They were confronted by few troops which braved only insignificant skirmishes, not being able to follow them into the woods.In June, a movement against the honourables started in Memmingen which had hitherto remained more or less neutral, and only the accidental nearness of some Union troops which came in time to the rescue of the nobility, made its suppression possible.
Schapelar, the preacher and leader of the plebeian movement, fled to St.
Gallen.The peasants appeared before the city and were about to start firing to break a gap, when they learned of the approach of Truchsess on his way from Wuerzburg.On June 27 they started against him, in two columns, over Babenhausen and Oberguenzburg.Archduke Ferdinand again attempted to win over the peasants to the House of Austria.Citing the armistice concluded with the peasants, he demanded of Truchsess to march no further against them.The Suabian Union, however, ordered Truchsess to attack them, but to refrain from pillaging and burning.Truchsess, however, was too clever to relinquish his primary and most effective means of battle, even were he in a position to keep in order the Lansquenets whom he had led between Lake Constance and the Main from one excess to another.The peasants took a stand behind the Iller and the Luibas, about 23,000 in number.Truchsess opposed them with 11,000.The positions of both armies were formidable.
The cavalry could not operate on the territory that lay ahead, and if the Truchsess Lansquenets were superior to the peasants in Organisation, military resources and discipline, the Allgaeu peasants counted in their ranks a host of former soldiers and experienced commanders and possessed numerous well-manned cannon.On July 19, the armies of the Suabian Union opened a cannonade which was continued on every side on the 20th, but without result.On July 21, Georg von Frundsberg joined Truchsess with 300 Lansquenets.
He knew many of the peasant commanders who bad served under him in the Italian military expeditions and he entered into negotiations with them.
Where military resources were insufficient, treason succeeded.Walter Bach and several other commanders and artillerymen sold themselves.They set fire to the powder store of the peasants and persuaded the troops to make an enveloping movement, but as soon as the peasants left their strong position they fell into the ambush placed by Truchsess in collusion with Bach and the other traitors.They were less capable of defending themselves since their traitorous commanders had left them under the pretext of reconnoitering and were already on their way to Switzerland.Thus two of the peasant camps were entirely disrupted.The third, under Knopf of Luibas, was still in a position to withdraw in order.It again took its position on the mountain of Kollen near Kampten, where it was surrounded by Truchsess.The latter did not dare to attack these peasants, but he cut them off from all supplies, and tried to demoralise them by burning about 200 villages in the vicinity.
Hunger, and the sight of their burning homes, finally brought the peasants to surrender (July 25).More than twenty were immediately executed.Knopf of Luibas, the only leader of this troop who did not betray his banner, fled to Biegenz.There he was captured, however, and hanged, after a long imprisonment.
With this, the Peasant War in Suabia and Franconia came to an end.
[ To part 6 ]
