FREIBURG IM BREISGAU, archiepiscopal see and city of Germany in the Land of Baden, situated on the Dreisam at the foot of the Schlossberg, 4o m. N. of Basle by rail. Pop.
99,122.
In 1120 Freiburg became a free town, with privileges similar to those of Cologne; but in 1 219 it fell into the hands of a branch of the family of Urach. It purchased its freedom in 1366; but, unable to reimburse its creditors, it was, in 1368, obliged to rec ognize the supremacy of the house of Hapsburg. In the 17th and i8th centuries it played a considerable part as a fortified town. Since 1821 it has been the seat of an archbishop with jurisdiction over the sees of Mainz, Rottenberg and Limburg. The waters of the river flow through the streets in open channels; and the old fortifications have been replaced by public walks and vineyards. It possesses a famous university, the Ludovica Albertina, founded by Albert VI., archduke of Austria, in 1457. The Freiburg minster is considered one of the finest Gothic churches in Germany. It was probably erected between 1122 and 1252; but the choir was not built till 1513. The tower is 386 f t. in height. In the interior of the church are some beautiful stained glass windows and paint ings by Holbein and by Hans Baldung (c.
• The palaces of the grand duke and the archbishop, the old town-hall and the Kau f haws or merchants' hall, a 16th-century building with a handsome facade, are noteworthy. On the Schlossberg above the town there are ruins of two castles destroyed by the French in 1744; and about 2 m. N.E. stands the castle of Zahringen. Sit uated on the ancient road which runs by the Hollenpass between the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine, Freiburg early acquired commercial importance, and it is still the principal centre of the trade of the Black Forest. It manufactures buttons, tobacco, silk thread, paper, sugar, surgical and musical instruments.
See Schreiber, Geschichte and Beschreibung des Miunsters zu Frei burg (182o and 1825) ; Geschichte der Stadt and Universitat Freiburgs
; Der Schlossberg bei Freiburg (186o) ; and Albert, Die Geschichtsschreibung der Stadt Freiburg (1902).
Aug. 3, 5 and io, 1644.—During the Thirty Years' War the neighbourhood of Freiburg was the scene of a series of engagements between the French under Louis de Bourbon, duc d'Enghien (afterwards called the great Conde), and Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, and the Bavarians and Austrians commanded by Franz, Freiherr von Mercy. At the close of the campaign of 1643 the French "Army of Weimar," having been defeated and driven into Alsace by the Bavarians, had there been reorganized under the command of Turenne, then a young general of 32 and newly promoted to the marshalate. In May 1644 he opened the campaign by recrossing the Rhine and raiding the enemy's posts as far as Uberlingen on the lake of Constance and Donaueschingen on the Danube. The French then fell back with their booty and prisoners to Breisach, a strong garrison being left in Freiburg. The Bavarian com mander, however, revenged himself by besieging Freiburg (June 27), and Turenne's first attempt to relieve the place failed. During July, as the siege progressed, the French Government sent the duc d'Enghien, who was ten years younger still than Turenne, but had just gained his great victory of Rocroy, to take over the command. Enghien brought with him a veteran army, called the "Army of France," Turenne remaining in command of the Army of Weimar. The armies met at Breisach on Aug. 2, by which date Freiburg had surrendered. At this point most commanders of the time would have decided not to fight, but to manoeuvre Mercy away from Freiburg; Enghien, however, was a fighting general, and Mercy's entrenched lines at Freiburg seemed to him a target rather than an obstacle. A few hours after his arrival, therefore, without waiting for the rearmost troops of his columns, he set the combining armies in motion for Krozingen, a village on what was then the main road between Breisach and Freiburg. The total force immediately available numbered only I 6,000 combat ants. Enghien and Turenne had arranged that the Army of France was to move direct upon Freiburg by Wolfenweiter, while the Army of Weimar was to make its way by hillside tracks to Wittnau and thence to attack the rear of Mercy's lines while Enghien assaulted them in front. Turenne's march (Aug. 3,
