Switzerland: Military History and Notable Events

1315 - Battle of Morgarten (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Three Forest Cantons of the Swiss and their forces defeated Duke Leopold of Austria and his forces, thus having consolidated the League of the Three Forest Cantons, which formed the core of the Old Swiss Confederacy

• Battle in which a smaller army of Swiss foot-soldiers at Luke Zug had routed the army which came to the valleys of Schwyz and Unterwalden to

  • subdue the peasant farmers there

  • bring central Switzerland within the domain of the Habsburg Empire

• Battle prior to which the Habsburgs had long enjoyed manorial rights in the valleys of Schwyz and Unterwalden, but hadn’t ever pressed their claim to political power there

• Battle which caused the Three Forest Cantons, which were become increasingly independent prior to the namesake, to come together and fortify the entrances to their valley

• Battle which was triggered when a dispute over grazing rights involved the men of Schwyz in attacking an abbey and taking some of its monks hostage

• Battle in which Duke Leopold of Austria devised a plan involving naval forces on Lake Lucerne to block off Unterwalden and attack Schwyz

  • However, he did not reckon with the slaughter that followed, mostly of his own men and its noble leaders in the namesake district

1386 - Battle of Sempach (All Facts)

• Battle in which the (Old) Swiss Confederation defeated Leopold III of Austria and his forces

• Battle in which Leopold III of Austria was killed in battle

• Battle which broke out due to Leopold III of Austria’s growing power in the Duchy of Swabia

• Battle after which a treaty was signed, (supposedly) the Treaty of Zurich by Albert, which recognized recent Swiss conquests and allowing the Swiss to keep all the land they won

• Battle after which a few years later the Habsburg dukes of Austria agreed to another 20-year truce with the Swiss Confederation

1474 - Perpetual Peace (All Facts)

• Peace treaty signed between Archduke Sigismund of Habsburg Austria and the Old Swiss Confederacy (the Eight Cantons), in which the parties agreed to effectively end over a century of open hostilities between themselves, forcing Austria to renounce its claims on several Swiss-occupied territories and establishing a critical anti-Burgundian alliance

1474 - 1477 - Burgundian Wars (All Facts)

• Series of conflicts between the Old Swiss Confederacy (the Eight Cantons) and France and the territories of Burgundy under Charles Martin

• Series of conflicts in which

  • The Swiss and the French took the district of Vaud

  • Charles Martin seized Lorraine in France

• Series of conflicts which effectively ended the Kingdom of Burgundy

1476 - Battle of Grandson (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Swiss defeated Charles Martin and his forces during the Burgundian Wars

• Battle in which the Swiss pikemen bore down the heavily-armored Burgundian cavalry

1476 - Battle of Morat (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Swiss and Duke Rene II of Lorraine defeated Charles Martin and his forces during the Burgundian Wars

• Battle in which Charles sought revenge for “shameful defeat” by besieging the namesake city, only to again be routed by the Swiss

• Battle in which half of Charles Martin’s army died

• Battle after which Charles Martin fled

1477 - Battle of Nancy (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Swiss and Duke Rene II of Lorraine and his French forces defeated Charles Martin and his Burgundian forces, thus ending the Burgundian Wars and ending the Dukedom of Burgundy

• Battle after which Charles Martin’s body was found naked on a frozen pond, half eaten by wolves, and his skull cloven by a Swiss battle-axe; having been completely unrecognizable and identifiable only by the scars on his body

1494 - 1559 - Italian Wars (All Facts)

• Series of conflicts between the Valois (France) and the Habsburgs (Spain and Holy Roman Empire) that began with the First Italian War and ended with the Ninth Italian War and mostly took place in (Northern) Italy

1494 - 1498 - First Italian War (All Facts)

• Conflict in which the Habsburgs (Spain), with support from the Papacy and League of Venice, defeated the Valois (France)

• Conflict that began with King Charles VIII of France’s invasion of the Kingdom of Naples

• Conflict in which King Charles VIII and his army infected the Kingdom of Naples with the “French Pox” disease

• Conflict in which King Charles VIII and his army was forced to retreat from Italy, thus halting French expansion and preventing France from securing a permanent foothold in the Kingdom of Naples

1495 - Battle of Fornovo (All Facts)

