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Updated: May 13, 2025
The two Tell's chapels; the Rütli; the villages of Schwiz, Altdorf, Brunnen, Beckenried, Stans, and Sarnen; the battlefields of Morgarten and Sempach; and on a clear day the ruined castle of Hapsburg itself, lie within a mighty circle at one's feet.
It reminds us of Marathon, of Bannock-burn, of Morgarten.
For two generations after the victory of the Swiss over the Austrians at Morgarten , which was followed by the renewal of the Swiss Confederation of 1291, the leagued cantons were favored with growth and internal development. The Confederation acknowledged no superior but the Emperor of Germany.
Be this as it may, the Swiss collected their little band on the Sattel, between which mountain and the eastern shore of the Lake of Egeri is situated the ever-memorable Pass of Morgarten.
The Austrians were completely defeated at Morgarten, "the Marathon of Switzerland" . The Swiss Confederacy was enlarged by the addition of Lucerne , Zuerich and Glarus , Zug , and of the city of Berne in 1353. The battle of Sempach brought another great defeat upon the Austrians.
It took the Austrians seventy years to forget that lesson, and when a later generation sent a second army into the mountains it was overthrown at Sempach. Swiss liberty was established on an unarguable basis. A similar tale might be told of Bannockburn, where, under Bruce, the Scotch common folk regained their freedom from the English. Courtrai, Morgarten, Bannockburn!
Switzerland, with her green hills and her field Morgarten, her priestly despots expelled, shall also be free. But I weary you, Messieurs." "By no means," cried Marrast, cordially clasping M. Dantès by the hand.
By a curious coincidence, both these free peoples, in their efforts towards national unity, were led to frame federal unions, and one of these political achievements is, from the stand-point of universal history, of very great significance. The old League of High Germany, which earned immortal renown at Morgarten and Sempach, consisted of German-speaking cantons only.
And how in that same year Duke Albrecht met with a bloody end, such as befell no King or Emperor of the Germans before or after him, at the hands of Duke John, his nephew, whose inheritance he had kept back, and other conspirators; and what vengeance overtook the murderers; and how Duke John, escaping in the habit of a monk into Italy, was no more heard of, but became a shadow forever, like the rest of them; and how, eight years afterwards, came the expedition of Duke Leopold of Austria against the Waldstätte, and the fight at Morgarten, where the Swiss, thirteen hundred mountaineers in all, Wilhelm Tell among them, routed twenty thousand of the well-armed chivalry of Austria, dating from that heroic Thermopylae of theirs the foundation of the Swiss Confederacy, as, larger and perhaps not less resolute, we see it to-day, ready to defy, if need be, single-handed, the greatest military nation of the earth; and how, thirty years afterwards, the men of Schwyz and Uri go forth, nine hundred strong, among them Tell, and Werner Stauffacher, now bent with years, to the aid of Bern, threatened by the nobles roundabout; and how, in 1332, was formed the league with Lucerne, whereby the beautiful lake gets its name as the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons; and how, one sultry July day in 1386, the men of Schwyz and Uri and Unterwalden, together with other Swiss, some of them armed with the very halberds with which their fathers defended the pass at Morgarten, fought again their hereditary enemy, Austria, by the clear waters of the little Lake of Sempach; how, when they saw the enemy, they fell upon their knees, according to their ancient custom, and prayed to God, and then with loud war-cry dashed at full run upon the Austrian host, whose shields were like a dazzling wall, and their spears like a forest, and the Mayor of Lucerne with sixty of his followers went down in the shock, but not a single one of the Austrians recoiled; and how at that critical, dreadful moment, for the flanks of the enemy's phalanx were advancing to encompass them, there suddenly strode forth the Knight Arnold Strutthan von Winkelried, crying, "I will make a path for you! care for my wife and children!" and, rushing forward, grasped several spears and buried them in his breast, a large, strong man, he bore the soldiers down with him as he fell, and his companions pushed forward over his dead body into the midst of the host, and the victory was won, and another book was added to the epic story of the men of Schwyz and Uri and Unterwalden; and how Duke Leopold fell fighting bravely, as became his house, and six hundred and fifty nobles with him, so that there was mourning at the Court of Austria for many a year, and men said it was a judgment upon the reckless spirit of the nobles; and how Martin Malterer, standard-bearer, of Freyburg in the Breisgau, happening to come upon Leopold as he was dying, was as one petrified, and the banner fell from his hands, and he threw himself across the body of Leopold to save it from further outrage, waiting for and finding his own death there; and how this ruinous contest between Switzerland and Austria was not finally closed till the time of Maximilian, in 1499, when first the right of private war was abolished in Germany; and how, through the various fortunes of the succeeding centuries, the character of the Swiss has remained for the most part the same as in the earlier time: these things one may read at large elsewhere; but we hasten to the conclusion.
Then, following the successful tactics employed at Morgarten, the Swiss rushed down on the disordered mass said to consist of fifteen thousand soldiers, but probably about half that number and dealt death on every side. A precipitate flight of the invaders followed, but they were met near Wesen by a fresh body of seven hundred Glarus peasants, who completed the victory.
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