Swiss Habsburg Wars
The Swiss Habsburg Wars of 1291–1474 / 1511 comprised a series of armed conflicts between the emerging Swiss Confederation and the princely family of the Habsburgs , which ended with the de facto independence of the Confederation.
First phase: the conflict with Albrecht I.
After the death of the German King Rudolf von Habsburg on July 15, 1291 , a number of imperial princes rose up against his son, Duke Albrecht of Austria , in the foreland including Rudolf von Habsburg-Laufenburg , Bishop of Constance, Wilhelm von Montfort , Abbot von St. Gallen, Elisabeth von Homberg-Rapperswil and the Counts of Nellenburg and Savoy . Then there were the imperial cities of Bern and Zurich . In view of the threatened conflicts, the country folk of the immediate imperial states of Uri , Schwyz and Nidwalden ( Obwalden only joined the federal government later) renewed an older civic peace alliance in August of that year, which as a conservative oath does not stand out from other contemporary civic peace alliances (→ Federal Letter from 1291 ). Only the judge's article shows the common will of the country people to secure a certain degree of self-government. Viewed from the situation at the time, the federal government was undoubtedly also a protective alliance against any claims made by the heirs of the former king , as the Habsburgs had been expanding their domestic power in what is now Switzerland for a long time and were striving to control the Gotthard . On October 16, the states of Uri and Schwyz allied themselves for three years with the imperial city of Zurich, which was also in conflict with Habsburg; In December, the city of Lucerne also fell away from Habsburg. In the following year, however, the anti-Habsburg coalition broke up after the defeat of Zurich in the Battle of St. Georgen in April 1292. Duke Albrecht made peace with his opponents, Lucerne also had to submit to the Habsburgs again.
The conflict with Schwyz and Uri remained unsolved after 1292. The Habsburgs blocked traffic with central Switzerland, but did not launch a military attack, as Duke Albrecht was bound by the disputes over the German royal throne and the duchies of Austria and Styria . In 1297, the Roman-German King Adolf von Nassau renewed Uri and Schwyz's letters of freedom, shortly before he was deposed by the German princes. Albrecht was then elected the new king, but first had to conquer the crown from Adolf on the battlefield. After his death in 1298, he began to turn to his home countries in what is now Switzerland. In order to record his legal claims, Albrecht had all sovereign rights and income of the Habsburgs in the areas claimed by the confederates systematically recorded in the so-called " Habsburg Urbar ", and as king he did not renew the letters of freedom from Uri and Schwyz. De facto , however, nothing changed: because he was bound by other projects in the Reich, Albrecht refrained from actively enforcing his rights. Incidentally, the properties in central Switzerland are missing in the Habsburg land register, although it is unclear whether these were never recorded or whether they were deliberately destroyed after the conquest of Baden by the Confederates in 1415. Albrecht also lifted the economic blockade, as the areas he ruled, especially Lucerne, were also interested in trading via the Gotthard. After the assassination of Albrecht near Königsfelden in 1308, the new Roman-German King Henry VII of Luxembourg not only renewed the old letters of freedom, but also combined Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden in an imperial bailiwick and thus indirectly recognized their union. As a result, Unterwalden also received the status of an imperial immediate country. Heinrich also granted the three forest sites the privilege of not having to appear before any foreign judge, with the exception of the royal court.
Second phase: The Morgarten War
The second phase of the Habsburg-federal conflict began after King Henry VII's reconciliation with the Habsburgs in 1311. The king then promised the Habsburgs an investigation of their legal claims in central Switzerland, which is why Schwyz and Unterwalden felt compelled to secure their borders. Schwyz occupied the strategically important Arth and got involved in a border dispute (→ Marchenstreit ) with the Einsiedeln monastery , which was under the Habsburg bailiwick , in the course of which the Schwyz were banned and interdict . This provoked the attack by the Schwyz of January 6, 1314 on Einsiedeln, which made a Habsburg intervention almost inevitable. The renewed conflict over the German royal throne made matters worse in October 1314. The Wittelsbacher Ludwig the Bavarian and the Habsburg Frederick the Beautiful both saw themselves as the rightly elected German king and gathered their supporters for the decisive battle. Since the three Waldstätte took the party of Ludwig, Friedrich imposed the imperial ban on central Switzerland and again put an economic blockade into force.
