Wenzel had neither the ability nor the experience to enable him to deal successfully with such a problem, and his attention was also occupied by family affairs in the east and by the quarrel in the Church. His only expedient was to form associations for the maintenance of the peace in which both princes and cities should be included. By this means he succeeded in postponing but not in preventing a war. The quarrel of Leopold of Hapsburg with the Swiss precipitated matters. The Swiss confederation differed from the Swabian and Rhenish leagues in that it included village communities of peasants as well as towns. When in 1385 an alliance with the Swabian League was proposed, the original forest cantons refused to take any part in the matter, and only the towns, Bern, Zürich, Zug and Luzern were parties to the compact. The battle of Sempach was won mainly by the peasants, and the Swabian towns sent no assistance. But the fall of Leopold of Hapsburg, the champion of princely interests, was hailed as a triumph by the towns, and had the natural effect of increasing their pride and pretensions. In 1387 the war which had been on the verge of outbreak since 1379 at last began. There was little that was notable in the actual hostilities, except their extent. The [Sidenote: The town war, 1387-9.] war was merely a simultaneous explosion of the numerous feuds which had often been waged before between a noble and a too powerful town. As long as the citizens stood on the defensive, they were successful, and the armies of the princes and knights were repulsed from their walls. Emboldened by these successes, they determined to leave their walls and to invade the territories of their old enemy, Eberhard of Würtemburg. But the German towns had no such soldiers as the peasants of the Alps, and no such geographical advantages as the Swiss had. In the open field their forces were cut to pieces by the feudal cavalry. On August 24, 1388, the united troops of the Swabian League suffered a severe defeat at Döffingen. The weakness of their position was now apparent. They could resist aggression, but they could not themselves take the offensive. The Rhenish towns were defeated with great loss at Worms, and Nürnberg, the latest and the most important recruit of the Swabian League, was reduced to submission by the Burggraf.