Battle of Wenzenbach
The Battle of Wenzenbach (also called the Battle of Schönberg or Böhmenschlacht ) took place on September 12, 1504 in the course of the Landshut War of Succession near Wenzenbach in the Upper Palatinate .
background
With his wife Jadwiga, Duke Georg the Rich of Bavaria-Landshut had no male heir. He appointed his daughter Elisabeth as heir, although female succession was excluded according to the Wittelsbach house rules. Elisabeth married Ruprecht von der Pfalz from the Palatinate line of the Wittelsbach family in 1499 . The sons Philipp and Ottheinrich came from the marriage . Shortly before his death, Duke Georg declared Ruprecht of the Palatinate to be his agent to enforce his daughter Elisabeth's inheritance claims. Duke Georg convened a state parliament in Landshut , but died before it began on December 1, 1503.
In the state parliament, Duke Albrecht IV of Bavaria-Munich announced his inheritance claims according to the Wittelsbach house contract . However, the Lower Bavarian nobility supported Ruprecht and appealed to the Imperial Court of Justice . King Maximilian I ordered all parties involved to go to Augsburg for an arbitration award . In advance, Albrecht IV had agreed to the assignment of the Kufstein , Kitzbühel and Rattenberg in Tyrol lands to the House of Habsburg . Maximilian then declared Albrecht IV's claim to be lawful and provided him with 10,000 men to enforce his claims. In addition, on April 23, 1504, he placed Ruprecht of the Palatinate and his followers under imperial ban . This subsequently led to the Landshut War of Succession, in which King Maximilian and Albrecht IV stood on one side, supported by the Swabian Confederation , the Imperial City of Nuremberg, Margrave Friedrich II of Brandenburg and Ansbach-Kulmbach and Duke Ulrich von Württemberg . Ruprecht von der Pfalz and his wife Elisabeth were supported by Count Palatine Philipp , the Kings of Bohemia and France, and Margrave Friedrich von Baden .
It is noteworthy that Maximilian used the recruitment of Bohemian mercenaries by the Palatinate party as an opportunity to receive papal crusade indulgences for the fight against alleged heretics . Under this pretext he was able to recoup part of the cost of the war that had nothing to do with fighting heretics.
Battle of Wenzenbach
In the course of the armed conflict , the army of Bohemian mercenaries promised by King Vladislav II moved into the Upper Palatinate. These Bohemian mercenaries owed their reputation as successful men of war to the special war techniques of the Hussite armies . Characteristic of the Hussites were their wagon castles and the use of large shields, so-called paveses (set tars ) for cover against the enemy. (The original religious dimension of these troops no longer played a role at that time; rather, Bohemian and Moravian nobles organized the mercenary market.)
Rupert of the Rhine and its Bohemian mercenaries camped on September 11, 1504 at Hohenroith and raided Castle Schoenberg and the village Wenzenbach and built on Hühnerbuckl the wagons. The nurse Michael Zenger defended himself bravely with his men, but soon had to move to the Kalten Eck (north of Schönberg Castle). King Maximilian I reached Regensburg that same night and camped in Stadtamhof . On the night of September 12, 1504, King Maximilian I advanced with his horsemen to Wenzenbach. At dawn, Schönberg Palace was fired at with artillery pieces, and the Bohemians were initially driven to flight. The Palatinate fled under their captain Wispeck . Around noon, the Bohemians faced another battle with around 4,500 men on the Hafenreuther Feld (between Hopfengarten and Hohenroith), where the mass graves of this battle are still to this day. From the cover of their wagons, the Bohemian mercenaries inflicted great damage on the knights of Maximilian with horse shutters , linden leaf, hook and awl spikes , so that they had to give up for the time being. Even Maximilian was wounded and his life was in danger because his horse stumbled and he was in danger of falling under the hooves of the battle horses. Erich von Braunschweig saved him from this predicament.
