Kalkulierter Konflikt?

Abstract

Summary Calculated Conflict? The Cologne Election Dispute of 1688 and the Origins of the Nine Years’ War Historians have recently begun to focus on the relationship between elections and conflict during the Early Modern period. Against the backdrop of these debates, the article takes another look at one of the most conflict-laden elections of that era, the election dispute (“Doppelwahl”) of Cologne in July 1688 involving Cardinal Fürstenberg and Duke Joseph Clemens of Bavaria. The spectacular failure of Fürstenberg, the candidate backed by King Louis XIV of France, in the succession struggle in Electoral Cologne was one of the major causes of the Nine Years’ War (known in German as the “War of the Palatine Succession”), which impacted wide swathes of Western and Central Europe. The resolution of the succession dispute in the Archdiocese of Cologne occurred within the context of growing tensions between Louis XIV and his rivals, in particular Emperor Leopold I. Yet up to the summer of 1688, there continued to be opportunities – albeit diminishing ones – to resolve the conflict peacefully. It was only when Emperor Leopold decided to publicly and solemnly declare Fürstenberg ineligible, explicitly citing the cardinal’s allegiance to Louis XIV, that open conflict became unavoidable. As a result, the very reputations of the protagonists were at stake in the Cologne succession, including that of Louis XIV; there was no longer any way to withdraw from the conflict without losing face. There are convincing reasons to believe that the emperor, by deciding to exclude Fürstenberg, was consciously accepting a conflict with France, with the prospect of a broad anti-French alliance that was already forming in Central and Western Europe.