Swabian War
Encyclopedia
The Swabian War of 1499 (Schwabenkrieg, also called Schweizerkrieg ["Swiss War"] in Germany
and Engadiner Krieg ["War of the Engadin
"] in Austria
) was the last major armed conflict between the Old Swiss Confederacy
and the House of Habsburg. What had begun as a local conflict over the control of the Val Müstair
and the Umbrail Pass
in the Grisons soon got out of hand when both parties called upon their allies for help; the Habsburgs demanding the support of the Swabian League
, and the Federation of the Three Leagues
of the Grisons turning to the Swiss Eidgenossenschaft
. Hostilities quickly spread from the Grisons through the Rhine valley to Lake Constance
and even to the Sundgau
in southern Alsace
, the westernmost part of Habsburg Further Austria
.
Many battles were fought from January to July 1499, and in all but a few minor skirmishes, the experienced Swiss soldiers defeated the Swabian and Habsburg armies. After their victories in the Burgundian Wars
, the Swiss had battle tested troops and commanders. On the Swabian side, distrust between the knight
s and their foot soldier
s, disagreements amongst the military leadership, and a general reluctance to fight a war that even the Swabian counts considered to be more in the interests of the powerful Habsburgs than in the interest of the Holy Roman Empire
proved fatal handicaps. When his military high commander fell in the battle of Dornach
, where the Swiss won a final decisive victory, king Maximilian I
had no choice but to agree to a peace treaty signed on September 22, 1499 in Basel
. The treaty granted the Confederacy far-reaching independence from the empire. Although the Eidgenossenschaft officially remained a part of the empire until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the peace of Basel exempted it from the imperial jurisdiction and imperial taxes and thus de facto acknowledged it as a separate political entity.
and the House of Habsburg, which had risen to the throne of the Holy Roman Emperor
since 1438. Since the late 13th century, the members of the Swiss Confederacy had gradually taken control of territories that once had belonged to the Habsburg realm. The Swiss had attained the status of imperial immediacy. They were reichsfrei, subject only to the emperor himself and did not respond to any intermediate liege lord
s or princes. This status granted them a far-reaching autonomy within the Holy Roman Empire, even more so as the emperor was a distant overlord. Prior to 1438, the empire and the emperor had been an antipole to the Habsburg dukes for the Swiss. Previous emperors had repeatedly supported the confederates in their struggles against the Habsburgs, whom they saw a strong rivals. They had confirmed the Reichsfreiheit of the Swiss on several occasions; and the Swiss had succeeded in defending their privileged status against Habsburg dukes, who had tried to regain their former territories.
ascended to the throne, the Swiss suddenly faced a new situation in which they could no longer count on support from the empire. Worse yet, conflicts with the Habsburg dukes threatened to become conflicts with the empire itself. Under Frederick's reign, this did not occur yet. Frederick had sided in 1442 against the confederacy in the Old Zürich War
where he had supported the city of Zürich, and he also refused to reconfirm the imperial immediacy of the members of the Confederacy. But Frederick's troubled reign did not leave room for military operations against the Swiss. In Austria
, Frederick was in conflict first with his brother Albert
and then faced the pressure of Matthias Corvinus, who even drove him from Vienna
and forced Frederick's court to assume an itinerant lifestyle.
In the empire, Frederick faced the opposition of the Bavaria
n Wittelsbach
dynasty and of his cousin Sigismund, who was duke in Tyrol
, Vorarlberg
, and Further Austria
then. Sigismund had been in conflict with the Swiss Confederacy, too. When he had been banned by Pope Pius II
in a conflict over the nomination of a bishop in Tyrol, the Swiss had annexed the formerly Habsburg territories of the Thurgau
. In 1468, Sigismund clashed with the Swiss in the War of Waldshut, which he could end without significant territorial losses only by paying a large ransom, which he financed by pawning territories in the Sundgau
and the Alsace
to Charles the Bold of Burgundy
in 1469. Charles did not, however, help Sigismund against the Swiss, and so Sigismund bought back the territories in 1474 and concluded a peace treaty with the Confederacy, the Ewige Richtung, although the emperor never recognized it. In the following Burgundy Wars, the Swiss and Sigismund both fought against Charles the Bold.
In 1487, Sigismund arranged the marriage of Frederick's daughter Kunigunde
to duke Albert IV of Bavaria
against her father's will, and he also signed away some of his territories in Tyrol and Further Austria to Albert IV. Frederick intervened by force: he founded the Swabian League
in 1488, an alliance of the Swabian cities, the Swabian knights of the League of St. George's Shield and the counts of Württemberg
and Tyrol and Vorarlberg. With their help, he forced the Wittelsbach house to return the territories signed over by Sigismund.
In 1490, Sigismund was forced to abdicate and turn over all his territories to Frederick's son Maximilian I
. Maximilian had married Mary of Burgundy
in 1477 after the death of Charles the Bold in the Burgundy Wars and thus inherited the Burgundian territories: Duchy
and County of Burgundy
and the Netherlands
. He took over and expanded the Burgundian administration with a more centralized style of government, which in 1482, caused the outbreak of a rebellion of the cities and counts, allied with Charles VIII of France
, against Maximilian. The Duchy of Burgundy was also a French fiefdom and immediately claimed by Charles VIII. The first phase of this conflict would last until 1489, keeping Maximilian occupied in the Low Countries. He even fell into the hands of his enemies and was held prisor for four months in Bruges
in 1488. He was freed only when his father sent an army under the command of duke Albert of Saxony
to his rescue. Maximilian subsequently returned to Germany, leaving his cousin Albert as his representative. Albert would, in the following years, manage to assert the Habsburg hegemony in the Netherlands.
Maximilian had been elected King of the Romans
in 1486 on his father's initiative, and they had been ruling jointly since then. Upon the death of Frederick in 1493, Maximilian also took over his father's possessions and thus united the whole Habsburg territory in his hands. In the same year, the Peace of Senlis also marked the end of his wars against the French about his Burgundian possessions; he kept the territories in the Netherlands and also the County of Burgundy
, but had to cede the Duchy of Burgundy
to the French king. Maximilian controlled thus territories that nearly encircled the Old Swiss Confederacy: Tyrol and Vorarlberg in the east, Further Austria in the north, and the County of Burgundy in the west.
On the Swabian side, similar concerns existed. For the common people in Swabia, the independence and freedom of the Eidgenossen was a powerful and attractive role model. Many a baron in southern Swabia feared that his own subjects might revolt and seek adherence to the Swiss Confederacy. These fears were not entirely without foundation: the Swiss had begun to form alliances north of the Rhine river, concluding a first treaty with Schaffhausen
in 1454 and then also treaties with cities as far away as Rottweil
(1463) or Mulhouse
(1466).
The city of Constance
and its bishop were caught in the middle between these two blocks: they held possessions in Swabia, but the city also still exercised the high justice
over the Thurgau
, where the Swiss had assumed the low justice since the annexation in 1460. The foundation of the Swabian League prompted the Swiss city states of Zürich
and Bern to propose accepting Constance into the Swiss Confederacy. The negotiations failed, though, due to the opposition of the founding cantons of the Confederacy and Uri
in particular. The split jurisdiction over the Thurgau was the cause of many quarrels between the city and the Confederacy. In 1495, one such disagreement was answered by a punitive expedition
of soldiers of Uri
and the city had to pay the sum of 3,000 guilder
s to make them retreat and cease their plundering. (The Thurgau was a condominium
of the Swiss Confederacy, and Uri was one of the cantons involved in its administration.) Finally, Constance joined the Swabian League as a full member on November 3, 1498. Although this did not yet definitively define the position of the city—during the Reformation
, it would be allied again with Zürich and Bern, and only after the defeat of the Schmalkaldic League
in 1548 its close connections to the Eidgenossenschaft would be finally severed—it was another factor contributing to the growing estrangement between the Swiss and the Swabians.
The competition between Swiss (Reisläufer) and Swabian mercenaries (Landsknecht
e), who both fought in armies throughout Europe, sometimes opposing each other on the battlefield, sometimes competing for contracts, intensified. Contemporary chronicles agree in their reports that the Swiss, who were considered the best soldiers in Europe at the time after their victories in the Burgundian Wars
, were subject to many taunts and abuses by the Landsknechte; they were called "Kuhschweizer" and ridiculed in other ways. Such insults were neither given nor taken lightly, and frequently led to bloodshed. Indeed, such incidents would contribute to prolong the Swabian War itself by triggering skirmishes and looting expeditions that the military commands of neither side had ever wanted or planned.
Maximilian I, like other Holy Roman Emperor
s before and after him, had to face struggles with other powerful princes in the empire and he thus sought to secure his position and the imperial monarchy by furthering centralisation. At the Reichstag
in Worms
in 1495, he was partly successful, but also had to make concessions in favor of the princes. The imperial reform
proclaimed an "eternal public peace" (Ewiger Landfriede) to put an end to the abounding feuds and the anarchy of the robber baron
s and it defined a new standing Imperial Army
to enforce that peace, to which each imperial estate (Reichsstand) would have had to send troops. It also mandated the common penny (Reichspfennig), a new head tax to finance this army. Among the concessions Maximilian had to make was the institution of a new supreme court, the Reichskammergericht
, thus separating the highest judicial authority from the person and the whereabouts of the emperor. He also had to agree to the formation of a governmental council of princes called the Reichsregiment. It would never play a significant role: it convened for the first time in 1500, but was dissolved by Maximilian two years later.
