Major conflict1546 – 1547 · 1 year

Schmalkaldic War

Name: War Atlas: Named Conflicts and Empire Borders, 3000 BCE – Present
Creator: War Atlas
Keywords: wars, military history, conflicts, empires, historical atlas, casualties

German states · Saxony · Bavaria · Holy Roman Empire

1546-1547 conflict between Catholic Emperor and Protestant German princes solidified Reformation divisions.

Estimated casualties

150Ksingle estimate · no range published

What happened

The Schmalkaldic League, an alliance of Protestant German princes, resisted Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's attempt to restore Catholic dominance. The war pitted Protestant military forces against imperial armies. The Protestant defeat at Mühlberg (1547) ended the war. However, the subsequent Peace of Augsburg (1555) established the principle of cuius regio, eius religio—allowing territorial rulers to determine their lands' religious character. The Schmalkaldic conflict demonstrated that religious division could not be resolved militarily.

Why it mattered

The Schmalkaldic War's outcome institutionalized Protestant-Catholic coexistence in Germany. The conflict presaged the Thirty Years' War's religious dimension. The peace established precedents for religious toleration.

Belligerents3

Holy Roman Emperor Charles V
Schmalkaldic League
Saxon Protestants

Conflict graph

SUB-CONFLICTS · 2

Battle of Drakenburg1547
Battle of Muhlberg1547

Sources

Wikipedia — text reused under CC BY-SA 4.0

Open in the atlas →Seeks the timeline to 1546 and opens this record.

Cite as: Schmalkaldic War (1546 – 1547). War Atlas. https://waratlas.org/c/schmalkaldic-war · Sources & methodology