carefully trained in this latter practice, and to such purpose, it is said, that they could at twenty yards' range strike a small object with unerring precision. A blow from a stone a pound or two in weight, though rarely fatal, must often have been sufficient to stop a man, if not to slay him; while if it struck a horse full in the face it was pretty certain to make him rear up and become unmanageable. Then came the pikeman's chance to thrust his pike into the poor animal's belly, which done, the nimble halberdier ran up to despatch the fallen knight, and so the division of labour was complete. In due time, of course, the stones and crossbows gave way to fire-arms; but the Swiss were never so famous with the arquebuse as were the Spaniards.

In the fifteenth century the Swiss adopted the system of forming their battalions for action into three divisions; the van (Vorhut), the battle (Schlachthauf), and the rear (Hindhut); an imitation of the prevalent fashion of forming armies for battle in three lines. The rule was that van and rear should each be equal to half the strength of the main body; thus in a regiment of two thousand men van and rear would consist each of five hundred men and the battle of a thousand. These three divisions followed each other in echelon from the right or left. Each of them was formed into a solid square for defence, and into a wedge, or an oblong column, for attack; though in a pitched battle the whole three divisions. were sometimes combined into one gigantic mass, in order that the proportion of pikes, which was from onefourth to one-sixth of the whole, might go further in giving protection against the attack of cavalry. But there was almost invariably an advanced guard of some kind, called the Blood Company (Blutfahne) or the

Free Company (Freiegesellschaft), being composed of volunteers (Freiwilligen), and later on the Lost (Verlorene, or Verlorener Hauf), from the last of which we English have derived, through the Landsknechts, our expression Forlorn Hope. Hauf has of course more to do with heap than hope; but the sacrifice of accuracy to euphony will in this particular instance be admitted to have its advantages. The French, translating instead of mutilating, called their advanced parties enfans perdus.

The discipline of these Swiss bands must have been a doubtful quantity, their history showing a strange mixture of occasional restraint and glaring insubordination.

Insomuch as the

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strength of their massive battalions depended not a little on the proper distribution of the pikes among the halberds, there must have been drill and discipline sufficient to ensure that men should remain in their places. But the probability is that there was considerable difference between the bands of the various cantons. forest cantons were in their origin practically military republics; their administrators in peace were their leaders in war, and no one who had not approved himself a good captain could hope to hold the highest civil office. Moreover the whole band formed a free assembly, wherein every man had a right to take part alike for debate and for action, subject to the laws of discipline and war. So too the Landsknechts of Swabia carried into their regiments the institutions of the German guild. But the Swiss towns were subjected to a Stadtherr imposed upon them from without, who was often an unpopular man, and hence their discipline was by no means so perfect. It is significant that the towns furnished a larger proportion of pikes to their halberds, for the simple reason that pike

men were more easily kept under control, for if they left their places in the ranks they were virtually defenceless. A halberdier, on the contrary, could move about and defend himself independently; his weapon was light and handy, and therefore not for an undisciplined man.

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It is curious that it was this same quality of handiness that made the halberd the sergeants' weapon. sergeants, who were generally the only men who knew anything about drill, needed to be eternally running up and down the ranks to put men into their proper places, and hence could not be burdened with a heavy cumbrous pike. So the halberd became the distinction of the sergeant, and as such was promised to Corporal Trim by Uncle Toby himself; indeed, unless we are mistaken, it survived even into the present century. Then it gave place to the sword-bayonet, which compelled sergeants to shoulder arms after a different fashion from privates; and thus it may be said that the traditions of the Swiss survive to this day in Saint James's palace-yard.