The Swiss did not accept these resolutions of the Reichstag, and they explicitly refused to pay the common penny. They had no interest whatsoever in sending troops to serve in an army under Habsburg authority, nor in paying taxes, nor would they accept any foreign court's jurisdiction; and they had succeeded in securing public peace within their territories reasonably well by themselves. They simply considered the whole proposal a curtailing of their freedom. The Swiss were by far not the only members of the empire who refused to accept the resolutions, but Maximilian would use their refusal later as a pretext to place the Swiss Confederacy under an imperial ban (Reichsacht).
Open war broke out over a territorial conflict in the Grisons, where during the 15th century a federation similar to the Eidgenossenschaft had developed. Like the Swiss, these Three Leagues
had achieved a far-reaching autonomy, but also were involved in constant struggles with the Habsburgs, who ruled the neighbouring territories to the east and who kept trying to bring the Grisons under their influence. During the 1470s and 1480s, duke Sigismund had succeeded in acquiring step by step the high justice
over most of the communes of the Zehngerichtebund
("League of the Ten Jurisdictions" in the Prättigau
, the youngest of the Three Leagues that had sprung up in the Grisons, having been founded only in 1436), and Maximilian continued this expansionist strategy. The Habsburg pressure prompted the Three Leagues to sign a close military alliance with the Swiss Confederacy in 1497-98.
At the same time, the Habsburgs had been involved in a major power struggle with the French kings of the House of Valois over the control of the remains of the realm of Charles the Bold, whose daughter and heiress Mary
Maximilian had married. Maximilian's second marriage in 1493 with Bianca Maria Sforza
from Milan then got the Habsburgs directly involved in the Italian Wars
, clashing again with the French kings over the control of the Duchy of Milan
.
As a direct connection between Tyrol
and Milan, the Grisons and in particular the Val Müstair
became strategically important to the Habsburgs. The Umbrail Pass
in the Val Müstair connects the Vinschgau valley (Val Venosta) in southern Tyrol with the Valtellina
in northern Italy. Furthermore, the Habsburgs and the Bishop of Chur
had been quarrelling over the judicial rights over the region for some time. On January 20, 1499, Habsburg troops occupied the valley and plundered the Benedictine Convent of Saint John
at Müstair
, but were soon driven back by the forces of the Three Leagues, and an armistice
was signed already on February 2 in Glurns
(Glorenza), a village in the upper Vinschgau.
But the Three Leagues had already called upon the Swiss for help and troops from Uri had already arrived in Chur
. Upon learning about the truce, they withdrew, but met a small troop of Habsburg soldiers on their way back home. When those engaged in the usual insults on the Swiss, the latter crossed the Rhine and killed the scoffers. In retaliation, Habsburg troops sacked the village of Maienfeld
on February 7 and called the Swabian League
for help. Only five days later, Swiss troops from several cantons had been assembled and reconquered the village and moved towards Lake Constance, pillaging and plundering along the way. On February 20, they again met a Habsburg army, which they defeated in the battle of Hard
on the shores of Lake Constance near the estuary of the Rhine, and at about the same time, other Swiss troops invaded the Hegau
region between Schaffhausen and Constance. On both sites, the Swiss retreated after a few days.
Meanwhile, the Swabian League had completed its recruitment, and undertook a raid on Dornach
on March 22, but suffered a defeat against numerically inferior Swiss troops in the battle of Bruderholz
that same evening. In early April, both sides raided each other's territories along the Rhine; the Swiss conquered the villages of Hallau
and Neunkirch
in the Klettgau
west of Schaffhausen. A larger attack of the Swabian League took place on April 11, 1499: the Swabian troops occupied and plundered some villages on the southern shore of Lake Constance, just south of Constance. The expedition ended in a shameful defeat and open flight when the Swiss soldiers, who had their main camp just a few miles south at Schwaderloh
, arrived and met the Swabians in the battle of Schwaderloh
. The Swabians lost more than 1,000 soldiers; 130 from the city of Constance alone; and the Swiss captured their heavy equipment, including their artillery.
Again, the Swiss raided the Klettgau and the Hegau and pillaged several fortified smaller Swabian cities such as Tiengen or Stühlingen
before retreating again. This whole war was characterized by many such smaller raids and plundering expeditions of both sides between a few larger battles. On the eastern front, a new Habsburg attack on the Rhine valley provoked a counterstrike of the Eidgenossen, who remained victorious in the battle of Frastanz
near Feldkirch
on April 20, 1499.
The continued defeats of both Habsburg and Swabian armies made king Maximilian, who had hitherto been occupied in the Netherlands, travel to Constance and assume the leadership of the operations himself. He declared an imperial ban over the Swiss Confederacy in an attempt to gain wider support for the operation amongst the German princes by declaring the conflict an "imperial war". However, this move had no success. Maximilian then decided that the next decisive attack should take place again in the Val Müstair, since he didn't have enough troops near Constance to risk attacking there. An abandoned attack attempt in the west in early May 1499 had drawn significant Swiss forces there, who subsequently raided the Sundgau
. On May 21, the Swiss undertook a third raid in the Hegau, but abandoned the operation one week later after the city of Stockach
withstood a siege long enough for Swabian relief troops to come dangerously close.
Simultaneously, the Three Leagues attacked the Habsburg troops that camped again at Glurns
on May 22, 1499, before Maximilian could arrive with reinforcements. They overran the fortifications and routed the Austrian army in the battle of Calven
and then ravaged the Vinschgau, before retreating after three days. Maximilian and his troops arrived one week late, on May 29. In revenge, his troops pillaged the Engadin
valley, but retreated quickly before reinforcements from the Swiss Confederacy arrived.
The refusal of the military leaders of the Swabian League to withdraw troops from the northern front to send them to the Grisons as Maximilian had demanded made the king return to Lake Constance. The differences between the Swabians, who preferred to strike in the north, and the king, who still hoped to convince them to help him win the struggle in the Val Müstair, led to a pause in the hostilities. Troops were assembled at Constance, but an attack did not occur. Until July, nothing of significance happened along the whole front.
By mid-July, Maximilian and the Swabian leaders suddenly were under pressure from their own troops. In the west, where there lay an army under the command of count Heinrich von Fürstenberg, a large contingent of mercenaries from Flanders
and many knights threatened to leave as they had not received their pay. The foot soldiers of the Swabian troops also complained: most of them were peasants and preferred to go home and bring in the harvest. Maximilian was forced to act.
An attack by sea across Lake Constance on Rheineck
and Rorschach on July 21 was one of the few successful Swabian operations. The small Swiss detachment was taken by surprise, the villages plundered and burnt. A much larger attack of an army of about 16,000 soldiers in the west on Dornach, however, met a quickly assembled but strong Swiss army. In the battle of Dornach
on July 22, 1499, the Swabian and mercenary troops suffered a heavy defeat after a long and hard battle. Their general Heinrich von Fürstenberg fell early in the fight, about 3,000 Swabian and 500 Swiss soldiers died, and the Swabians lost all of their artillery
again.
One of the last skirmishes of the war took place on July 25. A Swabian army marched from the Hegau on Schaffhausen, but met with fierce defense at Thayngen
. Although the small force of defenders was finally overcome, and the village was pillaged, the defenders inflicted heavy casualties and the attack was held up long enough for the Swiss to send troops from Schaffhausen to meet the Swabians in the field. Misunderstandings between the Swabian knights and their foot soldiers made the Swabians retreat, and nightfall then prevented a larger battle.
A major problem for the Swiss was the lack of any unified command. The cantonal contingents only took orders from their own leaders. Complaints of insubordination were common. The Swiss Diet had to adopt this resolution on 11 March 1499: "Every canton shall impress upon its soldiers that when the Confederates are under arms together, each one of them, whatever his canton, shall obey the officers of the others."
The war was paid for largely by the French and Italian allies of the Swiss as well as by ransoming prisoners of war.
However, events in the Italian Wars
helped bring the Swabian War to an end. The French
king Louis XII
tried to bring the Duchy of Milan
under his control. As long as the Swabian War continued, the Milanese ruler Ludovico il Moro—whose niece Bianca Maximilian had married in 1493—could not expect help from either Swiss mercenaries
or Maximilian, and thus his envoy Galeazzo Visconti
tried to mediate between the Swiss and the king. The French delegation at the Tagsatzung
, the federal diet and war council of the Swiss, tried to prevent any agreement for the same reason. The Milanese delegation prevailed in these intrigations and succeeded to persuade both sides to moderate their demands. Finally, a peace treaty between Maximilian I
and the Swiss was signed in Basel
on September 22, 1499. The peace treaty carefully played down the whole war from the "imperial war" that Maximilian had tried to make it by declaring the ban over the Confederacy to what it actually was: a war between two equal members of the empire (Reichsstände), namely the House of Habsburg
and the Swiss Confederacy. The document referred to Maximilian only as "duke of Habsburg", not as "king of the Germans" or even "Holy Roman Emperor".