In the autumn of 1315 Friedrich's brother, Duke Leopold of Austria, who was responsible for the administration of the Habsburg lands in the foothills, gathered an army in Zug to punish the Schwyz. In a concentric attack, Leopold, together with Otto von Strassberg and the nobility of Lucerne, wanted to attack the three forest sites across the Brünig , across Lake Lucerne and from the north. On November 15, 1315, the first armed fighting between the Confederates and the Habsburgs took place with the Battle of Morgarten . The Swiss Confederation succeeded in defeating an army that was numerically and technically superior. After this defeat, the Habsburgs temporarily refrained from further military attacks. In December 1315 Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden renewed and expanded the union of 1291 in the sense of closer political union against the Habsburg threat. All feudal taxes from the Waldstätte area were supposed to be suspended for the duration of the war, and the three countries committed themselves to a common foreign policy. The enmity between the Habsburgs and the Roman-German King Ludwig the Bavarian let the latter revoke all rights of the Habsburgs in the Waldstätten in March 1316 by a feudal court. In addition, he renewed the old letters of freedom and placed the Gotthard completely under the control of Uri by appointing the Urner Landammann as Imperial Bailiff over the Urseren Valley in 1317 . As a result of the further developments in imperial politics, the Habsburgs were forced to grant the Waldstätten an armistice in 1318, which was initially only to apply for ten months, but was extended several times. In exchange, the Waldstätter made it possible to resume trade and also allowed feudal taxes to be paid to Habsburg again. However, the Habsburgs did not formally accept the loss of central Switzerland, but continued to strive to restore their position of power from before 1291.
Although the Morgarten War can be seen in connection with the protracted dispute over the crown between Frederick the Beautiful and Ludwig the Bavarian, the significance of the Battle of Morgarten for the Holy Roman Empire is still disputed. The involvement of the Habsburgs in imperial politics led to a temporary interruption in the expansion of internal rule in the Habsburg territories. For the young Confederation, Ludwig the Bavarian confirmed the imperial directness of the forest site, which also weakened the Habsburg legal claims in central Switzerland, a great political success.
Third phase: conflicts over Lucerne and Zurich
The third phase of the Habsburg Wars was triggered by further developments in the empire on the one hand and by the politics of the city of Lucerne. The constant disputes between the Waldstätten and the Habsburgs put the city of Lucerne, which had only been under Habsburg rule since 1291, into a difficult situation, as its trade relations were dependent on a good understanding with both adversaries. Furthermore, the Habsburg rule meant a threat to the autonomy of Lucerne, which is why the anti-Habsburg party in the city grew stronger and stronger. On November 7, 1332, Lucerne, together with the towns of Gersau and Weggis, therefore formed an "eternal alliance" with Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, in which the parties agreed on a defensive pact and the convening of an arbitration tribunal. The Habsburgs' rights were reserved in this agreement, but the anti-Habsburg thrust of the federal government was still evident.
In the empire the situation changed after 1322 to the disadvantage of the Confederation. King Ludwig IV prevailed against Frederick the Handsome in the battle of Mühldorf and was now generally recognized as the Roman-German king. However, a short time later he got into a conflict with the Pope, which is why he reconciled with the Habsburgs and formally recognized their ownership. In 1325 Friedrich von Ludwig was even referred to as a "fellow king". After the death of Friedrich the contrast between Ludwig, who had meanwhile been crowned emperor in Rome , and Habsburg disappeared ; Ludwig's interest in the Swiss Confederation waned. In 1331 he confirmed the privileges of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden again, but in 1334 he awarded Schwyz and Unterwalden Habsburg. Immediately a feud-like guerrilla war between the Habsburg territories and the confederates began again , which was settled by an arbitration tribunal in 1336. Lucerne remained in league with the Waldstätten, but also had to recognize the Habsburg sovereign rights. An overthrow of the balance of power in the city in the " Lucerne Murder Night " of 1343 by Habsburg partisans failed, however.