For the rest, the Swiss bands marched to the music of fife and drum or of their own voices, the notation of one of their marching songs being still preserved. The forest cantons also sent a horn with their companies, which instruments were known by nicknames, Bull of Uri, Cow of Unterwalden, and the like. Their sound was long a note of terror to the men of Austria and Burgundy, and made a grand rallyingcry for the Swiss in action. apart from this these horns appear to be the origin of the bugle-horns which still appear on the appointments of our Light Infantry, and have displaced the drum as the distinctive instrument of the foot-soldier. Each company of course had a flag of its own, which on march or in action was

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posted in the centre under a guard of halberds; whence the main body sometimes was called by the name of the Panner (banner). The Swiss were distinguished by the small size of their flags; the Landsknechts, on the contrary, to accentuate the difference between themselves and their hated rivals, carried enormous ensigns, and made great play with them. Other nations chose a happy mean between the two. Uniform was of course a thing virtually unknown in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, though the Swiss, if we are to trust old woodcuts, wore the white cross on a red ground even at Sempach. A cross of some colour was for centuries the only mark employed to distinguish soldiers of different nations in the field. The Flemish towns seem to have been the first to have prescribed a common pattern of dress for their soldiers, which was worn by them at the battle of Courtrai, and, it may have been, still earlier. The first recorded instance of uniform among the Swiss relates to a contingent of Bernese in the year 1365, fifteen hundred strong and all dressed alike. In 1499 the historian Pirckheimer commanded a mixed force of Swiss, horse and foot, who anticipated the English by all wearing red coats; and it is worth remarking that the Swiss regiments in the French service retained the scarlet to the last.

Tracing the progress of the Swiss through their famous campaigns in the defence of their homes and in the service of foreign countries, one is struck chiefly by the extreme aggressiveness of the national character. The military spirit had bitten deeply into them, and the carriage of arms even in time of peace was their rule long before they had made a European reputation. Both before and after Sempach the authorities of various cantons were obliged to prohibit a

prevailing habit of never appearing in the open air without pike, halberd, or crossbow, so murderous were the quarrels thereby kindled. In fact there was remarkably little of the peaceful goatherd in the Swiss of that day; there was far more of the insolent soldier who cannot endure the tedium of a long peace.

The struggles of the cantons with Austria are commonly spoken of as though she were the aggressor, but Austria had not the slightest wish to quarrel with them. She rather sought their alliance, and it was the Swiss who insisted on following their own wishes by the right of the sword. With victory of course their insolence increased. There are few more striking scenes in history than that of a handful of petty cantons simultaneously pressing the sieges of Zurich and Färnsburg in 1444, and coolly detaching sixteen hundred men to meet fifty thousand French, Germans, English, and Scotch at Saint Jacob-enBirs. But with insolence insubordination had likewise increased. The sixteen hundred would not be content with the defeat of thousands of French cavalry, and with the capture of banners, horses, guns, stores, and booty. Despite the entreaties of their officers they must needs cross a deep river under a heavy artillery-fire and attack the entire hostile army on the other bank. Even so they fought like tigers, and it was only after ten hours' furious encounter that they were finally annihilated. Ten alone of the sixteen hundred made their escape; the whole of the remainder lay dead or unconscious on the ground. The chivalry took indeed their revenge; but they purchased it so dearly that the lesson was soon forgotten by the Swiss.

A generation later the fame of the Swiss rose still higher after the victories of Granson, Morat, and Nancy;

for it was no small thing to have vanquished such a foe as Charles the Bold of Burgundy. It is singular

that so celebrated a soldier as Charles should not have been more wary in attacking the Swiss, but it seems that, in spite of Sempach and all that had happened since Sempach, he still cherished the old false chivalrous contempt for all infantry. He was strangely ignorant too of the customs of the Swiss on the battlefield. When, as usual, they knelt in prayer and kissed the frozen ground before Granson, he fancied that they were begging mercy of him. "By Saint George," he exclaimed,

we shall not take long to destroy these Almain dogs;" and to do him justice, he did succeed in breaking into a great square of pikes and seizing the banner of Schwytz, though it profited him little. Morat was a greater disaster even than Granson, in spite of the astonishing gallantry of three thousand English, who here took their second lesson from the finest infantry in Europe. Finally came the crowning victory of Nancy and the death of Charles; after which there was nothing left for the sovereigns of Europe but to train men of their own on the Swiss model. Within the next ten years Louis the Eleventh had created the French, and Maximilian the German infantry; the former of which was destined to give the Swiss their first wound, and the latter, better known as the famous Landsknechts, to deal them their mortal blow.

