page_title: Siege of Godesberg
section_title: Investment of the Godesburg
hierarchical_section_title: Siege of Godesberg / Investment of the Godesburg
caption_attribution_description: Part of the series {{{name}}}.
context_page_description: The Siege of Godesberg, 18 November – 17 December 1583, was the first major siege of the Cologne War. Seeking to wrest control of an important fortification, Bavarian and mercenary soldiers surrounded the Godesberg, and the village then of the same name, now Bad Godesberg, located at its foot. On top of the mountain sat a formidable fortress, similarly named Godesburg, built in the early 13th century during a contest over the election of two competing archbishops.
  Towering over the Rhine valley, the Godesburg's strategic position commanded the roads leading to and from Bonn, the Elector of Cologne's capital city, and Cologne, the region's economic powerhouse. Over time, the Electors strengthened its walls and heightened its towers. They added a small residence in the 14th century and the donjon developed as a stronghold of the Electoral archives and valuables. By the mid-16th century, the Godesburg was considered nearly impregnable and had become a symbol of the dual power of the Prince-electors and Archbishops of Cologne, one of the wealthiest ecclesiastical territories in the Holy Roman Empire.
context_section_description: On 13–14 November, Ferdinand of Bavaria (Ernst's brother) and the Count of Arenberg took the Elector's castle at Poppelsdorf; on 18 November, they moved to attack the Godesburg. This fortress was considerably stronger than the one at Poppelsdorf and of supreme strategic importance for the projected attack on Bonn, the capital city of the Electorate.
  The Godesburg was defended by Lieutenant Colonel Felix Buchner, Captain of the Guard Eduard Sudermann, a garrison of soldiers from the Netherlands, and a few cannons. Sudermann was a patrician from Cologne, and the son of Cologne's Bürgermeister (mayor) Dr. Heinrich Sudermann (1520–1591), a jurist and ambassador, and one of the most influential men in the imperial city and throughout the merchant capitals of the northern German states. According to contemporary sources, around 180 people lived in the facility, including peasants, the Dutch soldiers defending it, and an unknown number of women and children. The fortress was also home to several of Gebhard's prisoners. The Abbot of Heisterbach, Johann von St. Vith, had been taken prisoner in July 1583 when Sudermann's troops sacked several villages in the region and plundered the Heisterbach monastery. Other prisoners held in the Godesburg included Gebhard von Bothmer, the suffragan (auxiliary bishop) of Hildesheim, and Captain Ranucino from Florence, the captured commander of Deutz, across the Rhine from Cologne.
  To besiege the fortress, Ferdinand brought more than 400 Fussvolk (foot soldiers) and five squadrons of mounted soldiers, plus a half dozen heavy caliber cannons, called culverins. His soldiers, among them Spanish and Italian mercenaries, took up quarters in neighboring villages, a process accompanied by pillage, arson, murder and rape. On 18 November, the first day of the siege, Ferdinand sent a trumpeter and formally asked the fortress to surrender; the defending garrison replied that they had sworn their allegiance to Gebhard and would fight to the death for him.
caption: Poppelsdorf, Gebhard's country home where he first brought his bride in February, was taken by Ernst's supporters in mid-November, 1583. After they finished at Poppelsdorf, they moved to Godesberg
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