The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 08 · Chapter 21Establishment of Swiss Independence
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The powerful family of the Hapsburgs, still rulers of the Tyrol, or eastern portion of the Alps, long claimed authority over the western part as well. The severity of their rule led to an organized resistance on the part of the mountaineers, and the natural strength of the country secured to its defenders victory after victory. The battles of Morgarten (1315) and of Sempach (1386) were each accepted as final by their own generation; but the house of Hapsburg never formally relinquished its ancient rights, and its heads grew in power. From being dukes of Austria they advanced to be hereditary emperors of all Germany, and at length in 1499 the powerful Emperor Maximilian determined to enforce his double authority as duke and emperor. His projects were encouraged by the discord rife among the little states or cantons which composed the Swiss league.
The following account of the war that ensued is from the pen of a well-known Swiss historian, and is perhaps colored by rather more enthusiasm and racial pride than historic accuracy. Yet the struggle was final. Never after did German or Austrian dispute the independence of the Swiss. The unfortunate consequences brought by success upon the natives are not only true, but profoundly worthy of note.
Fortunately danger and trouble soon appeared from abroad. This united all the cantons anew, and was therefore salutary.
Maximilian I of Austria was Emperor of Germany. He had received from France the country of Lower Burgundy, and, to hold it more securely, incorporated it with the German empire as a single circle. He wished to make Switzerland, also, such a German imperial circle. The Confederates refused, preferring to remain by themselves as they had been until then. In Swabia, the existing states had formed a league among themselves for the suppression of small wars and feuds. This pleased the politic Emperor; by becoming an associate, he placed himself at the head of the league, which he was able to direct for the aggrandizement of his house of Austria. He desired that the Confederates, also, should enter the Swabian League. The Swiss again refused, preferring to remain by themselves as before.
The Emperor was irritated at this, and at Innspruck he said to the deputies of the Confederates: "You are refractory members of the empire; some day I shall have to pay you a visit, sword in hand." The deputies answered and said: "We humbly beseech your imperial majesty to dispense with such a visit, for our Swiss are rude men, and do not even respect crowns."
The boldness of the Confederates wounded the Swabian League no less. Many provocations and quarrels took place, here and there, between the people on the borders, so that the city of Constance, for her own security, joined the Swabian League. For, one day, a band of valiant men of Thurgau, incited by the bailiff from Uri, had tried to surprise the city, in order to punish her for her bravadoes against the Swiss.
Neither were the Austrians good neighbors to the Grisons. The Tyrol and Engadine were constantly discussing and disputing about markets, privileges, and tolls. Once, indeed, in 1476, the Tyrolese had marched armed into the valley of Engadine, but were driven back into their own country, through the narrow Pass of Finstermunz, with bloody heads. Now there was a fresh cause of quarrel. In the division of the Toggenburger inheritance, the rights of Toggenburg in the Ten Jurisdictions had fallen to the counts of Matsch, Sax, and Montfort, and afterward, 1478-1489, by purchase, to the ducal house of Austria. Hence much trouble arose.
As the Grisons had equal cause with the Confederates to fear the power and purposes of Emperor Maximilian, the Gray League, 1497, and that of God's House, 1498, made a friendly and defensive alliance with Zurich, Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, and Glarus. The Ten Jurisdictions dared not join them for fear of Austria.
Then the Emperor restrained his anger no longer. And, though already burdened with a heavy war in the Netherlands, he sent fresh troops into the Tyrol, and the forces of the Swabian League advanced and hemmed in Switzerland from the Grison Pass, near Luziensteig, between the Rhetian mountains and Germany, along the Lake of Constance and the Rhine, as far as Basel.
Then Switzerland and Rhetia were in great danger. But the Grisons rose courageously to defend their freedom, as did all the Confederates. The Sargansers, also, and the Appenzellers hastened to the Schollenberg; the banners of Valais, Basel, and Schaffhausen soon floated in view of the enemy. No man stayed at home.
