GERMERSHEIM  , a fortified

town of Germany in Rhenish Bavaria, at the confluence of the Queich and the Rhine, 8 m . S . W. of Speyer . Pop . (1905) 5914 . It possesses a Roman Catholic and an Evangelical church, a synagogue, a progymnasium and a hospital . The industries include fishing, shipbuilding and brewing . Germersheim existed as a Roman stronghold under the name of Vicus Julius . The citadel was rebuilt by the emperor Conrad II., but the town itself was founded in 1276 by the emperor Rudolph I., who granted it the rights of a free imperial city . From 1330 to 1622, when it was conquered by Austria, the town formed part of the Palatinate of the Rhine . From 1644 to 1650 it was in the possession of France; but on the conclusion of the peace of Westphalia it was again joined to the Palatinate . In 1674 it was captured and devastated by the French under Turenne, and after the death of the elector Charles (1685) it was claimed by the French as a dependency of Alsace .

As a consequence there ensued the disastrous Germersheim

war of succession, which lasted till the peace of Ryswick in 1697 . Through the intervention of the pope in 1702, the French, on payment of a large sum, agreed to vacate the town, and in 1715 its fortifications were rebuilt . On the 3rd of July 1744 the French were defeated there by the imperial troops, and on the 19th and 22nd of July 1793 by the Austrians . In 1835 the new town was built, and the present fortifications begun . See Probst, Geschichte der Stadt and Festung Germersheim (Speyer, 1898) .