"German Peasants War 1524-1526: Landsknechts and... " Topic

…the Swabian League.

"In the summer of 1524 near the Black Forest in what is today Stühlingen, Baden-Wurttemberg in southern Germany, one of the largest and most significant popular uprisings of recorded history in the middle and renaissance ages began. A quibble between peasants and the ruling countess in the province of Swabia led to a greater revolt of a loosely confederated Serf/Peasant alliance that became the catalyst for great conflict, upheaval, and civil war in the early Renaissance age in the central European Germanic kingdoms associated with the Swabian League. The league was lead by Emperor Charles V; locked in continuous series of campaigns with the Italians throughout his reign from 1519-1556.

The king appointed his brother and successor, Archduke Ferdinand of Austria (sharing the same name of his late ancestor, who's assassination sparked the Great War in 1914) to crush the rebellion in mostly the south & southwest of Swabian League territory. The Peasants Rebellion eventually ignited a near national revolution with hundreds of thousands fighting for the rights of religious and social liberty in Southwestern Germany.

For the Swabian League forces it was a war to defend property, the greater social order & culture, and also a secondary rebellion, between disaffected lower nobles and knights, many of whom were or who were at one time employed as landsknecht mercenaries, professional soldiers from within and outside Austro-German provinces. Rather ironic itself, the title of the Peasants War or Peasants Rebellion is somewhat misleading because many of the enemy rebel forces were laborers, artisans, or lower gentry. Many of the fighting men were outlaw knights, mercenaries and former soldiers from Switzerland and the other German kingdoms. The infrequent regional or national makeup of the rebels was most evident especially in the ever-lacking leadership of the Peasants movement itself…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Is time running in reverse in Austria & Germany then? Surely Franz Ferdinand of Austria (the one whose assansination sparked WW1) is a DESCENDANT of the Archduke Ferdinand (and probably only "collateral"). How can someone who was around 400 years before be named after Franz Ferdinand as this article seems to suggest!

It's pretty obvious the blogger's first language is not English, so I cut him some slack.

Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was King, not Emperor, from 31 to 58, until his brother Emperor Karl V retired. He was Emperor from 58 to 64.

I would comment on the blog, but they do not allow unless you subscribe to various services I rather avoid.