In the 15th Century the Swiss Army had the reputation of somewhere north of Israeli special forces and just shy of Mandalorians. Swiss mercenary regiments for for about 300 years or so were the norm in European armies for shock troops and detachments to be sent far, far away and left to their own devices.
In fact, Cat Island, an isolated and forlorn strip of nothing just off the Mississippi Coast where I grew up, although French after 1699, was garrisoned by Swiss troops back in the day and metal detector fanatics are constantly tearing up the dunes looking for old remnants out there.
Medieval/Renaissance Swiss mercenaries. They may have dressed like Liberace, but they could fight
Anyway, would the Swiss fight to the death for a bit of gold?
Absolutely.
During the sacking of Rome on May 6, 1527, 189 Swissmen under one Captain Kaspar Röist held off a force of Hapsburg troops ten times their number to allow Pope Clement to beat feet. They nearly perished to a man and the man in the funny hat got away with his life. To this day, the Papal guard are made up of Swiss volunteers– the oldest continually operational military unit in modern history.
Well, on 10 August 1792, some 20,000 French Republican National Guards and others stormed the palais des Tuileries which was garrisoned by a handful of Royalist volunteers and 900~ Swiss dogs of war.
Again, like the sack of Rome, the Swiss fought like men possessed but could not hold back the sea.
Storming of Tuileries portraying the massacre of the Swiss Guards, by Henri-Paul Motte, 1892. Click to big up
How did it go for them?
As British historian Nesta Webster says in her book Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette during the Revolution: “Could [Louis XVI] imagine…that the mob, not content with venting their fury on the Chateau, would massacre not only the Swiss Guard, men of the people who had remained at their posts, but even the luckless servants in the kitchens of the Palace? The horrors committed on this 10th of August were such as no human mind could possibly have conceived.” 900 Swiss guards were brutally killed, many tortured, some roasted, mutilated, decapitated, with their limbs distributed throughout Paris. Children played ball in the streets with the heads of the brave Swiss, and the steps of the Tuileries ran with blood, like some gruesome altar of human sacrifice. People dipped bread into the blood of the victims.
I guess that’s why the Pope still keeps these guys around and Hitler never crossed that border…
Swiss Soldiers from the Gebirgs Infantry Battalion 85’ training with the Light Machine Gun 05 (FN Minimi). All members of the Papal Swiss Guard are drawn from volunteers who have a clean service record with the Swiss Army
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