Swiss III

1291-1648 CE

From 1291 to 1648 CE, the Swiss transformed from rebellious peasants into Europe's most feared soldiers — their pike squares shattering Habsburg cavalry at Morgarten and Burgundian chivalry at Nancy, their mercenaries fighting on every battlefield from Milan to Marignano. The Pope still guards his palace with Swiss halberds; the cantons' neutrality, born from the exhaustion of religious civil war, would become their most valuable export.