1513-1517
FRANCE AND ITALY;
Franco-Venetian alliance; 1513–1516:
Venice France Duchy of Ferrara
Vs
Papal States Spain Holy Roman Empire England Duchy of Milan + Swiss mercenaries
The death of Pope Julius II in 1513 left the League without effective leadership. In 1515 Louis XII also died, succeeded by Francis I. Francis continued the war against the League of Cambrai.
Francis led a French and Venetian Army against the Swiss, routing them at Marignano in September 1515. This decisively reversed the string of defeats the Swiss had inflicted on the Venetians and French. After this battle the League of Cambrai or Holy League collapsed. Both Spain and the new Pope, Leo X, gave up their support for Massiliano Sforza as the Duke of Milan.
In the 1516 treaties of Noyon and Brussels, the entirety of northern Italy was surrendered to France and Venice by Maximilian I.
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HABSBURG AND RELATED;
BURGUNDIAN NETHERLANDS;
By the end of 1513 Charles had recaptured his Duchy.
In 1514, the Frisians appealed to Gelre in their struggle for independence against Duke George of Saxony. George had crossed the river Lauwers in 1514, entering Ommelanden and laid siege to Groningen, which called for help from Edzard of East Frisia and Charles of Guelders. George of Saxony failed to take Groningen and was pushed back.
Charles also expelled the Saxons from Ommelanden and Westerlauwers Friesland. George did manage to retain Leeuwarden, Harlingen and Franeker.
George's overlord, Emperor Maximilian, was already fighting Guelders, so instead of fighting East Frisia, he imposed the Imperial ban on Edzard. 24 German Princes invaded East Frisia in response.
Count John V of Oldenburg seeing an opportunity to provide North Sea access to attacked the Frisians in the Butjadingen area, and defeated them at Langwarden. Duke Henry I of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel invaded East Frisia with 20,000 men and besieged Leerort, only defended by a few peasants and soldiers. Henry I was killed by a targeted gunshot leaving his troops without a leader. They withdrew from East Frisia.
John V captured the castle at Großsander, then destroyed all three castles in Dornum. Edzard retreated, leaving John to besiege Aurich which was destroyed by the pillaging troops. (The city was rebuilt in 1517 as it was an important central livestock market)
Dünebroek was plundered, Burmönken, Marienhafe, Leerhafe and Rispel destroyed whilst Friedeburg surrendered. The castle at Altgödens was destroyed and Kniphausen Castle was captured.
An attempt to capture Oldersum failed.
In 1515, the tide turned in favor Edzard I. He recaptured the castle at Großsander and the fortresses Gutzwarden in Butjadingen. In 1517, Edzard I recaptured Friedeburg castle.
In 1515, George renounced his claims to the Frisian countries and sold the rights to Prince Charles for 100,000 guilders .
At the same time as the 1515 declaration of majority of the Prince Charles of Burgundy (Lord of the Netherlands), his aunt, Margaret of Austria, was replaced as governor by William II of Croÿ. He did not consider the reconquest of Gelre as urgent but the tension flared up again as Margaret re-took office two years later.
Prince Charles sent troops to the area and appointed Floris van Egmont as stadholder. The Frisians rebelled against this, attacked Dutch ships at sea and attacked Medemblik in 1517. The Frisians, Gueldersen, East Frisians, Groningers and Ommelanders united against their common enemy led by Duke Charles, who also had an alliance with King Francis I of France.
In 1516, King Ferdinand II of Aragon died. His grandson, Prince Charles, became King of Spain in Brussels and had to travel to Spain to settle state affairs.
In 1517, whilst awaiting favorable sea breezes for travel to Spain, he learned that 6,000 Guelders soldiers had been transported to Medemblik. After landing, they moved to Alkmaar and through Holland to Asperen, looting along the way. King Charles postponed his journey to respond to this. He recaptured Asperen and ordered an expedition to re-take Holland.
Needed elsewhere, he negotiated a compromise peace with Edzard, recognising him as Count of East-Frisia and lifting the Imperial ban, and with Charles, Duke of Guelders, leaving him in control of most of Frisia, the Ommelanden and Groningen, then sailed to Spain.
Edzard vacated Groningen and concluded the Peace of Zetel with Duke Henry II of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Count John V of Oldenburg, ceding the "Frisian Forest" to Oldenburg.
SPAIN;
Ferdinand invaded Navarre in 1512 during a war against France. This stretched the finances of Aragon and Castile to their limit.
Unable to face the Castilian-Aragonese army, King John III fled to Béarn. Pamplona, Estella, Olite, Sanguesa, and Tudela were captured by September. In October 1512 King John III returned with an army recruited north of the Pyrenees and attacked Pamplona without success.
After this failure, the Navarrese Cortes had no option but to pledge loyalty to King Ferdinand of Aragon.
In 1513, the first Castilian viceroy took a formal oath to respect Navarrese institutions and laws.
Navarre, north of the Pyrenees, along with the neighbouring Principality of Béarn, survived as an independent Kingdom.
Ferdinand died in January 1516, succeeded by his mentally unstable daughter Joanna, her son proclaimed himself co-ruler as King Charles I of Castile and Aragon.
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THE EMPIRE;
Foundations for the future expansion of Habsburg rule were laid with the weddings of Louis, only son of Ladislaus II, King of Bohemia and Hungary, and Mary, granddaughter of Maximilian; and between Archduke Ferdinand and Vladislaus' daughter Anna, in 1515.
[They were all still minors, so the weddings were formally completed in 1521. Vladislaus died in 1516, Maximilian died in 1519. On Louis's death in 1526, Maximilian's grandson, Charles V's brother, Ferdinand, became King of Bohemia.]
