Schmalkaldic War
Schmalkaldic War | |||||||
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Part of Protestant Reformation | |||||||
Titian's Equestrian Portrait of Charles V (1548) celebrates Charles's victory at the Battle of Mühlberg. | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Habsburg Spain Habsburg Hungary Supported by: Papal States |
Supported by: England | ||||||
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The Schmalkaldic War (German: Schmalkaldischer Krieg) was the short period of violence from 1546 until 1547 between the forces of Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire (simultaneously King Charles I of Spain), commanded by the Duke of Alba and the Duke of Saxony, and the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League within the domains of the Holy Roman Empire.
Background
In the course of the
At the 1521
In turn several Lutheran states led by Elector John Frederick I of Saxony and Landgrave Philip I of Hesse met at the town of Schmalkalden, where they established the Schmalkaldic League in 1531. At first, the Nuremberg Religious Peace of 1532 granted religious liberty to members of the Schmalkaldic League. But, in 1544 Charles V returned to Germany from the Italian War after he had signed the Treaty of Crépy and began to forge alliances not only with Pope Paul III but also with Lutheran princes, foremost with Duke Maurice of Saxony, the Albertine cousin of Saxon Elector John Frederick I. In view of the Emperor's preparations for battle, the Schmalkaldic leaders on 4 July 1546 gathered at Ichtershausen. Here they negotiated how the league should deal with the approaching conflict with the emperor. Both John Frederick and Philip of Hesse agreed quickly that the Emperor had larger financial resources and thus could set up a larger army. However, they also noticed that they were positioned to mobilize their troops faster than the emperor because Charles V had not yet concentrated a significant amount of mercenaries. As a result, they decided to wage a preventive war. Since Martin Luther had died in February, this eliminated a major obstacle to their decision. Luther had repeatedly argued against the legality and morality of a war between the Empire and the Schmalkaldic League. To Luther, only a beerwolf type ruler could be legitimately resisted by his own subjects.[citation needed]
The Emperor gathered an army of around 52,000 men (20,000 Germans, 12,000 Italians, 10,000 Spaniards, and 10,000 men from the Netherlands) for his campaign, that was to start on the Danube.[2]
Conflict
The war broke out in Swabia when a united army of several Lutheran Imperial cities occupied the Catholic town of Füssen, a possession of the Augsburg prince-bishops, and made the Imperial forces move toward the fortress of Ingolstadt in the Bavarian duchy. However, plans to invade Austrian Tyrol in order to bar the Emperor from bringing up Italian troops did not meet the approval of the Schmalkaldic princes. Both Duke William IV of Bavaria and the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand I of Habsburg declared themselves neutral in the conflict, allowing Charles V to concentrate a mighty Imperial army without disturbances.
Furthermore, the Schmalkaldic leaders could not resolve upon delivering a battle against the entrenched Imperial troops. On 20 July 1546 Elector John Frederick I and Landgrave Philip I were placed under the Imperial ban, under the pretext that they had deposed the Catholic Duke Henry V of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in 1542. Duke Maurice of Saxony took the chance and in October with the aid of Ferdinand I of Habsburg, King of Bohemia, invaded the lands of his rival and cousin in Ernestine Saxony, forcing Elector John Frederick I to turn his troops around. He quickly came on from Swabia and liberated Ernestine Saxony with his army, whereafter he in turn invaded Albertine Saxony and the adjacent Bohemian lands. The onset of winter left the armed conflict inconclusive.
In Swabia the Hessian troops took no further action, while the forsaken Imperial cities, like the Lutheran princes Duke Ulrich of Württemberg and Count Palatine Frederick II chose to submit to the Emperor. On 28 March 1547 Charles V set off for Bohemia, where he united forces with his brother King Ferdinand I of Bohemia. Because the Bohemian Lutherans did not provide any military assistance to Elector John Frederick I, as he had hoped for, the Spanish-Imperial forces of Charles V forced him into retreat. Due to disagreement in strategy, the League's defenses were finally routed on 24 April 1547 at the Battle of Mühlberg, where John Frederick I was taken prisoner.
After the battle, which determined the result of the war, only two cities continued to resist:
Aftermath
The captured Elector John Frederick I at first was sentenced to death, and, in order to obtain pardon, on 19 May 1547 signed the
Although the Imperial forces were victorious over the Schmalkaldic League, crushing them, the ideas of Luther had by this time so overspread Europe they could not be contained by military force. However, on 15 May 1548 Charles V, feeling at the height of his power, dictated the Augsburg Interim to prepare the reintegration of the Protestants into the Catholic Church. The edict provoked another revolt by the Protestant princes in 1552, known as the Second Schmalkaldic War. This time the Protestant princes were led by Elector Maurice of Saxony and backed by King Henry II of France. Charles V had to flee from the superior Lutheran forces and to cancel the Interim with the Peace of Passau, whereby John Frederick I of Saxony and Philip I of Hesse were released. An official settlement acknowledging the Protestant religion arrived three years later in the form of the Peace of Augsburg. The next year Charles V voluntarily abdicated in favour of his brother Ferdinand I.
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 963-05-0929-6.
- ISBN 2-213-60394-4.
Further reading
- Oman, Charles. A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century. London: Methuen & Co. 1937.
- ISBN 0-340-73110-9.
- Smith, Henry Preserved (1920). The Age of the Reformation. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
- ISBN 0-521-81431-6.
External links
- Protestant Princes against the Papal Beasts from Rome at danarehn.com
- Schmalkaldischer Krieg (in German) at historicum.net
- The Schmalkaldic War – World History at KMLA