With the Peace of Basel, the relations between the Old Swiss Confederacy
and the empire returned to the status quo ante
from before the Reichstag of Worms in 1495. The imperial ban was dropped silently. Maximilian had to accept the refusal of the cantons and to abandon implicitly the Habsburg claims on their territories, acknowledging their independence. Consequently, the then ten members of the Swiss Confederacy remained exempt from the jurisdiction of the Reichskammergericht. The Swiss henceforth exercised also the high justice over the Thurgau. The war had not caused any territorial changes, except in the area around Schaffhausen, where the city had succeeded to assert its hegemony over some places that had formerly belonged to the Bishop of Constance.
In the Grisons, the situation also reverted to pre-war conditions. The Habsburgs could keep their rights over eight of the communes of the Zehngerichtebund, but also had to accept that league's alliance with the two other leagues and with the Swiss Confederacy. Ultimately, this arrangement would lead to the Habsburgs losing the Prättigau
to the Three Leagues
, with the exception of a temporary re-occupation during the Thirty Years' War
nearly 130 years later.
Basel
had remained studiously neutral throughout the whole war. Although allied with some cantons of the Swiss Confederacy, it also had strong economic ties in the Alsace
and further down along the Rhine. But the events of the war had strengthened the pro-confederate party in the city council, and the Swiss recognized the city's strategic position as a bridgehead
on the Rhine (like Schaffhausen, too). On June 9, 1501, a delegation from Basel and the Swiss cantons' representatives signed the alliance contract, which the city council of Basel ratified on July 13, 1501.
Schaffhausen
had fought alongside the Eidgenossen during the Swabian War, and thus its acceptance into the Confederacy was a mere formality. The city had been an imperial city since 1415 and an associate state of the Confederacy since 1454 through a 25-year contract that had been renewed in 1479. On August 10, 1501, it became the twelfth member of the Confederacy.
With the end of the war, the Swiss troops were no longer bound along the Rhine and in the Grisons. The cantons concluded new mercenary contracts, so called capitulation
s, with the Duchy of Milan
and soon got deeply involved in the Italian Wars
, where Swiss mercenaries ended up fighting on both sides. The involvement of the Old Swiss Confederacy
, acting in its own interests in these wars, was brought to an end by the defeat against French forces in the battle of Marignano
in 1515 and a subsequent peace treaty with the French king in 1516, the so-called Eternal Peace. However, Swiss mercenaries
from individual cantons
of the federation continued to participate in the Italian Wars well beyond (until the middle of the 16th century) in the service of various parties and, following that peace with France, in particular in the service of the French king.
The Swiss Confederacy remained an independent Reichsstand of the Holy Roman Empire
, but as it wasn't even obliged to participate in the Reichstag
, this relation was degraded to a purely formal one that would lose significance throughout the 16th century. However, the Swiss still considered themselves as members of the empire with the status of imperial immediacy; the empire was still considered the foundation of all privileges, rights, or political identity as can be witnessed in the continued use of the imperial insignia
. The relations between the Habsburgs and the Confederacy were fully normalized in the Erbeinung of 1511, a renewal of the earlier Ewige Richtung of 1474 and a first Erbeinung of 1477. In that treaty, the Habsburgs finally and officially gave up all their territorial claims of old, and even designated the Confederacy the protecting power of the County of Burgundy
. In the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, all members and associate states of the Confederacy would gain official full exemption from the empire and recognition as a national and political entity on their own right.
and thus heresy
. Incidentally, the Swabians also used the term Schwyzer to denote all the Swiss, who called themselves Eidgenossen at the time, as an insult. The Swiss, however, assimilated that term and began to wear it proudly. See also Schwyz
. The name is sometimes given as "Schwaderloo" or even "Schwaderloch". The battle of Schwaderloh actually took place near Triboltingen
. Götz von Berlichingen
participated as a young knight in this operation and described the event in some detail in his memoirs. Willibald Pirckheimer
, another eye-witness, also gave an extended description.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Engadiner Krieg ["War of the Engadin
Engadin
The Engadin or Engadine is a long valley in the Swiss Alps located in the canton of Graubünden in southeast Switzerland. It follows the route of the Inn River from its headwaters at Maloja Pass running northeast until the Inn flows into Austria one hundred kilometers downstream...
"] in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
) was the last major armed conflict between the Old Swiss Confederacy
Old Swiss Confederacy
The Old Swiss Confederacy was the precursor of modern-day Switzerland....
and the House of Habsburg. What had begun as a local conflict over the control of the Val Müstair
Val Müstair
Val Müstair is a municipality in the district of Inn in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. It was formed on 1 January 2009 through the merger of Tschierv, Fuldera, Lü, Valchava, Santa Maria Val Müstair and Müstair.-Demographics:...
and the Umbrail Pass
Umbrail Pass
Umbrail Pass is a high mountain pass on the Swiss-Italian border connecting Santa Maria in Val Müstair with Bormio in the Adda valley. On the Italian side, it connects to the Stelvio Pass road.-See also:* List of highest paved roads in Europe...
in the Grisons soon got out of hand when both parties called upon their allies for help; the Habsburgs demanding the support of the Swabian League
Swabian League
The Swabian League was an association of Imperial States - cities, prelates, principalities and knights - principally in the territory of the Early medieval stem duchy of Swabia, established in 1488 at the behest of Emperor Frederick III of Habsburg and supported as well by Bertold von...
, and the Federation of the Three Leagues
Three Leagues
The Three Leagues was the alliance of 1471 of the League of God's House, the League of the Ten Jurisdictions and the Grey League, leading eventually to the formation of the Swiss canton of Graubünden. Most of the lands of Graubünden were part of the Roman province Raetia in 15 BC...
of the Grisons turning to the Swiss Eidgenossenschaft
Eidgenossenschaft
Eidgenossenschaft is a German word meaning confederation. The term literally translates as "oath fellowship". An Eidgenossenschaft is a confederacy of equal partners, which can be individuals or groups such as states, formed by a pact sealed by a solemn oath. Such an alliance could be either...
. Hostilities quickly spread from the Grisons through the Rhine valley to Lake Constance
Lake Constance
Lake Constance is a lake on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps, and consists of three bodies of water: the Obersee , the Untersee , and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein.The lake is situated in Germany, Switzerland and Austria near the Alps...
and even to the Sundgau
Sundgau
Sundgau is a geographical territory on the eastern edge of France that was once a principality of the Holy Roman Empire. The name Sundgau derives from Alemannic German, which means "South County" ....
in southern Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
, the westernmost part of Habsburg Further Austria
Further Austria
Further Austria or Anterior Austria was the collective name for the old possessions of the House of Habsburg in the former Swabian stem duchy of south-western Germany, including territories in the Alsace region west of the Rhine and in Vorarlberg, after the focus of the Habsburgs had moved to the...
.
Many battles were fought from January to July 1499, and in all but a few minor skirmishes, the experienced Swiss soldiers defeated the Swabian and Habsburg armies. After their victories in the Burgundian Wars
Burgundian Wars
The Burgundian Wars were a conflict between the Dukes of Burgundy and the Kings of France, later involving the Old Swiss Confederacy, which would play a decisive role. Open war broke out in 1474, and in the following years the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was defeated three times on the...
, the Swiss had battle tested troops and commanders. On the Swabian side, distrust between the knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
s and their foot soldier
Foot Soldier
The term foot soldier may refer to:* A generic term for members of the infantry* Characters in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles television series belonging to the Foot Clan* The Foot Soldiers, a comic book originally published by Dark Horse Comics...
s, disagreements amongst the military leadership, and a general reluctance to fight a war that even the Swabian counts considered to be more in the interests of the powerful Habsburgs than in the interest of the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
proved fatal handicaps. When his military high commander fell in the battle of Dornach
Battle of Dornach
The Battle of Dornach was a battle fought on 22 July 1499 between the troops of Emperor Maximilian I and the Old Swiss Confederacy close to the Swiss village of Dornach....
, where the Swiss won a final decisive victory, king Maximilian I
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I , the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal, was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never in fact crowned by the Pope, the journey to Rome always being too risky...
had no choice but to agree to a peace treaty signed on September 22, 1499 in Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
. The treaty granted the Confederacy far-reaching independence from the empire. Although the Eidgenossenschaft officially remained a part of the empire until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the peace of Basel exempted it from the imperial jurisdiction and imperial taxes and thus de facto acknowledged it as a separate political entity.
Background
One source of conflict was the ancient distrust, rivalry, and hostility between the Old Swiss ConfederacyOld Swiss Confederacy
The Old Swiss Confederacy was the precursor of modern-day Switzerland....
and the House of Habsburg, which had risen to the throne of the Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...
since 1438. Since the late 13th century, the members of the Swiss Confederacy had gradually taken control of territories that once had belonged to the Habsburg realm. The Swiss had attained the status of imperial immediacy. They were reichsfrei, subject only to the emperor himself and did not respond to any intermediate liege lord
Liege Lord
Liege Lord was an American speed/power metal band, active in the 1980s and considered to be a pioneer of the genre. It was formed by Matt Vinci, Anthony Truglio and Frank Cortese....
s or princes. This status granted them a far-reaching autonomy within the Holy Roman Empire, even more so as the emperor was a distant overlord. Prior to 1438, the empire and the emperor had been an antipole to the Habsburg dukes for the Swiss. Previous emperors had repeatedly supported the confederates in their struggles against the Habsburgs, whom they saw a strong rivals. They had confirmed the Reichsfreiheit of the Swiss on several occasions; and the Swiss had succeeded in defending their privileged status against Habsburg dukes, who had tried to regain their former territories.