It was in February, 1499, that the strife began. Then eight thousand imperialists entered the Grison territory of Munsterthal and Engadine; Louis of Brandis, the Emperor's general, with several thousand men, surprised and held the Pass of Luziensteig, and, by the treachery of four burghers, the little city of Maienfeld. But the Grisons retook the Luziensteig, and eight hundred Swabians here found their death; the rest fled to Balzers. Then the Confederates passed the Rhine near Azmoos, and, with the Grisons, obtained a great victory near Treisen. The Swabian nobility, with ten thousand soldiers, were posted near St. John's, at Hochst and Hard, between Bregenz and Fussach. Eight thousand Confederates killed nearly half of the enemy's army, ascended as far as the forests of Bregenz, and imposed contributions on the country. Ten thousand other Confederates passed victoriously over the Hegau, and in eight days burned twenty villages, hamlets, and castles. Skirmish followed quickly upon skirmish, battle upon battle.
The enemy, indeed, issuing from Constance, succeeded in surprising the Confederate garrison of Ermatingen while asleep, and in murdering in their beds sixty-three defenceless men. But they bloodily expiated this in the wood of Schwaderlochs, whence eighteen thousand of them, vanquished by two thousand Confederates, fled in such haste that the city gates of Constance were too narrow for the fugitives, and the number of their dead exceeded that of the Swiss opposed to them. A body of Confederates on the upper Rhine penetrated into Wallgau, where the enemy were intrenched near Frastenz, and, fourteen thousand strong, feared not the valor of the Swiss. But when Henry Wolleb, the hero of Uri, had passed the Langengasterberg with two thousand brave men, and burned the strong intrenchment, his heroic death was the signal of victory to the Confederates. They rushed under the thunder of artillery into the ranks of Austria and dealt their fearful blows. Three thousand dead bodies covered the battle-field of Frastenz. Such Austrians as were left alive fled in terror through woods and waters. Then each Swiss fought as though victory depended on his single arm; for Switzerland and Swiss glory, each flew joyously to meet danger and death, and counted not the number of the enemy. And wherever a Swiss banner floated, there was more than one like John Wala of Glarus, who, near Gams in Rheinthal, measured himself singly with thirty horsemen.
The Grisons, also, fought with no less glory. Witness the Malserhaide in Tyrol, where fifteen thousand men, under Austrian banners, behind strong intrenchments, were attacked by only eight thousand Grisons. The ramparts were turned, the intrenchments stormed. Benedict Fontana was first on the enemy's wall. He had cleared the way. With his left hand holding the wide wound from which his entrails protruded, he fought with his right and cried: "Forward, now, fellow-leaguers! let not my fall stop you! It is but one man the less! To-day you must save your free fatherland and your free leagues. If you are conquered, you leave your children in everlasting slavery." So said Fontana and died. The Malserhaide was full of Austrian dead. Nearly five thousand fell. The Grisons had only two hundred killed and seven hundred wounded.
When Emperor Maximilian, in the Netherlands, heard of so many battles lost, he came and reproached his generals, and said to the princes of the German empire: "Send to me auxiliaries against the Swiss, so bold as to have attacked the empire. For these rude peasants, in whom there is neither virtue nor noble blood nor magnanimity, but who are full of coarseness, pride, perfidy, and hatred of the German nation, have drawn into their party many hitherto faithful subjects of the empire."
But the princes of the empire delayed to send auxiliaries, and the Emperor then learned, with increasing horror, that his army sent over the Engadine mountains to suppress the Grison League had been destroyed in midsummer by avalanches, famine, and the masses of rock which the Grisons threw down from the mountains; then that on the woody height of Bruderholz, not far from Basel, one thousand Swiss had vanquished more than four thousand of their enemies; that, shortly after, in the same region near Dornach, six thousand Confederates had obtained a brilliant victory over fifteen thousand Austrians, killing three thousand men, with their general, Henry of Furstenberg. Then the Emperor reflected that within eight months the Swiss had been eight times victorious in eight battles. And he decided to end a war in which more than twenty thousand men had already fallen, and nearly two thousand villages, hamlets, castles, and cities been destroyed.
Peace was negotiated and concluded on September 22, 1499, in the city of Basel. The Emperor acknowledged the ancient rights and the conquests of the Confederates, and granted to them, moreover, the ordinary jurisdiction over Thurgau, which, with the criminal jurisdiction and other sovereign rights, had, until then, belonged to the city of Constance. Thenceforward the emperors thought no more of dissolving the Confederacy, or of incorporating it with the German empire. In the fields of Frastenz, of Malserhaide, and Dornach were laid the first foundation-stones of Swiss independence of foreign power.
The confederated cantons thankfully acknowledged what Basel and Schaffhausen had constantly done in these heroic days for the whole Confederacy, and that warlike Appenzell had never been backward at the call of glory and liberty. Therefore Basel, June 9, 1501, and flourishing Schaffhausen, August 9, 1501, were received into the perpetual Swiss bond, and finally, 1513, Appenzell, already united in perpetual alliance with most of the cantons, was acknowledged as coequal with all the Confederates.
Thus, in the two hundred fifth year after the deed of William Tell, the Confederacy of the Thirteen Cantons was completed. But Valais and Grisons were considered as cantons allied to the Confederacy, as were St. Gallen, Muhlhausen, Rothweil in Swabia, and other cities—all free places, subject to no prince—united with the Swiss by a defensive alliance.
At that period, the thirteen cantons of the Swiss Confederacy were not yet, as now, equal in virtue of the bond, nor bound together directly by one and the same covenant. They were properly united only with the three cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, as with a common centre, but among themselves by special treaties. Each canton was attentive to its own interests and glory, seldom to those of the others or to the welfare of the whole Confederacy. Fear of the ambition and power of neighboring lords and princes had drawn them together more and more. So long as this fear lasted, their union was strong.
As the governments were independent of each other so far as their covenants allowed, and of foreign princes also, they called themselves free Swiss. But within the country districts there was little freedom for the people. Only in the shepherd cantons—Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, also Zug, Glarus, and Appenzell—did the country people possess equal rights, and, in the city cantons, only the burghers of the cities; and often, even among these latter, only a few rich or ancient families. The rest of the people, dependent on the cities, having been either purchased or conquered, were subjects, often indeed serfs, and enjoyed only the limited rights which they had formerly possessed under the counts and princes. Even the shepherd cantons held subjects, whom they, like princes, governed by their bailiffs. And the Confederate cantons and cities would by no means allow their subjects to purchase their freedom, as the old counts and lords had formerly permitted the Confederates themselves to do.
But the people cared little for liberty; made rude and savage by continued wars, they loved only quarrels and combats, revels and debauchery, when there was no war in their own country. The young men, greedy of booty, followed foreign drums and fought the battles of princes for hire. There were no good schools in the villages, and the clergy cared little for this. Indeed, the morals of the clergy were often no less depraved than those of the citizens and country people; even in the convents great disorders frequently prevailed with great wealth. Many of the priests were very ignorant; many drank, gambled, and blasphemed; many led shameless lives.
In the chief cities of the cantons, debauchery and dissipation were rife. There was much division between citizens and councillors; envy and distrust between the different professions. The lords, when once seated in the great and small councils—legislative and executive—cared more for themselves and their families than for the welfare of the citizens; they endeavored to advance their sons and relatives, and to procure lucrative offices for them. In all the cantons there were certainly some great, patriotic souls who preferred the interests of their country to their own, but no one listened to them.
As Switzerland had now no foreign wars to fear, and the neighboring kings and princes were pleased to have in their armies Swiss, for whose life and death they cared much less than for the life and death of their own subjects, the principal families of the city and country cantons took advantage of these circumstances to open fountains of wealth for themselves. The desire of the kings to enlist valiant Swiss favored the avidity of the council lords, as did the wish of the young men to get booty. In spite of the positive prohibition of the magistrates, thousands of young men often enlisted in foreign service, where most of them perished miserably, because no one cared for them. Therefore the governments judged it best to make treaties with the kings for the raising of Swiss regiments, commanded by national officers, subject to their own laws and regularly paid, so that each government could take care of its subjects when abroad. "Confederates! you require a vent for your energies," had Rudolf Reding of Schwyz already said, when, years before, he saw the free life of the young men after the Burgundian war.
Now began the letting out of Swiss, Grisons, and Valaisians to foreign military service, by their governments. The first treaty of this nature was made by the King of France, 1479-1480, with the Confederates in Lucerne. Next the house of Austria hired mercenaries, 1499; the princes of Italy did the same, as did others afterward. Even the popes themselves wanted a lifeguard of Swiss; the first, 1503, was Pope Julius II, who was often engaged in war.
Switzerland suffered much from this course. Many a field remained untilled, many a plough stood still, because the husbandman had taken mercenary arms. And, if he returned alive, he brought back foreign diseases and vices, and corrupted the innocent by evil example, for he had acquired but little virtue in the wars. Only the sons of the patricians and council lords obtained captaincies, commands, and riches, by which they increased their influence and consideration in the land, and could oppress others. They prided themselves on the titles of nobility and decorations conferred by kings, and imagined these to be of value, and that they themselves were more than other Swiss.
