Early life George Frederick was born in Baden to
Charles II, Margrave of Baden-Durlach and
Anna of Veldenz. George Frederick was only four years old when he inherited the
Margraviate of Baden-Sausenberg, necessating a regency. The regents were his mother Anna, Elector Palatine
Louis VI (until 1583), Count Palatine
Philip Louis of Neuburg and Duke
Louis III "the Pious" of Württemberg. In 1584, his elder brothers Ernest Frederick and
James (d. 1590) and his mother (d. 1586) took over the guardianship. In 1595, George Frederick was declared an adult, and he took up government himself. George Frederick learned the Latin, French and Italian languages and received his higher education in
Strasbourg, where his brother James had studied earlier. He went on a
Grand Tour to
Besançon,
Dole,
Basel and
Siena.
Division of the Margraviate of Baden-Durlach His elder brothers were declared adults in 1584. Ernest Frederick and James wanted to divide the inheritance, although their father's testament forbade this. However, the testament had not been properly signed and sealed, and the remaining guardians held that this meant that they could allow the brothers to divide the Margraviate. Ernest Frederick received
Lower Baden, including the main towns
Durlach and
Pforzheim. James received the
Margraviate of Baden-Hachberg. George Frederick retained the southern parts of Baden-Durlach, the Lordships of
Rötteln and Badenweiler and the County of
Sausenburg. Thus, the Margraviate was fragmented further, after the earlier split into Baden-Baden and Baden-Durlach. When George Frederick's elder brother James died in 1590, Baden-Hachberg fell back to his eldest brother Ernest Frederick, who gave it to George Frederick in 1595.
Ruler of Baden-Hachberg (1595-1604) Upon reaching adulthood, George Frederick became the ruler of Baden-Hachberg (Upper Baden). At first, he ruled from
Rötteln Castle. In 1599 he moved his residence and the entire National Administration to
Sulzburg). After the conversion of his brothers Ernest Frederick to strict
Calvinism and James to
Catholicism, George Frederick remained a
Lutheran and founded his own Latin school in his small residence Sulzburg, so he would not have to depend on the Calvinist school in Durlach for the education of pastors in his territory. He constructed several buildings in Sulzburg, among them a
real tennis hall. Between 1600 and 1610, he built the Castle Church in Sulzburg. Hence, the
Margraviate of Baden-Durlach remained Lutheran since he survived the longest among his brothers. George Frederick's lived in an ascetic manner. From the hand-written notes in his personal Bible, one can deduce that he has fully read through it at least 58 times. Shortly after he took office in Upper Baden, George Frederick introduced Johann Weininger as the new General Superintendent at the Synod of Rötteln. On this occasion he held a speech that resembled a sermon. In 1601, he promised the citizens of
Pforzheim, who resisted the appointment of Reformed clergy by his brother Ernest Frederick, that he would support them when the case came before the
Reichskammergericht. In 1603, he issued a forestry regulation for the Margraviate of Sausenberg and the Lordship of Rötteln.
Margrave of Baden-Durlach (1604-1612) When Ernest Frederick died in 1604,
Baden-Durlach was inherited by George Frederick, reuniting it with Baden-Hachberg. He initiated a wide ranging set of legal, administrative, and religious reforms He established the Privy Council, which he presided himself. He created a high court and introduced a
Church Order. George Frederick was aware that he could achieve his goal of a united Lutheran margraviate of Baden only with the support of the people. In return for approval of taxes to finance his defense policies, he conceded to the Estates the right to have a say in religious questions. As early as 1603 George Frederick founded, in cooperation with the
Estates of
Upper Baden an exchange bank, which also managed orphan's pensions and later developed into a deposit bank. This bank was also meant to organize the trade in wine and grain and eliminate Jewist merchants. It also helped the margraviate to overcome the market crisis of the "
Kipper und Wipper" period. He initiated the codification of the civil code of
Baden. The resulting
statute has been describe as "the most thorough of any of the German territorial states". It was published in 1622, but due to the
Thirty Years' War, it could not be brought into force until 1654, under his son and successor
Frederick V. It remained in force until 1809. In 1613, he had a religious dispute with Duke
Francis II of Lorraine. He intended to argue the issue himself. This failed, however, when Francis, against an earlier agreement, sent
Jesuits to argue the Catholic side of the dispute. George Frederick saw the deteriorating situation in the empire, and in his own principality in particular, and studied not only theology, but also military themes. He was informed the
Knight academy that Count
John VI of Nassau-Dillenburg had founded in
Siegen in 1616. Between 1614 and 1617, George Frederick wrote a treatise on modern warfare for his sons
Frederick, Charles and Christopher; this treatise was never published in print.
