There are other implications of the account of the Sack of Magdeburg that sound contemporary, meaning that there are elements of contemporary history that likely have their origins in this early modern conflict: terror and propaganda. Faint military music from the distance. (I found one contemporary account of the Sack of Magdeburg that puts atrocity in scare quotes, as I have just done, to emphasize the disputed character of the event.) The Sack of Magdeburg occurred from 20 to 24 May 1631 during the Thirty Years' War.In the single worst atrocity of the war, the Catholic German mercenary army under Count Tilly stormed, sacked, and burned the city of Magdeburg, killing all but 449 of its 25,000 inhabitants.. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. God with us.. Today's anniversary https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Magdeburg Here commenced a scene of horrors for which history has no language poetry no pencil. Excerpts from his account are reproduced below. (1) Gottfried Heinrich Count of Pappenheim (1594-1632), an Imperial commander. On the last day of the siege Magdeburg's councilors were convinced that it was time to sue for peace, but word of their decision did not reach the Count of Tilly in time. The invading soldiers had not received payment for their service and took the chance to loot everything in sight; they demanded valuables from every household that they encountered. [1] Tilly finally ordered an end to the looting on 24 May, and a Catholic mass was celebrated at the cathedral on the next day. Lecture. There I entered the city by storm without incurring any injury. The Thirty Years . A one day visit to the city of Magdeburg brought me to the Elbe river below the famous Magdeburg Cathedral to contemplate what happened 391 years ago. Lecture. The devastation was so great that "magdeburgization" became an oft-used term signifying total destruction, rape and pillaging for decades. The Sack of Magdeburg (German: Magdeburgs Opfergang or German: Magdeburger Hochzeit) refers to the siege and subsequent plundering of the largely Protestant city of Magdeburg by the forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic League during the Thirty Years' War. [2][8], Openly Lutheran Christian William of Brandenburg, elected to be archbishop in 1598, was denied recognition by the imperial authorities. These articles have not yet undergone the rigorous in-house editing or fact-checking and styling process to which most Britannica articles are customarily subjected. Yet God protected her. The defence of the city was further weakened and demoralised when commander Dietrich von Falkenberg was shot dead by Catholic Imperial troops. [2] In political respect the Erzstift, the archiepiscopal and capitular temporalities, had gained imperial immediacy as prince-archbishopric in 1180. For fourteen days, charred bodies were carried to the Elbe River to be dumped to prevent disease. The sack of Magdeburg, also called Magdeburg's Wedding (German: Magdeburger Hochzeit) or Magdeburg's Sacrifice (Magdeburgs Opfergang), was the destruction of the Protestant city of Magdeburg on 20 May 1631 by the Imperial Army and the forces of the Catholic League, resulting in the deaths of around 20,000, including both defenders and non-combatants. The Croats amused themselves with throwing children into the flames; Pappenheims Walloons with stabbing infants at the mothers breast. In a letter, Pappenheim wrote of the Sack: "I consider it cost the city more than 20,000 souls, and most certainly no greater horrors and divine justice have been seen since the Destruction of Jerusalem. In last years post on the Sack of Magdeburg, I quoted Frederick Schillers account of the sack in his The History of the Thirty Years War, which emphasized the horrors of Magdeburgization (Magdeburgisieren), which was coined after the sack and used to describe the total devastation suffered by the city, then one of the largest cities in Germany. After the city fell, the Imperial soldiers supposedly went out of control and started to massacre the inhabitants and set fire to the city. in [2] The Swedish king was a Lutheran Protestant and many of Magdeburg's residents were convinced that he would aid them in their struggle against the Catholic Habsburg emperor, Ferdinand II. Much of the city remained rubble until at least 1720.[1]. With a deep knowledge of this particular tragedy in mind, author H. Allenger seeks to put a human face on the event in THE DAMNED OF MAGDEBURG. The Sack of Magdeburg, a large event that caused much devastation according to all other accounts, is written about in a single stage direction in the play. The city's fortifications were breached and Imperial forces were able to overpower armed opposition and open the Krcken Gate which allowed the entire army to enter the city, plundering its rich stores of goods. Most especially was every one of the enemy bent on securing much booty. Tilly had a powerful siege train and carefully picked off the outworks one by one. Then, what with blows and threats of shooting, stabbing, and hanging, the poor people were so terrified that if they had had anything left they would have brought it forth if it had been buried in the earth or hidden away in a thousand castles. One day we captured seven of their entrenchments. A census conducted in 1632 listed only 449 inhabitants. For another fourteen days, charred bodies were carried to the Elbe River to be dumped to prevent disease. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Mark Twain famously said that a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on. (15941632), Gustavus II Adolphus A rather different account of 20 May 1631 at Magdeburg can be found in Lord Actons. (End), Note: Perhaps modern historians will lower the death toll and start a Magdeburg debate. [4] During the Schmalkaldic War of 1546/47, the Lower Saxon city became a refuge for Protestant scholars, which earned it the epithet Herrgotts Kanzlei (German for 'Lord's Chancellery'),[5] but also an Imperial ban that lasted until 1562. Military Wiki is a FANDOM Lifestyle Community. He had our company for ten days, after which he resigned. [3] Some believed that his motive for entering the war was the possession of northern German ports that would allow him to control commerce in the Baltic Sea. Then we moved in close and built up the whole area with our entrenchments and saps [trenches used by besieging forces to approach closer to an enemy fort], but it cost us a lot of men. Excerpts from his account are reproduced below. Jacob F. Field is an early modern historian based at the University of Cambridge. Horrible and revolting to humanity was the scene that presented itself. But this humanity was confined to the officers of the League, whom the ruthless barbarity of the Imperialists caused to be regarded as guardian angels. As a mechanism to help the German people learn to change in order to stop war, Brecht wrote his famous play, Mother Courage and Her Children, and portrayed war in all of its inelegance. The Chief allowed one hour to plunder the town, its a swindle. The above documents are different accounts of the Sack of Magdeburg. By using this technique, he actually emphasizes the cost of war. In the early morning of 20 May 1631, 18,000 troops of the Imperial Alliance - an association of Catholic states headed by the Holy Roman Empire - stormed the Protestant city of Magdeburg in modern day North-Eastern Germany, starting a fire that would, according to one source, leave only 10 houses standing in the city. I believe that over twenty thousand souls were lost. https://archive.org/details/cu31924028040396, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/566/pg566.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Magdeburg, https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Magdeburg, https://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/85.SackMagdeburg_en.pdf, https://archive.org/details/historyofthirtyy00frie, https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/The-Sack-of-Magdeburg, This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. This article is about the Siege of 1631. There we captured several entrenchments in the forest in front of Magdeburg. This article is about the Siege of 16301631. It was specifically aimed at restoring the situation of the 1555 Peace of Augsburg in ecclesiastical territories that had since strayed from "legal" Catholic faith and rule. Similar to the Star-Spangled Banner, the American anthem, the bombs [are] bursting in [the] air, demonstrating the power of the attackers and the magnificence of war. There are at least two antithetical attitudes that can be found in the secondary literature on the Sack of Magdeburg: that Tilly and Pappenheim were purposefully employing terror as a weapon of war, thus the atrocities were largely as were claimed, or that the claims of atrocity were wildly overstated, the result of a successful pamphleteering campaign by Protestants who sought to construct a Black Legend of the cruelty and viciousness of Imperial Catholic forces. History He had sent one of his officers, Dietrich von Falkenburg, to command the defense. THE FIRST SOLDIER: I want my brandy! Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 1991. >, <
Account of the sack of Magdeburg: .. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). The Army of Gustavus Adolphus. The terms "Magdeburg justice", "Magdeburg mercy" and "Magdeburg quarter" also arose as a result of the sack, used originally by Protestants when executing Roman Catholics who begged for quarter. [6] When the city was almost lost, the garrison mined various places and set others on fire. (3) Haiduks were mercenary infantry from Hungary. The siege lasted from November 1630 until 20 May 1631. [14]:108, There are written reports of the attackers setting fire to single houses to dislodge persistent defenders. The Sack of Magdeburg (German: Magdeburgs Opfergang or German: Magdeburger Hochzeit) refers to the siege and subsequent plundering of Magdeburg by the army of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War. The engraving of the Sack of Magdeburg by Matthaus Merian in 1632 is a secondary source that provides a history from above. Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 1991. In the future, our failure to understand the past will be due to the overabundance of materials. Tilly finally ordered an end to the looting on May 24, and a Catholic mass was celebrated at the Cathedral on the next day. I fully expect that atrocities, terror, propaganda, and black legends will continue to drive the historical narrative in the twenty-first century and beyond, and those attempting to understand history will be faced with significant barriers to an accurate comprehension of past events. The Sack of Magdeburg refers to the destruction of the largely Protestant city of Magdeburg on 20 May 1631 by the Imperial Army and the forces of the Catholic League. Siege. The 20th of May we attacked and stormed in earnest and also conquered. When a marauding party entered a house, if its master had anything to give he might thereby purchase respite and protection for himself and his family till the next man, who also wanted something, should come along. Historical accounts are always subtlety or intensely influenced. Magdeburg further suffered from the loss of its fundamental resources and several epidemics due to the massive destruction. The 22nd of March Johann Galgart was brought in as our captain; the 28th of April he too was shot dead in the saps. The terms "Magdeburg justice", "Magdeburg mercy" and "Magdeburg quarter" also arose as a result of the sack, used originally by Protestants when executing Roman Catholics who begged for quarter. The Sack of Magdeburg (German language: Magdeburgs Opfergang or German language: Magdeburger Hochzeit) refers to the siege, the subsequent plundering, and the massacre of the inhabitants of the largely Protestant city of Magdeburg by the forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic League during the Thirty Years' War. From the Reformation to the Thirty Years War (1500-1648), next
He was then able to begin the reconstruction of the city. For another fourteen days, charred bodies were dumped in the Elbe River to prevent disease. Then was there naught but beating and burning, plundering, torture, and murder. Hampden-Sydney College. After the sack, the archbishopric of Magdeburg went to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, youngest son of emperor Ferdinand II, as the new Catholic Administrator. (15591632), Graf Gottfried Heinrich von Pappenheim Copy link. However, not all Protestant princes of the Holy Roman Empire had immediately embraced Adolphus;[14]:107 some believed his chief motive for entering the war was to take northern German ports, which would allow him to control commerce in the Baltic Sea. By ten o'clock most of the city was on fire. The Sack of Magdeburg (German language: Magdeburgs Opfergang or German language: Magdeburger Hochzeit) refers to the siege, the subsequent plundering, and the massacre of the inhabitants of the largely Protestant city of Magdeburg by the forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic League during the Thirty Years' War. Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. The imperial Catholic general Tilly placed the town of Magdeburg, a centre of Lutheranism, under close siege in March 1631 . Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Scarcely had the fury of the flames abated, when the Imperialists returned to renew the pillage amid the ruins and ashes of the town. [8], After Magdeburg's capitulation to the imperial forces, there was much bickering between the residents who had favored resistance against the emperor and those who had been against such an action. The Sack of Magdeburg (German: Magdeburgs Opfergang or German: Magdeburger Hochzeit) refers to the siege and subsequent plundering of the largely Protestant city of Magdeburg by the forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic League during the Thirty Years' War.The siege lasted from November 1630 until 20 May 1631. But then there came a great outcry in the camp that the house of the city were all collapsing on top of each other so that many soldiers and their wives who wanted to loot were trapped. In a letter, Pappenheim wrote of the Sack:
, I believe that over twenty thousand souls were lost. Also called Magdeburg Wedding (German: Magdeburger Hochzeit) or Magdeburg's Sacrifice (Magdeburgs Opfergang), the incident is considered the worst massacre of the Thirty Years' War. Lord Acton was a traditionalist in history, in a sense, insofar as he made political and military developments the structure of his narrative; the sufferings of Magdeburg and its people, so central to Schillers narrative, have no part to play in Lord Actons account. The wind rising rapidly, spread the flames, till the blaze became universal. [9] Magdeburg's defeat convinced many Protestant rulers in the Holy Roman Empire to take a stand against the Catholic emperor.[10]. 