The Poor Conrad were secret peasants' leagues which, in 1514, revolted against Duke Ulrich of Württemberg. The term used to mock them, meaning "poor fellow", was adopted by the rebels.
Duke Ulrich's lifestyle had depleted the Württemberg treasury, instead of cutting down his expenses, the Duke raised taxes further. Citizens of Stuttgart and Tübingen refused to pay a wealth tax, so he imposed a tax on meat, wine and fruit to the disadvantage of the unprivileged population.
Crop failures of 1508 and 1513 meant that farmers were unable to pay the new taxes. This led to a hike in food prices.
To collect the tax, Ulrich had the unit of measurement of weight reduced, so, for the price of one kilogram of flour, one received only 700 grammes.
Riots broke out in Leonberg and Grüningen, encouraged by town priest. In mid-July, rebels occupied Schorndorf, the Duke narrowly escaping. Marching through Württemberg, the rebels camped near Beutelsbach but approaching Ducal troops persuaded more and more rebels to leave the camp. Finally the Poor Conrad rebellion collapsed quietly.
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JAGIELLONIAN LANDS;
POLAND;
The Teutonic Knights avoided paying tribute to Poland.
This situation had got worse after the 1511 election of Albrecht as Grand Master of the Order. Albrecht's rearmed and made hostile alliances.
Poland declared war in 1519.
BOHEMIA & HUNGARY;
In 1514 the Hungarian chancellor returned from Rome with a papal bull authorising a crusade against the Ottomans. He appointed Dózsa, a soldier of fortune who had won a reputation for valour, to organize this. Within a few weeks, Dózsa had gathered an army of some 40,000, consisting mostly of peasants, students, friars and priests; the lowest-ranking groups of medieval society.
By the time he had provided some military training, they began to air grievances about their status and treatment. No measures had been taken to supply food or clothing and, as harvest-time approached, their landlords ordered them to return to the fields. On their refusing to do so, landlords maltreated their wives and families and set armed retainers upon the local peasantry.
Angry at the Noble's failure to provide military leadership, their anti-landlord sentiment became apparent during the march across the Hungarian Plain, and the Hungarian chancellor cancelled the campaign. Diverted from its original object, the peasants and their leaders sought vengeance against the landlords.
Dózsa was losing control, his command had fallen under the influence of Lőrinc Mészáros, parson of Cegléd. The rebellion intensified when towns joined the peasants. In Buda cavalry sent against the rebels were unhorsed as they passed through the gates.
Rebellion spread quickly in the central, purely Magyar provinces, where manor houses and castles were burnt and gentry killed by impalement, crucifixion, and other methods. Dózsa's camp at Cegléd was the centre of the revolt, raids in the surrounding area radiating out from there.
The papal bull was revoked and King Vladislaus II issued a command for the peasants to return home, under pain of death. All of the Kingdom's vassals were called out and mercenaries hired from Venice, Bohemia and the Empire.
Dózsa captured the city and fortress of Csanád and impaled the Bishop and the Castellan. Subsequently, the Lord Treasurer was seized and tortured to death at Arad. During the summer, Dózsa seized the fortresses of Arad, Lippa and Világos, gaining cannons and trained gunners. Some of troops approached within 25 kilometres of the capital, but his ill-armed men were outmatched by heavy cavalry.
Dózsa was routed at Temesvár by 20,000 men led by John Zápolya and István Báthory. Dózsa was captured, condemned to sit on a smouldering, heated iron throne and forced to wear a heated iron crown and sceptre.
The revolt was repressed but some 70,000 peasants were tortured. No longer a politically united people, the execution and brutal suppression of the peasants aided the 1526 Ottoman invasion.
A Peasant revolt took place in 1515 in the Slovene lands.
About 80,000 rebels demanded the reintroduction of their original feudal obligations and trade rights and demanded input on decisions about taxes.
The uprising started in the Gottschee region where peasants killed their lord, Jorg von Thurn. They attacked the castles in the region but the revolt was put down by mercenaries from the Empire after a battle fought at Celje.
The Kingdom of Hungary was almost in ruins. The nobility was divided and, without a strong central government, it could not unite in defense of the country. King Louis II was weakened by the numerous conflicts. Lower nobility clashed with the higher nobility and court circles, and the Duke of Erdel, John Zápolya, one of the wealthiest nobles, represented open opposition to the already weak regime. The Duke's supporters were in constant conflict with the court circles. The King was a powerless figure in the hands of his ambitious advisors.
It was not possible to strengthen the defence of the southern border or to undertake any military campaigns.
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OTTOMAN EMPIRE;
Whilst the Ottomans were intent on an Eastward policy during the reign of Selim I, fighting both the Safavid Empire and the Mamluks, there were also actions in North Africa and the Western Mediterranean against Spain. Algeria was taken in 1516.
Defeating the Persian Safavids at Chaldiran in 1514, Selim was preparing for another campaign against them when the Mamluks attacked, moving against them with this army, the Mamluk's crumbled.
Selim crushed all opposition as he moved through Syria and defeated the remnants of the Mamluk forces outside Cairo.
Egypt became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1517, along with large parts of Mesopotamia, dramatically expanding the Empire's eastern and southern frontiers.
Selim I established a naval presence on the Red Sea and moved on Mecca and Medina.
After this expansion, the Ottomans and Portuguese competed to become the dominant power in the seas around Arabia.
In 1519, Selim, cultivating Babur as an ally, dispatched artillerymen, matchlock marksmen, and other military aid to assist Babur in his conquests in India.
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