Sempach And Arnold Winkelried
Seventy years had passed since the battle of Morgarten, through which
freedom came to the lands of the Swiss. Throughout that long period
Austria had let the liberty-loving mountaineers alone, deterred by the
frightful lesson taught them in the bloody pass. In the interval the
confederacy had grown more extensive. The towns of Berne, Zurich,
Soleure, and Zug had joined it; and now several other towns and
villages, ince
masters, threw off the foreign yoke and allied themselves to the Swiss
confederacy. It was time for the Austrians to be moving, if they would
retain any possessions in the Alpine realm of rocks.
Duke Leopold of Austria, a successor to the Leopold who had learned so
well at Morgarten how the Swiss could strike for liberty, and as bold
and arrogant as he, grew incensed at the mountaineers for taking into
their alliance several towns which were subject to him, and vowed not
only to chastise these rebels, but to subdue the whole country, and put
an end to their insolent confederacy. His feeling was shared by the
Austrian nobles, one hundred and sixty-seven of whom joined in his
warlike scheme, and agreed to aid him in putting down the defiant
mountaineers.
War resolved upon, the Austrians laid a shrewd plan to fill the Swiss
confederates with terror in advance of their approach. Letters declaring
war were sent to the confederate assembly by twenty distinct expresses,
with the hope that this rapid succession of threats would overwhelm them
with fear. The separate nobles followed with their declarations. On St.
John's day a messenger arrived from Wuertemberg bearing fifteen
declarations of war. Hardly had these letters been read when nine more
arrived, sent by John Ulric of Pfirt and eight other nobles. Others
quickly followed; it fairly rained declarations of war; the members of
the assembly had barely time to read one batch of threatening
fulminations before another arrived. Letters from the lords of Thurn
came after those named, followed by a batch from the nobles of
Schaffhausen. This seemed surely enough, but on the following day the
rain continued, eight successive messengers arriving, who bore no less
than forty-three declarations of war.
It seemed as if the whole north was about to descend in a cyclone of
banners and spears upon the mountain land. The assembly sat breathless
under this torrent of threats. Had their hearts been open to the
invasion of terror they must surely have been overwhelmed, and have
waited in the supineness of fear for the coming of their foes.
But the hearts of the Swiss were not of that kind. They were too full of
courage and patriotism to leave room for dismay. Instead of awaiting
their enemies with dread, a burning impatience animated their souls. If
liberty or death were the alternatives, the sooner the conflict began
the more to their liking it would be. The cry of war resounded through
the country, and everywhere, in valley and on mountain, by lake-side and
by glacier's rim, the din of hostile preparation might have been heard,
as the patriots arranged their affairs and forged and sharpened their
weapons for the coming fray.
Far too impatient were they to wait for the coming of Leopold and his
army. There were Austrian nobles and Austrian castles within their land.
No sooner was the term of the armistice at an end than the armed
peasantry swarmed about these strongholds, and many a fortress, long the
seat of oppression, was taken and levelled with the ground. The war-cry
of Leopold and the nobles had inspired a different feeling from that
counted upon.
It was not long before Duke Leopold appeared. At the head of a large and
well-appointed force, and attended by many distinguished knights and
nobles, he marched into the mountain region and advanced upon Sempach,
one of the revolted towns, resolved, he said, to punish its citizens
with a rod of iron for their daring rebellion.
On the 9th of July, 1386, the Austrian cavalry, several thousands in
number, reached the vicinity of Sempach, having distanced the
foot-soldiers in the impatient haste of their advance. Here they found
the weak array of the Swiss gathered on the surrounding heights, and as
eager as themselves for the fray. It was a small force, no stronger
than that of Morgarten, comprising only about fourteen hundred
poorly-armed men. Some carried halberds, some shorter weapons, while
some among them, instead of a shield, had only a small board fastened to
the left arm. It seemed like madness for such a band to dare contend
with the thousands of well-equipped invaders. But courage and patriotism
go far to replace numbers, as that day was to show.
Leopold looked upon his handful of foes, and decided that it would be
folly to wait for the footmen to arrive. Surely his host of nobles and
knights, with their followers, would soon sweep these peasants, like so
many locusts, from their path. Yet he remembered the confusion into
which the cavalry had been thrown at Morgarten, and deeming that
horsemen were ill-suited to an engagement on those wooded hill-sides, he
ordered the entire force to dismount and attack on foot.
The plan adopted was that the dismounted knights and soldiers should
join their ranks as closely as possible, until their front presented an
unbroken wall of iron, and thus arrayed should charge the enemy spear in
hand. Leaving their attendants in charge of their horses, the serried
column of footmen prepared to advance, confident of sweeping their foes
to death before their closely-knit line of spears.