• Battle in which King Charles VIII of France and his forces were defeated by the Italians and Swiss

• Battle which left the French army exhausted, emaciated, and riddled with disease, limping its way home to France after its defeat

1499 - 1501 - Second Italian War (All Facts)

• Conflict in which the Valois (France), with support from the Papacy, Venice, Florence, and Switzerland, defeated the Habsburgs (Spain)

• Conflict in which King Louis XII of France, with the help of Gian Giacomo Trivulzio and his Italian forces, seized and conquered the Duchy of Milan

• Conflict after which Ludovico Sforza fled from the Duchy of Milan

• Conflict in which the Milanese rebelled against Gian Giacomo Trivulzio and his Italian forces and the French, thus Sforza returned and took advantage of the revolt and attacked the French back

  • He was eventually deserted by his troops, however, and handed over to the enemy and imprisoned by the French

1508 - 1516 - Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai / War of the Holy League (All Facts)

• Conflict in which the Valois (France) and Venice defeated the Habsburgs (Spain and the Holy Roman Empire) and England

• Conflict which began when King Louis XII of France, Pope Julius II and the namesake league sought to punish the Republic of Venice for annexing papal provinces on the Adriatic Sea and thus attacked and defeated the Republic of Venice as a result in the Battle of Agnadello

• Conflict in which Pope Julius II and the namesake league (including Venice, Spain, and Switzerland) then turned against France, whose foothold in northern Italy became too strong for the papacy and namesake league

  • Conflict in which Pope Julius II raised the cry to “clear the Barbarians out of Italy” (the French under King Louis XII), turning against the King of France after previously lifting the excommunication of Venice

• Conflict which saw protracted war in Lombardy, the Romagna, and Veneto in northern Italy

• Conflict in which King Francis of France secured the Duchy of Milan for the French

• Conflict triggered by a Genoese revolt against French forces that had occupied the city

• Conflict during which Matthäus Schiner dissuaded the Swiss (the Old Swiss Confederacy) from forming an alliance with the French against Pope Julius II

• Conflict which saw the following battles take place including

  • Battle of Agnadello

  • Siege of Mirandola

  • Battle of Ravenna

  • Battle of the Spurs

  • Siege of Tournai

  • Battle of Novara

  • Battle of Marignano

• Conflict which ended with

  • The Treaty of Fribourg

  • The Concordant of Bologna

1508 - 1511 - League of Cambrai (All Facts)

• (Temporary, short-lived) Military Alliance between King Louis XII of France, Maximilian of the Holy Roman Empire, Pope Julius II and the Papacy, and King Ferdinand of Spain aimed at conquering the Republic of Venice and its Italian possessions that initiated the Fourth Italian War / namesake War

• Alliance which was the brainchild of Pope Julius II, ostensibly set up as a “Holy League” against the Ottoman Turks

  • The pope’s more immediate use for the league was to recover for the papacy the towns of the Romagna region under Venetian rule

  • However, the French gained too strong a foothold in northern Italy; and the namesake league eventually turned against France during the Fourth Italian War / namesake War

1513 - Battle of Novara (All Facts)

• Battle in which Milan, with help from Pope Leo X and his Holy League, along with Cardinal Matthäus Schiner and his Swiss forces, defeated France and the Republic of Venice during the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

1515 - Battle of Marignano (All Facts)

• Battle in which King Francis and France defeated Cardinal Matthias Schiner and Switzerland during the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

• Battle in which King Francis

  • initially tried to bribe the Swiss to avoid fighting them, but that approach failed and cemented the legacy of French kings as bad at bribing

  • thus planned to fight against the Swiss carefully knowing he was forced to fight

  • negotiated treaties with England, Austria, and Venice prior to it

  • assembled an army of 40K French artilleryman and German light infantry

  • crossed the Alps with his forces and drove the Swiss back into Lombardy, where he tried but failed to set up a last-ditch negotiation with the Swiss at Gallarate where he demanded the recognition of French claims to Lombardy and Milan and the withdrawal of the Swiss from Italy

• Battle in which the Swiss pikemen fought hard, but ultimately were defeated

• Battle after which King Francis and his forces marched towards and seized Milan in Italy

• Battle after which King Francis of France and Switzerland signed the Treaty of Fribourg

