Hapsburgs began territorial battles with other families, and began to feud among themselves. The Swiss Waldstatten braced themselves and signed a pact of mutual defense a few weeks after Rudolf's death. By 1315, Leopold, Duke of Austria and a senior in the Hapsburg dynasty, found some excuse to attack the district of Schwyz, to which his family held claim. Fighting together, the districts around Lake Lucerne soundly defeated Leopold at a narrow mountain pass known as Morgarten. Immediately, all of Europe was interested in what was happening in Switzerland. This was the time that the Swiss legend of William Tell attempts to describe. The legend is of a Hapsburg governor who makes a Swiss man shoot an apple off of his own son's head. After escaping this ordeal, Tell personifies the violent Swiss reaction to this foreign intervention. Winter/Spring 1991 RAIN Page 29 It was this Hapsburg oppression, along with the trickle of trade money coming into the region, that allowed the secretaries of the Waldstatten to organize the fight against the Hapsburgs. In the early critical period it was vital that many of the districts and cities that joined with the Swiss were relatively self-sufficient, in both food and especially water, for which the mountain glaciers were the source for much of Europe. This made them impossible to The Swiss hero, William Tell, is forced to shoot an apple offof his own son's head. The tale is a euphemism for torture, a metaphor for colonialism and an exhortation to resist. Chronik Etterlin, 1507. besiege, and the mountains made them militarily difficult to approach. Their success was resounding, and cities and rural districts all around the Waldstiltten eagerly joined the new Confederation. In the ensuing centuries, Switzerland was looked at as a poor country by Europeans, even though they were gradually relying more heavily on trade from their region. They introduced to this commerce a new product, well advertised by their growing reputation as invincible fighters: the mercenary. The Swiss professional soldiers were from the same armies used to help the always changing, mostly defensive goals of the leaderless Confederation. The export status of the mercenary made it easier to maintain cooperative military readiness among the diverse confederate members. Their military mindset, however, eventually made them rougher and more conservative, traits many Swiss are accused of to this day. Their militarism was vital for independence from the Empire, but it did not make them rich. With small traders and peasants as allies, the confederation grew steadily against Hapsburg pressure. South German cities joined the confederation for help against the robber barons, the nobility running the countryside. The Swiss armies became multi-ethnic with the joining of Italian, French and Romansch speaking Alpine districts. · The original Waldstiitten and especially the district of Schwyz, hence the name Swiss, fought hard to secure freedom from domination for all people within the member districts of the diverse alliance. The members of the Confederation, though, were independent of any Gentral authority, and the group's goals had to be regularly discussed, fought over and agreed upon. This created a mechanism for decentralized politics still visible in Switzerland today. The Swiss Confederation was able to secure a stable level of participatory democracy among its commonfolk impossible in the centers of merchant capitalism or the strongholds of aristocracy. It is between commerce and feudalism, both separated and weakened by the mountains themselves, that the Swiss people found a way to avoid the abuses of a centralized, modern nation state.
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