Palatinate campaign

The Electoral Palatinate (German: Kurpfalz) or the Palatinate (Pfalz), officially the Electorate of the Palatinate (Kurfürstentum Pfalz), was a state that was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The electorate had its origins under the rulership of the Counts Palatine of Lotharingia in 915; it was then restructured under the Counts Palatine of the Rhine in 1085. From 1214 until the Electoral Palatinate was merged into the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1805, the House of Wittelsbach provided the Counts Palatine or Electors. These counts palatine of the Rhine would serve as prince-electors (Kurfürsten) from "time immemorial", and were noted as such in a papal letter of 1261; they were confirmed as electors by the Golden Bull of 1356. The territory stretched from the left bank of the Upper Rhine, from the Hunsrück mountain range in what is today the Palatinate region in the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the adjacent parts of the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine (bailiwick of Seltz from 1418 to 1766) to the opposite territory on the east bank of the Rhine in present-day Hesse and Baden-Württemberg up to the Odenwald range and the southern Kraichgau region, containing the capital cities of Heidelberg and Mannheim. The counts palatine of the Rhine held the office of imperial vicars in the territories under Frankish law (in Franconia, Swabia and the Rhineland) and ranked among the most significant secular Princes of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1541 elector Otto Henry converted to Lutheranism. Their climax and decline is marked by the rule of Elector Palatine Frederick V, whose coronation as king of Bohemia in 1619 sparked the Thirty Years' War. After the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, the ravaged lands were further afflicted by the Reunion campaigns launched by King Louis XIV of France, culminating in the Nine Years' War (1688–97). Ruled in personal union with the Electorate of Bavaria from 1777, the Palatinate was finally disestablished with the German mediatization and annexation by Baden on 27 April 1803 and the rest eventually to the Kingdom of Bavaria as the Circle of the Rhine.

The Hohe Bühl is a hill in the northern Palatine Forest in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, with a height of 444 m above sea level (NN). The hill straddles the parishes of Enkenbach-Alsenborn to the west and Carlsberg to the east and there is a small viewing tower at the top of its domed summit. The A 6 motorway from Saarbrücken to Mannheim runs past the top of the hill just to the south; this is the highest point on the motorway. The Eisbach river, a tributary of the Rhine, rises on the northern slopes of the mountain at a height of about 290 m above NN. Two kilometres downstream it is impounded to form the Eiswoog lake.

Carlsberg (IPA: [ˈkaʁlsbɛʁk]) is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

The Kieskautberg is a hill located two kilometres south of the German village of Carlsberg in the east of the Diemerstein Forest, which is part of the northern Palatine Forest. The boundary between the collective municipalities of Freinsheim (south) and Grünstadt-Land (north) runs over the hill. The hill is covered by mixed forest. Its summit is accessible from Hertlingshausen by a footpath managed by the Palatine Forest Club, which is marked by a red circle .

Ramsen is a municipality in the Donnersbergkreis district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

The Eiswoog is a reservoir, roughly six hectares in area, on the Eisbach stream, locally also called die Eis, in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is oriented from south to north in the water meadows near the source of the stream in part of the northern Palatinate Forest known as the Stumpfwald.

The Stumpfwald Railway (German: Stumpfwaldbahn) is a 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) narrow gauge heritage railway that has operated since 1996 in the Stumpfwald, a woodland area in the north of the Palatine Forest in the municipality of Ramsen.

The Isenachweiher in the Palatinate Forest (Rhineland-Palatinate) is a reservoir on the River Isenach, a left tributary of the Rhine. Such reservoirs are called woogs in this region.

Wattenheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

Stauf Castle (German: Burg Stauf) is a ruined spur castle near the village of Stauf in the borough of Eisenberg in the county of Donnersbergkreis in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Diemerstein Forest (German: Diemersteiner Wald) is a part of the Palatine Forest, a mountainous region within the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It has an area of about 50 km².