Battle of Werl
The Battle of Werl , also known as the Battle of the Haar , took place near Bremen , today a district of Ense , on March 2nd, 1586. It was related to the capture of Werl by Martin Schenk von Nideggen . In contrast, the Duchy of Westphalia, along with a few mercenaries, raised a state contingent. Schenk went to meet the opponents. The contingent was crushed. The defeat had no consequences, as Schenk soon withdrew because of the advancing relief troops. The fight can be seen as a resumption of the Truchsessian War , but it was also closely related to the Dutch Eighty Years War against the Spaniards .
prehistory
After the defeat of the Cologne Elector Gebhard I von Waldburg , who had converted to Protestantism and deposed by the Truchsessian War, he lived in exile in the Netherlands. Electorate of Cologne and its by-country the Vest Recklinghausen and the Duchy of Westphalia were in the hands of the new Elector Ernst of Bavaria . Its opponents only claimed Rheinberg on the Lower Rhine. Some time after his escape with the deposed Count Adolf von Neuenahr , who also wanted to regain his property, and Martin Schenk von Nideggen, supporters of the former elector's cause were found. Schenk, who had previously been in Spanish service, switched to Dutch service in 1585. On May 20, 1585, Gebhard von Waldburg, von Schenk and von Neuenahr, who was also the agent for the Netherlands, signed a contract. Von Schenk was appointed electoral field marshal. Shortly before, von Neuenahr had attacked and occupied Neuss . With this, Kurköln has lost one of its most important cities. Captain Friedrich Hermann Cloedt (also called von Pelden) became the commanding officer . The troops stationed there plundered the surrounding area. Schenk himself set up his headquarters in Rheinberg and undertook a number of actions from there. Alexander Farnese , Duke of Parma, fought against Schenk .
Von Schenk led auxiliary troops to Neuss. It was there that the decision was apparently made to march to Werl. The reasons are not entirely clear. Von Cloedt had estates nearby. According to other information, the deposed Werler judge Eberhard von der Reck played a role who wanted to take revenge. The troops consisted of about 500 horsemen and 600 foot soldiers. With these, von Schenk and von Cloedt marched out of Neuss on February 25, 1586. The troops crossed the Rhine and the Ruhr and marched towards Werl.
The approach led the government of the Duchy of Westphalia, which belongs to Kurköln, to strong defensive efforts. The Landdrost Eberhard zu Solms-Lich signed contracts with soldiers. On February 27, Christoph von Plettenberg was appointed Colonel.
course
The soldiers from Schenks arrived at Werl on the night of February 26th to 27th, 1586. The residents were distracted by the fires, the gates were opened by soldiers who had secretly entered and after a short time the town was occupied. The fortress-like castle under the commandant Johann von Werminghausen was not affected by this . The commandant refused to request surrender.
Instead, the commandant sent a messenger to Arnsberg with the request for help from Eberhard von Solms . This dispatched a number of wagons with provisions protected by 300 soldiers. These arrived undamaged in the castle. Since there was only limited space there, the commandant only kept a hundred men back and sent the rest back to Arnsberg. The Count of Solms, who saw the rule of the new elector in danger in the entire Duchy of Westphalia, immediately called together the military forces of the cities, villages and the nobility. Cities and villages followed suit, while only a few of the nobility took part.
The state contingent and the electoral soldiers gathered near Castle Waterlappe and the village of Bremen. The troops are said to have numbered several thousand men in total. The goal was to move to Werl, about eight kilometers away, and attack and drive out the Schenks troops. Von Schenk had news of the gathering of the opposing troops. Since he did not want to get between two fronts in view of the castle occupation, he decided to attack the enemy with part of his troops in a field battle.
On March 2, he advanced against the state contingent. He immediately attacked the duchy's weak cavalry, which consisted of only about 60 men. This was unsuccessful. To reload their firearms, the riders of the contingent withdrew a little. The militarily untrained peasants and citizens considered this to be an escape and also wanted to withdraw. The troops of Schenks were able to quickly defeat the now completely confused crowd and finally put them to flight. Many threw away their weapons and were killed while trying to escape. This running away was later referred to as the Bremer Lauf ( Bremer Loope ). Some of the refugees were followed to Neheim , where they partially drowned in the dysentery. The contemporary statements of up to 1000 dead are completely untrustworthy. The fallen aristocrats known by name included Guntermann von Plettenberg and Meffart von Broech.
About thirty electoral soldiers with firearms did not take part in the retreat. They withdrew together in an easily defended ravine and inflicted considerable losses on the enemy. Von Schenk made the soldiers the offer of the honorable task. One of the shooters shot at von Schenk, but only hit one companion. Thereupon von Schenk took himself to safety. As he retreated, he was shot again in the thigh. A shot in the buttocks was later reported and referred to as the Arnsberger Meisterschuss.
He marched back to Werl with his troops. There it was not possible to take possession of the castle, so that the soldiers could only plunder the city and its surroundings. Schenk's troops shot at the castle and destroyed a gate so that possible relief could penetrate into the city. Schenk began to draw the citizens to digging work for a real siege.
In the meantime, the soldiers available to the Landdrost awaited further electoral troops under Claude de Berlaymont . Farnese, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, sent Italian horsemen under a Colonel Verdugo. Against this background, the troops of Schenks left the city on March 8th and marched via Hamm to Rheinberg. About 50 men were left behind in Werl, but they were quickly defeated by the enemy. Schenk took several influential citizens of Werl with him as hostages. Among them were the historian Gerhard Kleinsorgen , the official Michael Lilie and the mayor Johann Pape. He died on the march of an illness in Dorsten . The rest were later released for a ransom of several thousand guilders.
consequences
The Duke of Parma recaptured Neuss for Elector Ernst. Captain Cloedt was killed. Schenk continued the fight from Rheinberg. He had had the fortress Schenkenschanz built nearby. This should serve as a basis for the Dutch against the Spaniards on the Lower Rhine. As a result, he fought mainly in the Netherlands, took Ruhrort in 1587 and from there undertook raids. He lost the city again to the Spaniards. He undertook an attack on the electoral residence city of Bonn , which he captured on the night of December 2, 1587. Schenk defended the city during a siege and only surrendered to the electoral commander Charles III on September 26, 1588 . de Croy . The crew and Schenk could then leave. He continued fighting in the Netherlands and attacked Nijmegen . He was killed in the process. His body was mutilated by the angry citizens. Rheinberg was besieged some time later and had to capitulate. Even after the departure of Schenks, the Duchy of Westphalia was threatened several times by Dutch troops in the following years.
literature
- Johann Heinrich Hennes: The fight for the archbishopric Cologne at the time of the electors Gebhard Truchsess and Ernst of Bavaria . Cologne 1878, pp. 152–157
- Mehler: History of the City of Werl. Werl 1891, pp. 285-273 digitized
- Karl Feaux de Lacroix : History of Arnsberg. Arnsberg 1895 [Reprint Werl, 1983], pp. 241-243
- J. Deneke: The meeting at the Kirchdorfe Bremen and the Castle Waterlappe not far from Werl on March 2nd, 1586. A fragment from the Reformation history of the Duchy of Westphalia. In: Journal for patriotic history and antiquity 18/1857 pp. 210–219
- Bernd Kirschbaum: 430 years ago: Danger for the Duchy of Westphalia. The "Bremen Run" - The battle on the Haar near Bremen. In: Heimatblätter des Arnsberger Heimatbund 37/2016, pp. 6-11