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After the reconciliation with the emperor in 1330 under Duke Albrecht II and his sister, the Hungarian king widow Agnes , Habsburg succeeded in consolidating their holdings in the foreland. Ludwig IV pledged the Upper German imperial cities to Albrecht in 1330, but Zurich and St. Gallen were immediately released. Although Albrecht's successor, “Arch” Duke Rudolf IV , did not succeed in enforcing Habsburg sovereignty over Zurich, Bern, St. Gallen and Solothurn , he managed to get the cities to join the Habsburg peace alliance. In 1356 Zurich allied with Rudolf, in 1357 with the Bishop of Konstanz , in 1358 with the Bishop of Chur , and in 1363 Habsburg acquired the County of Tyrol . The position of power of Habsburg in southern Germany was clearly growing. In the area of the Aare the Habsburgs ruled Freiburg im Üechtland , they were allied with Solothurn, and Bern, although bound to the Confederation, was not interested in hostility towards Habsburg because of the Western threat from Savoy. Incidentally, the position of Habsburg in Sundgau , in Breisgau , in the Black Forest , in the Bernese Oberland , in the Aare valley from Biel downstream, in the St. Gallen Rhine Valley , in the Lint plain between Weesen and Rapperswil , in the Zurich area as well as in Aargau and Thurgau was either through Possession or secured by strong influence. However, the long-term advantage of the Confederates was the relocation of the main weight of the Habsburg possessions to the east, which was manifested by the acquisition of the duchies of Austria, Styria and Carinthia . The dukes mostly stayed in the lands mentioned, and without their presence there, major military ventures were unthinkable at that time.
Like the Luxembourgers, the Habsburgs shifted their focus to the east without, however, losing interest in their home countries; rather, attempts were made to combine the various possessions into a coherent territory of the princes.
In the years 1351–53, the conflict between the Confederates and Habsburgs led to the accession of further bailiwicks and cities to the Confederation , which grew into the League of Eight Old Places . On the other hand, the Habsburg Duke Albrecht II , who was able to expand territorial rule in his home countries, was more committed. In the third phase of the Habsburg Wars, a geographical and strategic shift took place, namely away from the forest sites in the direction of the cities of Zurich and Lucerne, since it was these two places that expanded into the Habsburgs' sphere of power and influence with the establishment of their territorial rule .
The imperial city of Zurich was at war against the Count of Habsburg-Laufenburg after the “ Zurich Night of Murder ” in 1350 and, after failed attempts to mediate in connection with the destruction of Rapperswil, also against Duke Albrecht II. So in distress, the city secured itself in 1351 Defensive alliance with the confederates, whereby she was guaranteed the preservation of the Brunschen guild constitution . When Albrecht moved against Zurich in 1351, the Central Swiss in return occupied the Glarus valley , which belonged to Habsburg and had been in contact with Schwyz since 1323 and wanted to regain its former autonomy. In February 1352 the people of Glarus fended off a Habsburg attack near Näfels and in June entered into a "minor alliance" with the towns of Zurich, Lucerne and the three Waldstätten. In the same year, after a brief siege by the Confederates, the Habsburg town of Zug also joined the Confederation, creating a territorial connection between Zurich and central Switzerland. After a second siege of Zurich by Albrecht II, the parties negotiated the so-called Brandenburg Peace in September 1352 , with the result that both the Habsburgs and the Confederates would have to return all their recent conquests, whereby at least Zug and Glarus fell back to Habsburg would be. However, since Duke Albrecht was dissatisfied with this outcome, he submitted the dispute to the Roman-German King Charles IV of the Luxemburg family . The royal arbitration tended to favor the Habsburgs, which is why the Confederates did not see themselves compelled to implement the Brandenburg Peace. Albrecht then resumed the war for Zurich in 1354 and besieged the city for the third time, this time reinforced by the king's troops. Despite support from the Reich, the Habsburg position was weakened because in 1353 the imperial city of Bern, which had previously been allied with Albrecht, turned to the Swiss Confederation: the city lords there feared that their subjects in the Bernese Oberland would fall away . While Albrecht did not succeed in taking Zurich, King Charles IV appeared again as a mediator. In the Peace of Regensburg the earlier Brandenburg Peace was confirmed, and Zurich, which had briefly moved closer to Habsburg for economic reasons, took on the obligation to enforce the treaty, if necessary against the will of the Confederates.