But their greatest days were still before them, if mercenary service may be called the greatest. In 1494 came the invasion of Italy by Charles the Eighth, which propagated the gospel of the new art of war all over Europe. It was the mercenary Swiss who terrified Italy into submission by the mere aspect of their battalions, and it

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was the Swiss who secured Charles's retreat from Italy at Fornova. 1499, when a trifling dispute between Chur and the Tyrol dragged the Swiss and Suabians into the complicated Italian struggle, the Confederates turned against their inveterate enemy with all their old fire. The German Landsknechts met them with high-sounding threats of vengeance and destruction, and even taunted them by crawling on all fours and lowing like kine; but the Swiss beat them in three successive engagements. The day of the Landsknechts was not yet come. Four years later saw them arrayed against the Spanish infantry under Gonsalvo of Cordova, and beaten back, together with the French whom they served, at Cerignola and the Garigliano; but the Spanish infantry was not yet the model of Europe. Meanwhile the tone of the cantons was high and haughty as ever. January, 1508, they warned Maximilian, "that if he injured the French king, he would force them to be mindful of their obligations to him;" a direct threat from a power that knew its own strength.

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then quarrelled with the French, or it would be truer to say rendered themselves intolerable to them; for though nominally mercenaries they were really unmanageable allies. In truth their long supremacy on the battle-field had not only ruined them for peaceful occupation, but had begun to destroy their utility even for war. In Switzerland itself the military mania was so strong among them, that the very children turned out with flags, drums, and pikes, and marched in soldier's fashion with military step. Weddings, No. 434.-VOL. LXXIII.

fairs, religious festivals, all great occasions alike were celebrated by a review or some other form of military display. But in the field their discipline had suffered, and their insolence had increased, until they were as terrible to friend as to foe. Always covetous and insubordinate, they became more and more inclined to plunder, and to dictate, under threat of mutiny, to the unhappy potentate who had hired them. The year 1512 saw them at the zenith of their power, when waving Austria and France alike away from Milan they installed therein the ruler of their own choice. In the same year they met the Landsknechts at the passage of the Oglio and Ticino, and fording the rivers stark naked beat them back without waiting even to dress themselves. A few months later they showed even more magnificent insolence when besieged by the French in Novara; throwing the gates open they begged the enemy not to be at the pains of making a breach, but to walk straight in: "Donnez-vous donc la peine d'entrer." The French made no reply, except to hammer away with their artillery; whereupon the Swiss mockingly hung the breaches with sheets as sufficient protection against so feeble a foe. Shortly after arrived reinforcements from Switzerland, which, without pausing to rest more than an hour after a long and hurried march, dashed out in disorder against the encompassing troops and dispersed them with terrible loss. "If we could only reckon upon obedience in our men," said the Swiss leaders, we should march through the whole of France."

But the end was now drawing near. They had fought with France against Venice in 1509, and against the French in alliance with Venice in 1512 and 1513; but at last in 1515, when again allied with the French, they provoked their patience too far.

I

Two furious days' fighting at Marignano,-such fighting that the veteran Trivulzio declared all other battles to be child's play compared with it—and the complete victory of the French taught the mutinous Swiss a lesson that they did not forget. Their long military connection with France dates from the year 1516; for they respected the men who had beaten them. But their insubordination was not yet cured. Seven years later at Bicocca they forced the French commander, Lautrec, into an action against his will. They must have battle or pay, they said, or they would march home; and they had their way. The Landsknechts and the Spanish arquebusiers killed four thousand out of eight thousand of them, and drove the rest shamefully from the field. From that day their prestige was gone.