Armistice of Ulm

The armistice of Ulm ( French Armistice d'Ulm , Swedish Stilleståndet i Ulm ) is an armistice between France , Sweden and Hessen-Kassel on the one hand and Kurköln and Bavaria on the other hand shortly before the end of the Thirty Years War . It was signed on March 14, 1647 in Ulm .

prehistory

Emperor Ferdinand II died on February 15, 1637 . Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria , who had been a childhood friend of the emperor, initially saw his ties to the House of Habsburg more critically than during the emperor's lifetime. In previous years, however, he had already had several opportunities to get to know the attitudes and skills of the new emperor, Emperor Ferdinand II . Immediately after Wallenstein's death , at the beginning of 1634, the new emperor was appointed as Wallenstein's successor as commander-in-chief of the army and the united imperial Bavarian army, under the joint leadership of Maximilian I and the later emperor Ferdinand III. achieved outstanding successes with the reconquest of Regensburg and the great victory in the battle of Nördlingen in 1634. In the further course of the war, after the peace treaty of Prague and the official entry into war by France in September 1635, with increasing military failures, major difficulties arose among the allies, especially if more and more their own territories, the Habsburg hereditary lands and the Electorate of Bavaria from War affected.

In 1646, when the peace negotiations for the Peace of Westphalia had already begun for a year, the summer campaign of a Swedish-French army under Carl Gustaf Wrangel and Turenne , with the aim of plundering Bavaria, took place. The ruling minister of France Mazarin intended to speed up the peace negotiations, which were repeatedly delayed by the Habsburg emperor, by putting the emperor and his allies under military pressure. The Franco-Swedish troops devastated Bavaria heavily and it was their declared aim to tear the Bavarian elector away from the alliance with the emperor, because he was one of the emperor's last and strongest allies.

The armistice

The French-Swedish troop invasion of Bavaria in 1646, which lasted several months, forced Maximilian to persuade him, despite various attempts by the emperor, to agree to the armistice negotiations. In December 1646 the General Feldzeugmeister Johannes Ernst Freiherr von Reuschenberg received the order from the Bavarian Elector to go to Ulm together with the court and war councilors Johann Küttner von Künitz and Johann Bartholomäus Schäffer and to conduct armistice negotiations, whereby he should show his guilty diligence . The imperial ambassadors who were originally involved withdrew in the course of the negotiations because they were not ready to meet the demands of the Swedes. On March 14, 1647, the armistice was signed by Maximilian and in return the French and Swedish troops left Bavaria.

Effects

Elector Maximilian declared the alliance with the emperor dissolved. Which saw the loyal to the emperor, Bavarian cavalry general Johann von Werth as a betrayal of the emperor and therefore wanted to try commanded by him Reich Armada supply of the Bavarian elector the emperor. His call to the mercenaries and officers to change sides with him failed in July 1647 due to the resolute resistance of most of the common soldiers, who preferred the higher pay in Bavaria. Last but not least, the project failed because of the indignation of the mostly Protestant officers. On the day of the decision, only a few officers and a few mercenary units followed Werth. Instead of the expected 20,000 men, the emperor was only able to receive a small group, who received an honorable welcome. Werth was appointed cavalry general in the imperial army. As a result, the emperor made further financial and political offers to the Bavarian elector, which were so tempting that the elector Maximilian wanted nothing more to do with General Werth, but on September 14, 1647 the armistice, which had not yet been ratified, gave up again. The Swedes in particular, who wanted to celebrate a success, were very angry about this, accused the Elector of breaking his word and increased their financial demands at the peace negotiations in Westphalia.

As a result, Emperor Ferdinand III. temporarily continued the war without allies in the empire. Up until the end of 1647 there were isolated battles in Bohemia , the Spanish Netherlands and Italy . In the autumn of 1647 Maximilian I rejoined the emperor in the war. However, after a failed offensive by Commander-in-Chief Melander against Marburg, the united Austrian-Bavarian army was pushed back to Bavaria and defeated there in May 1648 in the battle of Zusmarshausen , where Melander fell and the subsequent retreat again left large parts of Bavaria open to enemy plundering. This defeat, as well as the subsequent siege of Prague by the Swedes, forced Ferdinand to accelerate the conclusion of the negotiations on the Peace of Westphalia and to give his final approval to its provisions.

See also

• Thirty Years' War
• Timeline for the Thirty Years War

Web links

• Copia Derer Proposition handed over to the Royal Swedish / from the Chur Bäyerische / to the tractates of the Armistitii near Ulm / gentlemen deputies: Ulm, 1st February 1647
• History of the Thirty Years War by Friedrich von Schiller (5th book)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Christian Pantle: The Thirty Years' War. When Germany was on fire . Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-549-07443-5 , p. 298 f .
2. ^ Heilmann, Johann: War history of Bavaria, Franconia, Palatinate and Swabia from 1506 to 1651, p. 1116.