The Burgundy Wars were a conflict between the House of Habsburg and the Valois Dynasty, in which the Old Swiss Confederacy got involved and would play a decisive role. Open war broke out in 1474, and in the following years, the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was defeated thrice on the battlefield, and his kingdom was dissolved.
The general situation
The dukes of Burgundy had succeeded, over a period of about 100 years, in establishing their rule as a strong force between the Holy Roman Empire and France. Their possessions included, besides their homelands of the Franche-Comté, the economically strong regions of Flanders and Brabant, and also Luxembourg.
The dukes of Burgundy generally pursued an aggressive expansionist politics, especially in Alsace and Lorraine, seeking to geographically unite their northern and southern possessions. Having already been in conflict with the French king (Burgundy had sided with the English in the Hundred Years' War), Charles' advances along the Rhine brought him in conflict with the Habsburgs and especially emperor Frederick III.
The conflict
Initially in [[1469, Duke Sigismund of Habsburg of Austria assigned his possessions in the Alsace as a fiefdom to the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, to have them protected better against the expansion of the Eidgenossen. Charles' involvement west of the Rhine gave him no reason to attack the confederates as Sigismund had wanted, but his embargo politics against the cities of Basel, Strassburg, and Mulhouse, directed by his reeve Peter von Hagenbach, prompted these to turn to Berne for help. Charles' expansionist strategy suffered a first setback in his politics when his attack on the Archbishopric of Cologne failed after the unsuccessful siege of Neuss (1473 – 1474).
In a second phase, Sigismund sought to achieve a peace agreement with the Swiss confederates, which eventually was concluded in Constance in 1474 (later called the Ewige Richtung). He wanted to buy back his Alsacian possessions from Charles, which the latter refused. Shortly afterwards, von Hagenbach was captured and executed in Alsace, and the Swiss, united with the Alsacian cities and Sigismund of Habsburg in an "anti-Burgundian league", conquered part of the Burgundian Jura (Franche-Comté) when they won the Battle of Héricourt in November 1474. The next year, Bernese forces conquered and ravaged Vaud, which belonged to the Duchy of Savoy, which was allied with Charles the Bold. In the Valais, the indepedent republics of the Sieben Zenden, with the help of Bernese and other confederate forces, drove the Savoyards out of the lower Valais after a victory in the Battle on the Planta in November 1475. In 1476, Charles retaliated and marched to Grandson with his army, where he had the garrison killed despite their capitulation. When the Swiss confederate forces arrived a few days later, his army suffered a devastating defeat in the Battle of Grandson , and he was forced to flee the battlefield, leaving behind his artillery and many provicions and valuables. Having rallied a new army, he was again defeated by the confederates in the Battle of Morat. Charles the Bold fell in the Battle of Nancy in 1477, where the confederates fought alongside an army of René II, Duke of Lorraine.
Effects
With the death of Charles the Bold, the dynasty of the dukes of Burgundy died out. The Franche-Comté subsequently became a possession of the Habsburgs, when Archduke Maximilian of Austria, who would later become Holy Roman Emperor, married Charles' only daughter Mary of Burgundy. Burgundy itself became part of France under king Louis XI. The victories of the Eidgenossen over one of the most powerful military forces in Europe at the time gained them a reputation of near invincibility, and the Burgundy Wars marked the beginning of the rise of Swiss mercenaries on the battlefields of Europe.
See also
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