arch, 1476, twenty
thousand Swiss marched from Neufchatel to meet the army of Burgundy near
Granson, a force which, with its followers, numbered one hundred
thousand strong. The battle began in the morning, and at night Charles
the Bold was flying through the passes of the Jura, with five
companions, his brilliant army dispersed to the four winds of heaven,
his choicest treasures in the hands of the frugal Swiss. In the month of
June of the same year Charles again appeared in Switzerland, at the head
of an army still larger than that he had commanded at Granson. On the
twenty-second of June he lay before the little town of Morat, which he
had assaulted in vain. The Swiss, with thirty-four thousand men,
advanced to meet him, and with their usual ardor rushed upon the whole
Burgundian force. In a few hours they had again routed an invading army
nearly four times their own numbers. Charles fled from the field, with a
small escort, leaving fifteen thousand of his army dead on the battle
ground, while thousands more were drowned in the adjoining lake.

Having been thus successful when opposed to northern troops, the Swiss
shortly after tried their strength against a southern foe, the Duke of
Milan. On this occasion the confederates were the aggressors, although
under the plea of retaliation. A party of Italians had cut timber in one
of their forests. Immediately a descent upon the Italian valleys was
planned, and a considerable force crossed the southern Alps. A Milanese
army of fifteen thousand men marched up the Ticino to meet the
mountaineers. At the village of Giornico lay the Swiss vanguard of six
hundred men, from Uri, Schweyz, Lucerne, and Zurich, the main body of
their troops not having yet advanced so far. It was mid-winter of the
year 1478. The Swiss caused the Ticino to overflow the meadows before
the village, which soon became a field of ice; and as the Milanese army
advanced upon Giornico, the confederates sallied out upon _skates_, and
with this advantage over their enemies, six hundred Swiss put to flight
a Milanese army of fifteen thousand men.

At that period the principal weapons were crossbows, arquebuses, lances,
and halberds. Battle-axes and swords were also common, as well as knives
and daggers. The body was still protected by armor, generally among the
Swiss of plain workmanship; the head was covered by a helmet, or among
the common soldiery with a thick felt hat, ornamented with feathers of
the ostri