(1474-1477.)
These wars raised to its height the military glory of the Eidgenossen, and instead of the limited sphere occupied by most of the previous wars, we find ourselves now watching a scene of world-wide interest and importance. Three Great Powers—France, Germany, and Austria—if such a term is applicable in the fifteenth century, are striving for the downfall of a fourth great realm, Burgundy, in some respects the mightiest of them all. The Swiss League, no less interested in the issue, is made the instrument for bringing about that tragical ending which strikes Burgundy for ever from the list of future kingdoms.
Elizabeth, wife of Albert II.; Maria of Burgundy; Eleanor of Portugal; Kunigunde, sister of Maximilian.
(From Maximilian Monument at Innsbruck.)
Charles the Bold aimed at the re-establishment of the ancient kingdom of Lorraine, such as it was created by the treaty of Verdun in 843.[37] This was to be a middle kingdom between French and German territory—a kingdom which, stretching from the North Sea through to the Mediterranean, would absorb the Swiss Confederation, and what of other territory we cannot tell. A striking scheme, and one which, if it had succeeded, would have greatly changed the face of modern politics. Charles's deadliest foe was Louis of France, who was unswervingly bent on his destruction. Politically, the two men were the very antipodes of each other. The romantic duke is the embodiment of mediæval chivalry; the sober Louis that of modern absolutism. His reign seals the fate of dying feudalism. Louis is like an immovable rock against which the effete Middle Ages dash themselves in vain. He stands, indeed, between two great historical epochs. Charles is doomed to fall; for pitilessly Louis crushes his unruly vassals, and feudatory France is by his power welded into a mighty and absolute monarchy. The ambitious hotspur, the warlike duke, believes himself a second Alexander. And, indeed, in all Christendom there is no court so splendid as his, no treasury so vast. His magnificence is more than royal, more even than imperial, and he grapples with numberless intricate problems. To carry out his plans he stakes realm and life, but lacking patience and sound political judgment he fails in his chief enterprises.[38]
The preliminary steps leading to the war are a diplomatic maze, revealing the double-dealing of the actors, and likewise showing the uncertain position held by the Swiss League in the empire. The destruction of this league, and the overthrow of Charles the Bold were chiefly aimed at. The maze of intrigue is, indeed, well-nigh impenetrable; yet, because the preliminaries are far less known than the wars which followed, and the actual facts have been often distorted, they will, no doubt, command general interest, and we shall try to disentangle the skeins as best we can. The battle of St. Jacques had secured for the Confederates, not only the sympathies of Louis, but also the alliance of his father, Philip the Good, of Burgundy, the Sforzas of Milan, and others. Since those times of prowess the young republic had been growing into a prosperous and powerful nation, not without its influence on continental military affairs. Admired, envied, and feared, by turns, its friendship was greatly appreciated, and it lent protection to all who sought it. So strong was its love of warfare, that it was at all times ready to avenge any wrong or fancied wrong done to itself or its friends. Thus, Zurich, in 1456, laid waste the lands of the Austrian knight-robbers who had plundered some Strasburg merchants on a Swiss round. Despite the distance between them, the two towns of Strasburg and Zurich were on terms of close friendship.[39] At the bidding of Pius II., the elegant Latin writer commonly known as Æneas Sylvius, who had fallen out with his literary friend, Duke Sigmund of Austria, the Eidgenossen conquered Thurgau, which had remained still an Austrian province, and placed it amongst their subject lands. The quarrels of Mulhausen and Schaffhausen with Austria entangled their friends of the league into a war with Sigmund (1468), who, to secure peace, agreed to pay over the sum of ten thousand florins, guaranteeing them their recent conquests. This feud of Waldshut (Black Forest) led to the Burgundian wars.
Extravagant but poor, Sigmund failed to find even that modest sum, and applied to Louis of France for help, but was by him referred to Charles of Burgundy. The astute Louis saw that a quarrel between the dukes would be injurious and possibly fatal to Charles, who, all unaware of the pitfall prepared for him, readily fell in with the proposals of Sigmund. He was anxious to join together Alsace, Breisgau, the Aargau towns on the Rhine, &c., and advanced fifty thousand florins as mortgage on the dominions of Sigmund, expecting they would soon fall to him entirely. By the treaty of St Omer, in 1469, their mutual terms of agreement were thus fixed:—Charles to give help in case of need against the Swiss, and Sigmund to promote the long-planned marriage between the son of his cousin and Maria of Burgundy. Rejoicing at this turn of fortune, the emperor at once disannulled the treaty of Waldshut, and the new lands were by Charles the Bold entrusted to the management of his favourite, Peter von Hagenbach.[40] A tyrant and a libertine, his acts of violence, and those of his foreign soldiery, exasperated the German populations of Alsace, Basel, Bern, and Solothurn. Their merchants being robbed on the Rhine, their envoys imprisoned—one Bernese man was killed in a fray—they complained to the duke, but without result for the cruelties and oppression continued.
Artful and ever on the watch, Louis found that the Eidgenossen, disgusted by the grasping tendencies of Charles, were fast drifting away from their good understanding with Burgundy, and strove to draw them to his own side. Anxious to secure a friend, the Swiss lent willing ears to the flattery and insinuations of the crafty Louis. He actually succeeded in effecting a reconciliation between the Eidgenossen and Austria. It was a cleverly calculated bit of diplomacy, that secured for the Swiss their recent conquests, isolated Charles, and strengthened the opposition against him. Louis fixed a pension on Sigmund, and urged him to pay off the mortgage on his lands, whilst the Alsacian towns likewise leagued themselves with the Swiss, and actually advanced Sigmund the sum of money required. Charles, however, disappointed in his plans, refused to receive the money. A popular rising took place at Breisach, and Hagenbach was seized, imprisoned, and brought before a tribunal, at which some of the Eidgenossen assisted. He was condemned to death, and publicly beheaded, as a sort of popular judgment. Enraged beyond measure though he was, yet Charles deferred vengeance for the death of his favourite, being, indeed, at the time, otherwise engaged. Taking advantage of this delay, Louis won over to his side Frederick, also lavishing flatteries on the Swiss, and pensions on Nicolas von Diesbach and his followers. This Nicolas was a Bernese nobleman and a skilled politician, and was a fit instrument in the hands of a king who calculated his schemes rather on men's mauvaises passions than on their virtues. Louis hastened on the outbreak of war, and on October 9, 1474, Frederick called on the Eidgenossen to take their part in the attack on Charles. They hesitated, but the pensioner and creature of France, Diesbach, notwithstanding the resistance offered by Adrian von Bubenberg, a Bernese noble of far loftier character, in hot haste declared war against Charles in the name of the empire, and with the consent of the Confederation. But war once actually afoot the Swiss were made a mere catspaw by their partners, and left to their own devices.
In a short story like this it is impossible to discuss the merits or demerits of the various factions, or those of Hagenbach or Diesbach,[41] yet we must dwell for a moment on the federal policy, and more especially on that of Bern. The position of the Swiss League at the outbreak of the war was very similar to that of "Sweden, under Gustavus Adolphus, in the Thirty Years' War." Threatened by the preponderating power of Austria, she would not take up arms till France, equally interested in the downfall of Habsburg, under Richelieu, drove her to war by sending subsidies. But French gold was by no means the actual and moving cause of the war. Many things concurred to give rise to it, not the least being Bern's extraordinary bent for aggrandisement and conquest. Her aggressiveness and her far-sightedness were quite remarkable for that age, and her policy was conceived on so large a scale that she has been not inaptly compared to ancient Rome. Bordering on Swiss Burgundy, Bern had strong western leanings, if one may so speak, and very early set her eyes on Vaud and Geneva. She considered Mount Jura as the true western boundary, for French Switzerland still lay without the pale of the Confederation, and belonged for the most part to Savoy, or the vassals of Savoy. However selfish the policy of Bern may appear at this distance of time, yet she has the unquestionable merit of having brought Swiss Burgundy into the federation, thus connecting the French with the German portions of Helvetia. The political views of Bern are clearly evidenced by her foreign relations at the time. Her nobility sent their sons to foreign courts to be educated and trained for a military or a diplomatic career—Bubenberg, for instance, spent his youth at the Court of Burgundy. Her leading men were well-trained military officers or skilled politicians, and the aristocracy which formed the governing body of the town clung obstinately to the prerogatives still left them in those moribund Middle Ages.