An older tradition of Swiss historiography believed that Bern and its allies
occupied the Vaud in response to the threat of invasion posed by Duke Charles
the Bold of Burgundy. Some have gone even further to argue that the Burgundian
menace was merely a pretext for Bern and its allies to seize a rich territory which
they had long coveted. The weakness of Savoy, in the words of the Austrian his-
torian Karl Bittmann, positively invited an intervention, lest such low-hanging
fruit fall into foreign hands.66 Bittmann’s verdict is all the more remarkable
since it was he himself, nearly fifty years ago, who demolished much of the
conventional account, though he certainly endorsed the view of Bern’s innate
aggression.67
Count Jacob de Romont had entrusted the Vaud in early 1473 to the guardian-
ship of Bern and Fribourg during his absence on Burgundian service in the
Netherlands. But when that summer his sister-in-law, Duchess Yolande, backed
the raising of troops in Italy to reinforce Charles the Bold’s army, Bern, alarmed at
the potential threat to the Confederation, begged her to take the fortresses of the
Vaud back under her direct protection, only to be brusquely turned down.68
Thereupon the Swiss, with Bern to the fore, alongside the cities of the Lower
Union, felt constrained to mount a pre-emptive strike against Burgundy, in the
hope that France would simultaneously attack from Champagne. Their march
barely touched the Vaud. Rather, it led via Erlach on Lake Biel (a Savoy lordship
but one enfeoffed to the counts of Chalon who were themselves Burgundian vassals)
north-westwards through the territory of the bishop of Basel into the Franche-
Comté, where in November they laid siege to Héricourt, though Bern had argued
for a first assault on St-Hippolyte and Trévillers. Once it became clear that no help
from France would be forthcoming, the expedition disintegrated, with some troops
turning their attention to Neuchâtel.69
The campaign was conceived quite intentionally (especially by the Alsatian cities)
as an imperial war to justify the defence of the Empire’s western border, but it
66 Bittmann, Memoiren, 299: Im Süden bildete das reiche Land der Waadt längst das Objekt seiner
Begehrlichkeiten. Die Schwäche des Herzogtums Savoyen lädt zur Intervention ein und erfordert
zugleich alle Aufmerksamkeit, daß dort keine andere Macht zur Geltung komme, die sich dem
eigenen Ausgreifen hindernd in den Weg stellen könnte.
67 On Bittmann’s very odd career see Werner Paravicini, Colleoni und Karl der Kühne, mit Karl
Bittmanns Vortrag ‘Karl der Kühne und Colleoni’ aus dem Jahre 1957 (Schriftenreihe des Deutschen
Studienzentrums in Venedig, new series 12) (Berlin, 2014), 197–203.
68 Bittmann, Memoiren, 497–501. 69 Bittmann, Memoiren, 613, 716, 731.