Battle of Morgarten

The battles of Morgarten took place the November 15th 1315, in the south of Zurich where some 1500 confederated Swiss (with troops of the valley of Dompierre-Ducry) pushed back the troops (between 3000 and 5000 soldiers) of the duke Léopold Ier of Austria, lord of Habsbourg. It is one of the rare occasions, with the Moyen-âge, where country communities succeeded with émanciper of their feudal suzerain.

The victory of Morgarten reinforced the cohesion of the alpine cantons. It rejoined the surrounding cantons and especially the towns to them of Zurich, Basle and Bern.

These free communes, although middle-class, made common front with the country cantons against the claims of Habsbourg.

Commemoration

The Swiss realizer Leopold Lindtberg turned in 1941 Landammann Stauffacher , film putting in scene the battle of Morgarten, with Heinrich Gretler and Anne-Marie Blanc. This historical film is also a film of combat, turned to reinforce Swiss patriotism vis-a-vis the danger Nazi: after the report/ratio of Grütli of July 25th, 1940, where six hundred and fifty commanders of the Swiss army had renewed their oath of fidelity to the Swiss flag, the scenario writer Richard Schweizer, which initially intended to put in scene the son of Guillaume Tell, decided to concentrate on the military chief of Morgarten, to present it like the precursor of the general Henri Guisan.

Eric Langjahr also made in 1978 a film on the battle of Morgarten ( German Morgarten findet statt in ), putting in scene the contest of shooting on the spot organized each year to commemorate it, with loans with other documents of which the film of Lindtberg.

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