was slow and painful as had been anticipated, and late in the afternoon, on passing Wittnau, he encountered the enemy. His men carried the outer lines of defence without much difficulty, but as they pressed on towards Merzhausen the resistance became more and more serious. Turenne's force was little more than 6,000, and these were wearied with a long day of marching and fighting on the steep and wooded hillsides of the Black Forest Thus the turning movement came to a standstill far short of Uffingen, the village on Mercy's line of retreat that Turenne was to have seized, nor was a flank attack possible against Mercy's main line, from which he was separated by the crest of the Schonberg. Meanwhile, Eng hien's army had at the prear ranged hour (4 P.M.) attacked Mercy's position on the Ebringen spur. A steep slope, vineyards, low stone walls and abatis had all to be surmounted, under a galling fire from the Bavarian musketeers, before the Army of France found itself, breath less and in disorder, in front of the actual entrenchments of the crest. A first attack failed, as did an attempt to find an unguarded path round the shoulder of the Schonberg. The situation was grave in the extreme, but Enghien resolved on Turenne's account to renew the attack although only a quarter of his original force was still capable of making an effort. He himself and all the young nobles of his staff dismounted and led the infantry forward again, the prince threw his baton into the enemy's lines for the soldiers to retrieve, and in the end, after a bitter struggle, the Bavarians, whose reserves had been taken away to oppose Turenne in the Merzhausen defile, abandoned the entrenchments and disappeared into the woods of the adjoining spur. Enghien hurriedly re-formed his troops, fearing at every moment to be hurled down the hill by a counterstroke ; but none came. The French bivouacked in the rain, Turenne making his way across the mountain to confer with the prince, and meanwhile Mercy quietly drew off his army in the dark to a new set of entrenchments on the ridge on which stood the Loretto Chapel. On Aug. 4 the Army of France and the Army of Weimar met at Merzhausen, the rearmost troops of the Army of France came in, and the whole was arranged by the major-generals in the plain facing the Loretto ridge. This position was attacked on the 5th. Enghien had designed his battle even more carefully than before, but as the result of a series of accidents the two French armies attacked prematurely and straight to their front, one brigade after another, and though at one moment Enghien, sword in hand, broke the line of defence with his last intact reserve, a brilliant counterstroke, led by Mercy's brother Kaspar (who was killed), drove out the assailants. It is said that Enghien lost half his men on this day and Mercy one-third of his, so severe was the battle. But the result could not be gainsaid ; it was for the French a complete and costly failure.
For three days after this the armies lay in position without fighting, the French well supplied with provisions and comforts from Breisach, the Bavarians suffering somewhat severely from want of food, and especially forage, as all their supplies had to be hauled from Villingen over the rough roads of the Black Forest. Enghien then decided to make use of the Glotter Tal to interrupt altogether this already unsatisfactory line of supply, and thus to force the Bavarians either to attack him at a serious dis advantage, or to retreat across the hills with the loss of their artillery and baggage and the disintegration of their army by famine and desertion. With this object, the Army of Weimar was drawn off on the morning of Aug. 9 and marched round by Betzenhausen and Lehen to Langen Denzling. The infantry of the Army of France, then the trains, followed, while Enghien with his own cavalry faced Freiburg and the Loretto position.
Before dawn on the loth the advance guard of Turenne's army was ascending the Glotter Tal. But Mercy had divined his ad versary's plan, and leaving a garrison to hold Freiburg, the Bavarian army had made a night march on the 9–ioth to the Abbey of St. Peter, whence on the morning of the loth Mercy fell back to Graben, his nearest magazine in the mountains. Turenne's advanced guard appeared from the Glotter Tal only to find a stubborn rearguard of cavalry in front of the abbey. A sharp action began, but Mercy hearing the drums and fifes of the French infantry in the Glotter Tal broke it off and continued his retreat in good order. Enghien thus obtained little material result from his manoeuvre. Only two guns and such of Mercy's wagons that were unable to keep up fell into the hands of the French. Enghien and Turenne did not continue the chase farther than Graben, and Mercy fell back unmolested to Rothenburg on the Tauber.
The moral results of this sanguinary fighting were, however, important and perhaps justified the sacrifice of so many valuable soldiers. Enghien's pertinacity had not achieved a decision with the sword, but Mercy had been so severely punished that he was unable to interfere with his opponent's new plan of campaign. This, which was carried out by the united armies and by rein forcements from France, while Turenne's cavalry screened them by bold demonstrations on the Tauber, led to nothing less than the conquest of the Rhine Valley from Basle to Coblenz, a task which was achieved so rapidly that the Army of France and its victorious young leader were free to return to France in two months from the time of their appearance in Turenne's quarters at Breisach.