It was only when Georg von Frundsberg attacked with his Landsknecht regiment , armed with field snakes and muskets , that a breach was made in the wagons and shields of the Bohemians through which the Landsknechts could penetrate. In the slaughter that followed, 1,600 Bohemians were slain and 600 captured; it was obviously wrongly said that these prisoners were later used to build a castle in Austria. But this does not seem to be true, since they were rather brought to Regensburg and camped there single ; they were then obliged to meet at a specified place within a period of time. For this purpose a list was made with the names of all prisoners; on April 15, 1505, they were finally released. After the battle, King Maximilian ordered his Profoss to pile up and count the dead Bohemians. The Hafenreuther Feld then showed a picture of the devastation for months, because Maximilian had given the order for the burial, but this was only implemented on January 28, 1505. At that time, the Regensburg city commander Sigmund von Rohrbach asked the opposing military leader and Palatinate victum Ludwig von Eyb for safe conduct for the farmers in order to be allowed to bury the dead. This was promised in February 1505, and the dead, which had a bad smell, could be buried.
On the king's side there were around 200 dead, including many knights ( Georg Schenk von Neudeck , Erasmus von Hetzendorf, Ernst von Schönberg, Georg von Schaumbrugk, Peter von Wilhelmsdorf, Hans von Weiling). Many fleeing Bohemia were slaughtered by the peasants. Around 300 wagons of spoils of war were captured. The king moved into Regensburg across the Stone Bridge that evening and had a thanksgiving service celebrated at midnight. After the husband of Countess Palatine Elisabeth, Ruprecht von der Pfalz (Freising) , died on August 20, 1504 from the dysentery that was rampant in Lower Bavaria at that time, Countess Palatine Elisabeth also passed away three days after the battle on September 15, 1504. The war ended nevertheless continued on behalf of Duke Georg's grandchildren , 17-month-old Ottheinrich and 10-month-old Philipp .
Results
For the Bohemian mercenaries, the battle of Wenzenbach was the beginning of the decline. It was found that equipment and fighting style were outdated Bohemian infantry and the riderless support and protection of the corral mercenaries was inferior. The latter turned out to be more powerful and cheaper. Afterwards, Bohemian mercenaries were still used in European theaters of war such as the Venetian Wars, but now they lost their importance. In the course of the 16th century, the Bohemian mercenary system lost all characteristics that had made it a special phenomenon in Europe. Bohemian footman regiments, as they were set up at the end of the 16th century and then at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War , do not show any distinguishing features from the other foot soldiers recruited in the empire.
The Battle of Wenzenbach was the only field battle in the War of Succession. At the same time, it is the last knight's battle, after which it was replaced by other troops and weapons (foot troops, guns and small arms) in terms of warfare.
The Landshut War of Succession ended on July 30, 1505 with an arbitration award from Emperor Maximilian I at the Reichstag in Cologne. Ottheinrich and Philipp, Duke Georg's two grandsons, received the Young Palatinate , a fragmented area from the Upper Danube via Franconia to the northern Upper Palatinate. The rest of the Bayern-Landshut area went to the Munich line of the Wittelsbach family. Emperor Maximilian I received the promised three judicial districts Kufstein, Kitzbühel and Rattenberg. The imperial city of Nuremberg gained the offices of Lauf, Hersbruck and Altdorf.
Albrecht IV had a chapel built at the slaughterhouse, which has recently been renovated. The coat of arms of Wenzenbach still contains a memory of the battle: the red halberd on the silver crossbar refers to the battle on September 12, 1504.
literature
- Armin Gugau: The “Bavarian War”. The Landshut War of Succession of 1504/1505 and the Upper Palatinate. In: Tobias Appl, Margit Berwig-Wittl and Bernhard Lübers (eds.): Philipp der Streitbare. A prince of the early modern age. (Pp. 31-45). Verlag Friedrich Pustet , Regensburg 2003, ISBN 3-7917-1862-2 .
- Wenzenbach community (ed.): Wenzenbach, young community with a long past. Regensburg 1982, OCLC 630784744 .
- Uwe Tresp: Mercenaries from Bohemia: In the service of German princes: War business and army organization in the 15th century. Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 2004, ISBN 3-506-71744-8 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Uwe Tesp: Mercenaries from Bohemia. 2004, p. 189.
- ↑ geodaten.bayern.de administrative district Upper Palatinate: Wenzenbach, mass graves of the "Battle of Schönberg / Wenzenbach" 1504 (PDF).
- ↑ Official description of the coat of arms of Wenzenbach (blazon)