Second Waldemark War
The Second Waldemark War (also known as the Second Hanseatic War or Great Hanseatic War ) was part of the dispute between Denmark and a union of Hanseatic cities between August 1361 and May 1370.
prehistory
The expansion policy of the Danish King Waldemar IV was in contrast to the economic and political power of the Hanseatic League. In 1360 Waldemar recaptured Scania , which had been lost to Sweden three decades earlier , and the following year also the island of Gotland , so that the Wendish Hanseatic cities saw their trading privileges threatened. War was declared on Denmark in September 1361, but Waldemar was able to win the military conflict, the so-called First Waldemark War, and the Hanseatic League had to conclude the unfortunate Peace of Vordingborg in 1365 .
In the following years, however, the Hanseatic trade was severely restricted by Waldemar. For this reason, on November 19, 1367, 57 Hanseatic cities merged with the Dutch cities of Amsterdam , Brielle and Harderwijk to form the Cologne Confederation . In February 1368, the Hanseatic League agreed an alliance with the Swedish King Albrecht III. , North German and Danish nobles and declared war on Waldemar again. The Hanseatic League justified its approach in numerous letters to neighboring northern German principalities, England and the Pope.
Course of war
The operations of the Hanseatic fleet began in April 1368 with an attack by 37 ships and 2,000 men on Copenhagen , which was captured and destroyed on May 2nd. In the summer of the year, Swedish and Hanseatic troops conquered the province of Skåne in southern Sweden, which had fallen back to Denmark in the first Hanseatic Denmark War after three decades of Swedish interludes. South Jutland and Norway were also occupied, so that King Waldemar IV had to flee. Helsingborg was the only city to withstand the attacks of the Hanseatic League and forced the besiegers to hibernate under the command of Bruno von Warendorp . New attempts at conquest began in the spring of 1369, but it was not until the late summer of 1369 that the city fell into the hands of the Hanseatic troops. At the end of November 1369 an armistice was signed between Denmark and the Hanseatic League , which resulted in the Peace of Stralsund , which confirmed the dominance of the Hanseatic League in the Baltic Sea, but left Skåne and Gotland with Denmark.
literature
- Nils Jörn u. a. (Ed.): The Stralsund Peace of 1370. Prosopographic studies. (= Sources and representations on Hanseatic history, NF 46), Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-412-07798-4 .
- Karl Pagel: The Hanseatic League . Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1942; 3rd edition Braunschweig 1963.
- Philippe Dollinger : The Hanseatic League . Kröner, Stuttgart 1989, pp. 96-102, ISBN 3520371049 .