The command of the Wunnenstein troop was taken by Matern Feuerbacher, a councillor of the city of Bottwar, one of the leaders of the middle-class opposition compromised enough to be compelled to join the peasants.In spite of his new affiliations, however, he remained very moderate, prohibiting the application of the Letter of Articles to the castles, and seeking everywhere to reconcile the peasants with the moderate middle-class.He prevented the amalgamation of the Wuerttemberg peasants with the Gay Bright Troop, and afterwards he also persuaded the Gaildorf troop to withdraw from Wuerttemberg.
On April 19 he was deposed in consequence of his middle-class tendencies, but the next day he was again made commander.He was indispensable, and even when Jaecklein Rohrbach came, on April 22, with 200 of his associates to join the Wuerttemberg peasants, he could do nothing but leave Feuerbacher in his place of commander, confining himself to rigid supervision of his actions.
On April 18, the government attempted to negotiate with the peasants stationed at Wunnenstein.The peasants insisted upon acceptance of the Twelve Articles, but this the government's representatives refused to do.
The troop now proceeded to act.On April 20, it reached Laufen, where, for the last time, it rejected the offers of the government delegates.
On April 22, the troops, numbering 6,000, appeared in Bietighein, threatening Stuttgart.Most of the city council had fled, and a citizens' committee was placed at the head of the administration.The citizenry here was divided, as elsewhere, between the parties of the honourables, the middle-class opposition, and the revolutionary plebeians.On April 25, the latter opened the gates for the peasants, and Stuttgart was immediately garrisoned by them.Here the Organisation of the Gay Christian Troop (as the Wuerttemberg insurgents called themselves) was perfected, and rules and regulations were established for remuneration, division of booty and alimentation.
A detachment of Stuttgarters, under Theus Gerber, joined the troops.
On April 29, Feuerbacher with all his men marched against the Gaildorf troops, which had entered the Wuerttemberg region at Schorndorf.
He drew the entire region into his alliance and thus persuaded the Gaildorf troops to withdraw.In this way, he prevented the revolutionary elements of his men under Rohrbach from combining with the reckless troops of Gaildorf and thus receiving a dangerous reinforcement.Having been informed of Truchsess'
approach, he left Schorndorf to meet him, and on May I encamped near Kerchief under Teck.
We have thus traced the origin and the development of the insurrection in that portion of Germany which must be considered the territory of the first group of peasant armies.Before we proceed to the other groups (Thuringia and Hesse, Alsace, Austria and the Alps) we must give an account of the military operations of Truchsess, in which he, alone at the beginning, later supported by various princes and cities, annihilated the first group of insurgents.We left Truchsess near Ulm, where he came by the end of March, having left an observation corps under Teck, under the command of Dietrich Spaet.Truchsess' corps which together with the Union reinforcements concentrated in Ulm counted hardly 10,000, among them 7,200 infantrymen, was the only army at his disposal capable of an offensive against the peasants.
Reinforcements came to Ulm very slowly, due in part to the difficulties of recruiting in insurgent localities, in part to the lack of money in the hands of the government, and also to the fact that the few available troops were everywhere indispensable for garrisoning the fortresses and the castles.We have already observed what a small number of troops were at the disposal of the princes and cities that did not belong to the Suabian Union.Everything depended upon the successes which Georg Truchsess with his union army would score.
Truchsess turned first against the Baltringen troops which, in the meantime, bad begun to destroy castles and monasteries in the vicinity of Ried.The peasants who, with the approach of the Union troops withdrew into Ried, were driven out of the marshes by an enveloping movement, crossed the Danube and ran into the ravines and forests of the Suabian Alps.In this region, where cannon and cavalry, the main source of strength of the Union army, were of little avail, Truchsess did not pursue them further.
He marched instead against the Leipheim troops which numbered 5,000 men stationed at Leipheim, 4,000 in the valley of Mindel, and 6,000 at Illertissen, and was arousing the entire region, destroying monasteries and castles, and preparing to march against Ulm with its three columns.It seems that a certain demoralisation had set in among the peasants of this division, which had undermined their military morale, for Jakob Wehe tried at the very beginning to negotiate with Truchsess.The latter, however, now backed by sufficient military power, declined negotiations, and on April 4 attacked the main troops at Leipheim and entirely disrupted them.Jakob Wehe and UIrich Schoen, together with two other peasant leaders, were captured and beheaded.Leipheim capitulated, and after a few marches through the surrounding country, the entire region was subdued.