Although Duke Albrecht II could not fully assert himself in the third phase of the Habsburg Wars, the Regensburg Peace signified a confirmation of Habsburg's hegemonic position in the areas of the Austrian foothills , as Habsburg was able to assert itself against the claims of Zurich and also its position in Zug and Lucerne remained legally undisputed for the time being. In the early 1360s, Lucerne had Archduke Rudolf IV confirm its privileges and fought on the side of the Habsburgs in the Gugler War.
In the high Middle Ages, Upper Germany was close to the emperor: the Salians and Staufers had their home countries in Swabia , Franconia and on the Rhine . The Wittelsbacher Ludwig the Bavarian, emperor since 1328, also came from the south and resided in Munich . However, his successor, Charles IV of the House of Luxembourg, held court in his native city of Prague . In contrast to his predecessors, he renounced an active Italian policy and only crossed the Alps twice for a short time. This moved the future Swiss plateau to the edge of the empire. At this point in time it did not form a unit in any way, but had two poles: Lake Geneva and Lake Constance with the associated settlement and cultural areas.
Fourth phase: the Sempach War
Between the third and fourth phases of the Habsburg Wars there was a period of fragile peace. There were repeated provocations on both sides. Both Bern as well as Zurich and Lucerne at times vigorously pursued the expansion of their influence on the surrounding aristocratic lords and tried to establish their own territorial lords. In doing so, they competed with Habsburg, which ruled directly or indirectly over most parts of what is now the Swiss Central Plateau, or which asserted claims to power. While King Charles IV was fighting a conflict over rule over the county of Tyrol against the Habsburgs , Schwyz seized the city of Zug in 1364/65. In the Thorberg Peace of 1368, the Habsburg dukes recognized Albrecht III. and Leopold III. who ruled together after the death of Rudolf IV in 1365, the affiliation of Zug to the Confederation. However, Zug continued to deliver taxes to the Habsburgs. In 1370 the so-called Pfaffenbrief , which represented a first step towards uniform legislation, strengthened the internal cohesion of the Confederation. It also stated that all Habsburg servants in the federal territory had to take an oath of allegiance to the towns.
During the Gugler War in 1375, the Habsburgs and the Confederation agreed on a temporary brotherhood in arms , so that the French and English mercenary troops of Count Enguerrand VII de Coucy could be successfully repulsed. Afterwards, however, the conflict broke out again on the occasion of the unsuccessful coup d'état by Count Rudolf II von Habsburg-Neukyburg on the city of Solothurn, an ally of Bern . In the resulting Burgdorf War in 1382, the Bernese, Solothurners and Waldstätter jointly took action against Rudolf, forcing the country towns of Burgdorf and Thun to be sold to Bern. With this, Bern expanded into an area that the Habsburg dukes regarded as their home country.
The conflict between the aspiring sovereigns and the imperial cities in the course of the emergence of the territorial states also fermented at the imperial level. Thus, in 1331 the Swabian Association of Cities and in 1381 the Association of Rhenish Cities came into being to protect urban freedoms against the large territorial states of the nobility. The anti-urban policy of the German kings Karl IV and Wenzel , both of the Luxembourgers, ultimately led to the merging of almost all of the important imperial cities in southern Germany, with the result that the Rhenish and Swabian leagues formed a military alliance with each other and became the southern German Association of cities merged. But since Charles IV's Golden Bull had forbidden alliances of cities, the merger of the cities led to the German City War , in which the Sempach War was part of the event.
