Don't Mess With These Guys!

Schlechten Krieg - Hans Holbein
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Cavalry once dominated the European battlefield. Armored men with lances on armored horses ran down infantry at will. As most of the infantry were simple peasants rousted out of their fields to serve in their lord's levies, armed with older, cheap weapons if they had weapons at all. Many carried their farm implements to war. Make no mistake, some of those could be deadly, but not usually against men on horseback.

While archers could, and did, decimate cavalry when properly emplaced, archers took a long time to train. So cavalry ruled the battlefield for a long time.

While long weapons, like the pike and the spear, had been around for a long time (Alexander the Great's phalanx carried a very long pike, the sarissa, in ancient times and they were very effective with it) their use by large formations faded. The Roman legions were far more mobile than the Macedonian phalanx.

After the fall of Rome, Europe devolved into competing fiefdoms. Charlemagne's empire rose and fragmented over time. Armored horse were all the rage. Then somewhere along the line, someone figured out (or remembered) that horses won't charge into a hedgehog of spears. The pike began to reappear in the hands of men trained to use it.

Switzerland in this modern day and age is known for a number of things: Swiss Army knives, Swiss cheese, Swiss banking, skiing, chocolates, watches, and more. A little known feature of modern Switzerland is their military. Military service is compulsory and while the standing army isn't that large, the reserve system keeps a number of trained men available. In addition, reservists keep their personal equipment at home, including their personal weapons. (Up until 2007 they had their ammunition at home as well.)

While the Swiss military hasn't fought a war in quite a while, the Swiss cantons were once famous for their pikemen.

An example of why other European countries leave the Swiss alone. Tough to campaign in the Alps!
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At one time units of Swiss pikemen were the most feared infantry in Europe

During the Late Middle Ages, mercenary forces grew in importance in Europe, as veterans from the Hundred Years War and other conflicts came to see soldiering as a profession rather than a temporary activity, and commanders sought long-term professionals rather than temporary feudal levies to fight their wars. Swiss mercenaries (Reisläufer) were valued throughout Late Medieval Europe for the power of their determined mass attack in deep columns with the pike and halberd. Hiring them was made even more attractive because entire ready-made Swiss mercenary contingents could be obtained by simply contracting with their local governments, the various Swiss cantons—the cantons had a form of militia system in which the soldiers were bound to serve and were trained and equipped to do so. Some Swiss also hired themselves out individually or in small bands.

The warriors of the Swiss cantons had gradually developed a reputation throughout Europe as skilled soldiers, due to their successful defense of their liberties against their Austrian Habsburg* overlords, starting as early as the late thirteenth century, including remarkable upset victories over heavily armoured knights at Morgarten and Laupen. This was furthered by later successful campaigns of regional expansion (mainly into Italy). By the fifteenth century they were greatly valued as mercenary soldiers, particularly following their series of notable victories in the Burgundian Wars in the latter part of the century. The standing mercenary army of king Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (Black Army of Hungary 1458–1490) also contained Swiss pikemen units, who were held in high honour by the king. The native term Reisläufer literally means "one who goes to war" and is derived from Middle High German Reise, meaning "military campaign". 

The Swiss, with their head-down attack in huge columns with the long pike, refusal to take prisoners, and consistent record of victory, were greatly feared and admired—for instance, Machiavelli addresses their system of combat at length in chapter 12 of The Prince. The Valois Kings of France, in fact, considered it a virtual impossibility to take the field of battle without Swiss pikemen as the infantry core of their armies. (Although often referred to as "pikemen", the Swiss mercenary units also contained halberdiers as well until several decades into the sixteenth century, as well as a small number of skirmishers armed with crossbows or crude firearms to precede the rapid advance of the attack column.) 

The young men who went off to fight, and sometimes die, in foreign service had several incentives—limited economic options in the still largely rural cantons; adventure; pride in the reputation of the Swiss as soldiers; and finally what military historian Sir Charles Oman describes as a pure love of combat and warfighting in and of itself, forged by two centuries of conflict. (Source)

Eventually other countries adopted the Swiss fighting style, notably the Spanish with their famous tercio.

The tercio was an administrative unit with command of up to 3,000 soldiers, subdivided originally into 10, later 12 compañías, made up of pikemen, swordsmen and arquebusiers or musketeers. These companies were deployed in battle and were further subdivided into units of 30 soldiers. These smaller units could be deployed individually or brought together to form what were sometimes called Spanish squares. These powerful infantry squares were also much used by other European powers, especially the Imperial Army of the Holy Roman Empire. (Source)

The Swiss Guards at the Vatican are the descendants of the Swiss pikemen who once terrorized the battlefields of Europe. These chaps -

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Are the military ancestors of these chaps -

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The Pontifical Swiss Guard have watched over the Pope at the Vatican since the late 15th Century, though they were officially created on the 22nd of January 1506, though Swiss mercenaries were in the pay of the Pontiff since at least 1497. The Swiss Guard is the only mercenary unit from Switzerland by law since 1859. The soldiers are individually recruited from some of the best soldiers of the Swiss Army.

