A new rebellion of the Lansquenets, caused by a demand for plunder and additional remuneration, again stopped Truchsess' activities until April 10, when he marched southwest against the Baltringen troop which in the meantime had invaded his estates, Waldburg, Zeil and Wolfegg, and besieged his castles.Here, also, he found the peasants disunited, and defeated them, on April 11 and 12, one after the other, in various encounters which completely disrupted the Baltringen troops.Its remnants withdrew under the command of the priest Florian, and joined the Lake troops.Truchsess now turned against the latter.The Lake troops which in the meantime had made not only military marches but had also drawn the cities Buchhorn (Friedrichshafen)and Wollmatingen into the fraternity, held, on April 13, a big military council in the monastery of Salem, and decided to move against Truchsess.
Alarm bells were sounded and 10,000 men, joined by the defeated remnants of the Baltringen troops, assembled in the camp of Bermatingen.On April 15 they stood their own in a combat with Truchsess, who did not wish to risk his army in a decisive battle, preferring to negotiate, the more so since he received news the approach of the Allgaeu and Hegau troops.On April 17, in Weingarten, he concluded an agreement with the Lake and Baltringen peasants which seemed quite favourable to them, and which they accepted without suspicion.He also induced the delegates of the Upper and Lower Allgaeu peasants to accept the agreement, and then moved towards Wuerttemberg.
Truchsess' cunning saved him here from certain ruin.Had he not succeeded in fooling the weak, limited, for the most part demoralised peasants and their usually incapable, timid and venal leaders, he would have been closed in with his small army between four columns numbering at least from 25,000 to 30,000 men, and would have perished.It was the narrow-mindedness of his enemies, always inevitable among the peasant masses, that made it possible for him to dispose of them at the very moment when, with one blow, they could have ended the entire war, at least as far as Suabia and Franconia were concerned.The Lake peasants adhered to the agreement, which finally turned out to be their undoing, so rigidly that they later took up arms against their allies, the Hegau peasants.And although the Allgaeu peasants, involved in the betrayal by their leaders, soon renounced the agreement, Truchsess was then out danger.
The Hegau peasants, though not included in the Weingarten agreement, gave a new example of the appalling narrow-mindedness and the stubborn provincialism which ruined the entire Peasant War.When, after unsuccessful negotiations with them, Truchsess, moved towards Wuerttemberg, they followed him, continually pressing his flank, but it did not occur to them to unite with the Wuerttemberg Gay Christian Troop, because previously the peasants of Wuerttemberg and the Neckar valley refused to come to their assistance.
When Truchsess had moved far enough from their home country, they returned peacefully and marched to Freiburg.
We left the Wuerttemberg peasants under the command of Matem Feuerbacher at Kerchief below Teck, from where the observation corps left by Truchsess had withdrawn towards Urach under the command of Dietrich Spaet.After an unsuccessful attempt to take Urach, Feuerbacher turned towards Nuertingen, sending letters to all neighbouring insurgent troops, calling reinforcements for the decisive battle.Considerable reinforcements actually came from the Wuerttemberg lowlands as well as from Gaeu.The Gaeu peasants had grouped themselves around the remnants of the Leipheim troop which had withdrawn to West Wuerttemberg, and they aroused the entire valleys of Neckar and Nagoldt up to Boetlingen and Leonberg.Those Gaeu peasants, on May 5, came in two strong columns to join Feuerbacher at Nuertingen.Truchsess met the united troops at Boetlingen.Their number, their cannon and their position perplexed him.As usual, he started negotiations and concluded an armistice with the peasants.But as soon as he had thus secured his position, he attacked them on May 12 during the armistice, and forced a decisive battle upon them.The peasants offered a long and brave resistance until finally Boetlingen was surrendered to Truchsess owing to the betrayal of the middle-class.The left wing of the peasants, deprived of its base of support, was forced back and encompassed.This decided the battle.The undisciplined peasants were thrown into disorder and, later, into a wild flight, those that were not killed or captured by the horsemen of the Union threw away their weapons and went home.The Bright Christian Troop, and with it the entire Wuerttemberg insurrection was gone.Theus Gerber fled to Esslingen, Feuerbacher fled to Switzerland, Jaecklein Rohrbach was captured and dragged in chains to Neckargartach, where Truchsess ordered him chained to a post, surrounded by firewood and roasted to death on a slow fire, while he, feasting with horsemen, gloated over this noble spectacle.
From Neckargartach, Truchsess gave aid to the operations of the Elector Palatine by invading Kraichgau.Having received word of Truchsess'
