[War & Business] The Fall of the Swiss Mercenaries

The Swiss Guard serving at the Vatican. They are dressed in the uniforms of 16th-century Swiss mercenaries while on duty.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunwoo Lee] The Swiss mercenaries, once considered one of the strongest armies in medieval Europe, were defeated by the German mercenary Landsknecht troops at the Battle of Pavia in 1525, causing them to be pushed out of the spotlight in European history. The reason the Swiss mercenaries' status was never restored was because they lost to the Landsknechts, whom they had scornfully called a "ragtag bunch of beggars."

Originally, the Landsknechts were a mercenary unit created in Germany by benchmarking the Swiss mercenaries. However, unlike the Swiss mercenaries who maintained very strict military discipline, the Landsknechts had very loose dress codes and regulations. They recruited mercenaries indiscriminately from society’s bottom ranks, including local vagrants, wanted criminals, and debtors trying to escape their debts, all while marching to the beat of drums. The soldiers wore flamboyant clothes like clowns in a circus and boasted about heroic tales that didn’t even exist. Both the Swiss mercenaries and most European soldiers looked down on them, saying they weren’t even a real army.

The news that the so-called ragtag Landsknechts defeated the Swiss mercenaries, who were considered the strongest in Europe, spread shock throughout the continent. Ironically, the cause of the Swiss mercenaries’ defeat was attributed to their excessively strict discipline. The Swiss mercenaries, composed purely of Swiss natives without any outsiders, adhered to the dense infantry combat methods passed down for over 300 years, emphasizing uniform and mechanical movements according to manuals, and were extremely reluctant to adopt individual autonomous actions or new strategies.

In contrast, the Landsknecht army constantly recruited new mercenaries from all walks of life, allowing them to quickly adopt the latest European tactics. Individual soldiers did not just boast about heroic tales but freely shared new tactics, strategies, and information they had seen or heard. As a result, after battles, there were always discussions about various tactics.

Through these discussions, the Landsknecht army quickly adapted the tercio system, a newly developed infantry system from Spain, to their own style, and operated large quantities of the then-latest weapon, the matchlock musket, leading the Swiss mercenaries, who were stuck in outdated tactics, to a near-total defeat. In other words, the noisy ragtag troops were more fearsome than the silent warriors.