Second battle of Villmergen
Depiction of the battle
| date | July 25, 1712 |
|---|---|
| place | Villmergen |
| output | Victory of the Bernese |
| Peace treaty | August 11, 1712 (Fourth Land Peace) |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Samuel Frisching |
Franz Konrad von Sonnenberg |
| Troop strength | |
| 8,000 men | 13,000 men |
| losses | |
|
about 1,000 men |
approx. 3,000 men |
The Second Battle of Villmergen was the decisive battle of the Second Villmerger War (also known as the Toggenburg War ) between the Reformed and Catholic places of the Swiss Confederation . It took place on July 25, 1712 around the village of Villmergen in the Free Offices (today Canton Aargau ), like the First Battle of Villmergen 56 years earlier. The battle ended with the victory of the Reformed, who broke through the political hegemony of the Catholic towns that had existed since 1531 and finally established denominational parity in the Confederation .
prehistory
The trigger for the war was a conflict that had lasted for decades between the Prince Abbot of St. Gallen and his Reformed subjects in Toggenburg , which finally escalated in April 1712. The Reformed towns of Bern and Zurich declared war on the prince abbot, and the Catholic towns of central Switzerland opposed them. The Reformed strived to break the political hegemony of the Catholics , which had existed since the Second Kappel Peace of 1531 and was confirmed in the First Villmerger War of 1656, before the War of the Spanish Succession came to an end and the major European powers would turn their attention to the Confederation.
After the occupation of Thurgau , the conquest of the abbot town of Wil and the capture of the St. Gallen monastery by the reformed warring parties, the events shifted to Aargau . The central Swiss occupied the cities of Baden , Mellingen and Bremgarten to drive a wedge between Bern and Zurich. At the end of May the Bernese succeeded in conquering Mellingen and Bremgarten. After a brief siege, they took Baden together with the Zurich residents. Negotiations began on June 3rd and a peace treaty was signed in Aarau on July 18th .
Under the influence of the papal nuncio Caraccioli, the rural communities of Schwyz , Zug and Unterwalden rejected the peace treaty. In Lucerne and Uri, too, the people forced the government to again take up arms against the reformed places. On July 20, central Swiss troops recaptured the Sins – Hünenberg bridge over the Reuss in the battle of Sins . The Bernese main armed forces, which had become noticeably smaller because of the harvest vacation that had meanwhile been granted, broke up their camp in Muri and moved to Wohlen on July 21st . The allies from Zurich could not join them because they had to hold their positions against the Schwyz and Zugers in Hütten and Schönenberg . Heavy rains that lasted for days initially prevented a decisive battle.
course
When the rains stopped on July 25th, the central Swiss from Boswil and Sarmenstorf planned a pincer attack. However, in view of the threat of flooding by the Bünz , the Bernese broke off their camp in Wohlen at 5 a.m. and moved on before the enemy had reached them. The Bernese intended to reach a strategically more suitable position on the Maiengrün above Hägglingen via Villmergen . Shortly after the last Bernese troops had crossed Villmergen at 10 a.m., the first people from central Switzerland arrived in the village. A lack of discipline had prevented them from moving faster. The Bernese commander-in-chief Niklaus von Diesbach stopped the march and brought the troops into position on the Langelenfeld between Villmergen and Dintikon .
Accompanied by mutual artillery fire, the Bernese withdrew slowly and hoped to lure the Central Swiss out into the open field. But they tried again to surround the Bernese with a pincer movement. But the right wing near the hamlet of Hembrunn had advanced too quickly and had not waited for the left wing to advance over the edge of the Rietenberg. This gave the Bernese at 1 p.m. the opportunity to take targeted action against the opponents' right wing. They succeeded in pushing the Central Swiss towards Bünz, where hundreds of soldiers drowned in the swamp or were worn out by dragoons .
The fighting in the center of the front split up into individual actions. The right wing of the Bernese, in turn, had to continually retreat, as the Central Swiss could fire down from the height above Dintikon. General von Diesbach was wounded, whereupon Samuel Frisching took over the high command. The Central Swiss were close to victory at 5 p.m. when reinforcements from the Bernese arrived from the direction of Seengen in the southwest and Ammerswil in the west and fell in the rear of the enemy. In addition, new guns had been brought in from Lenzburg , which finally brought about the turning point. The army of Central Switzerland disbanded at 6 p.m. and fled back to Villmergen, pursued by dragoons.
consequences
After the battle was won, the Bernese and Zurich residents penetrated the Lucerne countryside, the Zug area, over the Brünig Pass to Unterwalden and via Rapperswil into the Lin Valley , whereupon the resistance of the Central Swiss finally collapsed. In the Peace of Aarau of August 11, 1712, also known as the Fourth Landfriede, Bern and Zurich enforced denominational equality in the common rulers and ended the supremacy of the Catholic towns. The Reformed took over sole rule over the county of Baden , the northern part of the Free Offices and Rapperswil. In addition, Bern was accepted into the co-rulership of all common lords, in which it had not had a share until then.
The St. Gallen abbot Leodegar Bürgisser did not take part in the peace negotiations and the status of Toggenburg initially remained unclear. Only after his death in exile in 1717 did his successor Joseph von Rudolphi submit to the conditions of the victors in the Peace of Baden on June 16, 1718 . The Toggenburgers received religious autonomy and voluntarily submitted to the rule of the prince abbey.
See also
literature
- Hans Rudolf Fuhrer, Military Academy of the ETH Zurich: Villmerger Wars 1656/1712 . In: Military history at your fingertips . tape 19 . Federal Office for Buildings and Logistics , Bern 2005.
- Dominik Sauerländer: Villmergen - A local history . Ed .: Municipality of Villmergen. 2000, p. 130-137 .
- Alfred Zesiger: Defense regulations and civil wars in the 17th and 18th centuries . In: Swiss War History . Issue 7. Bern 1918, p. 16-29 .
- Villmergen 1712 - a loss of political power for Central Switzerland. With essays by Oliver Landolt, André Holenstein, Andreas Würgler, Thomas Lau, Marco Sigg, Manuel Kehrli, Marco Polli-Schönborn, Heinz Horat, Georg Kreis and Hans Stadler-Planzer. In: Der Geschichtsfreund 166 (2013) 9–176.