Second war of Kappel

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Battle of Kappel


caption=The forces of Zürich are defeated in the battle of Kappel (1548 etching).
partof=Second war of Kappel
date=October 11, 1531
place=Switzerland
result=Catholic victory
combatant1=Catholics:
combatant2=Protestants:
commander1=Hans Jauch
commander2=Huldrych Zwingli KIA
strength1=
strength2=
casualties1=
casualties2=

The second war of Kappel ("Zweiter Kappelerkrieg") was an armed conflict in 1531 between the Protestant and the Catholic cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy during the Reformation in Switzerland.

Cause

The tensions between the two parties had not been resolved by the peace concluded after the first war of Kappel two years earlier, and provocations from both sides continued unabatedly, fuelled in particular by the Augsburg Confession of 1530. Additionally, the Catholic party accused Zürich of territorial ambitions.

As the Catholic cantons refused to help the Three Leagues ("Drei Bünde") in the Grisons in the Musso war against the Duchy of Milan, Zürich promptly considered this a breach of contracts between the confederacy and the Three Leagues and declared an embargo against the five alpine Catholic cantons, in which Berne also participated. While the "Tagsatzung" had successfully mediated in 1529, on this occasion the attempt failed, not least because Zwingli was eager for a military confrontation. The Catholic cantons declared war on Zürich on 9 October 1531.

Battle of Kappel

On October 11, 1531, the Catholic cantons decisively defeated the forces of Zürich in the Battle of Kappel. The victorious side was led by Hans Jauch of Uri. The Zürich troops were without support from allied cantons, and Huldrych Zwingli led them rather inexpertly, and was killed on the battlefield, along with twenty-four other pastors. At Kappel, two brothers of the Göldli family (Kaspar and Georg) stood on opposite sides, epitomizing the tragedy of this war between confederates.

After the defeat, the forces of Zürich regrouped and attempted to occupy the Zugerberg, and some of them camped on the "Gubel" hill near Menzingen. A small force of Aegeri succeeded in routing the camp, and the demoralized Zürich force had to retreat, forcing the Protestants to agree to a peace treaty to their disadvantage.

Aftermath

Heinrich Bullinger who had been a teacher at Kappel, and since 1523 an outspoken supporter of Zwingli's, at the time of the battle was pastor at Bremgarten. Following the Battle of Kappel, Bremgarten was re-catholicized. On 21 October, Bullinger fled to Zürich with his father, and on 9 December was declared Zwingli's successor.

The peace that ended the war, the so-called "Zweiter Landfrieden" (Second Territorial Peace) forced the dissolution of the Protestant alliance. It gave Catholicism the priority in the common territories, but allowed communes or parishes that had already converted to remain Protestant. Only strategically important places such as the Freiamt or those along the route from Schwyz to the Rhine valley at Sargans (and thus to the alpine passes in the Grisons) were forcibly recatholicised. One result of the treaty -- probably not anticipated by its signers -- was the long-term establishment of side-by-side religious coexistence in several Swiss subject territories. In both the Thurgau and Aargau, for example, Catholic and Protestant congregations began worshiping in the same churches, which led to further tensions and conflicts throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The treaty also confirmed each canton's right to practice either the Catholic or Reformed faith, thus defining the Swiss Confederation as a state with two religions, a relative novelty in Western Europe. The outcome of the war also confirmed and cemented the Catholic majority among the thirteen full members of the Swiss Confederation: after later settlements in Glarus and Appenzell, seven full and two half cantons remained Catholic (Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, Fribourg, Solothurn, and half of Glarus and Appenzell), while four and two-halves became firmly Swiss Reformed Protestant (Zurich, Bern, Basel, Schaffhausen, and half of Glarus and Appenzell).

An unsuccessful effort by the Protestant cantons, especially Zurich, to change the terms of confessional coexistence in 1656, the First War of Vilmergen, led to a reaffirmation of the status quo in the "Dritter Landfrieden" (Third Territorial Peace). A second religious civil war in 1712, the Second War of Vilmergen, ended in a decisive Protestant victory and major revisions in the fourth Landfrieden of 1712.

Literature

*W. Schaufelberger, "Kappel - Die Hintergründe einer militärschen Katastrophe", in SAVk 51, 1955, 34-61.

See also

*Reformation in Switzerland