Battle of Aussig

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Battle of Aussig
Part of: Hussite Wars
date June 16, 1426
place Aussig
output Victory of the Hussites
Parties to the conflict

Saxon - Thuringian Army

Hussites

The Battle of Aussig was a major battle during the Hussite Wars in the Kingdom of Bohemia . It took place between a Saxon - Thuringian army and the Hussites on June 16, 1426 .

The first units of the Hussites arrived at Aussig on May 26, 1426 . In the weeks that followed, the town , which then belonged to the Meissen region, was besieged and cut off from the outside world. Although there was no commander-in-chief on the side of the Hussites , it is assumed that the groups were coordinated by a council of elders, to which the taborite Andreas Prokop also belonged.

The city was bombarded every day, but the population offered bitter resistance, hoping for relief , which finally, organized by Margravine Katharina from troops of the Meissen , Saxon , Thuringian and Upper Lusatians , marched towards Bohemia on June 11, 1426. The relief army , supposedly 36,000, but probably around 8,000 men , was divided into several groups. One came via the Janauer Weg near Brüx , the second crossed the border at Ossegg , and the third stream came via Graupen and Teplitz .

In the early evening of June 15, 1426, the Saxon army arrived starved and exhausted at Karbitz , where they encountered preferred Hussite posts. They positioned themselves on the " Na Běhání " hill about ten kilometers from Aussig, on which they built a wagon castle . The lack of provisions forced the Meissen commander to attack immediately the next day, a Sunday.

In one of the greatest battles of the Hussite Wars, however, the Saxon-Thuringian relief army suffered a devastating defeat. Presumably, after the attack on the wagon castle, the Saxons were unexpectedly caught in the back by a Hussite knight troop and smashed. Up to 12,000 casualties are reported, which is certainly an exaggeration. However, there are no meaningful loss lists. Many were captured, mostly on the run. This fiasco also sealed the fate of the defenders of Aussig, who gave up a day later and fled together with part of the citizenry. The pursuit of the refugees was then only easy.

Thousands of dead remained on the battlefield. Most of the Meißnisch-Ostland and Thuringian commanders and banner lords , counts, barons and lords fell. Among the 500 dead from the nobility were the Meissen burgrave Heinrich II of Meinheringen as the last of his line, Burgrave Oswald von Kirchberg, Count Ernst I von Hohnstein, Count Friedrich XIV. Von Beichlingen-Wiehe as the Thuringian-landgrave leader and his eponymous leader Son from first marriage Friedrich XV. von Beichlingen, the leader of the Thuringian infantry Count Ernst von Gleichen and Count Friedrich von Gleichen, Herr zu Tonna, Count Johann II. von Barby and Count Heinrich XXI. von Schwarzburg, Messrs Heinrich VIII. von Gera, Heinrich VII. Reuss von Plauen, Count Friedrich von Dohna , Count Busso von Falkenstein (Colonel of the Meissen Troops), Protze I. Edler Herr von Querfurt, and the Knights Günter von Bünau, Tham Pflugk, Jacob von Wangenheim, Heinz / Heinrich von Erffa, Christian / Kerstan von Seebach and Feldobrist Dietrich von Witzleben and Christian / Kerstan von Witzleben von der Elgersburg, Caspar von Schönberg with his sons, Dietrich and Heinrich von Schleinitz, Johann von Schönfeld, Friedrich XIII. von Schönburg, Johann von Karlowitz and gentlemen from the von Karras and von Köckeritz families.

Nevertheless, the Saxons were able to drive the Hussites out of Aussig 5 weeks later. Strategically nothing had changed.

literature

  • Jan Durdik: Hussite army . Translated into German by Eberhard Wolfgram. Berlin: German military publisher 1961
  • Jiří Kejř; Jiří Ployhar (photos): The Hussite Revolution . Translated from the Czech by Dagmar Bilková. Orbis, Prague 1988, DNB 891488057 .
  • Julius Löbe, Max Löbe: Annals of the city of Altenburg up to the year 1499. In: Mittheilungen der Geschichts- und Alterthumsforschenden Gesellschaft des Osterlandes. 10, 1888-1895, ISSN  0863-694X , pp. 1-94.
  • Ermisch Hubert: On the history of the battle at Aussig. In: New archive for Saxon history and antiquity. 47, 1926, ISSN  0944-8195 , pp. 5-45, online .
  • Wilhelm Adolf Lindau: The battle at Aussig. Romantic images from the 15th century. Leipzig, Kollmann, 1849
  • Lutz Mohr : The Hussites in Upper Lusatia with special consideration of their campaigns in the years from 1424 to 1434 . Special edition No. 2/2014 of the series: History and stories from Neusalza-Spremberg. Greifswald u. Neusalza-Spremberg 2014