The Habsburgs in the Holy Roman Empire in the 15th century
When Frederick III of HabsburgFrederick III, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick the Peaceful KG was Duke of Austria as Frederick V from 1424, the successor of Albert II as German King as Frederick IV from 1440, and Holy Roman Emperor as Frederick III from 1452...
ascended to the throne, the Swiss suddenly faced a new situation in which they could no longer count on support from the empire. Worse yet, conflicts with the Habsburg dukes threatened to become conflicts with the empire itself. Under Frederick's reign, this did not occur yet. Frederick had sided in 1442 against the confederacy in the Old Zürich War
Old Zürich War
The Old Zürich War , 1440–46, was a conflict between the canton of Zürich and the other seven cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy over the succession to the Count of Toggenburg....
where he had supported the city of Zürich, and he also refused to reconfirm the imperial immediacy of the members of the Confederacy. But Frederick's troubled reign did not leave room for military operations against the Swiss. In Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Frederick was in conflict first with his brother Albert
Albert VI, Archduke of Austria
Albert VI , also known as the Prodigal, from the House of Habsburg was, with his elder brother Emperor Frederick III, an Archduke of Inner Austria from 1424 and of Austria from 1457 until his death...
and then faced the pressure of Matthias Corvinus, who even drove him from Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and forced Frederick's court to assume an itinerant lifestyle.
In the empire, Frederick faced the opposition of the Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n Wittelsbach
Wittelsbach
The Wittelsbach family is a European royal family and a German dynasty from Bavaria.Members of the family served as Dukes, Electors and Kings of Bavaria , Counts Palatine of the Rhine , Margraves of Brandenburg , Counts of Holland, Hainaut and Zeeland , Elector-Archbishops of Cologne , Dukes of...
dynasty and of his cousin Sigismund, who was duke in Tyrol
County of Tyrol
The County of Tyrol, Princely County from 1504, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire, from 1814 a province of the Austrian Empire and from 1867 a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary...
, Vorarlberg
Vorarlberg
Vorarlberg is the westernmost federal-state of Austria. Although it is the second smallest in terms of area and population , it borders three countries: Germany , Switzerland and Liechtenstein...
, and Further Austria
Further Austria
Further Austria or Anterior Austria was the collective name for the old possessions of the House of Habsburg in the former Swabian stem duchy of south-western Germany, including territories in the Alsace region west of the Rhine and in Vorarlberg, after the focus of the Habsburgs had moved to the...
then. Sigismund had been in conflict with the Swiss Confederacy, too. When he had been banned by Pope Pius II
Pope Pius II
Pope Pius II, born Enea Silvio Piccolomini was Pope from August 19, 1458 until his death in 1464. Pius II was born at Corsignano in the Sienese territory of a noble but decayed family...
in a conflict over the nomination of a bishop in Tyrol, the Swiss had annexed the formerly Habsburg territories of the Thurgau
Thurgau
Thurgau is a northeast canton of Switzerland. The population, , is . In 2007, there were a total of 47,390 who were resident foreigners. The capital is Frauenfeld.-History:...
. In 1468, Sigismund clashed with the Swiss in the War of Waldshut, which he could end without significant territorial losses only by paying a large ransom, which he financed by pawning territories in the Sundgau
Sundgau
Sundgau is a geographical territory on the eastern edge of France that was once a principality of the Holy Roman Empire. The name Sundgau derives from Alemannic German, which means "South County" ....
and the Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
to Charles the Bold of Burgundy
County of Burgundy
The Free County of Burgundy , was a medieval county , within the traditional province and modern French region Franche-Comté, whose very French name is still reminiscent of the unusual title of its count: Freigraf...
in 1469. Charles did not, however, help Sigismund against the Swiss, and so Sigismund bought back the territories in 1474 and concluded a peace treaty with the Confederacy, the Ewige Richtung, although the emperor never recognized it. In the following Burgundy Wars, the Swiss and Sigismund both fought against Charles the Bold.
In 1487, Sigismund arranged the marriage of Frederick's daughter Kunigunde
Kunigunde of Austria
Kunigunde of Austria was an Austrian Archduchess member of the House of Habsburg and by marriage Duchess of Bavaria-Munich and since 1503 over all Bavaria....
to duke Albert IV of Bavaria
Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria
Duke Albert IV of Bavaria-Munich , , from 1467 Duke of Bavaria-Munich, from 1503 Duke of the reunited Bavaria.-Biography:...
against her father's will, and he also signed away some of his territories in Tyrol and Further Austria to Albert IV. Frederick intervened by force: he founded the Swabian League
Swabian League
The Swabian League was an association of Imperial States - cities, prelates, principalities and knights - principally in the territory of the Early medieval stem duchy of Swabia, established in 1488 at the behest of Emperor Frederick III of Habsburg and supported as well by Bertold von...
in 1488, an alliance of the Swabian cities, the Swabian knights of the League of St. George's Shield and the counts of Württemberg
Rulers of Württemberg
This is a list of the rulers of the German state of Württemberg, originally a county and eventually a kingdom until the ruling dynasty was overthrown in 1918.- Counts of Württemberg to 1495 :* Konrad I 1089–1122...
and Tyrol and Vorarlberg. With their help, he forced the Wittelsbach house to return the territories signed over by Sigismund.
In 1490, Sigismund was forced to abdicate and turn over all his territories to Frederick's son Maximilian I
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I , the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal, was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never in fact crowned by the Pope, the journey to Rome always being too risky...
. Maximilian had married Mary of Burgundy
Mary of Burgundy
Mary of Burgundy ruled the Burgundian territories in Low Countries and was suo jure Duchess of Burgundy from 1477 until her death...
in 1477 after the death of Charles the Bold in the Burgundy Wars and thus inherited the Burgundian territories: Duchy
Duchy of Burgundy
The Duchy of Burgundy , was heir to an ancient and prestigious reputation and a large division of the lands of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy and in its own right was one of the geographically larger ducal territories in the emergence of Early Modern Europe from Medieval Europe.Even in that...
and County of Burgundy
County of Burgundy
The Free County of Burgundy , was a medieval county , within the traditional province and modern French region Franche-Comté, whose very French name is still reminiscent of the unusual title of its count: Freigraf...
and the Netherlands
Burgundian Netherlands
In the history of the Low Countries, the Burgundian Netherlands refers to a number of Imperial and French fiefs ruled in personal union by the House of Valois-Burgundy and their Habsburg heirs in the period from 1384 to 1482...
. He took over and expanded the Burgundian administration with a more centralized style of government, which in 1482, caused the outbreak of a rebellion of the cities and counts, allied with Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII of France
Charles VIII, called the Affable, , was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. Charles was a member of the House of Valois...
, against Maximilian. The Duchy of Burgundy was also a French fiefdom and immediately claimed by Charles VIII. The first phase of this conflict would last until 1489, keeping Maximilian occupied in the Low Countries. He even fell into the hands of his enemies and was held prisor for four months in Bruges
Bruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
in 1488. He was freed only when his father sent an army under the command of duke Albert of Saxony
Albert, Duke of Saxony
Albert III was a Duke of Saxony. He was nicknamed Albert the Bold or Albert the Courageous and founded the Albertine line of the House of Wettin....
to his rescue. Maximilian subsequently returned to Germany, leaving his cousin Albert as his representative. Albert would, in the following years, manage to assert the Habsburg hegemony in the Netherlands.
Maximilian had been elected King of the Romans
King of the Romans
King of the Romans was the title used by the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire following his election to the office by the princes of the Kingdom of Germany...
in 1486 on his father's initiative, and they had been ruling jointly since then. Upon the death of Frederick in 1493, Maximilian also took over his father's possessions and thus united the whole Habsburg territory in his hands. In the same year, the Peace of Senlis also marked the end of his wars against the French about his Burgundian possessions; he kept the territories in the Netherlands and also the County of Burgundy
County of Burgundy
The Free County of Burgundy , was a medieval county , within the traditional province and modern French region Franche-Comté, whose very French name is still reminiscent of the unusual title of its count: Freigraf...
, but had to cede the Duchy of Burgundy
Duchy of Burgundy
The Duchy of Burgundy , was heir to an ancient and prestigious reputation and a large division of the lands of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy and in its own right was one of the geographically larger ducal territories in the emergence of Early Modern Europe from Medieval Europe.Even in that...
to the French king. Maximilian controlled thus territories that nearly encircled the Old Swiss Confederacy: Tyrol and Vorarlberg in the east, Further Austria in the north, and the County of Burgundy in the west.
