20 The Swiss and Their Neighbours, 1460–1560
rescheduling.62 Would this have been preferable to its falling into the hands of
the Swiss?
For the Swiss themselves the stakes were high, but their motives were murky. In
1464 Bern—hitherto a shadowy presence on the Hochrhein—had attempted a
coup-de-main against Rheinfelden, but failed to get Luzern or Solothurn to join
a concerted campaign.63
When hostilities did commence, it was Alsace which first bore the brunt,
as Bern led a Swiss army into southern Alsace, razing sixteen castles and burning
160 villages,64 which suggests that here plunder and revenge were uppermost in its
mind, rather than territorial expansion.65 The intention was then to join forces to
march against Waldshut but Basel, clinging grimly to its neutrality, refused passage
over the Rhine bridge.
At this point clear differences of strategy began to emerge among the Swiss
cantons. During the long siege of Waldshut, Bern, Luzern, and Solothurn were all
for pressing northwards into the Black Forest, but Zürich broke ranks by seeking a
compromise with Austria, since it was apprehensive about Bern’s designs upon the
north bank of the Rhine.66 Nikolaus von Diesbach, Bern’s illustrious envoy,
insisted on Waldshut’s surrender, and was only persuaded to desist after pressure
from Zürich. In the end, the Swiss demanded 10,000 fl by way of compensation,
with Waldshut as surety, payable by June 1469. If Sigismund defaulted, the whole
of the Black Forest would then fall under Swiss control.67 That, at least, is the
implication of a letter sent by Luzern’s magistrate to Rheinfelden, which was inter-
cepted and handed over to Sigismund.68 More than eighty years ago the distin-
guished Swiss historian Emil Dürr cited this evidence to argue that the loss of the
Frick valley, the Forest Towns, and the Black Forest would, in turn, have left both
the Breisgau and Sundgau completely isolated and thus prey to a powerful preda-
tor.69 Recent opinion has been more sceptical, questioning whether the Swiss
genuinely sought more than a bridgehead across the Rhine. Was it not more likely
that they wished to neutralize any threat from Austria by insisting that the Forest
Towns remain open to the Swiss in any emergency under the terms of Öffnungsrecht,
that is, the obligation to garrison foreign troops? That is after all what the provi-
sions of the Perpetual Accord of 1474 finally stipulated.70
Given that he was in a tight corner, Archduke Sigismund displayed surprising
fleetness of foot in mobilizing France, Burgundy, and even the duchy of Milan
62 Baum, Habsburger, 465–6.
63 Karl Schib, Geschichte der Stadt Rheinfelden (Rheinfelden, 1961), 130.
64 Baum, Habsburger, 516.
65 Against Bettina Braun, ‘Die Habsburger und die Eidgenossen im späten Mittelalter’, in
Württembergisches Landesmuseum Stuttgart (ed.), Vorderösterreich nur die Schwanzfeder des
Kaiseradlers? Die Habsburger im deutschen Südwesten (Stuttgart, 1999), 128–46, here at 142.
66 Baum, Sigmund, 288–9; Schib, Rheinfelden, 132.
67 Baum, Habsburger, 522–5; Bilgeri, Vorarlberg, 238. 68 Baum, Habsburger, 508.
69 Emil Dürr, Schweizer Kriegsgeschichte, 4: 1315–1515. Von Morgarten bis Marignano, part 1: Die
Politik der Eidgenossen im XIV. und XV. Jahrhundert (Bern 1933), 254. He is quoted approvingly by
Baum, Sigmund, 292. Elsewhere, however, the latter concedes that the Mulhouse and Waldshut Wars
represented the last attempt by the Swiss to cross the Rhine! Baum, Habsburger, 504.
70 Carl, ‘Eidgenossen und Schwäbischer Bund’, 221.