The regent in the Habsburg foothills, Duke Leopold III., Was one of the toughest opponents of the imperial cities in Swabia, as he had received the two bailiffs, namely Upper and Lower Swabia , as pledge from King Wenceslaus. However, Leopold also tried to find a balance between the cities and the impoverished nobles of the Lion League . For example, in 1382 he brokered the "Ehinger unification" between the city and the nobility. In 1385, as part of their anti-Habsburg policy, the cities of Bern, Zurich, Zug and Solothurn formed the Constance League with the South German Association of Cities in order to protect themselves against Leopold. In addition to Bern, other federal and allied cities in the Swiss plateau also led an aggressive expansion policy against the possessions of the nobility. Whole lordships were bought up by the aristocrats who got into financial difficulties or they were bought as pledge. Other popular strategies of influence were the conclusion of inheritance contracts, feuds or the adoption of nobles (or their subjects) as stake citizens in the township. The Golden Bull forbade the admission of stake citizens, but the federal localities did not care.
The direct trigger of the military escalation in the fourth phase of the Habsburg Wars was the aggressive policy of Lucerne from the spring of 1385. Knowing that it was allied with both the Confederation and the South German Association of Cities, the city dared an armed conflict to gain complete independence from Habsburg and its own territorial rule. Previously, Lucerne had strengthened itself further through an intensified acceptance of stake citizens from the Habsburg area and the conclusion of a castle law with the Entlebuch and the cities of Sempach and Richensee ; all of this against the explicit prohibition of the Habsburg Vogt von Rothenburg. With the destruction of the Habsburg fortresses of Rothenburg and Wolhusen and the occupation of the Seetal , Lucerne opened the war against Leopold III in January 1386. In the wake of these events, the people of Zurich attacked Rapperswil again and occupied the left bank of Lake Zurich , Schwyz in turn occupied Einsiedeln and the lower March , and the Glarus people finally rose again against Habsburg rule. Leopold III. first reacted with diplomatic advances and was thus able to neutralize the South German Association of Cities in February, which on May 15 agreed to a settlement with the Habsburgs and abandoned the Confederation of Constance.
Since the federal parties did not respond to the efforts of the Swabian cities to mediate, Leopold collected an army of knights from the aristocracy of Aargau, Sundgau, Swabia, the County of Tyrol and Milan in June 1386 at his headquarters in Brugg , which he raised with a contingent of the Aargau country towns and mercenaries from Lorraine and Burgundy . In total, between 8,000 and 10,000 men came together. Leopold divided his army into three groups, one army over Baden against Zurich, a second over Willisau against Bern, but the majority should move over Sempach against Lucerne. On July 9th, this main power met a Swiss contingent in Sempach and was defeated in the battle of Sempach . With around 700 noble knights in the duke's ranks, their leader Leopold III also fell.
After the Duke's death, his brother Albrecht continued the war against the Swiss Confederation as guardian for Leopold's sons. The Swiss responded in August by occupying the city of Weesen on Lake Walen to protect themselves against the east. After a brief armistice, on the night of the murder of Weesen , Albrecht was able to take the strategically important position on Lake Walen again in a flash. From here, in April 1388, a Habsburg army moved from Eastern Switzerland, Vorarlberg and Tyrolean nobility against Glarus, where it suffered a heavy defeat in the battle of Näfels . In the west, meanwhile, Bern and Solothurn jointly conquered the rulers of Büren and Nidau . In the Roman-German Empire, meanwhile, the cities suffered a defeat in the battle of Döffingen and Worms , so that the city leagues had to dissolve and the ban on the formation of city leagues was confirmed in the peace of Eger .
Duke Albrecht III. After the clear defeats of Sempach and Näfels in 1389, agreed to a seven-year armistice, which was extended by another twenty years in 1394. Glarus became finally federal, the Habsburg rights in Zug and Lucerne were no longer asserted by Albrecht, and the conquests were also to remain with the confederates. The Duke and his successors resigned themselves to the existence of the Confederation without formally renouncing their rights. With the defeat suffered in the Sempach War, the power structure in Switzerland shifted away from the high nobility from the houses of Habsburg and Neu-Kyburg to communal dominions. Now the formation of the great urban territorial lordships that are characteristic of the old Confederation became possible. In the neighborhood, however, the feudal rule of the houses of Savoy (in the west) and Visconti in the Duchy of Milan to the south were more stable and in some cases still on the rise .