163 I. TILLYS VICTORY AT MAGDEBURG COSTS MOTHER COURAGE FOUR OFFICERS SHIRTS. The devastations were so great that Magdeburgisieren (or "magdeburgization") became an oft-used term signifying total destruction, rape, and pillaging for decades. Gold chains and rings, jewels, and every kind of gold and silver utensils were to be bought from the common soldiers for a tenth of their real value. (End), J.H. The devastation was so great that Magdeburgisieren (or "magdeburgization") became an oft-used term signifying total destruction, rape and pillaging for decades. The governor of Magdeburg, Christian Wilhelm, after receiving several wounds, was taken prisoner, with three of the burgomasters; most of the officers and magistrates had already met an enviable death. When civilians ran out of things to give the soldiers, the misery really began.For then the soldiers began to beat, frighten and threaten to shoot, skewer, hang, etc., the people. For then the soldiers began to beat, frighten, and threaten to shoot, skewer, hang, etc., the people." The imperial Catholic general Tilly placed the town of Magdeburg, a centre of Lutheranism, under close siege in March 1631 From: The Thirty Years' War had been raging for about thirteen years by the time that the imperial city of Magdeburg rose up against the Holy Roman emperor. and nearby in the city streets. It was only when everything had been brought forth and there was nothing left to give that the real trouble commenced. Thus I was brought back to my tent, half dead. The Sack of Magdeburg. From Friedrich Schillers The History of the Thirty Years War. [a] All of our soldiers became rich. [9], As a result of these developments, in January 1628, the Magdeburg cathedral chapter deposed Christian William and elected Augustus of Wettin, 13-year-old son of John George I, Elector of Saxony, as Administrator. For then the soldiers began to beat, frighten, and threaten to shoot, skewer, hang, etc., the people."[6]. Email. Then, to avoid being burned with the city, the Imperial marauders had to flee the city and retreat to their camps. [12] Bremen and Magdeburg were the biggest examples of territories to be restituted. The city's councillors had been emboldened by King Gustavus Adolphus's landing in Pomerania on 6 July 1630. When the city was . I am sorry you and the ladies of the court were not there to enjoy the spectacle.. The siege lasted from November 1630 until 20 May 1631. The townsfolk of Magdeburg are blamed for the fire and Tilly is presented as the hero for saving the cathedral: , discussing Schillers account, I noted that the idea of. Better sourced is this quote from Gottfried Heinrich, Graf zu Pappenheim: I believe that over twenty thousand souls were lost. Vol. Backed by the Lutheran clergy, Falkenberg had the suburbs fortified and additional troops recruited. [5] When the city was almost lost, the garrison mined various places and set others on fire. When the Magdeburg citizens refused to pay a demanded tribute to the emperor, in a matter of months, Imperial forces under the command of Count Johann Tserclaes of Tilly laid siege to the city. They each provide a unique point of view and skew the events of the siege to fit their perspectives. On the 24th of May, Tilly himself appeared in the town, after the streets had been cleared of ashes and dead bodies. History from above provides a grandiose and glorified view of history that omits the gore or brutal details. The citizens of Magdeburg had turned Protestant already in 1524 and joined the Schmalkaldic League against the religious policies of the Catholic emperor Charles V in 1531. Constructing Black Legends continues in our own day, with manufactured atrocities spread by social media. The link was not copied. Magdeburg also lived up to its reputation in 1629, when it resisted the siege of Wallenstein's troops until a favourable accord could be reached and the . Updates? PRINTED FROM OXFORD REFERENCE (www.oxfordreference.com). Return in an hour, was his answer; I will see what I can do; the soldier must have some reward for his danger and toils. These horrors lasted with unabated fury, till at last the smoke and flames proved a check to the plunderers. God with us. Interested in participating in the Publishing Partner Program? Some officers of the League, horror-struck at this dreadful scene, ventured to remind Tilly that he had it in his power to stop the carnage. This happened the 20th of May 1631, in the early morning at nine oclock. . Questions or concerns? The city was dealt another blow when Swedish colonel Dietrich von Falkenberg was shot dead by Catholic imperials. For other uses, see. "Foreign Intervention." In the early morning of May 20, the conquest began with heavy artillery fire. 1. However, it is interesting to note that Guericke's account had been translated several times, and each translation seems to tell a very different story. "The Sack of Magdeburg (20 May 1631)," in Tryntje Helfferich, ed.. Dr. James Frusetta. Likely the most recently created account of the event, Magdeburg by Heather Richardson is a fictional story set in 1631 about Germans and their lives during the siege, off . This most terrible moment lasted not much more than two hours in the city, as the wind unexpectedly picked up and furiously spread the fire. The Magdeburg citizens had hoped in vain for a Swedish relief attack. At the time, about 24,000 Imperial soldiers gathered around the walls. Magdeburg, the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, was one of the most important cities of medieval Europe.Situated at a natural crossroads on the Elbe, it possessed a strong defensive position.
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