Georg, the Truchsess (governor) of Waldburg, was the field commander of the Swabian League army entrusted with the task of putting down the peasant revolts, by fair means or foul. Nicknamed ‘Bauernjörg’ (loosely, ‘scourge of the peasants’), he was ruthless in exacting revenge, particularly after the battles of Leipheim and Böbllngen.
A revolt of German peasants-the latest in a long line of uprisings-began in mid-1524 in Stühlingen and Thuringia, spreading from there to the Black Forest. What began as unconnected local revolts in aid of petitions against serfdom, market prices, and other grievances quickly spread over large parts of southern Germany and into Austria, Tyrol, and Styria. Underlying economic grievances included demands for abolition of serfdom, the uncertain legal status of peasant land holdings, compression of the forests and reduction of the commons, rising local and imperial taxes related to the expanding costs of war, and a price revolution in daily staples brought on by increased population and the influx of monetary metals from the Americas that was aggravated by bad harvests in 1523 and 1524. Political grievances included noble and town demands for institutional reform of the Holy Roman Empire. Religious grievances flowed from ferment over the new ideas of Martin Luther and older anger over corruption and clerical abuses in the Catholic Church. Several priests, peasants themselves or only recently removed, joined and led peasant bands. Others looked to the dramatic rhetoric of social leveling of the radical preacher, Thomas Müntzer. Miners and guildsmen also joined in, as the “common man” in town and village rose in general revolt.
The “peasant army” was a polyglot affair. It started with bands of peasants organized regionally, notably around Lake Constance and in the Black Forest, armed with farm implements, long knives, or boar spears which they used to hunt and kill landlords and local nobles. These bands were soon joined by artisans, town militia, some nobles, robber and poor knights, radical preachers inspired by Luther, and Landsknechte and Reislaüfer mercenaries. Some large towns were coerced into the uprising, others joined willingly. Several of the largest German cities barred their gates and denied arms to the peasants. The peasant army swelled to over 40,000 by mid-summer, almost all infantry. While it always lacked sufficient cavalry it acquired some artillery by hiring or capturing guns from smaller cities: Rothenburg hired out two bombards, complete with carts and gunners, while the towns of Marktdorf and Meersdorf were overrun, whereupon they surrendered 13 guns of various calibers along with tons of black powder and shot. In July a peasant band captured intact the entire artillery train of Habsburg Styria. Other arms and armor were looted from sacked castles, monasteries (also plundered of grain and wine stores), and towns along the line of march. Lastly, the peasants employed primitive Wagenburgs made from farm carts and hay wagons, not the sturdy Hussite type that was purpose-built for war. As a result, these provided little defense when facing Rennfahne cavalry of the Great Swabian League. Because the “peasants” had no central command the war was characterized by serial uprisings rather than a planned or coherent campaign. This was typical of peasant revolts nearly everywhere, and a key reason why most ended in defeat and savage reprisals carried out by frightened nobility and priests.
On the other side, many nobles were away serving in the army of Emperor Charles V fighting the Italian Wars with France. Charles asked his brother, Ferdinand I, then Archduke of Austria, to take command of Imperial forces in Germany. Georg of Waldburg commanded the separate army of the Swabian League. Meanwhile, the dispossessed and exiled Ulrich of Württemberg raised a private army of Landsknechte and Swiss to retake his ducal lands and marched on Stuttgart. However, news of the Swiss defeat at Pavia caused the Swiss part of his force to depart while releasing thousands of Landsknechte to fight against him for the Swabian League. The main advantage of the Swabian Leaguers was their cavalry, which they repeatedly used to flank, chase down, and butcher the peasants. Also, the disciplined pike formations and gunners of the Landsknechte inflicted terrible damage on peasants armed with shorter polearms or clubbing weapons. Joining the Leaguers were contingents of men-at-arms and infantry supplied by various petty territorial German princes, the real enemies of the peasants.
In December 1524, a peasant band formed at Baltringen. In January 1525, Tyrolean miners and Kempton peasants rebelled. The Swabian League sent in negotiators in order to buy time to organize a countering army. In February a third peasant band formed in Allgaü and the next month a fourth band was set up around Lake Constance. The Allgaü, Baltringen, and Lake Band then joined to form the “Christian Brotherhood,” a loose confederacy in arms. The Brotherhood had a radically egalitarian command structure but borrowed ranks and unit organization from the Landsknechte. On March 26, the Baltringen Band rejected compromise and stormed the castle at Schemmerberg; a week later the Allgaü Band stormed the monastery at Kempten. Also in April, the peasants of Würzburg formed a new band; a band was established in the Neckar Valley; several small bands joined to form the Tauber Valley Band; other bands were formed in Alsace and Odenwald, and so on. On April 4 the army of the Swabian League met and defeated the Baltringen peasants at Leipheim, killing over 1,000, of whom 400 drowned in the Danube. On April 15 the Lake Band, numbering some 12,000 peasants, town militia, and a leavening of Landsknechte, faced down the Swabian Leaguers and forced them to withdraw. On April 17 a truce was called in Swabia while a court heard grievances and a settlement took Upper Swabia out of the fight. But the revolt had by then spread like wildfire through late summer pastures: a fresh revolt broke out in Limburg and another band, the Werra, was formed in Thuringia. On April 23 fighting broke out in the Rhineland-Palatinate. The next week, Stuttgart and Erfurt fell to peasant bands and revolt spread to several Swiss cantons. On May 5, despite some sympathy for the cause, Luther denounced the peasants, admonishing them from the comfort of a castellan sanctuary where he lived under the protection of a powerful prince and benefactor. “It is not for a Christian to appeal to law, or to fight, but rather to suffer wrong and endure evil,” he told the peasants.
Three days later, a peasant band took Würzburg and rebellion broke out in Tyrol. Then the tide turned. On May 12 the Swabian League defeated a peasant band at Böblingen, after which peasant leaders who had sanctioned the execution of nobles were roasted alive. In a two-day fight a noble army of 2,300 horse and 4,000 foot-with contingents from Brunswick, Hesse, and Saxony-smashed the Frankenhausen Band, butchering 5,000 peasants and militia, including 300 beheaded in the town “pour encourager les autres.” The next day Alsatian bands were defeated at Zabern by an army of Lorrainers; many hundreds of peasants were massacred after they gave up the fight. A week later, 12,000 peasants surrendered at Freiburg (May 24), which they had only just taken. The next day Mühlhausen in Thuringia fell and Müntzer was captured, tortured, and beheaded-much to the satisfaction of Luther, who despised the man. On June 2 the Odenwald Band was beaten by the Leaguer army at Königshofen. Two days later the revolt in Franconia was crushed. A prolonged fight with dug-in peasants took place along the Leubas River during July. When key Landsknechte “comrades” left the trenches and defected to the Swabian League, the survivors were starved and blasted into surrender by July 23, whereupon they were slaughtered to a man. Thus ended the “Peasant’s War” in Germany.
In Austria, however, the fight lasted into 1526. A rare peasant victory came at Schladming on July 2, 1525, where Salzburg miners and peasants beat back an overconfident Austrian army. This forced concessions from Ferdinand and led to a truce signed in September. The princes reneged on their word, leading to renewed fighting in the spring with bands of peasants who took refuge in inaccessible alpine valleys. The death toll for the war as a whole was 80,000 to 100,000, mostly peasants and townsfolk. Defeat left serfdom in place (though in fact, conditions somewhat improved after 1525), the Empire unreformed, and a bitter residue of confessional and class anger across Germany.