When the kings perceived the cupidity and folly of the Swiss, they took advantage of them for their own profit, sent ambassadors into Switzerland, distributed presents, granted gratifications and pensions to their partisans in the councils, and for these the council lords became willing servants of foreign princes. Then one canton was French, another Milanese; one Venetian, another Spanish; but rarely was one Swiss. This redounded greatly to the shame of the Swiss. When the German Emperor and the King of France were, at the same time, canvassing the favor of the cantons and bargaining in competition for troops, so great was the contempt or insolence of the French ambassador at Bern, 1516, that he distributed the royal pensions to the lords by sound of trumpet. At Freiburg he poured out silver crowns upon the ground, and, while he heaped them up with a shovel, said to the bystanders, "Does not this silver jingle better than the Emperor's empty words?" So much had love of money debased the Swiss.
The twelve cantons, Appenzell being the only exception, were at one moment allied with Milan against France, at the next with France against Milan. Milan was rightly called the Schwyzer's grave. It was not unusual for Confederates to fight against Confederates on foreign soil, and to kill each other for hire. The ecclesiastical lord, Matthew Schinner, Bishop of Sion in Valais, a very deceitful man, helped greatly to occasion this. According as he was hired, he intrigued in Switzerland, sometimes for the King of France, sometimes against France for the Pope, who, in payment, even made him cardinal and ambassador to the Confederacy.
The mercenary wars of the Swiss upon foreign battle-fields were not wars for liberty or for honor; but these hirelings of princes maintained their reputation for valor even there. With the aid of several thousand Confederates, the King of France subjected the whole of Lombardy in the space of twenty days. But the expelled Duke of the country soon returned with five thousand Swiss, whom he had enlisted contrary to the will of the magistracy, to drive out the French. Then the King of France received twenty thousand men from the cantons with whom he was allied; maintained himself in Italy, and gave to the three cantons, Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, 1502-1503, the districts of Palenza, Riviera, and Bellenz. But, as soon as the King thought he could do without the Swiss, he paid them badly and irregularly. Cardinal Schinner, pleased at this, immediately shook a bag of gold, with fifty-three thousand guilders, in favor of the Pope and of Venice. At once, 1512, twenty thousand Swiss and Grisons crossed the high Alps and joined the Venetians against the French. The Grisons took possession of Valtelina, Chiavenna, and Bormio. They asserted that, a century before, an ejected duke of Milan had ceded these valleys to the bishopric of Coire. The Confederates of the twelve cantons subjected Lugano, Locarno, and Valmaggia. The French were driven out of Lombardy, and the young duke Maximilian Sforza, son of him who had been dispossessed by them, was reinstated in his father's inheritance at Milan. Victorious for him, the Confederates beat the French near Novara, June 6, 1513; two thousand Swiss fell, it is true, but ten thousand of the enemy. Still more murderous was the two-days' battle of Melegnano, September 14, 1515, in which barely ten thousand Swiss fought against fifty thousand French. They lost the battle-field, indeed, but not their honor. They sadly retreated to Milan, with their field-pieces on their backs, their wounded in the centre of their army. The enemy lost the flower of their troops, and called this action the "Battle of the Giants."
Then the King of France, Francis I, terrified by a victory which resembled a defeat, made, in the next year, a perpetual peace with the Confederates, and, by money and promises, persuaded some to furnish him with troops; the others, that they would allow no enrolling by his enemies. Thus the Confederates once more helped him against the Emperor and Pope and against Milan, and the King concluded a friendly alliance with them in 1521. During many years they shed their blood for him on the battle-fields of Italy, without good result, without advantage, except that the Confederacy stood godmother to his new-born son. Each canton sent to Paris, for the fête, a deputy with a baptismal present of fifty ducats. More agreeable to the King than this present was the promptitude with which the Swiss sent sixteen thousand of their troops to his assistance in Italy. However, as they had lost, April 20, 1522, three thousand men near Bicocca; as of nearly fifteen thousand who entered Lombardy, 1524, hardly four thousand came back; as, finally, in the battle near Pajia, February 24, 1525, in which the King himself became prisoner to the Emperor, the Swiss experienced a fresh loss of seven thousand men, they by degrees lost all taste for Italian wars.