Klöppelkrieg - Denkmal

The bobbin war in 1798 was planned as a liberation war for the West Eifel population against the French occupiers. They wanted to defend themselves against the French, who demanded excessive taxes, called in young farmers for military service and closed the churches. The bobbin warriors were farmers who had no military experience or powerful weapons. They pulled with some shotguns, but otherwise with their usual tools such as. B. pitchforks, forged scythes and also with clubs in the war. The word bobbin comes from the Moselle-Franconian or Luxembourgish bobbin, which means something like baton.

On October 29, a 2000-strong army wanted to free the city of Luxembourg from the French. However, this company failed in Hosingen, well before Luxembourg, when the bobbin warriors believed that they had seen French soldiers at dusk. In truth, however, it was just a group of gendarmes who behaved so cleverly that it was thought that an entire army was already on the move. After 110 French soldiers had been assigned to Arzfeld, around 500 bobbin warriors gathered on their train from Dasburg via Dahnen, Daleiden and Irrhausen to Arzfeld to attack the French. On October 30, 1798 there was a battle in front of the entrance to Arzfeld. 7 French soldiers and 33 Eifel died. 32 bobbin warriors were captured by the French. Most of them were executed in the city of Luxembourg in 1799.

At the parish church in Arzfeld there is a clapper war memorial erected by the Eifel Association in 1908. The village of Dahnen, which had by far the greatest number of victims of all insurgent places, put a memorial to its bobbin warriors on the church forecourt in October 1998. In Daleiden in the same year a corresponding plaque was unveiled on the village square. There have been other bobbin war memorials in Clerf (Lux.) Since 1899 and in the city of Luxembourg since 1972, and in the Belgian city of Hasselt on the Leopoldplein since 1898.

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