Prague Treaty (1546)
In Prague agreement dated October 14, 1546 succeeded Emperor Charles V , Duke Moritz of Saxony with the promise of transfer of the Saxon Electorate and territorial gains at the expense of the Ernestine countries in the Schmalkaldic War on his side to pull. In return, Moritz von Sachsen promised u. a., to hand over the Vogtland and the Saxon mountain towns of Gottesgab and Platten to the Kingdom of Bohemia .
history
As early as June 1546, Duke Moritz had signed a treaty with Emperor Charles V at the Reichstag in Regensburg , which obliged him to be military neutral in the event of a war between the Electorate of Saxony and the Emperor.
The formal reason for the opening of hostilities in the Schmalkaldic War was the enforcement of the sentence on 20 June 1546 outlawed in Saxony and Hesse . This was imposed on the two federal governors of the Schmalkaldic League , Johann Friedrich I of Saxony and Philip I of Hesse , because they had led the conquest of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (which was also controversial within the federal government) . Through this legal procedure, the emperor hoped to be able to persuade other Protestant princes and cities to fail to comply with their alliance obligations. In the south of the empire, the Protestant military leader Sebastian Schertlin von Burtenbach was unable to prevent the imperial victory after the initial success of his troops, which he led with great care (he captured Füssen and sacked Buchloe , among other things ) .
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The Saxon campaign of the allied Imperial troops and Moritz of Saxony followed from November 1546. Moritz had hesitated for a long time, since this punitive action would also have affected his father-in-law Philip of Hesse. But when the emperor's brother, Ferdinand I , wanted to start a campaign against the Electorate of Saxony himself, he had to get ahead of him in order not to lose the initiative against the Habsburgs in his own countries.
After initial successes - he occupied the Electorate of Saxony almost without a fight - Moritz and his army found themselves in distress from the Schmalkaldic League and avoided the direction of Bohemia. With the victory in the Battle of Mühlberg on April 24, 1547 the war was decided. The Protestant victory on May 23, 1547 in the Battle of Drakenburg , which led to the withdrawal of the imperial from the north of the empire, did nothing to change that. Also Magdeburg made until 1551 resistance.
Shortly after the Battle of Mühlberg on June 4, 1547, Duke Moritz of Saxony was raised to the rank of Elector of Saxony in the field camp. The captured Elector Johann Friedrich I was initially sentenced to death. In order to avert his impending execution and to save at least some areas in Thuringia for his heirs, Johann Friedrich signed the Wittenberg surrender on May 19, 1547 . In this he agreed to the transfer of the Saxon electoral dignity to the Albertine line and the renunciation of parts of his lands in Thuringia .
The official appointment of Moritz von Saxony as elector came later, but at a high price: he had betrayed the evangelical cause and put his father-in-law, Landgrave Philip I of Hesse, in a hopeless position. Moritz assured him that he would not be imprisoned if he surrendered to the emperor. In fact, Philip was arrested and taken out of the country after falling on his knees in front of Charles V.
After these incidents, Moritz, insulted by his compatriots as "Judas von Meißen", was deeply disappointed by the emperor, but hid his attitude towards him until the "armored Reichstag in Augsburg " on February 25, 1548, where the ceremony to elevate Moritz to electoral prince of Saxony took place.
literature
- Christian Winter: Saxony as a major European power? Moritz von Sachsen as leader of the opposition to Emperor Karl V. Denkströme, Journal of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, 2010, Issue 4, pp. 105–120 ( online version ).
- Klaus Schulte-van Pol: “A common war against all Protestants”. The battle near Mühlberg. In: The time . April 25, 1997 ( online version ).