Swabia and the Swiss
When asked by emperor Frederick to also join the Swabian League, the Eidgenossen flatly refused: they saw no reason to join an alliance designed to further Habsburg interests, and they were wary of this new, relatively closely knit and powerful alliance that had arisen on their northern frontier. Furthermore, they resented the strong aristocratic element in the Swabian League, so different from their own organization, which had grown over the last two hundred years liberating themselves from precisely such an aristocratic rule.On the Swabian side, similar concerns existed. For the common people in Swabia, the independence and freedom of the Eidgenossen was a powerful and attractive role model. Many a baron in southern Swabia feared that his own subjects might revolt and seek adherence to the Swiss Confederacy. These fears were not entirely without foundation: the Swiss had begun to form alliances north of the Rhine river, concluding a first treaty with Schaffhausen
Schaffhausen
Schaffhausen is a city in northern Switzerland and the capital of the canton of the same name; it has an estimated population of 34,587 ....
in 1454 and then also treaties with cities as far away as Rottweil
Rottweil
Rottweil is a town in the south west of Germany and is the oldest town in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg.Located between the Black Forest and the Swabian Alb hills, Rottweil has about 25,000 inhabitants...
(1463) or Mulhouse
Mulhouse
Mulhouse |mill]] hamlet) is a city and commune in eastern France, close to the Swiss and German borders. With a population of 110,514 and 278,206 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 2006, it is the largest city in the Haut-Rhin département, and the second largest in the Alsace region after...
(1466).
The city of Constance
Konstanz
Konstanz is a university city with approximately 80,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south-west corner of Germany, bordering Switzerland. The city houses the University of Konstanz.-Location:...
and its bishop were caught in the middle between these two blocks: they held possessions in Swabia, but the city also still exercised the high justice
High Justice
High Justice is a 1974 collection of science fiction short stories by Jerry Pournelle. It was republished in a omnibus edition with Exiles to Glory in 2009 as Exile -- and Glory....
over the Thurgau
Thurgau
Thurgau is a northeast canton of Switzerland. The population, , is . In 2007, there were a total of 47,390 who were resident foreigners. The capital is Frauenfeld.-History:...
, where the Swiss had assumed the low justice since the annexation in 1460. The foundation of the Swabian League prompted the Swiss city states of Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
and Bern to propose accepting Constance into the Swiss Confederacy. The negotiations failed, though, due to the opposition of the founding cantons of the Confederacy and Uri
Canton of Uri
Uri is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and a founding member of the Swiss Confederation. It is located in Central Switzerland. The canton's territory covers the valley of the Reuss River between Lake Lucerne and the St. Gotthard Pass. German is the primary language spoken in Uri...
in particular. The split jurisdiction over the Thurgau was the cause of many quarrels between the city and the Confederacy. In 1495, one such disagreement was answered by a punitive expedition
Punitive expedition
A punitive expedition is a military journey undertaken to punish a state or any group of persons outside the borders of the punishing state. It is usually undertaken in response to perceived disobedient or morally wrong behavior, but may be also be a covered revenge...
of soldiers of Uri
Canton of Uri
Uri is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and a founding member of the Swiss Confederation. It is located in Central Switzerland. The canton's territory covers the valley of the Reuss River between Lake Lucerne and the St. Gotthard Pass. German is the primary language spoken in Uri...
and the city had to pay the sum of 3,000 guilder
Guilder
Guilder is the English translation of the Dutch gulden — from Old Dutch for 'golden'. The guilder originated as a gold coin but has been a common name for a silver or base metal coin for some centuries...
s to make them retreat and cease their plundering. (The Thurgau was a condominium
Condominium (international law)
In international law, a condominium is a political territory in or over which two or more sovereign powers formally agree to share equally dominium and exercise their rights jointly, without dividing it up into 'national' zones.Although a condominium has always been...
of the Swiss Confederacy, and Uri was one of the cantons involved in its administration.) Finally, Constance joined the Swabian League as a full member on November 3, 1498. Although this did not yet definitively define the position of the city—during the Reformation
Reformation in Switzerland
The Protestant Reformation in Switzerland was promoted initially by Huldrych Zwingli, who gained the support of the magistrate and population of Zürich in the 1520s. It led to significant changes in civil life and state matters in Zürich and spread to several other cantons of the Old Swiss...
, it would be allied again with Zürich and Bern, and only after the defeat of the Schmalkaldic League
Schmalkaldic League
The Schmalkaldic League was a defensive alliance of Lutheran princes within the Holy Roman Empire during the mid-16th century. Although originally started for religious motives soon after the start of the Protestant Reformation, its members eventually intended for the League to replace the Holy...
in 1548 its close connections to the Eidgenossenschaft would be finally severed—it was another factor contributing to the growing estrangement between the Swiss and the Swabians.
The competition between Swiss (Reisläufer) and Swabian mercenaries (Landsknecht
Landsknecht
Landsknechte were European, predominantly German mercenary pikemen and supporting foot soldiers from the late 15th to the late 16th century, and achieved the reputation for being the universal mercenary of Early modern Europe.-Etymology:The term is from German, Land "land, country" + Knecht...
e), who both fought in armies throughout Europe, sometimes opposing each other on the battlefield, sometimes competing for contracts, intensified. Contemporary chronicles agree in their reports that the Swiss, who were considered the best soldiers in Europe at the time after their victories in the Burgundian Wars
Burgundian Wars
The Burgundian Wars were a conflict between the Dukes of Burgundy and the Kings of France, later involving the Old Swiss Confederacy, which would play a decisive role. Open war broke out in 1474, and in the following years the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was defeated three times on the...
, were subject to many taunts and abuses by the Landsknechte; they were called "Kuhschweizer" and ridiculed in other ways. Such insults were neither given nor taken lightly, and frequently led to bloodshed. Indeed, such incidents would contribute to prolong the Swabian War itself by triggering skirmishes and looting expeditions that the military commands of neither side had ever wanted or planned.
The imperial reform of 1495
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...
s before and after him, had to face struggles with other powerful princes in the empire and he thus sought to secure his position and the imperial monarchy by furthering centralisation. At the Reichstag
Reichstag (Holy Roman Empire)
The Imperial Diet was the Diet, or general assembly, of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire.During the period of the Empire, which lasted formally until 1806, the Diet was not a parliament in today's sense; instead, it was an assembly of the various estates of the realm...
in Worms
Worms, Germany
Worms is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Rhine River. At the end of 2004, it had 85,829 inhabitants.Established by the Celts, who called it Borbetomagus, Worms today remains embattled with the cities Trier and Cologne over the title of "Oldest City in Germany." Worms is the only...
in 1495, he was partly successful, but also had to make concessions in favor of the princes. The imperial reform
Imperial Reform
In 1495, an attempt was made at an Imperial Diet in the City of Worms to give the disintegrating Holy Roman Empire a new structure, commonly referred to as Imperial Reform ....
proclaimed an "eternal public peace" (Ewiger Landfriede) to put an end to the abounding feuds and the anarchy of the robber baron
Robber baron
A robber baron or robber knight was an unscrupulous and despotic nobility of the medieval period in Europe, for example, Berlichingen. It has slightly different meanings in different countries. In modern US parlance, the term is also used to describe unscrupulous industrialists...
s and it defined a new standing Imperial Army
Imperial Army of the Holy Roman Empire
The Imperial Army of the Holy Roman Empire was the army of the Holy Roman Empire...
to enforce that peace, to which each imperial estate (Reichsstand) would have had to send troops. It also mandated the common penny (Reichspfennig), a new head tax to finance this army. Among the concessions Maximilian had to make was the institution of a new supreme court, the Reichskammergericht
Reichskammergericht
The Reichskammergericht or Imperial Chamber Court was one of two highest judicial institutions in the Holy Roman Empire, the other one being the Aulic Council in Vienna. It was founded in 1495 by the Imperial Diet in Worms...
, thus separating the highest judicial authority from the person and the whereabouts of the emperor. He also had to agree to the formation of a governmental council of princes called the Reichsregiment. It would never play a significant role: it convened for the first time in 1500, but was dissolved by Maximilian two years later.
The Swiss did not accept these resolutions of the Reichstag, and they explicitly refused to pay the common penny. They had no interest whatsoever in sending troops to serve in an army under Habsburg authority, nor in paying taxes, nor would they accept any foreign court's jurisdiction; and they had succeeded in securing public peace within their territories reasonably well by themselves. They simply considered the whole proposal a curtailing of their freedom. The Swiss were by far not the only members of the empire who refused to accept the resolutions, but Maximilian would use their refusal later as a pretext to place the Swiss Confederacy under an imperial ban (Reichsacht).
The course of the war
Three Leagues
The Three Leagues was the alliance of 1471 of the League of God's House, the League of the Ten Jurisdictions and the Grey League, leading eventually to the formation of the Swiss canton of Graubünden. Most of the lands of Graubünden were part of the Roman province Raetia in 15 BC...
had achieved a far-reaching autonomy, but also were involved in constant struggles with the Habsburgs, who ruled the neighbouring territories to the east and who kept trying to bring the Grisons under their influence. During the 1470s and 1480s, duke Sigismund had succeeded in acquiring step by step the high justice
High Justice
High Justice is a 1974 collection of science fiction short stories by Jerry Pournelle. It was republished in a omnibus edition with Exiles to Glory in 2009 as Exile -- and Glory....
over most of the communes of the Zehngerichtebund
League of the Ten Jurisdictions
The League of the Ten Jurisdictions was the last of the Three Leagues founded during the Middle Ages in what is now Canton Graubünden of Switzerland. The League was created in the County of Toggenburg after the counts of Toggenburg died out. The League initially existed to resist the power of the...
