While France and Austria were thus wasting their time in wrangling, the Swiss Diet met. Ochsenbein, an even more energetic man than Neuhaus, had been chosen President of the Confederation; and on the 20th July, 1847, the Diet had declared that the Sonderbund was incompatible with the Treaty of Confederation. This was speedily followed by the dismissal from the service of the Confederation of all those who held office in the cantons of the Sonderbund; and finally, in September, the Diet decreed that the Assemblies of Luzern, Schwytz, Freyburg, and Valais should be invited to expel the Jesuits from their territory. The Sonderbund probably felt that a direct military resistance to the whole forces of the Diet would be hopeless, and therefore they resolved to make a separate attack on some of the smaller cantons. With this view they prepared to march their troops from Luzern against Aargau, which they considered one of the centres of Protestant tyranny; and about the same time the canton of Uri resolved to invade the Ticino. In both these cases the Sonderbund hoped to rouse a popular insurrection on their side, but in this they were singularly mistaken.
Previously to 1815 Uri had exercised a special authority over Ticino, and had used it to thrust in German officials in place of Italian. The Treaty of Vienna had secured Ticino from these tyrannies; but the Ticinese remembered them, and resented this new invasion. The troops of Uri were indeed able to gain one or two successes; but the people of Ticino rose against them, and, after a short, sharp struggle, succeeded in driving them out of the canton. The expedition to Aargau proved equally unsuccessful, and, in the meantime, the Federal Diet was organizing its forces under the command of General Dufour, a Genevese. They resolved that Freyburg, as the nearest of the Sonderbund cantons to Bern, and as geographically separated off from its allies, should be the first object of attack; and on November 7, Rilliet, the commander of the first division of the Federal forces, issued the following order of the day to his troops:—
"You are the first Federal troops who have entered the Freyburg territory. Your bearing at this moment will give the tone to the whole division. Consider that you are entering on a Federal territory, that you are marching against members of the Federation, who for centuries have been your friends, and will be so again. Consider that they are rather misled than guilty. Consider that they are neighbours, and that you ought to be fighting under the same flag. Therefore be moderate; refute the slanders of those who are driving them on. Listen not to false rumours, nor to foolish provocations to violence. Listen only to your leaders, and leave to your opponents the responsibility of having fired the first shot against the Federal flag. Soldiers! I rely on you as on myself; and do you trust in God, who marches before the flag of good, right, and honour."
To the Freyburger Rilliet appealed to receive the Federal troops as brothers and friends, and as obeying the God whom Protestants and Catholics alike worship. "Lay down your arms," he said, "not before us, but before our flag, which is yours also."
These appeals were not without result. At one of the first towns at which the Federal troops arrived in the canton of Freyburg, the townsfolk threw off the authority of the Cantonal Boards, raised the Federal flag, and admitted the Federal troops. Two slight skirmishes took place after this between the Federal forces and those of the canton; but the former were easily victorious. On November 12 the Federal troops appeared before the town of Freyburg; and on the 14th it was surrendered to them. Large numbers of the citizens received them with cries of "Long live the Confederates! Down with the Sonderbund! Down with the Jesuits!"
The leaders of the Sonderbund at Luzern were startled at this sudden collapse, and resolved to apply for foreign help; and it was on November 15, 1847, that the descendants of Reding and Winkelried appealed to the descendants of Leopold of Hapsburg for help against their fellow-confederates.
Metternich would gladly have intervened; and he hastened to assure the Sonderbund that the Emperor of Austria considered their cause a just one. Still, however, he desired the co-operation of France; but Guizot hesitated, and when Palmerston announced that any demonstration in favour of the Sonderbund would be met by a counter-demonstration by England on the side of the Federal Diet, the French Government distinctly refused to have any share in intervention.
In the meantime the Sonderbund was rapidly breaking down. The Protestant party had gained the upper hand in the little canton of Zug, and persuaded the Government to surrender to the Diet even before the Federal troops had appeared in the canton. The occupation of Zug was speedily followed by a march to Luzern. On November 23 the Federal troops encountered the forces of Luzern and drove them back after a sharp fight. On the following day the War Council of the Sonderbund fled from Luzern and the Federal troops entered it. After this defeat there was no further serious resistance; by November 29 the last canton of the Sonderbund had surrendered to the Diet, and on December 7 the Diet passed a formal resolution refusing to admit any mediation from the Great Powers. So ended the Sonderbund war; and whatever harshness the Diet and the Protestant cantons may have shown in the earlier part of the struggle towards their Catholic neighbours, they had at least consistently upheld the principle of national independence, and by their vigour and determination they had saved the unity of Switzerland and defeated Metternich.
Nor were these the only defeats which the ruler of Europe sustained in the year 1847. In Germany, too, there were signs that the old system was giving way. Metternich, indeed, had hoped that the King of Prussia had been about to abandon the policy which he had followed from 1840 to 1843; for in 1846 a meeting had taken place between Metternich and the King in which Frederick William had shown signs of alarm at the popular movement. But this change of feeling had been only temporary, for an event had occurred soon after which had given a new impulse to German national feeling, and re-awakened thereby the popular sympathies of the King of Prussia.
On July 8, 1846, the King of Denmark, Christian VIII., issued a proclamation in which he declared that he should consider the provinces of his Crown as forming one sole and same State. This was felt to be undoubtedly aimed at the independence of Schleswig-Holstein. That Duchy had, since the middle of the fifteenth century, been recognized as a separate province, of which the King of Denmark was duke (till that time Schleswig had been a fief of Denmark and Holstein of Germany). In the seventeenth century a practically absolute Government had been established in Denmark; but in 1830 the liberties of that country had been restored, and soon after a cry had arisen from some of the Radical party at Copenhagen in favour of the conquest of Schleswig.