Battle of Freienbach
| date | May 22, 1443 |
|---|---|
| place | Freienbach , Canton of Schwyz |
| output | Schwyzer victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
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| Commander | |
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| Troop strength | |
| 715 | unknown |
| losses | |
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42 dead |
19–24 dead |
Etzel · Pfäffikon · Grüningen I · Freienbach · Blickensdorf · Hirzel · Bremgarten · Regensberg · Grüningen II · St. Jakob an der Sihl · Greifensee · St. Jakob an der Birs · Erlenbach I · Koblach · Sargans · Wil · Kirchberg · Wolfhalden · Obertoggenburg · Wigoltingen · Erlenbach II · Männedorf · Wollerau · Ragaz
The Battle of Freienbach was fought on May 22, 1443 in the course of the Old Zurich War in the area of the Höfe ( Switzerland ).
The opponents were on the one hand the federal places Schwyz and Glarus and on the other hand troops of the imperial city of Zurich and the German king Friedrich III. of Habsburg . The battle was the first major military encounter at the final outbreak of war in 1443 and one of the rare amphibious landing operations in Swiss history .
prehistory
The renewed outbreak of war in 1443 was sparked by Zurich's refusal to accept the alliance with King Friedrich III. to dissolve, although according to the Federal Letter of 1351 Zurich had the right to alliance with the Confederation. Zurich reacted negatively to the invitation to a federal arbitration tribunal in Einsiedeln , so that Schwyz as the main initiator - and in his wake Glarus - presented the remaining undecided confederates with a fait accompli and on the night of May 20-21 the city of Zurich and Margrave Wilhelm von Hachberg submitted the declarations of war on behalf of the Austrian rulership. Glarus was warned to do the same. In Zurich they seemed to have expected the declaration of war, especially since the castle law with Bremgarten was renewed on May 19 and neutrality was agreed with Baden ; In addition, 120 men from Winterthur and 400 from the county of Kyburg were relocated to Rapperswil on May 20 , on the - correct - assumption that Rapperswil would become one of the focal points of the following war due to its strategic location. At that time, the other federal locations, which were not enthusiastic about Schwyz's unauthorized action anyway and would have preferred to negotiate, had not yet entered the war, so that only Schwyz and Glarus were known as opponents.
In the early morning of May 21st, the first acts of war of this second phase of the war took place, which were primarily directed against Rapperswil. The Schwyz set fire to part of the wooden bridge leading from Hurden to Rapperswil over Lake Zurich in order to break the connection between the city and the left bank of the lake. At this point in time, the Rapperswilers had no knowledge of the declaration of war. In retaliation, Rapperswil immediately equipped two ships with soldiers from the city, which set fire to the village of Hurden and the bridge to the island of Ufenau , and the city of Rapperswil in turn sent Schwyz an official declaration of war in the afternoon, by 13 aristocrats and 52 others by name named soldiers was signed. On the same day, the garrison in Rapperswil was reinforced with another 300 men from Grüningen under Albrecht von Landenberg zu Breitenlandenberg, so that when the war broke out, the garrison, including the troops that had entered the day before and Rapperswil's own city defense, should have been a little over 1000 men. In Zurich, the main contingents of the Zurich-Austrian coalition were preparing for a campaign on the left bank of the lake in the direction of the canton of Zug .
The Schwyz main contingent, which was encamped on the Etzel , received messengers from Uri and Unterwalden on May 21 , who reported that their contingents were in stones , but they were surprised at the Schwyz advance and asked Schwyz to refrain from fighting. After consulting with the authorities, these messengers returned in the evening and reported however that they were partisans of Schwyz; It was agreed that the Uri and Unterwaldner troops would be moved to Zug to protect it.
On Wednesday, May 22nd, a decision was made in Rapperswil to undertake a major military operation. It is unclear whether the move was decided on the orders of the leadership in Zurich or locally and what the exact goal was, but the plan may have been to land in the area of the courtyards and to occupy it. This area had been annexed by Schwyz three years earlier in November 1440 due to the unfavorable course of the war for Zurich and the resulting Kilchberg Peace (December 1, 1440, also called the " wretched peace " by the Zurich side ).
course
Some of the foreign troops and a Rapperswil contingent, a total of around 500 men, were loaded onto 10 large ships to go out onto the lake and sound out the situation for the time being, as Rapperswil had no knowledge of the strength and position of the enemy. Only then did they want to discuss how to proceed.
On the lake they were reinforced by two more ships from Stäfa and another ship with 180 sailors from the Zurich shipping guild, so that the armed force grew to a total of 715 men. The Zurich shipmen apparently did not want to wait for the planned briefing and their ship headed for Freienbach on their own at lunchtime, although the banner of the opposing main power could already be seen from the lake on an elevation between Pfäffikon and Freienbach. Since one did not want to be considered cowardly on the other ships, they followed the people of Zurich at a certain distance and also headed for Freienbach in order to land with all ships. The Schwyz under Ital Reding , who were also able to follow the movements of the fleet in front of and behind the island of Ufenau on its hill, sent an advance guard of about 100 fighters armed with spears and crossbows to Freienbach, because Reding feared that further enemy troops would being lured into a trap by land should he set his main force in motion too soon. The vanguard should on no account get drawn into combat.
The Zurich ship's crew, who had landed in the meantime, immediately ran into the village to loot and burn it down, although the Zurich bailiff Heinrich Schwend spoke out against damaging old Zurich territory. This led to a first fierce battle with the Schwyz vanguard, which, contrary to Reding's orders, engaged in fighting and initially pushed the people of Zurich out of the village, which was then recaptured by the people of Zurich by reinforcing other troops that had landed in the meantime. The Schwyz vanguard, meanwhile reinforced by about 100 more fighters, pushed the opponents a second time out of Freienbach, but they themselves were forced to retreat again. The Schwyz suffered noticeable losses, got into serious distress and had to retreat to the local cemetery and the church to wait there until other Schwyz fighters near Pfäffikon approached. The majority of the Rapperswil troops, who were still on the bank, feared they would be cut off from their ships and no longer intervened in the fighting in the village. In addition, it seemed that “ some people are reluctant to fight something ”.
Ital Reding also let his main force advance as soon as he realized that the enemy troops in the village were receiving no further reinforcements. Due to the incoming Schwyz reinforcements, the fighting people from Zurich in Freienbach were outnumbered and they now also feared being separated from their ships. The Schwyz gained the upper hand, and an uncoordinated retreat back towards the ships ensued. During the subsequent pursuit, the Zurich-Austrian troops suffered some losses in their fleeing retreat on the ships, among them Albrecht von Landenberg, who was still trying to stabilize the situation with his troops and to stop the retreating, which he did not succeed. The Rapperswil mayor Bilgeri Steiner and his son Hans Steiner also fell. Captain Ludwig Meyer, who commanded the Rapperswil contingent, was wounded two times in the foot; the Rapperswil banner was also lost. The troops from Rapperswil withdrew to their ships, the loading of the fugitives was covered by gunfire from the ships.
The dead from Zurich in Freienbach were first laid in a pit. Three days later, the 42 bodies were recovered on the Zurich side - with official approval from Schwyz.
consequences
Of course, the meeting at Freienbach was by no means decisive for the war; the losses on both sides were kept within limits, the Rapperswilers received at least an overview of the enemy strength and were able to bring their troops and ships safely back to Rapperswil, conversely the Schwyzer and Glarner were able to force the troops stationed in Rapperswil to sit still; for the time being it was basically a strategic stalemate. Nonetheless, the battle of Schwyz was exploited for propaganda purposes: the imperial cities were told that the enemy had suffered the heaviest losses and that two banners had been captured.
On the same day, Zurich received a declaration of war from Lucerne , the declarations of war by Uri and Unterwalden must also have been made on that day, which made the situation for Zurich worse, but the outcome of the war was still completely open. Bern and its ally Solothurn hesitated, and Zurich and the Habsburg captains believed that they were strong enough to take on the central Swiss troops. The troops from Schwyz and Glarus stayed on site for two days until the troops from Lucerne, Uri and Unterwalden issued a warning on May 24 to move in, as the western theater of war was also in motion and the vanguard of a Zurich detachment under Rudolf Stüssi as far as the canton of Zug, where it returned to its original position after the undecided battle at Blickensdorf . More difficult for the people of Zurich was the fact that the country folk from the area around Horgen occupied the Letzi am Hirzel without orders from the leadership, which was possibly a direct result of the battle of Freienbach, so that the Zurich leadership under Thuringia II von Hallwyl Had to assign contingents to reinforce them while the main contingent camped on the Albis , awaiting an attack there. In general, the Zurich leadership had to struggle again and again with the indiscipline and arbitrariness of its units, which was, however, an equally big problem on the other side. The Battle of the Hirzel , which took place on the same day , put the people of Zurich and their allies completely on the defensive and ultimately forced them to retreat to Zurich, so that the Zurich landscape lay more or less unprotected and could be devastated by the enemy, so that further offensive events Actions on the part of the Rapperswiler were no longer conceivable. Rapperswil itself was besieged for eleven days at the end of July / beginning of August and had to endure much longer sieges in 1444 and 1445, but it held out until the end of the war.
See also
Web links
- Martin Illi: Old Zurich War. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Paul Wyrsch: Freienbach. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alois Niederstätter: The Old Zurich War (1995)
- ↑ Johann Sporschil: The Swiss Chronicle: From the Foundation of the Rütli Federation to the Eternal Peace with France (1840)
- ↑ War pictures from Lake Zurich (1904). Retrieved June 4, 2017 .
- ↑ Klingenberg Chronicle (around 1460)
- ↑ Peter Niederhäuser, Christian Sieber: A «fratricidal war» makes history (2006)