The Battle of Morgarten
Morgarten, Schornen (Sattel), Lake Ägeri, Brunnen
Key figures: Leopold I of Habsburg
Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (German): Morgarten War
The causes (1309–1315). In 1309 King Henry VII confirms the imperial immediacy of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, that is, their direct dependence on the emperor, which the Habsburgs refuse to recognise. From then on relations deteriorate. For years the men of Schwyz have been quarrelling with the abbey of Einsiedeln, protected by the Habsburgs, over alpine pastures and forests, and on the night of Epiphany 1314 they raid it by surprise. In the dispute over the throne between Louis the Bavarian and Frederick the Fair, the three Forest Cantons side with Louis: Frederick places them under the imperial ban and entrusts his brother, Duke Leopold I, with enforcing it.
The battle (15 November 1315). The duke gathers his troops at Zug and on the morning of 15 November marches towards Sattel along the Ägeri valley. We do not know whether he meant to reach Schwyz, the disputed lands of Einsiedeln or somewhere further. The men of Schwyz attack him near Schornen, at the upper end of Lake Ägeri, and after a short but bloody hand-to-hand fight the Habsburg army flees. The Austrians probably numbered a few thousand, not tens of thousands; the Forest Cantons about a thousand men, almost all from Schwyz. Several hundred Austrian foot soldiers and knights are killed.
Boulders, logs and halberds: history and tradition. The main source, the chronicler John of Winterthur, writes shortly after the events but models his account on episodes from the Old Testament, and it is hard to separate the facts from the biblical imagery. Many famous details come from later tradition: the arrows bearing the message “Beware of Morgarten” that the lords of Hünenberg are said to have shot to warn the men of Schwyz, the boulders and logs rolled down the slope onto the knights, the halberds. Even the exact site of the battle was long disputed: in the early twentieth century Schwyz and Zug argued over where to put up the monument.
The Pact of Brunnen (9 December 1315). A few weeks later, on 9 December 1315, representatives of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden meet at Brunnen and renew their alliance. Unlike the pact of 1291, written in Latin, this one is drawn up in German and introduces an important new element: a common foreign policy, which will guide the three original cantons for centuries. Until the late nineteenth century the chronicles regard the pact of 1315, not that of 1291, as the founding charter of the Confederation. Over time the name of Schwyz came to stand for all the Confederates: this is where the name of Switzerland comes from.
After Morgarten. The victory does not end the conflict. In 1316 Louis the Bavarian recognises the rights of the Forest Cantons, but skirmishes with the Habsburgs continue, and in 1318 the three cantons, isolated, sign a truce with Leopold that is renewed every year. Historians today play down the military importance of the battle: 15 November 1315 marks neither the end of the hostilities nor a decisive weakening of the Habsburgs.
A founding myth. Morgarten matters less for what happened in 1315 than for the meaning it later acquires: the first battle for independence. From the late Middle Ages a religious ceremony commemorates it; in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries come festivals, the monument on the Buchwäldli (1908) and the Morgarten shooting contest (1912). In 1891, for the six hundredth anniversary of the Confederation, the Munich painter Ferdinand Wagner paints the battle on the façade of the Town Hall of Schwyz: the boulders crashing down on the knights are the heart of the scene, and that image shapes for good the way the Swiss picture Morgarten. In 1941 Leopold Lindtberg’s film Landammann Stauffacher makes it a symbol of the Spiritual National Defence.
Bendicht Tschachtlan, the Battle of Morgarten in his illustrated chronicle, around 1470
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The Battle of Morgarten (1315) in the chronicle of Diebold Schilling the Elder, 15th century: boulders roll onto the Habsburg knights
Diebold Schilling the Elder, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The Pact of Brunnen of 9 December 1315, in German, with the seals of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, Museum of the Federal Charters, Schwyz
Wikimedia Commons, public domain