Wasung war

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The old post office was the starting point of the war
Beginning of the Wasung War - illustration in the magazine Die Gartenlaube (1876)

The Wasung War is a war between the two Ernestine duchies of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg and Saxe-Meiningen from 1747 and 1748.

In the course of the "war", the small town of Wasungen , which is now in the state of Thuringia and then part of Saxony-Meiningen, was occupied by Gotha troops, which explains the name of the conflict. The operetta-like bizarre "war" between two Thuringian duo-duchies and their closely related rulers went down in history as one of the most remarkable excesses of German small states in the 18th century .

The history of the conflict

The causes of the conflict lay in internal disputes within the ruling house of Saxony-Meiningen, in which some other Ernestine rulers in Thuringia, especially Duke Friedrich III, joined for self-interest . of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg interfered.

Duke Bernhard I died in Saxony-Meiningen in 1706 , who left three male descendants when he died. However, the succession plan was somewhat unclear. Bernhard I had his house the primogeniture expressly denied, but then in his will stipulated the indivisibility of his duchy. Therefore the three brothers had to share the rule and especially the youngest, Duke Anton Ulrich , took vigorous action against any attempt by his older brothers to force him out of his rights, which caused a lot of controversy at the Meiningen court. In addition, Anton Ulrich married a commoner in 1727, with whom he had ten children.

Anton Ulrich now tried to have the children from this morganatic marriage declared entitled to inherit. He was able to achieve success at first when Emperor Charles VI. The duke's wife and children were raised to the rank of imperial count . This in turn displeased Friedrich III. from Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, because he was already hoping that the Meiningen line would die out without children entitled to inherit; if Saxony-Meiningen had then been divided among the other Ernestine sub-lines, a large part of the duchy would have fallen to Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Emperor Charles VI. had died in the meantime, the new emperor Karl VII. was not so open to Meininger's concerns and Friedrich III. it really achieved that the children of Anton Ulrich in 1744 were declared unfit for a future session. In the same year, the middle-class wife Anton Ulrichs died.

After the death of his older brother in 1746, Anton Ulrich ascended the throne in Meiningen - at the age of 59 - as a widower and without any children entitled to inherit. The dispute over the inheritance rights of his children had resulted in a deep personal enmity between him and Friedrich III. developed by Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg.

The occasion

The cause of the war, on the other hand, was extremely banal. At the Meininger Hof, a dispute between two ladies-in-waiting had developed over who had priority at court. Duke Anton Ulrich intervened in the dispute by harassing one of the women and her family with harsh arbitrary measures. The latter then called the Reich Chamber of Commerce , which issued a judgment directed against the duke, but which he did not recognize. This in turn provided Friedrich III. von Saxe-Gotha and Altenburg the pretext to march into Saxe-Meiningen with his troops and occupy the city of Wasungen in order to enforce the decision of the Reich Chamber of Commerce.

Course and result

There were some more operetta-like military operations on both sides, in which a Meiningen lieutenant was killed. In 1748 Friedrich III. withdraw his troops from Sachsen-Meiningen again when the Wasunger dispute lost importance in relation to a new dispute among the Ernestines, this time over the reign over the underage Ernst August II. Constantine in Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach . The dispute between Saxe-Meiningen and Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg was finally settled with Prussian mediation.

Duke Anton-Ulrich married Charlotte Amalie von Hessen-Barchfeld, 43 years his junior, in 1750 and fathered eight - now entitled to inherit - children in the last twelve years of his life. As the later regent , Charlotte Amalie went down in history as the savior of the duchy with tight reforms and austerity measures for the economically and financially shattered country.

See also

literature

  • August von Witzleben : The Wasung War . Scheube, Gotha 1855 ( digitized version [accessed October 1, 2017]).
  • Gustav Luhde: Der Wasunger Krieg , industrial publishing house and printing company, Düsseldorf 1935
  • John W. Sparrow: The Wasung war or the high song of Thuringian bravery , spoon carver publisher, Dresden
  • Martin Stade : The foolish war. Historical novel , Der Morgen publisher, 3rd edition, Berlin 1988
  • Günther Wölfing: The Wasung War 1747-1748 . In Südthüringer Forschungen issue 34/2015. Meininger Museen, Meiningen 2015, ISBN 978-3-910114-21-0 .

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