Battle of Murten. (Murten Panorama Foundation, Switzerland)

Swords out of ploughshares.

The fighting qualities that made the Swiss one of the most feared and respected military powers in Europe had been nurtured over many centuries, and although farming and the raising of livestock was the major source of their economy, they were not by nature a placid or timorous people. Thus a strong sense of independence was to be found throughout the scattered towns and communities, such as the Waldstätte or ‘Forest Cantons’ around Lake Lucerne – Unterwalden, Uri and Schwyz – which, in 1291, formed an alliance (Everlasting League) against the, what they considered, oppressive Austrian Habsburgs.

The battle of Morgarten, 15^th November 1315, which, according to the eminent German military historian Hans Delbrück, ‘was buried beneath a rubble-like mass of legends and fables,’[1] shows us the way in which the Swiss first began to organize themselves into a coherent fighting force. The fierce nature of the Canton of Schwyz propelled the other Forest Cantons into an armed confrontation with Austria by sacking the monastery of Einsieden, which was under Habsburg control. Thereafter Duke Leopold marched an army of some 5,000 men, including 2,000 knights, against the Schwyzers in order to punish them for their aggression.

It is worth quoting Delbrück here at some length so that a better understanding of the Swiss nature and intent can be established during the time period under discussion in this article.

‘...it was not a question of the desperate revolutionary rising of a peaceful peasantry but rather of a well-planned struggle of a warlike community with battle-hardened leaders under the command of their own top authority. In the case of men with such military experience, we are justified in filling in, in keeping with the concept of a well planned, systematic action, the individual reports and indications of their acts that have been preserved for us.

From ancient times, people in mountainous areas have strengthened their natural protection against enemy attacks by blocking the entrances in the valleys through some kind of man-made works. In Switzerland such obstacles were called “letzi” or “letzinen,” which is related to the word “lass,” whose superlative form is “letzi”; there are still eighty-five of them that can be confirmed today. The Rӧuschiben letzi is supposed to be from the pre-Roman period, the Serviezel letzi and also the foundation of the one at Näfels are supposed to be of Roman origin, and four others are thought to be from the fourth century. In Schwyz six litzinen can be confirmed; they covered not only the entrances to the country, but a few of them also consisted of palisades in the Vierwaldstätter Lake and Zuger Lake in order to prevent landings. Certainly some of these installations reached back into the thirteenth century and even earlier, long before the battle of Morgarten. When the great decisive battle for their liberation from the power of the [Habsburgs] now approached, the Schwyzer had nothing to do that was more important than reinforcing their litzinen. There is also in existence a document indicating that the community of the march, [boundary or border between two countries or states] the people of Schwyz, in 1310 sold parcels of the land to two brothers, in order to apply the profit “an die Mur ze Altum mata,” that is, the letzi at Rothenthurm bei Altmatt, of which one tower still exists today.[2]

Knowing full well that the Schwyzers had been strengthening their letzinen, Leopold did not take the roads along the right or left of the Zuger Lake towards Arth, but choose an alternative route along the east bank of Lake Aegeri. During this time the Schwyzers had been reinforced by contingents from Uri and Unterwalden, but even with these the whole Swiss force only amounted to just over 1,700 men.

Map of Morgarten. Wikipedia

Unfortunately for the Austrians their route passed through a narrow defile which the Schwyzers had blocked off with tree-trunks and boulders, causing the Austrians column to veer off the road to the left and take a narrow path leading to the village of Schafstetten. Here their progress was further impaired by yet more felled trees from behind which a group of Schwyzers assailed them with stones and arrows. As a consequence of this the Austrian column became compacted, as more troops arrived, thus causing a bottle-neck of men and horses. To complete the discomfiture of the Austrians, the Schwyzers now sent a further detachment down from their hidden position on the wooded slopes to block off their escape, while the main body of the Swiss came charging down the hillside throwing stones and causing mayhem with their halberds and axes. With no room to manoeuvre, the Austrians were cut down in hundreds, while those that attempted to escape were forced into marshland where they were slaughtered. The total Austrian losses will never be fully known, but at least 2,000 may have been killed, since the Swiss, in general, had a policy of not taking prisoners. The Schwyzer losses were no more than a hundred killed and wounded.

Swiss stone thrower at Morgarten

The battle of Morgarten had two lasting consequences; firstly it gave the Swiss the confidence to flex their military muscle still further; secondly it instilled in the minds of their commanders the idea that, lacking the means to wage a war of attrition because of their agrarian economy, they would have to adapt to the offensive in all their battles in order to obtain a swift and decisive result.[3]