich von Waldeck in particular . Another protagonist was the Prince-Bishop of Bamberg and Würzburg Peter Philipp von Dernbach . This was increasingly skeptical of the functionality of the Reichstag .

At the urging of Waldecks, various small imperial estates, in particular from the Wetterau , the Westerwald and the Eifel , came together to form the Frankfurt Alliance. In addition to protecting the empire, the partners also wanted to protect their interests in relation to stronger imperial estates, in particular the bishopric of Münster . With regard to France, they were concerned with maintaining the Peace of Westphalia and the Peace of Nijmegen .

Laxenburg Alliance

In particular, the seizure of Strasbourg by France made it clear how great the threat Louis XIV posed to the integrity of the empire. With Bishop Dernburg in particular, this led to his warning of the danger that threatened France.

Waldeck planned to expand the federal government. An important point for the attractiveness of the federal government was that accession and the payment of additional voluntary costs involved a kind of burden sharing. Those who provided additional military services no longer had to bear the expensive burdens of quarters for the Armied Imperial Estates or the Imperial Army . On the other hand, membership was associated with considerable burdens. The participating estates were ready to spend 130 Roman months to form a joint army . Waldeck's planning was based on three armies. However, this made it necessary to expand the number of members. Dernbach found the plan convincing and campaigned for the Franconian Circle to join.

As a result, among others, Wilhelm III. of Orange for an extension of the alliance. Hesse-Kassel , Hesse-Darmstadt , the Abbey of Fulda , the Hochstifte Bamberg and Würzburg as well as the Upper Rhine, Franconian and Swabian imperial circles finally joined.

The initiators also tried to get the emperor to join . At first he hesitated. Since Brandenburg was allied with France at the time and other strong imperial estates showed little inclination to participate, Leopold I was finally ready to participate. In 1682, Leopold I joined the Alliance for the Protection of the Imperial Borders at Laxenburg Castle near Vienna . A short time later, Saxe-Gotha and Saxe-Eisenach also joined.

The participation of the emperor gave the association of the imperial circles a new quality. It was no longer about the interests of a few circles, but about the defense of the Reich as a whole. With the Laxenburg Alliance, the emperor tried to make the widespread association system usable for himself. It was noteworthy that both Protestant and Catholic estates were united in the alliance. The Laxenburg Alliance formed the core of a strong imperial party in the empire.

The aim was to maintain internal peace in the empire and to create an initial defense against a possible French threat.

The alliance was concluded for three years. It was agreed to set up three imperial armies with a total of 30,000 men under the command of the emperor, which were to be stationed along the Rhine. The middle army was to command Waldeck itself. A real Reich war against France was thus possible without the participation of the Reichstag . Although the Reich Defensive Order had been adopted shortly before, it was only partially effective due to Brandenburg's delaying policy.

Beyond the empire, there was also a connection with Sweden and the Netherlands. Kurköln , Kurmainz and Brandenburg stood apart and criticized that the federal government could provoke a war with France.

However, in practice the alliance developed more slowly than expected. So the armor started slowly. In addition, Dernburg, one of the initiators of the alliance, died in 1683.

Ultimately, however, the alliance was not used against France, but against the Ottoman Empire . After the contract period had expired, Leopold I in particular began to advertise a renewal and expansion of the federal government in 1685. This took shape in the Augsburg Association of 1686.

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