Hessian War
Hessian War | |||||||
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Part of Thirty Years' War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Hesse-Cassel | Hesse-Darmstadt | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
William IV (d 1592) Maurice (d 1632) William V (d 1637)Amalie Kaspar Kornelius Mortaigne de Potelles † [1] Johann von Geyso [2] |
George I (d 1596) Louis V (d 1626) George II[3] Ernst Albrecht von Eberstein [2] |
The Hessian War (
The real conflict, which lasted almost 80 years and spanned three generations, escalated in the 1620s, when the line of
During the Thirty Years' War,
This conflict should not be confused with the campaign by Landgrave
Overview of the belligerents
Landgraviate of Hesse | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Philip I "The Magnanimous" (1504–1567) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
South Hesse )= ca. 10% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
George I (1547–1596) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Louis V (1577–1626) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
George II (1605–1661) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Course of the war
Cause and opening phase
The cause of the conflict was the division of
- His eldest son, Hesse-Cassel) with the city of Kassel, in all about half of the territory of Hesse.
- His second son, Louis, was given Upper Hesse in the centre of Hesse (subsequently referred to as Hesse-Marburg) with the town of Marburg and the fortress of Giessen, about a quarter of Hesse itself.
- His third son, Philip (the Younger), was given the Lower County of Katzenelnbogen in the west of Hesse (subsequently referred to as Hesse-Rheinfels) with Rheinfels Castle and Katzenelnbogen, roughly just over one eight of the territory of Hesse.
- His youngest son, George, was given the Upper County of Katzenelnbogen in the south of Hesse (subsequently referred to as Hesse-Darmstadt) with the town of Darmstadt, rather less than an eight of Hesse.
When the Rheinfels line died out in 1583 Hessen-Rheinfels was divided amongst the three remaining brothers of Philip II.[3]
The dispute over the Marburg inheritance and the Thirty Years' War
Marburg Inheritance Dispute (from 1604)
In 1604, Landgrave
There was initially a dispute over whether each of the two remaining lines of the family should receive exactly half the territory or whether it should be split according to the number of nephews in each case. Darmstadt would have benefited from the latter interpretation, because George of Hesse-Darmstadt had produced more sons (
In 1605, the dispute over the Marburg inheritance flared up again after Landgrave Maurice of Hesse-Cassel, whose beliefs since his accession in 1592 increasingly moved towards the
The rise of Hesse-Darmstadt to the Hauptakkord (1618–1627)
During the Thirty Years' War, or more precisely
The gamble paid off in the medium term: in 1621 the imperial Field Marshal
During his withdrawal from Russelsheim, however, Mansfeld was defeated on 10 June 1622 in the battle on the
Even the former county of Katzenelenbogen was seized from Darmstadt. Landgrave Louis V died during the campaign. His son, George II, took over the reins of power in Darmstadt and continued the fight against Cassel.
Because of military defeats and abject government by Landgrave Maurice of Hesse-Cassel, the Lower Hess estates openly rebelled against him and forced his abdication in 1627. The House of Cassel also lost
After the
The rise of Hesse-Cassel in the Swedish War (1630–1634)
After the total defeat of the House of Hesse-Cassel had been averted by the Hauptakkord, in 1627 William V began secretly waiver, to build a new mercenary army, under the cover of his apparent renunciation.
With the political and military support of the Protestant alliance under the leadership of the Swedish king and thanks to the skillful leadership of William V, who himself went to war as a general, in the period that followed the Lower Hessian troops achieved considerable military success. As a start, they succeeded in driving the imperial occupiers out of Hesse-Cassel. On 24 August 1631, Hersfeld was conquered and, on 9 September 1631, the town of Fritzlar that belonged to the Electorate of Mainz. The imperial troops were further weakened by their defeat in the Battle of Breitenfeld and came under pressure. By mounting diversionary attacks on Mainz positions in the Taunus, Hesse-Cassel supported the Swedish advance on Erfurt, Würzburg and Hanau to Frankfurt and Mainz.
The hopes of Lower Hesse to recover their lost territories in Upper Hesse, as a reward for their support of Sweden, were not, however, fulfilled. After George II of Hesse-Darmstadt had concluded negotiations with the Swedish king, he succeeded in gaining recognition of the neutrality of Hesse-Darmstadt at the Treaty of Höchst on 29 November 1631, in exchange for giving up the fortress of Rüsselsheim, so that Darmstadt was able to keep its territories in Upper Hesse. Instead, on 28 February 1632, Gustavus Adolphus granted Hesse-Cassel several other areas outside of Hesse that the Lower Hessian troops had conquered earlier on Swedish orders (including the
Advance by the Emperor on Hesse-Cassel from 1634
After the
In response to his victory over the imperial troops in Hanau and his alliance with France, William V of Hesse-Cassel was
Because even after more than two decades, no end to the confrontation was in sight and the whole of Hesse was suffering badly from the consequences of the war, more so than almost any other region in Germany, in February 1637 the Landstände, or knightly estates, from all parts of Hesse organized a Landtag to seek a mediation between their lords.
