had kindled a like desire for emancipation amongst the neighbouring
Alpine
[Pg 180]
states. But the efforts resulting were not all equally successful. Some
of the states drifted from monarchical subjection to that of the
federation or canton as subject lands ( Unterthanen laender); others
became "connections" ( Zugewandte), or allies of inferior rank; others,
again, took the position of Schirmverwandte, or protégés. One might
indeed go thus through a whole graduated scale of relationships
developed amongst the crowd of candidates seeking admission into
the league. And though as yet kept outside they received a helping
hand from the Eidgenossen. But it is not till the opening of the
nineteenth century that we find the list of twenty-two cantons made
up. Thanks to the mediation of Napoleon Bonaparte (1803), St. Gall,
Thurgau, Grisons, Aargau, Vaud, and Ticino were added to the
confederation of states. And by the Congress of Vienna, in 1814-15,
were also added Valais, Geneva, and Neuchâtel. The latter, however,
still continued under the sway of Prussia, although partly a free state,
till 1857. The reader will clearly see into what a complicated fabric of
unions the league is growing, and that the Swiss fatherland did not
spring at once into life as a fait accompli. Each canton had its
separate birth to freedom, as was the case with the free states of
ancient Greece, which joined into confederations for a similar end—
protection against a common foe. Each little state has its own
separate history, even before it amalgamates with the general
league. We shall, however, notice only the leading features.
Appenzell opens the series of Zugewandte, or "connections." The
shepherds and peasants scattered
[Pg 181]
around the foot of Mount Säntis, oppressed by the abbots of St. Gall,
began a rising that partook of a revolutionary character. A succession
of heroic feats followed—the battle of Vogelinseck in 1403, that of Am
Stoss in 1405, and others[34]—and the prelate and his ally, Frederick IV. of Austria ("Empty Pocket"), were completely defeated. Somewhat
curiously we find Graf Rudolf von Werdenberg throwing in his lot with
that of the humble peasants, and stooping to the humiliating terms
they insisted upon. He had been robbed of his lands by the
Habsburgs, and hoped to recover them by the help of the Alpestrians,
and actually did so. But the peasantry were somewhat diffident
concerning him, and would not entrust him with command. So the
noble knight of St. George put aside his fine armour and his
magnificent horse, and donned the peasant's garb to be admitted into
their ranks. Elated by their succession of triumphs the hardy
Appenzeller rushed on to new victories. Bursting their bounds, like an
impetuous mountain torrent, they spread into neighbouring lands, and
even penetrated to the distant Tyrol. Serf and bondsman hailed them
as deliverers, and whole towns and valleys along the Upper Rhine
and the Inn came into alliance with them— Bund ob dem See, above
Lake Constance—that was to be a safeguard in the East. At last the
Swabian knighthood plucked up courage enough to oppose this
mountain hurricane. At the siege of Bregenz in 1407, they were,
through carelessness, put
[Pg 182]
to flight. The Bund collapsed, and its prestige departed, but the men
had secured their object, viz., independence from control by the
Abbey of St. Gall. By and by they bought off some of the taxes, and
they met at their Landsgemeinde to consult respecting the weal of
their country. Down to our own days this institution remains famous.
Their application in 1411 for admission into the league was granted,
but quite conditionally. Bern kept aloof from them, and Zurich found it
necessary to checkmate their revolutionary tendencies, and they
were received as Zugewandte, or allies of second rank. It was not till
1513 that the new-comer rose to the position of full member of the
league. St. Gall, too, became "a connection"—and no more—in 1412.
The emancipation of the Valais (Wallis) is but one succession of
feuds between the native nobility and Savoy, the owner of Low
Valais, on the one hand, and the bishops of Sion and the people, on
the other. It was, in fact, a contest between the Romance and the
German populations, the latter of whom the French had driven into a
corner. The dynasts Von Turn had Bishop Tavelli seized in his castle
and hurled from its very windows down a precipice. This foul murder
was avenged in the great battle of Visp, where Savoy is said to have
left four thousand dead (1388). The barons of Raron sustained a
defeat at Ulrichen, in 1414, though assisted by Bern (of which town
they were citizens) and Savoy. These powerful nobles left the
country, and the Valisians gradually secured autonomy, and, being
helped in their quarrels by the Forest men, they finally drew nearer to
the Confederation, as Zugewandte (1488).
