Swabian War - The Course of The War

The Course of The War

Open war broke out over a territorial conflict in the Grisons, where during the 15th century a federation similar to the Eidgenossenschaft had developed. Like the Swiss, these Three Leagues had achieved a far-reaching autonomy, but also were involved in constant struggles with the Habsburgs, who ruled the neighbouring territories to the east and who kept trying to bring the Grisons under their influence. During the 1470s and 1480s, duke Sigismund had succeeded in acquiring step by step the high justice over most of the communes of the Zehngerichtebund ("League of the Ten Jurisdictions" in the Prättigau, the youngest of the Three Leagues that had sprung up in the Grisons, having been founded only in 1436), and Maximilian continued this expansionist strategy. The Habsburg pressure prompted the Three Leagues to sign a close military alliance with the Swiss Confederacy in 1497-98.

At the same time, the Habsburgs had been involved in a major power struggle with the French kings of the House of Valois over the control of the remains of the realm of Charles the Bold, whose daughter and heiress Mary Maximilian had married. Maximilian's second marriage in 1493 with Bianca Maria Sforza from Milan then got the Habsburgs directly involved in the Italian Wars, clashing again with the French kings over the control of the Duchy of Milan.

As a direct connection between Tyrol and Milan, the Grisons and in particular the Val Müstair became strategically important to the Habsburgs. The Umbrail Pass in the Val Müstair connects the Vinschgau valley (Val Venosta) in southern Tyrol with the Valtellina in northern Italy. Furthermore, the Habsburgs and the Bishop of Chur had been quarrelling over the judicial rights over the region for some time. On January 20, 1499, Habsburg troops occupied the valley and plundered the Benedictine Convent of Saint John at Müstair, but were soon driven back by the forces of the Three Leagues, and an armistice was signed already on February 2 in Glurns (Glorenza), a village in the upper Vinschgau.

But the Three Leagues had already called upon the Swiss for help and troops from Uri had already arrived in Chur. Upon learning about the truce, they withdrew, but met a small troop of Habsburg soldiers on their way back home. When those engaged in the usual insults on the Swiss, the latter crossed the Rhine and killed the scoffers. In retaliation, Habsburg troops sacked the village of Maienfeld on February 7 and called the Swabian League for help. Only five days later, Swiss troops from several cantons had been assembled and reconquered the village and moved towards Lake Constance, pillaging and plundering along the way. On February 20, they again met a Habsburg army, which they defeated in the battle of Hard on the shores of Lake Constance near the estuary of the Rhine, and at about the same time, other Swiss troops invaded the Hegau region between Schaffhausen and Constance. On both sites, the Swiss retreated after a few days.

Meanwhile, the Swabian League had completed its recruitment, and undertook a raid on Dornach on March 22, but suffered a defeat against numerically inferior Swiss troops in the battle of Bruderholz that same evening. In early April, both sides raided each other's territories along the Rhine; the Swiss conquered the villages of Hallau and Neunkirch in the Klettgau west of Schaffhausen. A larger attack of the Swabian League took place on April 11, 1499: the Swabian troops occupied and plundered some villages on the southern shore of Lake Constance, just south of Constance. The expedition ended in a shameful defeat and open flight when the Swiss soldiers, who had their main camp just a few miles south at Schwaderloh, arrived and met the Swabians in the battle of Schwaderloh. The Swabians lost more than 1,000 soldiers; 130 from the city of Constance alone; and the Swiss captured their heavy equipment, including their artillery.

Again, the Swiss raided the Klettgau and the Hegau and pillaged several fortified smaller Swabian cities such as Tiengen or Stühlingen before retreating again. This whole war was characterized by many such smaller raids and plundering expeditions of both sides between a few larger battles. On the eastern front, a new Habsburg attack on the Rhine valley provoked a counterstrike of the Eidgenossen, who remained victorious in the battle of Frastanz near Feldkirch on April 20, 1499.

The continued defeats of both Habsburg and Swabian armies made king Maximilian, who had hitherto been occupied in the Netherlands, travel to Constance and assume the leadership of the operations himself. He declared an imperial ban over the Swiss Confederacy in an attempt to gain wider support for the operation amongst the German princes by declaring the conflict an "imperial war". However, this move had no success. Maximilian then decided that the next decisive attack should take place again in the Val Müstair, since he didn't have enough troops near Constance to risk attacking there. An abandoned attack attempt in the west in early May 1499 had drawn significant Swiss forces there, who subsequently raided the Sundgau. On May 21, the Swiss undertook a third raid in the Hegau, but abandoned the operation one week later after the city of Stockach withstood a siege long enough for Swabian relief troops to come dangerously close.

Simultaneously, the Three Leagues attacked the Habsburg troops that camped again at Glurns on May 22, 1499, before Maximilian could arrive with reinforcements. They overran the fortifications and routed the Austrian army in the battle of Calven and then ravaged the Vinschgau, before retreating after three days. Maximilian and his troops arrived one week late, on May 29. In revenge, his troops pillaged the Engadin valley, but retreated quickly before reinforcements from the Swiss Confederacy arrived.

The refusal of the military leaders of the Swabian League to withdraw troops from the northern front to send them to the Grisons as Maximilian had demanded made the king return to Lake Constance. The differences between the Swabians, who preferred to strike in the north, and the king, who still hoped to convince them to help him win the struggle in the Val Müstair, led to a pause in the hostilities. Troops were assembled at Constance, but an attack did not occur. Until July, nothing of significance happened along the whole front.

By mid-July, Maximilian and the Swabian leaders suddenly were under pressure from their own troops. In the west, where there lay an army under the command of count Heinrich von Fürstenberg, a large contingent of mercenaries from Flanders and many knights threatened to leave as they had not received their pay. The foot soldiers of the Swabian troops also complained: most of them were peasants and preferred to go home and bring in the harvest. Maximilian was forced to act.

An attack by sea across Lake Constance on Rheineck and Rorschach on July 21 was one of the few successful Swabian operations. The small Swiss detachment was taken by surprise, the villages plundered and burnt. A much larger attack of an army of about 16,000 soldiers in the west on Dornach, however, met a quickly assembled but strong Swiss army. In the battle of Dornach on July 22, 1499, the Swabian and mercenary troops suffered a heavy defeat after a long and hard battle. Their general Heinrich von Fürstenberg fell early in the fight, about 3,000 Swabian and 500 Swiss soldiers died, and the Swabians lost all of their artillery again.

One of the last skirmishes of the war took place on July 25. A Swabian army marched from the Hegau on Schaffhausen, but met with fierce defense at Thayngen. Although the small force of defenders was finally overcome, and the village was pillaged, the defenders inflicted heavy casualties and the attack was held up long enough for the Swiss to send troops from Schaffhausen to meet the Swabians in the field. Misunderstandings between the Swabian knights and their foot soldiers made the Swabians retreat, and nightfall then prevented a larger battle.

A major problem for the Swiss was the lack of any unified command. The cantonal contingents only took orders from their own leaders. Complaints of insubordination were common. The Swiss Diet had to adopt this resolution on 11 March 1499: "Every canton shall impress upon its soldiers that when the Confederates are under arms together, each one of them, whatever his canton, shall obey the officers of the others."

The war was paid for largely by the French and Italian allies of the Swiss as well as by ransoming prisoners of war.