Fifth phase: final displacement of the Habsburgs from Switzerland
( Hans Burgkmair the Elder , 1531 after a lost original from 1468)
Although Friedrich IV. , Son of Leopold III. and regent of the Habsburg foothills and the county of Tyrol, had concluded a fifty-year peace with the Confederation in 1412, hostilities broke out again as early as 1415. The direct cause of this conflict, which ushered in the fifth phase of the Habsburg wars, was the alliance between Frederick IV and Pope John XXIII . When the Pope was declared deposed by the Council of Constance , King Sigismund of the Luxemburg dynasty put Friedrich under imperial ban . The king released the confederates from their peace treaty and urged them to go to war against the Habsburg homeland in Aargau. In April and May 1415 the Confederates actually occupied Aargau , which was transferred to them by the King and von Habsburg, after the two parties had reconciled, for a financial compensation of 9500 guilders . This was the first time that the territorial connection of the eight-place Confederation was given.
(Official Bern Chronicle, 1478)
this country all the same. listen to the hus vo (n) osterich /
the swiss are the untr (e) w knecht./
si hand die land in (n) wid (er) got e (h) r and right./
got the landlord soon make it bad . amen
schwiz zug glaris vry (uri)
lucern solotern underwalde (n) appenzell grund und boden hoard
to the house of osterich /
In 1442, on the occasion of the Old Zurich War , an alliance between Zurich and Habsburg was formed against the Confederation. In the first phase of this internal federal conflict, Habsburg had behaved largely neutrally, even if the pledge of the Windegg rule to Schwyz and Glarus in 1438 clearly violated the interests of Zurich. After the provisional defeat of Zurich in 1440, Zurich's mayor Rudolf Stüssi passed to the newly elected Roman-German King Friedrich III. from the House of Habsburg. In 1442, Zurich and the king agreed on an "Eternal Alliance", whereby Zurich returned the County of Kyburg to the Habsburgs as an advance payment and left the Habsburgs a free hand to recapture the Aargau. Zurich was later to receive the counties of Uznach and Toggenburg from Habsburg . Friedrich sent troops and military leaders to support Zurich and appeared personally in Zurich on September 19, 1440 to receive the imperial oath and the invocation of the eternal covenant.
The other places of the Confederation demanded the dissolution of the alliance in vain, so that in 1443 the acts of war were resumed by the Confederates. Since Friedrich's support for Zurich was insufficient, Zurich was forced to negotiate peace in 1444 after a series of military defeats. Only now did the Old Zurich War develop into a conflict on a European level. Frederick felt compelled to request support from the French King Charles VII . This sent a large remainder of his mercenary army, the Armagnaks , against the Confederates. Although the Armagnaks succeeded in destroying a small vanguard of the Confederates in the battle of St. Jakob an der Birs not far from Basel , impressed by their own high losses, the mercenary army, considered undisciplined, turned (which was only paid irregularly) from his real mission off to the neighboring instead Sundgau, which was under Habsburg reign to marauding . The Ensisheim Peace Treaty in October 1444 also formally put an end to the fighting between France and the Confederation. Friedrich III. meanwhile imposed the imperial ban on the Swiss Confederation and handed over the warfare to his brother, Duke Albrecht VI. who rose to become the sole regent of the front of Austria. Albrecht and numerous Swabian counts, knights and landlords then began to raid the federal and Appenzell areas on the Rhine between Sargans and Aargau in smaller and larger raids and raids. The Appenzeller were able to reject the only serious advance into their heartland on June 11, 1445 in the battle of Wolfhalden , the Swiss did the same in the battle of Ragaz on March 6, 1446. In lengthy peace negotiations in 1450 the various parties finally agreed on the dissolution of the Confederation between Zurich and Habsburg and the renewal of the "Fifty Years Peace" between Habsburg and the Confederation. With the peace of 1450, the Swiss Confederation "entered a new state of aggregation", a loose network of alliances became a closed "alliance".