But this arbitration parliament was not successful because, in parallel, the newly elected Emperor
Resurgence of Hesse-Cassel in the Swedish-Prussian War (from 1637)
Because William's son,
In 1639, with her new allies behind her, Amalie Elisabeth's troops moved in greater strength against the Electorate of Cologne in order to defend the already conquered electoral territories (promised by Sweden in return for giving up Upper Hesse), especially in the area of Vest Recklinghausen, and to capture other domains besides. In 1641 Hesse-Cassel lost the town of Dorsten in Vest Recklinghausen, which they had seized in 1633, to troops of the Imperial Army and Electorate of Cologne after a siege lasting several weeks. This was the most important Hessian position on the right bank of Lower Rhine. But after the imperial forces partially withdrew to fight in other regions (especially Wolfenbüttel), Hesse-Kassel embarked on a campaign in the electoral lands on the left bank of the Rhine. At the Battle of Kempen Hesse-Cassel, with the support of French-Weimaran troops, dealt the Imperial forces a heavy defeat. In the wake of this defeat, large areas in the north of the Electorate, including the Duchy of Berg, and even parts of the neutral Duchy of Jülich fell under the occupation of Hesse-Cassel.
The Hessian War in its narrower sense (1645–1648)
Inspired by military and diplomatic successes in the Rhineland and Westphalia, Landgravine Amalia Elisabeth of Hesse-Cassel felt strong enough to take up the fight for the Marburg inheritance in 1644. She had the Hauptakkord treaty of 1627, in which Hesse-Cassel had forfeited Upper Hesse, invalidated by a subsequent legal ruling and, at the end of 1645, sent her battle-hardened troops led by Johann von Geyso towards Marburg. After a short siege of Marburg and Butzbach and their surrender, the majority of Upper Hesse fell again under the rule of Kassel in early 1646.
In 1647, an imperial army under the command of General
The Hessian War was finally permanently settled by negotiations, that took place in parallel with the
Under the Unification Treaty between Cassel and Darmstadt, Upper Hesse was permanently divided. Darmstadt had to give up a significant part of Upper Hesse to Cassel, not least Marburg and other occupied territories, including the Lower County of Katzenelnbogen and the Barony of Schmalkalden.[3][4]
See also
- War of the Thuringian Succession or Thuringian-Hessian Succession (1247–1264)
- Hessian Fratricidal War (1469–1470)
- War of the Katzenelnbogen Succession (1500–1557) involving Hesse and Nassau-Siegen
References
This article has an unclear citation style. (December 2016) |
- ^ Poten 1885, pp. 339–340.
- ^ a b Wilson 2011, pp. 713–714.
- ^ a b c d Klaus Koniarek. "Georg II. , Landgraf von Hessen-Darmstadt". Retrieved 2011-02-27.
- ^ ISBN 9783406536069
- ^ Weber (see Literature)
- ^ Jürgen Helbach (1977), "Die Niedergrafschaft Katzenelnbogen und der Hessenkrieg" (Full text as pdf at jhelbach.de), Hansenblatt (in German), vol. Jahrgang 15, Heft 30, St. Goar, pp. 1–4
- ^ ISBN 9783869910604
- ^ a b c Kretzschmar (1898), "Wilhelm V., Landgraf von Hessen", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 43, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 39–54
- ISBN 3825871509
- Bernhard von Poten (1885), "Mortaigne de Potelles, Kaspar Kornelius", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 22, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 339–340
- Wilson, Peter (2011). The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy. London: Belknap Press. ISBN 978-0-674-06231-3.
Literature
- Kurt Beck (1978), Der hessische Bruderzwist: zwischen Hessen-Kassel u. Hessen-Darmstadt in d. Verhandlungen zum Westfäl. Frieden von 1644 bis 1648 (in German), Kramer, ISBN 9783782902014
- Kurt Beck (1983), "Der Bruderzwist im Hause Hessen", Die Geschichte Hessens (in German), Stuttgart: Konrad Theiss
- Erwin Bettenhäuser (1983), Die Landgrafschaft Hessen-Kassel auf dem Westfälischen Friedenskongress 1644-1648 (in German), Wiesbaden: Wiku
- Günther Engelbert (1959), "Der Hessenkrieg am Niederrhein (1. Teil)", Annalen des Historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein (in German), vol. Heft 161 (1959), pp. 65–113
- Eckhart G. Franz (2005), Das Haus Hessen: Eine europäische Familie (in German), Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer
- Klaus Malettke (1999), Klaus Malettke (ed.), "Frankreich und Hessen-Kassel zur Zeit des Dreissigjährigen Krieges und des Westfälischen Friedens", Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Hessen: Kleine Schriften (in German), vol. Band 46, Teil 5, Elwert, ISBN 9783770811168
- Friedrich Rehm (1842), Handbuch der Geschichte beider Hessen (in German), Marburg/Leipzig: N. G. Elwert
- Friedrich Uhlhorn; et al. (1966), Geschichtlicher Atlas von Hessen (in German), Hessisches Landesamt für Geschichtliche Landeskunde, archived from the original (Online-Version mit Karten auf uni-marburg.de) on 2012-02-05, retrieved 2013-06-25
- Friedrich Uhlhorn; Fred Schwind (1966), "Die territoriale Entwicklung Hessens 1247 bis 1866" (Full text (pdf; 154 kB) at uni-marburg.de), Geschichtlicher Atlas von Hessen (in German), Hessisches Landesamt für Geschichtliche Landeskunde
- Hans Heinrich Weber (1935), Der Hessenkrieg : Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde … (in German), Selbstverlag (Druck: Münchowsche Universitäts-Druckerei O. Rindt GmbH)
- Kerstin Weiand (2009), Hessen-Kassel und die Reichsverfassung. Ziele und Prioritäten landgräflicher Politik im Dreißigjährigen Krieg : (= Reihe Untersuchungen und Materialien zur Verfassungs- und Landesgeschichte; Band 24) (in German), Marburg, ISBN 978-3-921254-84-4)
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