Yet this plan of battle was not without its critics. The Baron of
Hasenburg, a veteran soldier, looked on it with disfavor, as contrasted
with the position of vantage occupied by the Swiss, and cautioned the
duke and his nobles against undue assurance.
"Pride never served any good purpose in peace or war," he said. "We had
much better wait until the infantry come up."
This prudent advice was received with shouts of derision by the nobles,
some of whom cried out insultingly,--
"Der Hasenburg hat ein Hasenherz" ("Hasenburg has a hare's heart," a
play upon the baron's name).
Certain nobles, however, who had not quite lost their prudence, tried to
persuade the duke to keep in the rear, as the true position for a
leader. He smiled proudly in reply, and exclaimed with impatience,--
"What! shall Leopold be a mere looker-on, and calmly behold his knights
die around him in his own cause? Never! here on my native soil with you
I will conquer or perish with my people." So saying, he placed himself
at the head of the troops.
And now the decisive moment was at hand. The Swiss had kept to the
heights while their enemy continued mounted, not venturing to face such
a body of cavalry on level ground. But when they saw them forming as
foot-soldiers, they left the hills and marched to the plain below. Soon
the unequal forces confronted each other; the Swiss, as was their
custom, falling upon their knees and praying for God's aid to their
cause; the Austrians fastening their helmets and preparing for the fray.
The duke even took the occasion to give the honor of knighthood to
several young warriors.
The day was a hot and close one, the season being that of harvest, and
the sun pouring down its unclouded and burning rays upon the combatants.
This sultriness was a marked advantage to the lightly-dressed
mountaineers as compared with the armor-clad knights, to whom the heat
was very oppressive.
The battle was begun by the Swiss, who, on rising from their knees,
flung themselves with impetuous valor on the dense line of spears that
confronted them. Their courage and fury were in vain. Not a man in the
Austrian line wavered. They stood like a rock against which the waves of
the Swiss dashed only to be hurled back in death. The men of Lucerne, in
particular, fought with an almost blind rage, seeking to force a path
through that steel-pointed forest of spears, and falling rapidly before
the triumphant foe.
Numbers of the mountaineers lay dead or wounded. The line of spears
seemed impenetrable. The Swiss began to waver. The enemy, seeing this,
advanced the flanks of his line so as to form a half-moon shape, with
the purpose of enclosing the small body of Swiss within a circle of
spears. It looked for the moment as if the struggle were at an end, the
mountaineers foiled and defeated, the fetters again ready to be locked
upon the limbs of free Switzerland.
But such was not to be. There was a man in that small band of patriots
who had the courage to accept certain death for his country, one of
those rare souls who appear from time to time in the centuries and win
undying fame by an act of self-martyrdom. Arnold of Winkelried was his
name, a name which history is not likely soon to forget, for by an
impulse of the noblest devotion this brave patriot saved the liberties
of his native land.
Seeing that there was but one hope for the Swiss, and that death must be
the lot of him who gave them that hope, he exclaimed to his comrades, in
a voice of thunder,--
"Faithful and beloved confederates, I will open a passage to freedom and
victory! Protect my wife and children!"
With these words, he rushed from his ranks, flung himself upon the
enemy's steel-pointed line, and seized with his extended arms as many of
the hostile spears as he was able to grasp, burying them in his body,
and sinking dead to the ground.
His comrades lost not a second in availing themselves of this act of
heroic devotion. Darting forward, they rushed over the body of the
martyr to liberty into the breach he had made, forced others of the
spears aside, and for the first time since the fray began reached the
Austrians with their weapons.
A hasty and ineffective effort was made to close the breach. It only
added to the confusion which the sudden assault had caused. The line of
hurrying knights became crowded and disordered. The furious Swiss broke
through in increasing numbers. Overcome with the heat, many of the
knights fell from exhaustion, and died without a wound, suffocated in
their armor. Others fell below the blows of the Swiss. The line of
spears, so recently intact, was now broken and pierced at a dozen
points, and the revengeful mountaineers were dealing death upon their
terrified and feebly-resisting foes.
The chief banner of the host had twice sunk and been raised again, and
was drooping a third time, when Ulric, a knight of Aarburg, seized and
lifted it, defending it desperately till a mortal blow laid him low.
"Save Austria! rescue!" he faltered with his dying breath.
Duke Leopold, who was pushing through the confused throng, heard him and
caught the banner from his dying hand. Again it waved aloft, but now
crimsoned with the blood of its defender.
The Swiss, determined to capture it, pressed upon its princely bearer,
surrounded him, cut down on every side the warriors who sought to defend
him and the standard.
