Given a subscribed calendar with a url like
https://example.com/example.ics
To force Google Calendar to refresh and reload the contents right now, unsubscribe from the calendar and subscribe to a new calendar with a URL like
https://example.com/example.ics#1
Adding the anchor tag will force Google Calendar to think of it as a new calendar
Many people who come to this gist are not looking for a one time forced refresh but instead to refresh recurringly. If that's you, you should check out @derekantrican 's Google App Script
https://github.com/derekantrican/GAS-ICS-Sync
Which can refresh a calendar automatically every N minutes
Thanks to @rattrayalex for pointing people to this script
You have to add the source url not the target url. The second item is the name of the google calendar you want to sync to (in case you want to sync to your main calendar you have to use the account gmail address)