Battle of Morgarten

The Battle of Morgarten took place on 15 November 1315, when troops of Schwyz, supported by their allies of Uri and Unterwalden, ambushed an Austrian army under the command of Leopold I, Duke of Austria on the shores of Lake Ägeri, in the territory of Schwyz. After a brief close-quarters battle, the Austrian army was routed, with numerous slain or drowned. The Swiss victory consolidated the League of the Three Forest Cantons, which formed the core of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Toward the end of the 13th century the House of Habsburg coveted the area around the Gotthard Pass, as it offered the shortest passage to Italy. However, the Confederates of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, which had formalized the Swiss Confederacy in 1291, held imperial freedom letters from former Habsburg emperors granting them local autonomy within the empire. In 1314 tensions between the Habsburgs and Confederates heightened when Duke Louis IV of Bavaria (who would become Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor) and Frederick the Handsome, a Habsburg prince, each claimed the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor. The Confederates supported Louis IV because they feared the Habsburgs would annex their lands (which they had tried to do in the late 13th century). War broke out after the Confederates of Schwyz raided the Habsburg-protected Einsiedeln Abbey. The conflict with Einsiedeln erupted after settlers moved from Schwyz into unused parts of the territories claimed by Einsiedeln. The settlers cleared the primal forest and established farms or pastures. This led the abbot of Einsiedeln to complain with the bishop at Constance, who moved to excommunicate Schwyz. In revenge for this, men of Schwyz under the leadership of Werner Stauffacher raided Einsiedeln abbey on the night of 6 January 1314. They plundered the monastery, desecrated the abbey church, and took several monks as hostages. The abbot managed to escape to Pfäffikon, from where he alerted the bishop. The bishop now extended excommunication to Uri and Unterwalden as well as Schwyz.