Outbreak of the Thirty Years' War Under Catholic influence, the ongoing court case before the
Reichskammergericht about the ongoing occupation of Upper Baden threatened against George Frederick in 1622. He reacted with an armed intervention in the
Bohemian Revolt, a conflict that formed the initial phase of the Thirty Years' War. In 1608, George Frederick joined the
Protestant Union. He was appointed as a general of the Union, a position which he held until it was dissolved in May 1621. On 19 August 1612, George Frederick concluded a defensive alliance with the Protestant cities of
Bern and
Zurich, with which he wanted to protect
Upper Baden, as it was enclosed by territories belonging to
Further Austria. When the war broke out, his allies failed to provide military assistance. However, the alliance did enable George Frederick to recruit mercenaries in Switzerland in 1621 and 1622. The bishop of Speyer,
Philipp Christoph von Sötern, felt threatened by the surrounding Protestant powers and in 1615, he began expanding his residence in Udenheim into a fortress. He changed the name Udenheim into
Philippsburg and began constructing Philipsburg Fortress, despite protests by the imperial city of
Speyer, the
Electorate of the Palatinate and the Margraviate of Baden. In 1618, Elector Palatine
Frederick V, George Frederick and the city of Speyer decided to raze the fortress. It was nevertheless completed in 1623. From March to June 1620 George Frederick blocked the road from
Breisach to
Freiburg by order of the Protestant Union, operating from a fortified camp at
Ihringen. The goal was to prevent the passage of mercenary troops of
Bavaria and the
Catholic League from the Alsace to their assembly points at
Lauingen and
Dillingen on the Danube. Nevertheless, after Emperor
Ferdinand II gave assurances that certain troops had been recruited for himself and not for Bavarian/Catholic League army, George Frederick allowed the three regiments to pass and had to put up with being called naïve when these regiments joined the army of Duke
Maximilian I of Bavaria.
Wimpfen campaign In 1621, George Frederick began recruiting troops to campaign against the Catholic forces, which had begun a successful advance in 1620. In order not to lose his Margraviate to an
imperial ban for waging war on the emperor, he abdicated in 1622, in favour of his son,
Frederick V. In the spring of 1622, after the
Estates granted him a special war tax for three years, he had between and mercenaries at his disposal, with a relatively large amount of artillery, in addition to the regiment that would remain behind to defend Baden. On 24/25 April 1622, he began a campaign against the Emperor and his Catholic allies. However, he arrived too late to participate in the
Battle of Mingolsheim on 27 April, where the Palatinate commander Count
Ernst von Mansfeld crushingly defeated Lieutenant General
Tilly of the Catholic League. On 27 April, George Frederick declared war on the Habsburgs and combined his forces with those of Mansfeld, so as to fight the Catholic League together. When they were inexplicably separated a few days later, George Frederick came under attack from Tilly, who was assisted by Spanish troops under
Córdoba. George Frederick was defeated in the
Battle of Wimpfen on 6 May 1622. He was injured in the face and narrowly escaped to Stuttgart, where he abdicated in favour of his eldest son. Already on 13 May 1622 George Frederick had returned to
Durlach and tried in vain to raise a new army. A Catholic army of about troops invaded Baden and devastated it thoroughly. George Frederick initially fled to a
stronghold at
Emmendingen he had heavily fortified in the beginning of the century. On 26 August 1622, the Emperor invested
William, the son of
Edward Fortunatus, with Baden-Baden. This meant that Baden was once again split into a Catholic Baden-Baden and a Protestant Baden-Durlach. This split would last until Baden was reunited in 1771 under Margrave
Charles Frederick.
Career after Wimpfen In 1625, George Frederick retreated to
Geneva, where he soon came into conflict with the Calvinist government, because he held
Lutheran church services in his apartment. So in 1626 he moved to
Thônes, where Duke
Charles Emmanuel of Savoy allowed him to hold Lutheran church services. In the summer of 1627 he was appointed lieutenant general of the Danish army by King
Christian IV of Denmark, who was involved in the
Danish-Lower Saxon War and tasked George Frederick with stopping the advance of
Wallenstein into northern Germany. When Wallenstein approached, George Frederick withdrew to the island of
Poel and then to
Heiligenhafen in
Holstein. His troops from there marched to
Oldenburg in Holstein, where he was almost completely wiped out in the Battle at the Oldenburg Gulley by an imperial army under
Heinrich Schlik and had to surrender on 24 September 1627. In October, George Frederick resigned from the Danish service, after a dispute with the Danish king, who wanted to bring the issue before a court martial.
Retirement and death George Frederick retired to his home in
Strasbourg and devoted himself mainly to the study of religious literature. He was, however, still in contact with France and Sweden, trying to realise his dream of a Lutheran Greater Baden. He died on 24 September 1638 in Strasbourg. His body was probably transferred to the princely crypt in the S. Michael Church in
Pforzheim in 1650. == Marriages and issue ==