Swiss Guard

Origins

Swiss soldiers were the Renaissance's most valuable export. In the fourteenth century the peasant and town levies of the Swiss cantons beat Habsburg armies at Morgarten in 1315 and Sempach in 1386. Then, in 1476 and 1477, their pike squares destroyed Charles the Bold's Burgundian army three times running, at Grandson, Murten and Nancy, where Charles himself was killed. After that every crown in Europe bid for Swiss regiments. "Pas d'argent, pas de Suisses", no money, no Swiss, became a diplomatic proverb, and Swiss mercenaries anchored French royal armies for three centuries.

Pope Julius II hired about 150 Swiss as a permanent bodyguard, and they marched into Rome in January 1506. The Pontifical Swiss Guard of today is the surviving institution of that world.

Organization & Training

The old Swiss armies were citizen levies, raised by each canton and drilled to move and fight as one great block. Their strength was cohesion and aggression: they attacked fast, in deep columns, and were known for taking few prisoners. Mercenary companies were raised under contracts between the cantons and foreign rulers.

The modern Guard is tiny. Recruits must be Swiss citizens, Catholic, unmarried men between about 19 and 30, and must have completed basic training in the Swiss armed forces. They serve for at least two years, guarding the pope, the entrances to Vatican City and the papal apartments. New recruits swear their oath each year on 6 May, the anniversary of 1527. The Guard is often called the oldest military unit in continuous service.

Weapons & Equipment

The Swiss made the Pike decisive in European warfare. Long pikes formed a hedge that cavalry could not break, while men with the Halberd, a combined axe, spike and hook on a shorter shaft, fought in the press and pulled riders from their horses. Crossbowmen and later arquebusiers skirmished ahead of the squares. The Guard still carries the halberd and wears the Morion Helmet on ceremonial duty. Its striped blue, red and yellow gala uniform is often credited to Michelangelo, but that is legend: the present design dates from the early twentieth century, under commander Jules Repond. On real duty guardsmen are trained with modern pistols and rifles.

Notable Actions

The Guard's defining hour came at the Sack of Rome on 6 May 1527, when mutinous imperial troops, many of them German Landsknechts, stormed the city. By the traditional count, 147 of the 189 guardsmen died fighting near St. Peter's, holding off the attackers long enough for Pope Clement VII to escape along the fortified corridor to Castel Sant'Angelo. The survivors escorted him there. Outside Rome, Swiss mercenaries fought across the Italian Wars, winning at Novara in 1513 but losing heavily to the French at Marignano in 1515. In 1792 the Swiss Guards of the French king were massacred defending the Tuileries palace in Paris, an event remembered by the Lion Monument in Lucerne.

Legacy

In the nineteenth century Switzerland banned its citizens from serving in foreign armies, but the papal guard was exempted. Behind today's pageantry stands the memory of 1527 and the pike world of the cantons, which made the word "Swiss" mean unbreakable infantry across Europe. Their methods were copied by the Landsknechts and the Spanish tercios, and they shaped the Renaissance Era battlefield.

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