Battle of Schmidmühlen

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Battles of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714)

The Battle of Schmidmühlen took place during the Spanish War of Succession south of Amberg in place Schmidmühlen instead. On March 28, 1703, imperial and Bavarian troops faced each other. The battle ended with a victory for the Bavarian army .

The Bavarian Elector Maximilian II. Emanuel had pursued an offensive strategy right at the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession . In February 1703, the Duchy of Palatinate-Neuburg was conquered as part of several campaigns . Together with his own curb-Bavarian possessions in the Upper Palatinate , he had thus created a very good starting point for threatening the areas of the Frankish Reichskreis . As an imperial army under General Styrum from the west going against Bayern, so the Frankish joined Circle troops in this army. Together, a Bavarian counterattack near Dietfurt was repulsed on March 8, 1703 and then on March 17, the Bavarian fortress of Neumarkt was captured. After the further advance to the east was resumed, Velburg in the Electoral Palatinate was liberated on March 26th . In the battle, the Imperial General Field Marshal Lieutenant Margrave Georg Friedrich von Brandenburg-Ansbach was fatally wounded.

In the meantime, however, the Bavarian elector and his main army were approaching. This had defeated an imperial army advancing against Lower Bavaria under General Schlick southeast of Passau and was now advancing in forced marches. When General Styrum's troops opposed the Bavarian advance, the battle of Schmidmühlen broke out. However, the Bavarian elector could not use the victory he had achieved because he had to turn back to the threats to his southern dominion. As a result, most of the Upper Palatinate continued to be occupied by imperial troops and the direct threat to the Frankish imperial circle was eliminated.

literature

  • M. Spindler, A. Kraus: History of Franconia up to the end of the 18th century. Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-39451-5 .
  • M. Spindler, G. Diepolder: Bavarian History Atlas . Munich 1969.
  • Marcus Junkelmann: Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria as general . Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-8316-8263-1 .