("League of the Ten Jurisdictions" in the Prättigau
Prättigau
The Prättigau Valley, in the canton of Graubünden , Switzerland, is home to the world famous ski resorts of Klosters and neighbouring Davos in the Landwasser Valley....
, the youngest of the Three Leagues that had sprung up in the Grisons, having been founded only in 1436), and Maximilian continued this expansionist strategy. The Habsburg pressure prompted the Three Leagues to sign a close military alliance with the Swiss Confederacy in 1497-98.
At the same time, the Habsburgs had been involved in a major power struggle with the French kings of the House of Valois over the control of the remains of the realm of Charles the Bold, whose daughter and heiress Mary
Mary of Burgundy
Mary of Burgundy ruled the Burgundian territories in Low Countries and was suo jure Duchess of Burgundy from 1477 until her death...
Maximilian had married. Maximilian's second marriage in 1493 with Bianca Maria Sforza
Bianca Maria Sforza
Bianca Maria Sforza was Holy Roman Empress as the second wife of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. She was the eldest legitimate daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, by his second wife, Bona of Savoy....
from Milan then got the Habsburgs directly involved in the Italian Wars
Italian Wars
The Italian Wars, often referred to as the Great Italian Wars or the Great Wars of Italy and sometimes as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts from 1494 to 1559 that involved, at various times, most of the city-states of Italy, the Papal States, most of the major states of Western...
, clashing again with the French kings over the control of the Duchy of Milan
Duchy of Milan
The Duchy of Milan , was created on the 1st of may 1395, when Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Lord of Milan, purchased a diploma for 100,000 Florins from King Wenceslaus. It was this diploma that installed, Gian Galeazzo as Duke of Milan and Count of Pavia...
.
As a direct connection between Tyrol
County of Tyrol
The County of Tyrol, Princely County from 1504, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire, from 1814 a province of the Austrian Empire and from 1867 a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary...
and Milan, the Grisons and in particular the Val Müstair
Val Müstair
Val Müstair is a municipality in the district of Inn in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. It was formed on 1 January 2009 through the merger of Tschierv, Fuldera, Lü, Valchava, Santa Maria Val Müstair and Müstair.-Demographics:...
became strategically important to the Habsburgs. The Umbrail Pass
Umbrail Pass
Umbrail Pass is a high mountain pass on the Swiss-Italian border connecting Santa Maria in Val Müstair with Bormio in the Adda valley. On the Italian side, it connects to the Stelvio Pass road.-See also:* List of highest paved roads in Europe...
in the Val Müstair connects the Vinschgau valley (Val Venosta) in southern Tyrol with the Valtellina
Valtellina
Valtellina or the Valtelline valley ; is a valley in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, bordering Switzerland. Today it is known for its skiing, its hot spring spas, its cheeses and its wines...
in northern Italy. Furthermore, the Habsburgs and the Bishop of Chur
Bishop of Chur
The Bishop of Chur is the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Chur, Grisons, Switzerland .-History:...
had been quarrelling over the judicial rights over the region for some time. On January 20, 1499, Habsburg troops occupied the valley and plundered the Benedictine Convent of Saint John
Benedictine Convent of Saint John
The Convent of Saint John is an ancient Benedictine monastery in Müstair village of Val Müstair, Switzerland, and, by reason of its exceptionally well-preserved heritage of Carolingian art, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983.-History:...
at Müstair
Müstair
Müstair is a village in the Val Müstair municipality in the district of Inn in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. In 2009 Müstair merged with Fuldera, Lü, Switzerland, Santa Maria Val Müstair, Tschierv and Valchava to form Val Müstair....
, but were soon driven back by the forces of the Three Leagues, and an armistice
Armistice
An armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, but may be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace...
was signed already on February 2 in Glurns
Glurns
Glurns is a comune in South Tyrol in the Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about 80 km northwest of Trento and about 60 km northwest of Bolzano ....
(Glorenza), a village in the upper Vinschgau.
But the Three Leagues had already called upon the Swiss for help and troops from Uri had already arrived in Chur
Chur
Chur or Coire is the capital of the Swiss canton of Graubünden and lies in the northern part of the canton.-History:The name "chur" derives perhaps from the Celtic kora or koria, meaning "tribe", or from the Latin curia....
. Upon learning about the truce, they withdrew, but met a small troop of Habsburg soldiers on their way back home. When those engaged in the usual insults on the Swiss, the latter crossed the Rhine and killed the scoffers. In retaliation, Habsburg troops sacked the village of Maienfeld
Maienfeld
Maienfeld is a municipality in the district of Landquart in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. It is a tourist destination in the Alps, both because of the local wine and because it was the setting of the story Heidi.- History :...
on February 7 and called the Swabian League
Swabian League
The Swabian League was an association of Imperial States - cities, prelates, principalities and knights - principally in the territory of the Early medieval stem duchy of Swabia, established in 1488 at the behest of Emperor Frederick III of Habsburg and supported as well by Bertold von...
for help. Only five days later, Swiss troops from several cantons had been assembled and reconquered the village and moved towards Lake Constance, pillaging and plundering along the way. On February 20, they again met a Habsburg army, which they defeated in the battle of Hard
Battle of Hard
The Battle of Hard was the first large-scale battle in the Swabian War, waged between the Imperials under the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and the Swiss Confederates...
on the shores of Lake Constance near the estuary of the Rhine, and at about the same time, other Swiss troops invaded the Hegau
Hegau
The Hegau is a formerly volcanic landscape in southern Germany extending around the industrial city of Singen , between Lake Constance in the east, the Rhine River in the south, the Danube River in the north and the Randen—as the southwestern mountains of the Swabian Alb are called—in the west.The...
region between Schaffhausen and Constance. On both sites, the Swiss retreated after a few days.
Dornach
Dornach is a municipality in the district of Dorneck in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland.-History:Dornach is first mentioned in 1223 as de Tornacho. In 1307 it was mentioned as zu Dornach...
on March 22, but suffered a defeat against numerically inferior Swiss troops in the battle of Bruderholz
Battle of Bruderholz
The Battle of Bruderholz took place on March 22, 1499 in the Swabian War between Swabian troops and forces of the Old Swiss Confederacy. The Swabians had raided several Swiss villages and were on their way back when they met troops from Lucerne, Solothurn, and Berne, who also came back from a raid...
that same evening. In early April, both sides raided each other's territories along the Rhine; the Swiss conquered the villages of Hallau
Hallau
Hallau is a municipality in the canton of Schaffhausen in Switzerland.-History:Though Bronze Age weapons have been found in Hallau, the first traces of a settlement date from the Roman era. A Roman warehouse was found in Hüttenhau as well as numerous Roman coins. The area was settled by the...
and Neunkirch
Neunkirch
Neunkirch is a municipality in the canton of Schaffhausen in Switzerland. It is set in the south of the mountains called Randen.-The name:The first documentary record of Neunkirch is in 850; the town is called Niuchilchun. It is Old High German and means new church. This name varies several times...
in the Klettgau
Klettgau
Klettgau is a group of towns in the district of Waldshut in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. Landgraviat of Klettgau to 1812.There is a border crossing into Switzerland at Erzingen to Trasadingen in Schaffhausen canton....
west of Schaffhausen. A larger attack of the Swabian League took place on April 11, 1499: the Swabian troops occupied and plundered some villages on the southern shore of Lake Constance, just south of Constance. The expedition ended in a shameful defeat and open flight when the Swiss soldiers, who had their main camp just a few miles south at Schwaderloh
Schwaderloh
Schwaderloh is a village in the canton of Thurgau, Switzerland.In 1499 it was the site of the Battle of Schwaderloh as a part of the Swabian War....
, arrived and met the Swabians in the battle of Schwaderloh
Battle of Schwaderloh
The Battle of Schwaderloh took place on April 11, 1499 near Triboltingen, a village on the Swiss shores of the Untersee just south of Constance. It was one of the major battles of the Swabian War between the Old Swiss Confederacy and the forces of the Swabian League and of emperor Maximilian I.The...
. The Swabians lost more than 1,000 soldiers; 130 from the city of Constance alone; and the Swiss captured their heavy equipment, including their artillery.
Again, the Swiss raided the Klettgau and the Hegau and pillaged several fortified smaller Swabian cities such as Tiengen or Stühlingen
Stühlingen
Stühlingen is a town in the Waldshut district in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated on the border with Switzerland, with a border crossing to the village of Oberwiesen in Schleitheim municipality, 15 km northwest of Schaffhausen town....
before retreating again. This whole war was characterized by many such smaller raids and plundering expeditions of both sides between a few larger battles. On the eastern front, a new Habsburg attack on the Rhine valley provoked a counterstrike of the Eidgenossen, who remained victorious in the battle of Frastanz
Battle of Frastanz
The Battle of Frastanz between an army of the Old Swiss Confederacy and the troops of king Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire took place on April 20, 1499. In one of the many raids of the Swabian War, an expedition of Habsburg troops had plundered some villages in the Swiss Confederacy, who...
near Feldkirch
Feldkirch, Vorarlberg
- Schools :* Bundesgymnasium und Bundesrealgymnasium Feldkirch * Bundeshandelsakademie und Bundeshandelsschule Feldkirch* Bundesoberstufenrealgymnasium und Bundesrealgymnasium Schillerstrasse...
on April 20, 1499.