In the following years, the Habsburgs withdrew further from the areas they still had in today's Switzerland. In 1452 Albrecht VI sold. the county Kyburg finally to Zurich and lost through the alliance policy of the Confederates with Appenzell, the city of St. Gallen and the Abbey of St. Gallen as well as Schaffhausen significantly of influence in Eastern Switzerland. Only the cities of Winterthur and Rapperswil as well as the Landgraviate of Thurgau and the lower Rhine Valley remained with the duchy. After the outbreak of the Plappart War in 1458, there was a pro-federal overthrow in Rapperswil when federal troops wanted to march through the city. Pope Pius II then threatened the Confederates with excommunication if they did not keep the "Fifty Years Peace" with the Habsburgs. However, since a few months later, Duke Sigismund of Tyrol , who had only recently become regent of Upper Austria, exempted the church in 1460 and called on the Confederates to occupy his territories, this threat soon became obsolete. On September 14, 1460, the Confederates began to conquer Thurgau without the participation of Bern. In addition, Walenstadt and the Sarganserland were also occupied. In the Peace of Constance on June 1, 1461, Sigismund had to recognize the expanded ownership of the Confederates for fifteen years. Since Appenzell acquired the Vogtei Rheintal through a pledge in 1460 and Zurich bought the completely isolated Habsburg city of Winterthur in 1467, Habsburg only left the Fricktal with the bridgehead cities of Laufenburg and Rheinfelden left of the Rhine .
Nevertheless, the Confederates involved Duke Sigismund again in a costly conflict in the summer of 1468, when they fought against the knighthood of the Sundgau and the Habsburg governor Thuringia III in the Waldshut War . went to war from Hallwil . In the "Peace of Waldshut" the Confederates gave up the conquered territories, but obliged Sigismund to pay 10,000 guilders, with the southern Black Forest serving as a pledge for payment . As a result, Sigismund was forced out of financial difficulties to pledge the Sundgau and the Breisgau to Duke Karl the Bold of Burgundy . However, Emperor Friedrich III. In 1469 the Peace of Waldshut was null and void, Sigismund ordered to take action against the Confederates and put the latter under imperial ban for breach of the peace . The dukes of Burgundy were a sideline of the Valois ruling in France, but had built up their own territory between France and the German Empire. Especially thanks to the wealthy cities in Flanders , Charles the Bold was able to pursue an independent great power policy and even think of a kingdom of his own in the tradition of the former Lotharingian middle empire . The Sundgau in Alsace and other properties in Upper Austria, which Charles the Bold now held as pledge, fit into this territorial policy. But this moved the Duchy of Burgundy close to the Confederation. The city of Bern saw its sphere of influence threatened, changed its originally proburgundian policy and teamed up with the imperial cities on the Upper Rhine (Basel, Strasbourg , Mulhouse ). Notwithstanding this, Charles the Bold, bound in Neuss , did not intervene personally. This continued reluctance towards the confederates disappointed Sigismund, who therefore found himself ready on March 30, 1474 to a treaty with the confederates, Charles's opponent, the French King Louis XI. , mediated. This " Eternal Direction ", which was later named, ended the long hostility between Upper Austria / Tyrol and the Swiss Confederation. Both parties mutually recognized the current acquis, and the Confederates also undertook to help Sigismund recover the lands pledged to Burgundy and to stand by him against attacks. The "Eternal Direction" marked the start of the Burgundian Wars , with which Habsburg succeeded in becoming a major European power, thanks in part to federal support.
