And so to war.

The various Swiss cities and cantons were not averse to fighting among themselves. The battle of Laupen (21^st June 1339) was fought between Berne and Fribourg, who had allied itself with Burgundy and other related duchies, Waadt, Aarburg, Greyerz, Valengin and Neuenburg, to stop Bernese expansion. For their part the Bernese called upon the ‘Three Forest Cantons’ for assistance, which was given, albeit in return for payment.

Fribourg and her allies laid siege to Laupen on the 9^th June, and on the 21^st the Bernese relief army arrived before the walls of the beleaguered town. The strengths of the opposing armies are variously given in the sources at 10,000 - 15,000 for the Fribourg/Burgundy alliance, and 6,000 - 8,000 for the Bernese, however maybe the figure of 6,000 men on each side would be a fair estimate. The ensuing battle proves interesting, as it highlights the changes that were to take place both in Swiss tactics and weaponry.

Near the small village of Bremberg, just to the east of Laupen, the two armies drew up for battle. The Bernese placed the contingent from the forest cantons, in column, some 1,000 strong, facing the Burgundian mounted knights on the left. The main body of their infantry, around 3,000 men, were formed in column, fifty men wide and fifty men deep. A further 2,000 troops were held as a rear guard, forty men wide and forty deep; hand gunners and bowmen covered the front of each column.

The exact formation of the Fribourgers and their allies is not precisely known, other than, as stated above, that the Burgundian knights took station on their right. Presumably the various contingents from each of the allied duchies would have formed themselves in column, while the Fribourgers were massed in a solid phalanx.

With the Bernese drawn up on higher ground, the allies decided to send a force to outflank their position, ‘...while the knights paraded in front of the enemy position and the young lords were dubbed knights.’[1]  By the time the outflanking column was in position it was near evening. Nevertheless, upon the approach of these troops the Bernese rearguard quit the field. Luckily the rest of their troops stood firm as the allies, seeing the panic caused by their enveloping manoeuvre, launched a frontal assault. This was countered by the Bernese, who immediately went over to the offensive themselves, causing the Fribourgers to break and scatter. The column of the Forest Cantons had also moved forward but were checked by the Burgundian knights and forced to halt, and although their “hedgehog” formation of halberds protected them on all sides from any serious penetration, they nevertheless would have probably been defeated when the Burgundians brought up their archers and crossbowmen. Fortuitously for them, the Bernese had cleared the field before them and now turned against the knights, in a manoeuvre that was to show how infantry had once more become a tactical factor on the battlefield. Now attacked themselves from the rear, the Burgundian knights fled in confusion, many being killed. The allied troops who had originally been sent to attack the Bernese rear failed to contribute anything more to the battle and, ‘Presumably, the men were not under the control of their leaders or had no true leadership at all and were pursuing the fleeing enemy [the Bernese rearguard] in order to take prisoners and to plunder.’[2] Here we must consider one of the major factors in warfare – command and control.

The battle of Laupen shows so much strategic and tactical thought and leadership on the part of the Bernese that we may well ask who the general was who accomplished this feat. The assumption of a threatening defensive position and the shift from the defensive into the attack remind us of Marathon, and, strangely enough, there exists on the Bernese general a source account quite similar to that of Militiades. To be sure, the contemporary source, the “Conflictus,”makes no mention at all of a commander, but this account is completely defective from the military viewpoint. On the other hand, Justinger’s account, in which, of course, legend and history can no longer be completely separated from one another, reports that the knight Rudolf von Erlach held the high command position. This man, very rich and respected, was at the same time the vassal of one of the allied enemies, the count of Nidau, and a burgher of Berne. When the war clouds formed, he freed himself from his feudal lord and placed himself at the disposition of the Bernese. His father had already commanded the Bernese at the engagement on the Dornbühl in 1298, and he himself had “proven himself well in six battles.”The Bernese believed they had found in him the right commander, “that he would show and teach them how they should start and end their affairs, since in war wisdom is better than strength.”[3]