The continued defeats of both Habsburg and Swabian armies made king Maximilian, who had hitherto been occupied in the Netherlands, travel to Constance and assume the leadership of the operations himself. He declared an imperial ban over the Swiss Confederacy in an attempt to gain wider support for the operation amongst the German princes by declaring the conflict an "imperial war". However, this move had no success. Maximilian then decided that the next decisive attack should take place again in the Val Müstair, since he didn't have enough troops near Constance to risk attacking there. An abandoned attack attempt in the west in early May 1499 had drawn significant Swiss forces there, who subsequently raided the Sundgau
Sundgau
Sundgau is a geographical territory on the eastern edge of France that was once a principality of the Holy Roman Empire. The name Sundgau derives from Alemannic German, which means "South County" ....
. On May 21, the Swiss undertook a third raid in the Hegau, but abandoned the operation one week later after the city of Stockach
Stockach
Stockach is a town in the district of Konstanz, in southern Baden-Württemberg, Germany.-Location:It is situated in the Hegau region, about 5 km northwest of Lake Constance, 13 km north of Radolfzell and 25 km northwest of Konstanz....
withstood a siege long enough for Swabian relief troops to come dangerously close.
Simultaneously, the Three Leagues attacked the Habsburg troops that camped again at Glurns
Glurns
Glurns is a comune in South Tyrol in the Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about 80 km northwest of Trento and about 60 km northwest of Bolzano ....
on May 22, 1499, before Maximilian could arrive with reinforcements. They overran the fortifications and routed the Austrian army in the battle of Calven
Battle of Calven
The Battle of Calven took place on May 22, 1499 at the exit of the Val Müstair in the Grisons to the Vinschgau in County of Tyrol between the forces of king Maximilian I of the House of Habsburg and those of the free federation of the Three Leagues of the Grisons...
and then ravaged the Vinschgau, before retreating after three days. Maximilian and his troops arrived one week late, on May 29. In revenge, his troops pillaged the Engadin
Engadin
The Engadin or Engadine is a long valley in the Swiss Alps located in the canton of Graubünden in southeast Switzerland. It follows the route of the Inn River from its headwaters at Maloja Pass running northeast until the Inn flows into Austria one hundred kilometers downstream...
valley, but retreated quickly before reinforcements from the Swiss Confederacy arrived.
The refusal of the military leaders of the Swabian League to withdraw troops from the northern front to send them to the Grisons as Maximilian had demanded made the king return to Lake Constance. The differences between the Swabians, who preferred to strike in the north, and the king, who still hoped to convince them to help him win the struggle in the Val Müstair, led to a pause in the hostilities. Troops were assembled at Constance, but an attack did not occur. Until July, nothing of significance happened along the whole front.
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
and many knights threatened to leave as they had not received their pay. The foot soldiers of the Swabian troops also complained: most of them were peasants and preferred to go home and bring in the harvest. Maximilian was forced to act.
An attack by sea across Lake Constance on Rheineck
Rheineck
Rheineck is a municipality in the Wahlkreis of Rheintal in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland.-History:Rheineck is first mentioned about 1163 as castellum Rinegge. In 1218 it was mentioned as Rinegg...
and Rorschach on July 21 was one of the few successful Swabian operations. The small Swiss detachment was taken by surprise, the villages plundered and burnt. A much larger attack of an army of about 16,000 soldiers in the west on Dornach, however, met a quickly assembled but strong Swiss army. In the battle of Dornach
Battle of Dornach
The Battle of Dornach was a battle fought on 22 July 1499 between the troops of Emperor Maximilian I and the Old Swiss Confederacy close to the Swiss village of Dornach....
on July 22, 1499, the Swabian and mercenary troops suffered a heavy defeat after a long and hard battle. Their general Heinrich von Fürstenberg fell early in the fight, about 3,000 Swabian and 500 Swiss soldiers died, and the Swabians lost all of their artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
again.
One of the last skirmishes of the war took place on July 25. A Swabian army marched from the Hegau on Schaffhausen, but met with fierce defense at Thayngen
Thayngen
Thayngen is a village and a municipality in the canton of Schaffhausen in Switzerland. On 1 January 2009 Altdorf, SH, Bibern, SH, Hofen, SH, Opfertshofen merged into Thayngen.-Geography:...
. Although the small force of defenders was finally overcome, and the village was pillaged, the defenders inflicted heavy casualties and the attack was held up long enough for the Swiss to send troops from Schaffhausen to meet the Swabians in the field. Misunderstandings between the Swabian knights and their foot soldiers made the Swabians retreat, and nightfall then prevented a larger battle.
A major problem for the Swiss was the lack of any unified command. The cantonal contingents only took orders from their own leaders. Complaints of insubordination were common. The Swiss Diet had to adopt this resolution on 11 March 1499: "Every canton shall impress upon its soldiers that when the Confederates are under arms together, each one of them, whatever his canton, shall obey the officers of the others."
The war was paid for largely by the French and Italian allies of the Swiss as well as by ransoming prisoners of war.
Peace negotiations
Early mediation attempts in March 1499 had failed because of mutual distrust between the parties. But after the battle of Dornach, the Swabian League was war-weary and had lost all confidence in the king's abilities as a military leader, and thus refused Maximilian's demands to muster a new army. The Swabian and Habsburg armies had suffered far higher human losses than the Swiss, and were also short on artillery, after repeatedly having lost their equipment to the Swiss. The Swiss also had no interest to prolong the war further, though they refused a first peace proposal that Maximilian presented at Schaffhausen in August 1499.Italian Wars
The Italian Wars, often referred to as the Great Italian Wars or the Great Wars of Italy and sometimes as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts from 1494 to 1559 that involved, at various times, most of the city-states of Italy, the Papal States, most of the major states of Western...
helped bring the Swabian War to an end. The French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
king Louis XII
Louis XII of France
Louis proved to be a popular king. At the end of his reign the crown deficit was no greater than it had been when he succeeded Charles VIII in 1498, despite several expensive military campaigns in Italy. His fiscal reforms of 1504 and 1508 tightened and improved procedures for the collection of taxes...
tried to bring the Duchy of Milan
Duchy of Milan
The Duchy of Milan , was created on the 1st of may 1395, when Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Lord of Milan, purchased a diploma for 100,000 Florins from King Wenceslaus. It was this diploma that installed, Gian Galeazzo as Duke of Milan and Count of Pavia...
under his control. As long as the Swabian War continued, the Milanese ruler Ludovico il Moro—whose niece Bianca Maximilian had married in 1493—could not expect help from either Swiss mercenaries
Swiss mercenaries
Swiss mercenaries were notable for their service in foreign armies, especially the armies of the Kings of France, throughout the Early Modern period of European history, from the Later Middle Ages into the Age of the European Enlightenment...
or Maximilian, and thus his envoy Galeazzo Visconti
Galeazzo Visconti
Galeazzo Visconti may refer to a number of members of the Italian Visconti dynasty:* Galeazzo I Visconti , lord of Milan from 1322 to 1327* Galeazzo II Visconti , lord of Milan from 1349 to 1378...
tried to mediate between the Swiss and the king. The French delegation at the Tagsatzung
Tagsatzung
The Swiss Tagsatzung was the legislative and executive council of the Swiss confederacy from the beginnings until the formation of the Swiss federal state in 1848. It was a meeting of delegates of the individual cantons...
, the federal diet and war council of the Swiss, tried to prevent any agreement for the same reason. The Milanese delegation prevailed in these intrigations and succeeded to persuade both sides to moderate their demands. Finally, a peace treaty between Maximilian I
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I , the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal, was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never in fact crowned by the Pope, the journey to Rome always being too risky...
and the Swiss was signed in Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
on September 22, 1499. The peace treaty carefully played down the whole war from the "imperial war" that Maximilian had tried to make it by declaring the ban over the Confederacy to what it actually was: a war between two equal members of the empire (Reichsstände), namely the House of Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...
and the Swiss Confederacy. The document referred to Maximilian only as "duke of Habsburg", not as "king of the Germans" or even "Holy Roman Emperor".
With the Peace of Basel, the relations between the Old Swiss Confederacy
Old Swiss Confederacy
The Old Swiss Confederacy was the precursor of modern-day Switzerland....
and the empire returned to the status quo ante
Status quo ante bellum
The term status quo ante bellum is Latin, meaning literally "the state in which things were before the war".The term was originally used in treaties to refer to the withdrawal of enemy troops and the restoration of prewar leadership. When used as such, it means that no side gains or loses...
from before the Reichstag of Worms in 1495. The imperial ban was dropped silently. Maximilian had to accept the refusal of the cantons and to abandon implicitly the Habsburg claims on their territories, acknowledging their independence. Consequently, the then ten members of the Swiss Confederacy remained exempt from the jurisdiction of the Reichskammergericht. The Swiss henceforth exercised also the high justice over the Thurgau. The war had not caused any territorial changes, except in the area around Schaffhausen, where the city had succeeded to assert its hegemony over some places that had formerly belonged to the Bishop of Constance.
