An Inevitable War? 59other hand two bungled and ineffective forays into Alsace in an attempt
to dislodge forces being mustered there by Archduke Leopold were mil-
itary and political setbacks, and they were not compensated for by the
minor part played by the Union in the recapture of Jülich after Henri’s
assassination. Internally divided, indebted, and outnumbered by the
League army eventually assembled by Maximilian of Bavaria, the Union
had little choice but to back down soon afterwards.
The 1610 fiasco accentuated the divisions. The action over Cleves-
Jülich had been contrary to the Union’s founding constitution, which
specifically prohibited involvement in private disputes, as well as mak-
ing Union support conditional upon a prior attack on a member. The
Palatine leadership had ignored this and by-passed potential opposition.
As a known moderate, Württemberg was only informed of the second
incursion into Alsace once it was under way, while the cities were neither
consulted nor informed, a fact which influenced their determination to
resist further entanglements in subsequent years.^65
Although mutual assistance alliances were later signed with England
and the Dutch, these were of limited benefit without French sup-
port, while attempts to recruit new members, particularly in north-
ern Germany, were completely unsuccessful. With Brandenburg and
Neuburg no longer participating the princely membership reduced only
to the Palatinate, Hessen-Kassel and four minor territories, all of which
were Calvinist or Calvinist inclined, together with the Lutheran prin-
cipalities of Baden-Durlach and Württemberg. Matters came to a head
when the question of extending the alliance beyond its original ten-
year term arose. At a preliminary meeting of the princes Württemberg
expressed reservations, reflecting the strong opposition to renewal
which had emerged when the matter was discussed by the duke’s coun-
cil. There the cost of contributions to ‘this ruinous alliance’ had been
contrasted with its failure to extract concessions from its opponents
or to produce any specific benefits for Württemberg itself, while it was
argued that the duchy’s seventy or more secularised church properties
would be better protected by moving to a position of neutrality rather
than continuing to be identified with a military union.^66 Nevertheless
at the princes’ meeting the Calvinist majority supported a Palatine pro-
posal for a further ten-year agreement. At their own advance gathering
the cities took a harder line, and they maintained this when the full
Union met in April 1617. Hence they limited the extension to three
years, as well as imposing conditions prohibiting military actions with-
out the advance consent of all Union members, and banning separate
meetings of the princes in the future. This was, says Gotthard, ‘a result