Degree: Swabian War and inheritance
Emperor Friedrich III. refused to recognize the text of the "Eternal Direction" as binding for the entire Habsburg ruling house. The contract had hardly any effect because Sigismund of Tyrol handed over his lands to Maximilian I , son of Frederick III, in 1490 . Maximilian I, on the other hand, was crowned Roman-German King while his father was still alive and, by marrying Maria, united the possessions of Burgundy and Habsburg. Maximilian was also able to occupy a much stronger position in southern Germany than his predecessor Sigismund, since in 1488 he had brought about the Swabian Confederation between all the important southern German imperial cities, princes and the Habsburg foreland. After Maximilian had conquered the Free County of Burgundy in 1493 , the Confederation was threatened with Habsburg clutches. The real trigger of the last conflict, however, was Maximilian's attempt to restore royal power in the empire, which the Confederates understood as an affront. The refusal of the Confederates to join the reform of the Empire in Worms in 1495 and the Confederation Pact with the Graubünden Association of Churches that had emerged also nullified the tentative rapprochement that had taken place between Habsburg and the Confederation. In 1498 Habsburg triggered the war with an attack on the Müstair monastery, which is part of the church association . The Confederates subsequently defeated the armies of the Swabian League and the King in several major battles during the Swabian or Swiss War. In the peace treaty of Basel on September 22, 1499, the de facto independence of the Confederations from the Reich was recognized and Thurgau was finally ceded to the Confederates.
In 1500 negotiations broke out between Maximilian and the Swiss Confederation, with the aim of renewing the "Eternal Direction". The final reconciliation did not come about until February 7th, 1511 in the so-called " inheritance ". This treaty not only included Maximilian, who had meanwhile been crowned emperor, but also his grandson Karl as heir to the county of Burgundy. On the Swiss side, Appenzell and the city and abbey of St. Gallen were also included. In 1513 the thirteen-place Confederation was a fact. The contracts contained a non-aggression clause, but in contrast to the "Eternal Direction" no longer provided for any obligation to provide assistance. The Habsburgs tried to include such a provision in the treaty in order to win the Confederates for a war against France in Italy, but failed on this point.
The Habsburg rulership rights in various valleys of the Three Leagues were only ransomed after the Thirty Years' War . The Fricktal in what is now northern Switzerland remained under Habsburg rule until it was occupied by Napoleon in 1799.
See also
- List of wars and battles in Switzerland
- Old Confederation
- Origin and growth of the Old Confederation
literature
- Stefan Jäggi: Sempach War. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Erich Trösch: Plappart War. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Hans Conrad Peyer: The emergence of the Confederation. In: Handbook of Swiss History. Vol. 1. Verlagberichthaus, Zurich 1972, ISBN 3-85572-002-9 , pp. 161-238.
- Walter Schaufelberger: Late Middle Ages. In: Handbook of Swiss History. Vol. 1. Verlagberichthaus, Zurich 1972, ISBN 3-85572-002-9 , pp. 239–388.
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans Conrad Peyer: The emergence of the Confederation. Pp. 184-187.
- ^ Hans Conrad Peyer: The emergence of the Confederation. Pp. 188-191.
- ^ Franziska Hälg-Steffen / Peter Hersche: von Habsburg. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- ^ Hans Conrad Peyer: The emergence of the Confederation. Pp. 198-200.
- ↑ Thomas Maissen : History of Switzerland , p. 18. here + now publishing house, Baden (AG) 2010.
- ↑ Ebbe Nielsen, Hermann Fetz, August Bickel, Konrad Wanner, Stefan Jäggi, Franz Kiener, Anton Gössi, Gregor Egloff, Peter Kamber, Heidi Bossard-Borner, Max Huber, Peter Schnider, Marlis Betschart: Luzern (Canton). In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- ↑ Thomas Maissen: History of Switzerland. P. 17. here + now Verlag, Baden (AG) 2010.
- ^ Walter Schaufelberger: Late Middle Ages. In: Handbuch der Schweizer Geschichte , Vol. 1, p. 241. Report House, Zurich 1972.
- ^ Bernhard Stettler: The Confederation in the 15th Century. - The search for a common denominator. Ex Libirs Verlag, Zurich 2004
- ↑ Thomas Maissen: History of Switzerland. P. 59. here + now Verlag, Baden (AG) 2010.