While their duties include the ceremonial posting of those colorful sentries one sees around the Vatican, they have a deadly purpose, protect the Pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1527, during the Sack of Rome, they more than earned their pay -

On the morning of May 6th, 1527, from his headquarters set up in St. Onofrio's Convent on the Gianicolo hill, Captain General Bourbon launched a series of attacks on Rome. During one of them, at the Torrione Gate, while leading the assault of the walls, he himself was mortally wounded. After just a moment's hesitation, the Spanish mercenaries broke through the Torrione Gate, while the landsknechts invaded the road of Borgo Santo Spirito and St. Peter's. The Swiss Guard, standing firm at the foot of the obelisk (now in St. Peter's Square, but then near the German cemetery within the Vatican close to the Basilica), together with the few remnants of the Roman troops, resisted desperately. Their Captain, Kaspar Röist was wounded, and later killed by the Spaniards in his quarters in front of his wife, Elizabeth Klingler. Of the 189 Swiss Guards, only 42 survived, the ones who, when all was lost, under the command of Hercules Göldli guarded Clement VII’s retreat to safety in Castel Sant’Angelo. The rest fell gloriously, massacred together with two hundred fugitives, on the steps of the High Altar in St. Peter's Basilica. Pope Clement VII and his men were able to escape to safety, thanks to the "Passetto", a secret corridor which Pope Alexander VI had built along the top of the wall connect­ing the Vatican with Castel Sant’Angelo. The savage horde was in a hurry, for fear that the League troups would cut off their retreat. Across the Sisto bridge the landsknechts and Spaniards fell on the city and for eight days committed every sort of violence, theft, sacrilege and massacre, even the tombs of the Popes, including that of Julius II, were violated in search of spoils. There were as many as 12 thousand dead and the booty amounted to ten million ducats. All that happened cannot really be regarded with surprise because the imperial army and in particular Frundsberg's landsknechts, were animated by a violent spirit of crusade against the Pope. In front of Castel Sant’Angelo where the Pope had retreated, a parody of a religious procession was set up, in which Clement was asked to cede the sails and oars of the "Navicella" (boat of Peter) to Luther, and the angry soldiery shouted "Vivat Lutherus pontifex!" (Long live Luther, Pontiff!) The name of Luther was incised with the tip of a sword across the painting of the "Dispute of the Most Holy Sacrament" in the Rooms of Raffaello, out of disdain, while on another wall a graffito hailed Charles V, emperor. Concise and exact was the description given by the Prior of the Canons of St. Augustine at that time: "Mali fuere Germani, pejores Itali, Hispani vero pessimi." (The Germans were bad, the Italians were worse, the Spaniards were the worst.) Besides the irreplaceable damage of the destruction of the relics, during the Sack of Rome, inestimable art treasures, namely the greater part of the Church's finest artisan-made gold and silver ware, were lost forever. On June 5th, Clement had to surrender and to accept heavy conditions: he had to cede the fortresses of Ostia, Civitavecchia, and Civita Castellana, to hand over the cities of Modena, Parma and Piacenza, and to pay the sum of four thousand ducats. Moreover, a ransom for the freedom of prisoners was demanded. The papal garrison was replaced by four companies of Germans and Spaniards, and two hundred landsknechts took the place of the Swiss Guard which had been suppressed. The Pope obtained permission for the surviving Swiss Guards to join the new Guard, but only 12 of them accepted, among them Hans Gutenberg of Chur and Albert Rosin of Zurich. The others wished to have nothing to do with the hated landsknechts. (Source)

Of course, Bad Ass of the Week featured a post about the Swiss pikemen here. Yes, they use adult language over there and are often over the top, but they tell a good story. And because this whole post was occasional reader Paweł's idea (and a good one it was), I thought I'd also have one of his favorite bands tell the story of the Swiss heroes who fell that day.

Tough guys those fellows in the odd uniforms.

I wouldn't mess with them!

Dzięki Paweł, świetny pomysł!





* Oddly enough the Hapsburgs originated in Switzerland. The dynasty is named after their seat of origin, the Habsburg Castle founded by Radbot, Count of Habsburg in the Swiss Canton of Aargau.
The origins of the name of the castle are uncertain. Most people assume the name to be derived from the High German Habichtsburg (Hawk Castle), but some historians and linguists are convinced that the name comes from the Middle High German word ‘hab/ hap’ meaning fjord, as there is a river with a ford nearby. The first documented use of the name by the dynasty itself has been traced to the year 1108.