"Since so many nobles and knights have ended their days in my cause, let
me honorably follow them," cried the despairing duke, and in a moment he
rushed into the midst of the hostile ranks, vanishing from the eyes of
his attendants. Blows rained on his iron mail. In the pressure of the
crowd he fell to the earth. While seeking to raise himself again in his
heavy armor, he cried, in his helpless plight, to a Swiss soldier, who
had approached him with raised weapon,--
"I am the Prince of Austria."
The man either heard not his words, or took no heed of princes. The
weapon descended with a mortal blow. Duke Leopold of Austria was dead.
The body of the slain duke was found by a knight, Martin Malterer, who
bore the banner of Freiburg. On recognizing him, he stood like one
petrified, let the banner fall from his hand, and then threw himself on
the body of the prince, that it might not be trampled under foot by the
contending forces. In this position he soon received his own
death-wound.
By this time the state of the Austrians was pitiable. The signal for
retreat was given, and in utter terror and dismay they fled for their
horses. Alas, too late! The attendants, seeing the condition of their
masters, and filled with equal terror, had mounted the horses, and were
already in full flight.
Nothing remained for the knights, oppressed with their heavy armor,
exhausted with thirst and fatigue, half suffocated with the scorching
heat, assailed on every side by the light-armed and nimble Swiss, but to
sell their lives as dearly as possible. In a short time more all was at
an end. The last of the Austrians fell. On that fatal field there had
met their death, at the hands of the small body of Swiss, no less than
six hundred and fifty-six knights, barons, and counts, together with
thousands of their men-at-arms.
Thus ended the battle of Sempach, with its signal victory to the Swiss,
one of the most striking which history records, if we consider the great
disproportion in numbers and in warlike experience and military
equipment of the combatants. It secured to Switzerland the liberty for
which they had so valiantly struck at Morgarten seventy years before.
But all Switzerland was not yet free, and more blows were needed to win
its full liberty. The battle of Naefels, in 1388, added to the width of
the free zone. In this the peasants of Glarus rolled stones on the
Austrian squadrons, and set fire to the bridges over which they fled,
two thousand five hundred of the enemy, including a great number of
nobles, being slain. In the same year the peasants of Valais defeated
the Earl of Savoy at Visp, putting four thousand of his men to the
sword. The citizens of St. Gall, infuriated by the tyranny of the
governor of the province of Schwendi, broke into insurrection, attacked
the castle of Schwendi, and burnt it to the ground. The governor
escaped. All the castles in the vicinity were similarly dealt with, and
the whole district set free.
Shortly after 1400 the citizens of St. Gall joined with the peasants
against their abbot, who ruled them with a hand of iron. The Swabian
cities were asked to decide the dispute, and decided that cities could
only confederate with cities, not with peasants, thus leaving the
Appenzellers to their fate. At this decision the herdsmen rose in arms,
defeated abbot and citizens both, and set their country free, all the
neighboring peasantry joining their band of liberty. A few years later
the people of this region joined the confederation, which now included
nearly the whole of the Alpine country, and was strong enough to
maintain its liberty for centuries thereafter. It was not again subdued
until the legions of Napoleon trod over its mountain paths.
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Through the centre of France marched the Black Prince, with a small but valiant army. Into the heart of that fair kingdom had he come, ravaging the land as he went, leaving misery and destitution at every step, when suddenly across his line of mar... The Blood-bath Of Stockholm
The most cruel tyrant the northern lands ever knew was Christian II. of Denmark, grandson of Christian I., whose utter defeat at Stockholm has been told. For twenty-seven years Sweden remained without a king, under the wise rule of Sten Sture. Then ... The Books Of Ancestry
The noble families of Russia, for the most part descendants of the Scandinavian adventurers who had come in with Rurik, were as proud in their way as the descendants of the vikings who came to England under William of Normandy. Their books of pedi... The Books Of The Sibyl
While Tarquin the Proud was king a strange thing happened at Rome. One day an unknown woman came to the king, bearing in her arms nine books, which she offered to sell to him at a certain price. She told him that they contained the prophecies of the... The British At New York
Before the days of dynamite and the other powerful explosives which enable modern man to set at naught the most rigid conditions of nature, warfare with the torpedo was little thought of, gunpowder being a comparatively innocent agent for this pu... The Burning Of Moscow
From west to east across Europe had marched the army of the great conqueror, no nation daring to draw a hostile sword, none venturing to place an obstacle in its path. Across Russia it had marched almost as triumphantly, breaking irresistibly throug... The Burning Of The Summer Palace
The "sublime" emperor, the supreme head of the great realm of China and its hundreds of millions of people, dwells in a magnificence and seclusion unknown to the monarchs of other lands. His palace enclosure within the city of Peking, the "Purple Fo... The Captivity Of Captain Golownin
Japan was persistent in its policy of isolation. To its people their group of islands was the world, and they knew little of and cared less for what was going on in all the continents outside. The Dutch vessel that visited their shores once a year s...