As well as the need for a strong and respected command, the Swiss also realised that the halberd alone could not deter a determined attack by mounted knights. By adding the pike, which was used by many of the lowland cantons, and was gradually increased in length to as much as fifteen or eighteen feet, their manoeuvrable columns became immune to any challenge from mounted troops. This, plus the inclusion of marksmen within the columns, to counter any action by enemy archers, made the Swiss a formidable force on the battlefield. This was made glaringly obvious at the battle of Sempach, 9^th July 1386,

Not being able to avenge themselves after their defeat at Morgarten owing to an ongoing war with Louis of Bavaria, the Habsburgs had called an armistice, not peace, with the Swiss, which was extended from year to year thus allowing the cantons to consolidate. When the Emperor Charles IV died, Duke Leopold III decided to take back Austrian territory now held by the Swiss. This triggered off a succession of alliances between the Swiss cantons: Lucerne (1332), Zürich (1351), Zug and Glarus (1352), and Berne (1353).[4]

With a considerable increase in strength, the Swiss were now determined to rid themselves of Austrian control altogether and began a systematic campaign of laying waste to areas still under Habsburg rule. This proved too much for Leopold who now advanced against the Confederates with an army of 4,000 men.

At the outset Leopold did not concentrate on attacking Zürich or Lucerne, as the Swiss had anticipated, but moved his forces against the town of Sempach, approximately 10 miles north of Lucerne, knowing full well that the Swiss would move against him and offer battle. As Delbrück states, ‘ In front of Zürich or Lucerne, the conditions for such a battle would have been unfavourable for Austria, since security against one of these large places would absorb a part of his troops. But a small place like Sempach required only a small force to besiege it and left almost the entire army available for the open battle.’[5]

 
‘Prayer of the Swiss before the Battle of Sempach.’ Peter Janssen 1874

The number of Swiss engaged in the battle is once again debatable, many of the sources playing down their numbers to as low as 1,000-1,600. However we have to consider the fact that in many instances of battlefield reporting by clerics and other non-military writers, especially those who hail from the same country as the victors, these figures are normally played down in order to place greater emphasis on a David and Goliath scenario. Having consulted various accounts, I consider 3,000-4,000 to be a fair estimate of the combined Swiss forces engaged at Sempach.*

On the of 9^th July Leopold came up against the Swiss advance guard near the small village of Hildersrieden, around five miles north-east of Sempach. The Swiss moved rapidly to gain control of the high ground and seeing this Leopold ordered the knights in his “forward battle” to dismount and attack, but cattle enclosures hampered their advance. Notwithstanding this, and despite taking casualties from Swiss bowmen and stone throwers, the knights still managed to get to grips with their antagonists and capture the banner of Lucerne.[6] Several accounts mention the weight and superiority of the Austrian ‘pike’,[7] which needs some clarification. Knights would normally carry a lance and sword, although the battleaxe and mace were also used. If for some unexplained reason Leopold had equipped his knights with pikes, one fails to see what use they would have been when these troops were mounted, as they were a very unwieldy weapon even for foot soldiers, and took a long time to master for effective use on the battlefield. Therefore the knights probably used their lances, which may have given them a slight edge, allowing for the fact that not all the Swiss units had as yet adopted the pike as their main weapon, and that the halberd was not as effective against a dismounted foe.

Things were not going well for the Swiss advance guard when, fortuitously, their main army arrived on the battlefield and struck the knights in flank causing them to break back in panic. This rearward flight also affected the other Austrian troops moving up in the rear, and the whole mass soon degenerated into a fleeing mob of fugitives, Leopold and many nobles being cut down in the route.

That the Swiss had been lucky in this battle is obvious when one considers the fact that had Leopold awaited the arrival of his main body, before attempting to get to grips with the Swiss advance guard, and had he used all his knights as infantry, then the outcome of the battle could indeed have been very different.