[Pg 183]
We must not pass over a singular custom which prevailed amongst
the Valais folk. It was a custom observed as a preliminary to serious
warfare. If a tyrant was to fall, he was attainted and doomed by the
Mazze. This was a huge club on which was carved a distressed-
looking face as a symbol of oppression, the club being wound round
with bramble. It was carried from village to village, and hamlet to
hamlet, even to the remotest spots, and set up at public places to
attract the attention of the people. One of the malcontents would then
step forward and denounce the oppressor to the figure, and promise
help. It was said that when the name of Raron was pronounced the
figure bowed deeply in token of assent, and the insurgents drove
nails into the face as a declaration of hostility, and the instrument was
deposited at the gate of the baron's castle.
Graubünden (Grisons), the land of ancient and mediæval memories,
of crumbling and picturesque castles, was, on account of its rugged
surface and its almost countless dales, split up into numberless
territorial lordships. Here in this rocky seclusion held sway the
Belmonts, the Montforts, the Aspermonts, the Sax-Misox, and many
others whose sonorous names tell of their origin. Here also were
found the families of Haldenstein, Werdenberg, Toggenburg, and
many more—Italian, Romansch, and German mingling closely. Yet
the lord-paramount of them all was the Bishop of Chur, who had
attained the rank of Reichsfürst or duke, who had a suite of nobles
attached to his quasi-royal household, and
[Pg 184]
who held lands even in Italy. Quite contrary to the usual rule, noble
and peasant in general lived amicably together. The political freedom
of the state was due rather to remarkable coalitions than to acts of
war or insurrection. In the fourteenth century, when the bishops of
Chur revealed a strong leaning towards Austria-Tyrol, the
Gotteshausbund sprang into existence as a check on the alien
tendencies of the prince-bishops. This league was formed in 1367 by
the Domstift (chapter of clergy), the nobles, and the common people.
The bishops themselves ruled over people of three different
nationalities. A glance at the place-names on the map of Bünden
shows how the old Latin race (Romansch), the Italians, and the
migrated German race, were mixed up pell-mell in the district. Yet the
Walchen Romansch (Welsh) were slowly retreating before the Valser,
or Germans of the Valais, who had a strong bent for colonization and
culture. In 1397 the Graue Bund (Grey League) was started in the
valleys of the Vorder-Rhine by the Abbot of Disentis, some of the
nobles, and the people at large. On the death of the last of the
Toggenburgs in 1436 his various domains of Malans, Davos,
Prättigau, &c., dreading Austrian interference, united into a league
known as the ten Gerichte Bund (Jurisdictions), so called because
each of the districts had its own place of execution. Gradually the
three leagues formed a federal union (1471), and held their diets at
one centre, Vazerol. Thus Bünden, developing after the manner of
the Forest Cantons, grew into a triple and yet federal democracy
which, threatened by the
[Pg 185]
Austrian invasion during the Swabian wars, turned to the
Eidgenossen for help, and joined with them in 1497 as "connections."
In 1414 met the famous Council convoked by the Emperor Sigismund
to remedy the evils which galled the Church, that Council which by a
strange irony of fate sentenced to death by fire John Huss, the
staunch opponent of the very abuses which the Council was called to
redress. The Council proved fatal to the Habsburg interests in Swiss
lands. Frederick IV. of Austria—the enemy of Appenzell—refused his
homage to the German monarch, and for material reasons espoused
the cause of John XXIII., one of the three deposed popes. John gave
a tournament to cover his departure, and during the spectacle fled in
a shabby postillion's dress to the Austrian town, Schaffhausen,
whither Frederick followed. Excommunicated and outlawed—within a
few days no fewer than four hundred nobles sent challenges to him—
Duke Friedel, as he was familiarly called by his faithful Tyrolese
peasantry, who alone stood by him, was driven from his lands and
from his people. On all sides German contingents fell upon his
provinces. Sigismund called on the Eidgenossen in the name of the
empire to march on Aargau, his ancestral land, promising them the
province for themselves. As they had just renewed their peace with
Austria, the Eidgenossen were unwilling to break it, but it was urged
by the emperor that their promise to Frederick was not binding. Bern,
ever bent on self-aggrandisement, and determined to secure the
lion's share if possible, threw away her scruples, and within
seventeen
[Pg 186]
days took as many towns and castles.[35] Zurich, consulting with the Eidgenossen, followed suit and seized Knonau. Lucerne took some
fragment, and the Forest did likewise. Aargau, the retreat of the
Habsburg nobles, offered no serious resistance; but Baden, which
was seized by the Eidgenossen conjointly, the castle of Stein, the
royal residence of the Habsburgs, was being stormed, when
Sigismund tried to stop the siege; for Frederick in despair had in the
meantime made an abject submission, and most of the confiscated
lands were restored to him. However, the Eidgenossen were
unwilling, because of the emperor's wavering policy, to relinquish so
good a chance of adding to their territory. Matters were settled by
their paying over a sum of money to Sigismund, who was ever in
financial straits. Henceforth Friedel was nicknamed "With-the-empty-
pocket. "[36] Aargau was divided amongst the Eidgenossen as subject land, what they had seized separately becoming cantonal, and what
conjointly federal, property. Baden and some other places became
federal domains (gemeine Herrschaften), over which each of the
eight states in turn set a governor for two years. With this precedent
we enter upon the curious period in which the Swiss cantons split into
two sets, the governing and the governed.
Whilst the republics vied with each other in extending
[Pg 187]
their borders, two, Uri and Unterwalden, were unable to increase their
territory, being hemmed in by lofty mountains. They turned their eyes
towards the sunny south, beyond St. Gothard, where they might find
additional lands. Like the Rhætians of old they had often descended
into the Lombard plains, though for far more peaceful ends. When the
St. Gothard pass was thrown open in the thirteenth century, there
was a lively interchange of traffic between the two peoples—the
cismontanes and the transmontanes. The men of the Forest sold their
cheese, butter, cattle, and other Alpine produce at the marts in the
Lombardian towns, and got from thence their supply of corn and other
necessaries. And they of the Forest acted as guides across the
mountains, as they did down to the railway era. Their youths, too,
enlisted amongst the Italians soldiers, induced either by the prospect
of gaining a living, or by a mere desire for amusement. Thus the
Swiss associated on friendly terms with the southerners. But all this
pleasant social intercourse was suddenly cut off. Whilst the
Eidgenossen under the ægis of a weakened empire secured
independence, the mighty Lombard cities, which had objected to
imperial fetters, however light, by a singular contrast sank beneath
the tyrannies of ambitious native dynasts, and under the Visconti the
duchy of Milan sprang up from these free Italian towns. Quarrels that
broke out between the Milanese and the people of the Forest
prepared the way for the acquisition of Ticino by the Swiss. In 1403
Uri and Unterwalden were robbed of their herds of cattle at the mart
of Varese by the officials
[Pg 188]
of the Visconti, on what pretext is not clear. Failing to get redress,
they at once decided on resorting to force. They seized the
Livinenthal or Leventina, which willingly accepted the new masters.
Fresh robberies in 1410 were revenged by the annexation of the
Eschenthal, with Domo d'Ossola, which greatly preferred Swiss
supremacy to that of the Duke of Milan. This is not much to be
wondered at, seeing that Gian Maria Visconti was a second Nero for
cruelty. The human beings who fell victims to his suspicion or
revenge he had torn to pieces by huge dogs, which were fed on
human blood. To strengthen their Italian acquisitions the
Eidgenossen bought Bellinzona (1418) from the barons of Sax-Misox
or Misocco of Graubünden. But the Milanese dukes would not brook
the loss of these lands, and a long-protracted war ensued with
varying success. Most of the more distant cantons being opposed to
these Italian conquests declined to send help, but hearing that
Bellinzona had been captured by the Visconti, some three thousand
Eidgenossen marched to its relief in 1422. They were, however, no
match for the twenty-four thousand troops gathered by the famous
general Carmagnola. Lying in ambush for the Swiss he succeeded in
completely shutting them in at Arbedo, with the exception of six
hundred who had escaped into the valley of Misox. For six hours the
small Swiss band fought to the utmost, refusing to give way, though
opposed by a force of ten times their number, and well trained.
Suddenly their brethren came to their relief, or they would have been
crushed. The Swiss loss was two hundred, that of
[Pg 189]
the enemy nine hundred. But the conquests were forfeited for the
present. Yet the Swiss pushed on to new war to redeem their
misfortunes under the Sforza. A brilliant victory was that of Giornico
(Leventina), 1478, where six hundred Swiss under Theiling from
Lucerne defeated a force of fifteen thousand Milanese soldiers. This
tended greatly to spread Swiss military fame in Italy.
ARMS OF URI.
FOOTNOTES:
It is related that Uli Rotach kept at bay with his halbert twelve Austrians,
giving way only when the hut against which he leant was set on fire.
To Bern fell the classic spots Habsburg and Königsfelden.
As a retort to those who thus nicknamed him this extravagant prince built a
balcony at Innsbruck whose roof was covered with gold, at the cost of thirty
thousand florins—it would be twenty times more money now. Every visitor
to that romantic city will be struck by the quaint Haus zum goldenen
Dachere (House with the golden roof).
[Pg 190]
XVII.
WAR BETWEEN ZURICH AND SCHWYZ.
(1436-1450.)