1515 - Treaty of Fribourg (All Facts)

• (Perpetual) Peace Treaty signed between King Francis of France and Matthäus Schiner and Switzerland (the Old Swiss Confederacy) that ended the Battle of Marignano and ended French-Swiss conflict in the Fourth Italian War / War of the League of Cambrai

1516 - 1648 - Swiss Reformation (All Facts)

• Period and Movement led by

  • Ulrich Zwingli, who

    • had an alternative form of Holy Communion held in Zurich during the Swiss Reformation, which was of great simplicity with neither music nor singing

      • He presided over a table laid with beakers and wooden vessels

      • He served the congregation first, and then himself afterwards

  • John Calvin (from France)

    • He was eventually expelled from Geneva / the Genevan Reformation

    • He was recalled to Geneva after being expelled, and from there he began to implement within Geneva in Switzerland his original scheme for the creation of a godly government

  • William Farel (from France)

    • He was eventually expelled from Geneva / the Genevan Reformation

• Period and Movement from which emerged Anabaptism

• Period and Movement focused in Zurich, during which

  • local magistrates there banned the Roman Mass

• Period and Movement which spread from Zurich to

  • Berne, which decided in favor of the namesake and abolished the Mass

  • Geneva, in which, in 1536, its city council met at its cathedral and officially adopted the Protestant Reformation after William Farel had returned there a third time after being expelled twice

    • Geneva was considered one of the citadels of the Protestant Reformation, but its council was unwilling to accept the full force of the Reformation

1521 - 1526 - Fifth Italian War / Four Years’ War (All Facts)

• Conflict in which Charles V and the Habsburgs (the Holy Roman Empire and Spain) defeated King Francis and the Valois (France)

  • Conflict upon which King Francis of France lost his war with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V for supremacy in Europe

• Conflict which saw the

  • Holy Roman Empire’s invasion of Champagne

  • Battle of Bicocca

  • Siege of Marseilles

  • Battle of Pavia

• Conflict which saw

  • a modernization of European military forces, especially with regards to new arms (guns), defenses (Bastion Fort), and tactics / strategies

  • new tactics being developed for mounted troops using new carbines (arquebus) and horse pistols, which became the masters of the battlefield, replacing and eventually contributing to the elimination of armored cavalry and knights in armor

  • the implementation of the Bastion / Star Fort (“trace italienne;” a circuit of low, thick walls punctuated by square bastions), which

    • replaced the high and thin walls of the Middle Ages as new defenses

    • were designed to absorb the punishment of the heavy siege guns which were a part of every successful army by that time

    • changed the entire pattern of warfare because the cities protected by them could no longer be taken by traditional methods of blowing a hole in the walls and pouring infantry through the breach and instead forced towns to be encircled by siege-works and batteries and starved and frightened into submission

    • essentially made warfare more a matter of engineering and logistics

  • the advent of the gun bring about great changes at sea since

    • ships no longer rammed and boarded each other, but pounded each other with formidable arrays of guns firing through ports in ships’ sides

    • gunships eventually set the pattern which all maritime nations must have followed if they wanted to avoid facing inevitable defeat

• Conflict which ended with the Treaty of Madrid

1522 - Battle of Bicocca (All Facts)

• Battle in which the Habsburgs (Spain and the Holy Roman Empire), supported by the Papacy and the Duchy of Milan, defeated the Valois (France), supported by the Republic of Venice and Switzerland, during the Fifth Italian War / Four Years’ War

• Battle after which the imperial army of the Holy Roman Empire occupied the Republic of Genoa, where a doge who supported Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was appointed

1526 - 1530 - Sixth Italian War / War of the League of Cognac (All Facts)

• Conflict in which Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the Habsburgs (the Holy Roman Empire and Spain) defeated King Francis and the Valois (France), supported by the League of Cognac (England, Switzerland, and the Italian city-states of Florence, Venice, Milan, and Genoa)

• Conflict which ended the Republic of Florence (it was no longer a republic after the namesake conflict)

• Conflict during which the Papacy switched sides, initially supporting the League of Cognac, but then defecting to the Habsburgs

• Conflict which saw

  • The Sack of Rome

• Conflict which ended with

  • The Treaty of Cambrai / Ladies Peace / “Pax de Daimes”

