Battle of Gransee

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the Battle of Gransee in August 1316, during the North German Margrave War, the troops of the warring parties met not far from the farming village of Schulzendorf . These were on the one hand the allied troops of the Principality of Mecklenburg , the rule Werle , the Kingdom of Denmark and other North German princes and on the other hand the troops of the Margrave of Brandenburg and their allies. The outcome of the battle had a decisive influence on the further course of the entire conflict. In the late autumn of the following year, on November 25, 1317, in the Peace of Templin, the war was largely settled on the status quo.

prehistory

The trigger for the sub-conflict, which was part of the great attempt at subjugation of the seaside town of Stralsund, was the inheritance dispute over the rule of Stargard after the death of the margrave daughter Beatrix of Brandenburg , the deceased wife of Heinrich II. Of Mecklenburg, in 1314. The margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg claims the land of Stargard back as an extinct fiefdom and treasure. The Mecklenburg princes, for their part, responded to constant attacks by the Brandenburg Margrave Waldemar the Great in 1316 with several incursions into the north of the Mark Brandenburg under the leadership of Johann von Werle, who previously fought on the side of Waldemar, but fell into Mecklenburg captivity to the northwest of Neubrandenburg Switching sides was forced. When the Mecklenburg-Danish coalition army again under the leadership of Heinrich II of Mecklenburg, known as "the lion", crossed the border northwest of Gransee with his troops and invaded the territory of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Brandenburg Margrave Waldemar gathered his army in and near the City of Gransee to face the enemy.

course

The Brandenburg troops, mostly heavily armed riders, were supposedly far superior to the Mecklenburg-Danish troops, which consisted to a considerable extent of foot troops. In old traditions of Mecklenburg origin, the patriotic exuberance and heroic exaggeration even wrote of a fourfold personal superiority of the Brandenburgers and their allies. In order to compensate for this quantitative disadvantage, the Mecklenburg princes and their allies decided to launch a surprise attack on the Brandenburg troops, crossing the Mühlenfließ near Schulzendorf on the advice of Johann von Werle from the forest thicket. This river, which meanders almost unchanged along the southern forest clearing of the so-called Unterbusch, one day drove the watermill to Rauschendorf and flowed from there into the Gransee Geronsee.

In combat, the foot troops proved to be the decisive force of the attackers. Once the knights in their armor were lifted from the saddle, they were very limited in ground combat and inferior to the foot troops. The Brandenburgers and their allies found themselves in distress after several hours of bitter struggle. Heinrich the Lion was injured in the initial phase of the battle by an ax blow on the helmet and had to be temporarily removed from the field. But he was soon able to intervene again. On the Brandenburg side, seven counts, including Albrecht V von Wernigerode and the Count von Mansfeld , were captured. The Margrave Waldemar narrowly escaped this captivity, as the Count von Mansfeld snatched him from the hands of his captors and sacrificed himself in turn. Margrave Waldemar and his men fled in a disorderly manner and sought protection behind the high walls of the “solid city” of Gransee, which Fontane later described as probably the most solid in County Ruppin . On the Mecklenburg-Danish side, Johann II of Holstein-Kiel , the half-brother of the Danish King Christoph I , was taken prisoner. The captured nobles were considered bargaining chips for both sides in the peace negotiations.

The victorious allies withdrew to Buchholz via Rheinsberg and Wesenberg on Mecklenburg territory .

Results

After the Battle of Gransee, negotiations followed in the same year, including in Zehdenick, which led to the Peace of Templin in 1317 . Margrave Waldemar had to accept the success of the coalition of North German princes and Denmark. The Stargard rule remained and from then on belonged permanently to Mecklenburg. With the death of Waldemar and his underage cousin Heinrich , the house of the Ascanians in Brandenburg also went out in 1319/20 .

present

On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Gransee, the Gransee Office and the municipalities , the Sonnenberg municipality and the Schulzendorf district together with the Stargarder Burgverein celebrated a ceremony on July 30, 2016. A memorial stone from Feldmark Schulzendorf, a sign with a panoramic view of the historical battlefield and an information board were unveiled and a memorial and resting place near Schulzendorf on the future Gransee – Neuglobsow cycle path was inaugurated. It is called Historical Battlefield 1316 .

literature

  • Georg Christian Friedrich Lisch : The battle at Gransee in the year 1316. In: Yearbooks of the association for Mecklenburg history and antiquity. Volume 11, 1846, p. 212 ff. ( Digitized version )
  • Carsten Dräger: The battle near Schulzendorf in 1316. In: Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung. Articles about local history in the local section Neues Granseer Tageblatt
  • Carsten Dräger: Festschrift of the Schulzendorf community - From the beginnings to the present. 1991.