A gloomy picture in Swiss history do these civil wars present, marking
as they do the chasm separating the Confederates, who were each
swayed by a spirit of jealous antagonism. Yet it was clear that the
town and the country commonwealths—citizens and peasants—
formed such strong contrasts that they would not always pull
together. Indeed, the smouldering discontent was suddenly fanned
into flame by questions respecting hereditary succession that
threatened to consume the whole Confederation. Feudalism was
tottering to its fall in Switzerland, but it seemed as if the famous
counts of Toggenburg were for a while to stay its ruin in the eastern
portion of the country. Frederick III. (1400-1436) possessed what
would come up to the present canton of St. Gall, the Ten Gerichte, a
large portion of Graubünden, Voralberg (which he had wrenched from
Friedel "of the Empty Pocket"), and other districts. Despite the
popular struggles for freedom he managed
[Pg 191]
to maintain his authority by adroit and designing policy and by
alliance with Zurich and Schwyz, which stood by him against foes
domestic and foreign. Having no children Frederick promised that on
his death the two cantons should receive his domains south of Zurich
lake, which acquisition would round off their territory. He died in 1436,
but left no will—intentionally, as was thought by some, with the view
of entangling the Confederates in quarrels—"tying their tails
together," as the expressive but not very polished phrase had it. Be
that as it may, the apple of discord was soon in the midst, and there
set up as claimants numerous seigneurs of Graubünden, barons from
the Valais, near relatives, as well as Austria and the empire. Zurich
and Schwyz also contended for the promised stretch of land. To
penetrate into the maze of petty conflicts which followed would be
ridiculous as it would be impossible. In accordance with her more
aristocratic inclinations Zurich paid court to the dowager countess
whilst Schwyz humoured rather the subjects as the future masters,
and the three latter proved in the end to have had the better
judgment. The strife, indeed, fell into one of emulation between the
two most energetic and talented statesmen of the two
commonwealths. One of these leading men was burgomaster Stüssi,
of Zurich, and the other was Ital von Reding, from Schwyz, both
highly gifted and energetic men. Even from their youth they had been
rivals, incited by the Emperor Sigismund whose favour they enjoyed.
Save the battle of St. Jacques on the Birse, the
[Pg 192]
war brought forth no great military exploits, and as it effected no
material changes it may be very briefly passed over. It splits naturally
into three periods. The first of these (1436-1442) is simply a series of
wasteful feuds waged by the Confederates alone. Schwyz had taken
for itself the whole heritage in question, with the exception of one
fragmentary portion left to its rival. Zurich, thus deprived of her
portion, and disappointed in her scheme of planning a direct
commercial road to Italy through Graubünden, retaliated by shutting
her market against Schwyz and Glarus, causing a famine in the two
districts. The Confederates did not act with impartiality in the matter,
but, laying all blame on Zurich, drove her to arms. She was, however,
again a loser, for her territory to the east of the lake, which was the
theatre of war, was terribly wasted. This portion of the land Schwyz
wished to annex, but was prevented by order of the federal Diet.
Nevertheless Zurich lost to Schwyz and Glarus three villages on the
upper lake, and the island Ufenau which she had governed for half a
century, and she was compelled to re-open her roads and market.
Deeply wounded by the position of the Confederates in the opposition
ranks, and still more by the humiliation inflicted on her by the rustics
of Schwyz, the proud, free city of Zurich thirsted for revenge. Thus
the second period of conflict began, and in June, 1442, Zurich sought
a foreign alliance. Stüssi, or his secretary, who was his right hand,
taking advantage of her old leanings towards Austria, conceived the
Machiavelian plan of joining in union with the
[Pg 193]
deadly foe of the Confederates. Despite the firm opposition of a
strong party of noble and eminent patriots, the coalition was
arranged. The plea was put forward that the "imperial city," by virtue
of her exceptional position, and the treaty concluded under the
auspices of Brun, in 1351, was allowed to make any alliances she
chose. Disloyalty was thus coloured by a show of truth. The Emperor
Frederick III. and his brother, Albrecht of Austria, proceeded to Zurich
to receive the homage and allegiance of the enthusiastic population.
The Confederates guessing the meaning of this move tried to
convince the renegade member of her perfidy. But their efforts failing,
all, Bern included—though she took no prominent or active part,
being chiefly occupied by her Burgundian politics—sent their
challenge to Austria and Zurich. The war, though fiercer and bloodier
than the first, was just as luckless, owing to dissensions arising
amongst the allies, the men of Zurich being unwilling to submit to a
many-headed Austrian lordship. The struggle was carried on by fits
and starts, the Confederates returning home on one occasion for the
annual haymaking. Having laid waste the Zurich territory the
Confederates proceeded to attack the capital itself. During a sally to
St. Jacques on the Sihl, Stüssi fell in defence of the bridge over that
river, whilst endeavouring to keep back the foe and stay the flight of
the fugitives. His heroic death makes one almost forget his ambitious
and misguided policy. At last the