1526 - 1529 - League of Cognac (All Facts)

• Anti-Habsburg military alliance formed by France, Venice, Florence, and Milan; as well as England, Switzerland, and the Kingdom of Navarre within Spain to curb the overwhelming dominance of Charles V in Italy and the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and Italian city-states that supported him

• It was initially formed by the Papacy, but the Papacy, by the end of the namesake conflict / Sixth Italian War, switched to the side of Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire

1529 - Treaty of Cambrai / Ladies Peace / “Pax de Daimes” (All Facts)

• Peace Treaty signed between Louise of Savoy (on behalf of King Francis of France) and Margaret of Austria (on behalf of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) which ended the Sixth Italian War / War of the League of Cognac

• Peace Treaty in which

  • King Francis of France

    • renounced all its rights in Italy, Flanders, and Artois

    • agreed to pay a ransom of two million crowns

  • Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire

    • renounced any claims to Burgundy

1529 - Marburg Colloquy (All Facts)

• Meeting organized by Philip of Hesse which sought to close the emerging gap in Protestant theology between Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli

  • Meeting in which Philip of Hesse invited the reformers of Wittenberg, Strasbourg, and Zurich to meet in the namesake castle and tried (and ultimately failed) to resolve their theological differences which emerged as divisions within the Protestant Reformation

• Meeting in which Philip of Hesse managed to persuade Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli to visit his castle in the namesake town in Germany to discuss their views, along with other Protestant reformers of the time including

  • Philip Melanchthon

  • Johannes Oecolampadius

• Meeting in which they all signed off on fifteen articles, agreeing on all items of doctrine except the Eucharist

  • Meeting in which Luther and Zwingli agreed and

    • renounced transubstantiation

    • renounced the belief that the eucharist was a sacrifice for the living and the dead

    • insisted on communion in both kinds of Christ

  • Meeting in which Luther and Zwingli disagreed on

    • whether or not Christ's body and blood are present in the Eucharist

• Meeting which ended badly, as Luther and Zwingli remained divided politically

  • Luther refused to move against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

  • Zwingli was keen for the Swiss to revolt against the Holy Roman Empire

1530 - (Second) Diet of Augsburg (All Facts)

• Imperial Diet in which the Catholics defeated the Protestants and decided that the Protestants (Lutherans) must recognize the Pope or would be threatened with force if they failed to do so

  • As a result, the more moderate Lutherans united with the more militant and radical Zwinglians (Swiss)

• Imperial Diet in which Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the Catholics and Philip of Melanchthon and the Protestants both wanted to achieve unity

  • They were keen on compromise and unity in order to defend themselves against the Muslim Ottoman Turks who had just besieged Vienna a year prior

  • However, close observers saw this as nothing more than window-dressing as their religious differences remained much deeper in reality

• Imperial Diet in which the namesake Confession was presented in an (failed) attempt to avoid a permanent split and thus achieve reconciliation with the Catholic Church

  • Imperial Diet attended by Philip Melanchthon as Martin Luther was still in exile from the Holy Roman Empire

1531 - Second War of Kappel / Battle of Kappel (All Facts)

• Civil War / Battle in which the Catholic Cantons of Switzerland defeated the Protestants of Switzerland including Zurich, Basle, and Berne

• Civil War / Battle in which Ulrich Zwingli was killed

1551 - 1559 - Ninth Italian War (All Facts)

• Conflict in which Charles V and Philip II and the Habsburgs (the Holy Roman Empire and Spain) defeated King Henry II and the Valois (France), ending the Italian Wars

• Conflict which began when

  • King Henry II of France declared war against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, with the intent of recapturing parts of Italy and ensuring French, rather than Habsburg, domination of European affairs

  • King Henry II of France publicly disavowed the Council of Trent

• Conflict which saw

  • The Siege of Metz

  • The Battle of Marciano

  • The Siege of Siena

  • The Battle of St. Quentin

  • The Siege of Calais

  • The Siege of Thionville

  • The Battle of Gravelines

• Conflict which included the Siege of Siena, a brutal 15-month blockade in which Cosimo de Medici and the Habsburgs (Holy Roman Empire) defeated the Valois (France) and took Siena from the French, during the namesake war

• Conflict which ended with the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis