12 – Swiss Mercenaries Were Europe’s Elite Infantrymen
During a roughly two-hundred-year stretch from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, everybody in Europe who could afford to wanted to hire Swiss pike-wielding mercenaries. Swiss infantrymen had developed a fierce reputation while defending their liberties against their Hapsburg overlords, with upset victories against heavily armed and armored knights in the battles of Morgarten in 1315, and Laupen in 1339.
Morgarten and Laupen secured the Swiss their reputation as elite foot soldiers, and their renown was furthered with further victories against their neighbors, as they expanded the boundaries of the Swiss Confederation. The Swiss peasants who filled the ranks were bound by no notions of chivalry, and felt no urge to capture enemy knights and aristocrats for ransom. Instead, they earned a terrifying reputation for giving no quarter, and reveled in slaughtering their foes.
Infantrymen who could routinely defeat knights – undisputed lords of the battlefield for centuries – and whose mere presence on the battlefield terrified their foes and sapped their morale, became a highly sought after asset. The French Valois kings, for example, virtually refused to offer battle unless they had Swiss pikemen at the core of their infantry formations.
The Swiss were more than happy to hire themselves out as mercenaries, but unlike most mercenaries, they did not hire themselves out as individuals. Instead, prospective employers contracted directly with local Swiss governments to hire their militias. That set the Swiss apart from run-of-the-mill mercenary companies, comprised of a motley collection of adventurers gathered from all over. Swiss mercenaries, hired as entire militia units, were ready-made trained contingents that had practiced together for years, and were knit together by ties of kinship, neighborliness, and personal acquaintance. That gave them strong unit cohesion and esprit de corps, and made them especially formidable on the battlefield.
