The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

Then Switzerland and Rhetia were in great danger. But the Grisons rose courageously to defend their freedom, as did all the Confederates. The Sargansers, also, and the Appenzellers hastened to the Schollenberg; the banners of Valais, Basel, and Schaffhausen soon floated in view of the enemy. No man stayed at home.

It was in February, 1499, that the strife began. Then eight thousand imperialists entered the Grison territory of Munsterthal and Engadine; Louis of Brandis, the Emperor's general, with several thousand men, surprised and held the Pass of Luziensteig, and, by the treachery of four burghers, the little city of Maienfeld. But the Grisons retook the Luziensteig, and eight hundred Swabians here found their death; the rest fled to Balzers. Then the Confederates passed the Rhine near Azmoos, and, with the Grisons, obtained a great victory near Treisen. The Swabian nobility, with ten thousand soldiers, were posted near St. John's, at Hochst and Hard, between Bregenz and Fussach. Eight thousand Confederates killed nearly half of the enemy's army, ascended as far as the forests of Bregenz, and imposed contributions on the country. Ten thousand other Confederates passed victoriously over the Hegau, and in eight days burned twenty villages, hamlets, and castles. Skirmish followed quickly upon skirmish, battle upon battle.

The enemy, indeed, issuing from Constance, succeeded in surprising the Confederate garrison of Ermatingen while asleep, and in murdering in their beds sixty-three defenceless men. But they bloodily expiated this in the wood of Schwaderlochs, whence eighteen thousand of them, vanquished by two thousand Confederates, fled in such haste that the city gates of Constance were too narrow for the fugitives, and the number of their dead exceeded that of the Swiss opposed to them. A body of Confederates on the upper Rhine penetrated into Wallgau, where the enemy were intrenched near Frastenz, and, fourteen thousand strong, feared not the valor of the Swiss. But when Henry Wolleb, the hero of Uri, had passed the Langengasterberg with two thousand brave men, and burned the strong intrenchment, his heroic death was the signal of victory to the Confederates. They rushed under the thunder of artillery into the ranks of Austria and dealt their fearful blows. Three thousand dead bodies covered the battle-field of Frastenz. Such Austrians as were left alive fled in terror through woods and waters. Then each Swiss fought as though victory depended on his single arm; for Switzerland and Swiss glory, each flew joyously to meet danger and death, and counted not the number of the enemy. And wherever a Swiss banner floated, there was more than one like John Wala of Glarus, who, near Gams in Rheinthal, measured himself singly with thirty horsemen.

The Grisons, also, fought with no less glory. Witness the Malserhaide in Tyrol, where fifteen thousand men, under Austrian banners, behind strong intrenchments, were attacked by only eight thousand Grisons. The ramparts were turned, the intrenchments stormed. Benedict Fontana was first on the enemy's wall. He had cleared the way. With his left hand holding the wide wound from which his entrails protruded, he fought with his right and cried: "Forward, now, fellow-leaguers! let not my fall stop you! It is but one man the less! To-day you must save your free fatherland and your free leagues. If you are conquered, you leave your children in everlasting slavery." So said Fontana and died. The Malserhaide was full of Austrian dead. Nearly five thousand fell. The Grisons had only two hundred killed and seven hundred wounded.

When Emperor Maximilian, in the Netherlands, heard of so many battles lost, he came and reproached his generals, and said to the princes of the German empire: "Send to me auxiliaries against the Swiss, so bold as to have attacked the empire. For these rude peasants, in whom there is neither virtue nor noble blood nor magnanimity, but who are full of coarseness, pride, perfidy, and hatred of the German nation, have drawn into their party many hitherto faithful subjects of the empire."

But the princes of the empire delayed to send auxiliaries, and the Emperor then learned, with increasing horror, that his army sent over the Engadine mountains to suppress the Grison League had been destroyed in midsummer by avalanches, famine, and the masses of rock which the Grisons threw down from the mountains; then that on the woody height of Bruderholz, not far from Basel, one thousand Swiss had vanquished more than four thousand of their enemies; that, shortly after, in the same region near Dornach, six thousand Confederates had obtained a brilliant victory over fifteen thousand Austrians, killing three thousand men, with their general, Henry of Furstenberg. Then the Emperor reflected that within eight months the Swiss had been eight times victorious in eight battles. And he decided to end a war in which more than twenty thousand men had already fallen, and nearly two thousand villages, hamlets, castles, and cities been destroyed.