In the Grisons, the situation also reverted to pre-war conditions. The Habsburgs could keep their rights over eight of the communes of the Zehngerichtebund, but also had to accept that league's alliance with the two other leagues and with the Swiss Confederacy. Ultimately, this arrangement would lead to the Habsburgs losing the Prättigau
Prättigau
The Prättigau Valley, in the canton of Graubünden , Switzerland, is home to the world famous ski resorts of Klosters and neighbouring Davos in the Landwasser Valley....
to the Three Leagues
Three Leagues
The Three Leagues was the alliance of 1471 of the League of God's House, the League of the Ten Jurisdictions and the Grey League, leading eventually to the formation of the Swiss canton of Graubünden. Most of the lands of Graubünden were part of the Roman province Raetia in 15 BC...
, with the exception of a temporary re-occupation during the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
nearly 130 years later.
Further consequences
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
had remained studiously neutral throughout the whole war. Although allied with some cantons of the Swiss Confederacy, it also had strong economic ties in the Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
and further down along the Rhine. But the events of the war had strengthened the pro-confederate party in the city council, and the Swiss recognized the city's strategic position as a bridgehead
Bridgehead
A bridgehead is a High Middle Ages military term, which antedating the invention of cannons was in the original meaning expressly a referent term to the military fortification that protects the end of a bridge...
on the Rhine (like Schaffhausen, too). On June 9, 1501, a delegation from Basel and the Swiss cantons' representatives signed the alliance contract, which the city council of Basel ratified on July 13, 1501.
Schaffhausen
Schaffhausen
Schaffhausen is a city in northern Switzerland and the capital of the canton of the same name; it has an estimated population of 34,587 ....
had fought alongside the Eidgenossen during the Swabian War, and thus its acceptance into the Confederacy was a mere formality. The city had been an imperial city since 1415 and an associate state of the Confederacy since 1454 through a 25-year contract that had been renewed in 1479. On August 10, 1501, it became the twelfth member of the Confederacy.
With the end of the war, the Swiss troops were no longer bound along the Rhine and in the Grisons. The cantons concluded new mercenary contracts, so called capitulation
Capitulation (treaty)
A capitulation , or ahidnâme, is a treaty or unilateral contract by which a sovereign state relinquishes jurisdiction within its borders over the subjects of a foreign state...
s, with the Duchy of Milan
Duchy of Milan
The Duchy of Milan , was created on the 1st of may 1395, when Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Lord of Milan, purchased a diploma for 100,000 Florins from King Wenceslaus. It was this diploma that installed, Gian Galeazzo as Duke of Milan and Count of Pavia...
and soon got deeply involved in the Italian Wars
Italian Wars
The Italian Wars, often referred to as the Great Italian Wars or the Great Wars of Italy and sometimes as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts from 1494 to 1559 that involved, at various times, most of the city-states of Italy, the Papal States, most of the major states of Western...
, where Swiss mercenaries ended up fighting on both sides. The involvement of the Old Swiss Confederacy
Old Swiss Confederacy
The Old Swiss Confederacy was the precursor of modern-day Switzerland....
, acting in its own interests in these wars, was brought to an end by the defeat against French forces in the battle of Marignano
Battle of Marignano
The Battle of Marignano was fought during the phase of the Italian Wars called the War of the League of Cambrai, between France and the Old Swiss Confederacy. It took place on September 13 and 15, 1515, near the town today called Melegnano, 16 km southeast of Milan...
in 1515 and a subsequent peace treaty with the French king in 1516, the so-called Eternal Peace. However, Swiss mercenaries
Swiss mercenaries
Swiss mercenaries were notable for their service in foreign armies, especially the armies of the Kings of France, throughout the Early Modern period of European history, from the Later Middle Ages into the Age of the European Enlightenment...
from individual cantons
Cantons of Switzerland
The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the member states of the federal state of Switzerland. Each canton was a fully sovereign state with its own borders, army and currency from the Treaty of Westphalia until the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848...
of the federation continued to participate in the Italian Wars well beyond (until the middle of the 16th century) in the service of various parties and, following that peace with France, in particular in the service of the French king.
The Swiss Confederacy remained an independent Reichsstand of the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
, but as it wasn't even obliged to participate in the Reichstag
Reichstag (Holy Roman Empire)
The Imperial Diet was the Diet, or general assembly, of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire.During the period of the Empire, which lasted formally until 1806, the Diet was not a parliament in today's sense; instead, it was an assembly of the various estates of the realm...
, this relation was degraded to a purely formal one that would lose significance throughout the 16th century. However, the Swiss still considered themselves as members of the empire with the status of imperial immediacy; the empire was still considered the foundation of all privileges, rights, or political identity as can be witnessed in the continued use of the imperial insignia
Insignia
Insignia or insigne pl -nia or -nias : a symbol or token of personal power, status or office, or of an official body of government or jurisdiction...
. The relations between the Habsburgs and the Confederacy were fully normalized in the Erbeinung of 1511, a renewal of the earlier Ewige Richtung of 1474 and a first Erbeinung of 1477. In that treaty, the Habsburgs finally and officially gave up all their territorial claims of old, and even designated the Confederacy the protecting power of the County of Burgundy
County of Burgundy
The Free County of Burgundy , was a medieval county , within the traditional province and modern French region Franche-Comté, whose very French name is still reminiscent of the unusual title of its count: Freigraf...
. In the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, all members and associate states of the Confederacy would gain official full exemption from the empire and recognition as a national and political entity on their own right.
Footnotes
Kuhschweizer roughly means literally "Swiss cow herders"; although intended as a derogatory term, there is no connection to "coward". One explanation for the violent response of the Swiss to that and related "cow"-based insults is that these alluded to sodomySodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...
and thus heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
. Incidentally, the Swabians also used the term Schwyzer to denote all the Swiss, who called themselves Eidgenossen at the time, as an insult. The Swiss, however, assimilated that term and began to wear it proudly. See also Schwyz
Schwyz
The town of is the capital of the canton of Schwyz in Switzerland.The Federal Charter of 1291 or Bundesbrief, the charter that eventually led to the foundation of Switzerland, can be seen at the Bundesbriefmuseum.-History of the toponym:...
. The name is sometimes given as "Schwaderloo" or even "Schwaderloch". The battle of Schwaderloh actually took place near Triboltingen
Triboltingen
Triboltingen is a small village in the canton of Thurgau in Switzerland, situated on the south shore of the Untersee part of Lake Constance. Since 1975, it is politically part of Ermatingen....
. Götz von Berlichingen
Götz von Berlichingen
Gottfried "Götz" von Berlichingen and also known as Götz of the Iron Hand, was a German Imperial Knight and mercenary....
participated as a young knight in this operation and described the event in some detail in his memoirs. Willibald Pirckheimer
Willibald Pirckheimer
Willibald Pirckheimer was a German Renaissance lawyer, author and Renaissance humanist, a wealthy and prominent figure in Nuremberg in the 16th century, and a member of the governing City Council for two periods...
, another eye-witness, also gave an extended description.
Primary sources
- SchwabenkriegschronikenSchwabenkriegschronikThe Schwabenkriegschroniken are a series of independent accounts written in Switzerland in or shortly after 1499 and recording the history of the war...
- Anshelm, V.Valerius AnshelmValerius Anshelm , born as Valerius Rüd , was a Swiss chronicler working in Bern.Anshelm was born in Rottweil, a city in Swabia that was allied with the Old Swiss Confederacy. His grandfather „Boley der Rüd genannt Anshelm“ had fought on the side of the Eidgenossen in the Burgundy Wars...
: Berner Chronik, 1529–1546. - v. Berlichingen, G.Götz von BerlichingenGottfried "Götz" von Berlichingen and also known as Götz of the Iron Hand, was a German Imperial Knight and mercenary....
: Memoirs, around 1560; rediscovered and first published for wider circulation in 1731. Available e.g. in German from reclam: ISBN 3-15-001556-1. - Pirckheimer, W.Willibald PirckheimerWillibald Pirckheimer was a German Renaissance lawyer, author and Renaissance humanist, a wealthy and prominent figure in Nuremberg in the 16th century, and a member of the governing City Council for two periods...
: De bello Suitense sive Eluetico, 1526. Pirckheimer had participated in the Swabian War as the commander of a troop from NurembergNurembergNuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
. An excerpt from the translation of Ernst Münch, Berlin 1988, is available on-line. A more recent edition was translated by Fritz Wille, Baden 1998 (ISBN 3-85648-094-3); in Latin and German. - Schilling, D.Diebold Schilling the YoungerDiebold Schilling the Younger was the author of the "Luzerner Schilling", one of the Swiss illustrated chronicles, which he presented to the city council of Lucerne on 15 January 1513 . He was the nephew of Diebold Schilling the Elder of Berne...
: LuzernerchronikLuzerner SchillingThe Luzerner Schilling is an illuminated manuscript of 1513, containing the chronicle of the history of the Swiss Confederation written by Diebold Schilling the Younger of Lucerne....
, 1511–1513.
External links
- Web exposition with a map and many illustrations from the Luzerner SchillingLuzerner SchillingThe Luzerner Schilling is an illuminated manuscript of 1513, containing the chronicle of the history of the Swiss Confederation written by Diebold Schilling the Younger of Lucerne....
(in German). - Ganse, A.: Swabian War 1499. Very brief summary in English.
- Graf, K. (ed.): Der Schwabenkrieg; comprehensive web site in German.