On 2 March 1476, near Grandson on the shore of Lake Neuchâtel, the army of the Swiss Confederates routed Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Days earlier Charles had taken Grandson castle and had its Bernese garrison hanged or drowned. The battle was short and cost relatively few lives, but the Burgundian army fled in panic and left behind its camp, its artillery and the duke's treasure. The date is in the Julian calendar, then used throughout Europe.
The road to Grandson
The Swiss Confederacy, allied with Lorraine and Austria and backed by Louis XI of France, declared war on Burgundy in October 1474. Bernese troops then overran Vaud, held by Charles's ally Savoy. In January 1476, after talks on returning Vaud had failed, Charles marched from Lorraine with the bulk of his army, about 12,000 men according to the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, crossed the Jura by the Jougne pass and took Yverdon.1 › Battle of Héricourt, 1474
He took the town of Grandson on 21 February and, after a short siege, the castle on 28 February. He then had the Bernese garrison hanged or drowned in the lake. The Swiss National Museum's account gives the garrison as 412 men and says they had surrendered on condition that their lives would be spared.2
A battle that was over before it began
The Confederate relief army arrived too late to save the castle. The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland puts it at 18,000 men from the eight cantons and many allies; the museum's account gives 20,000. On 1 March it gathered at Bevaix and attacked the Burgundian outpost in Vaumarcus castle. On 2 March Charles moved some 20,000 men out of his camp toward Concise, onto unfavorable ground.3
The Swiss came forward on two roads and their vanguard halted at the edge of the woods to wait for the main body. The Burgundian cavalry could not break it. Charles then ordered his men to fall back, meaning to fight on better ground where his artillery could do more damage. At that moment the main Swiss army came out of the forest. The retreating Burgundians took the maneuver for a defeat, panic spread through the army and it fled, while Charles tried in vain to rally it.4
The Burgundian booty
Losses were small on both sides, because the Swiss had too few horsemen to pursue. The museum's account puts them at about 300 to 400 men on each side and says the fight lasted about three hours. Instead of pursuing, the Swiss plundered the duke's camp.5
They took about 400 guns, which they later used against Charles at Morat and Nancy, together with silverware, reliquaries, tapestries, clothes and jewels. The museum notes that the soldiers even quarreled over the share-out and melted down or cut up much of the treasure, but some pieces survive, including a painted shield and a banner from Charles's tent in the Swiss National Museum in Zurich. The Burgundian booty became a byword in Swiss history.6
From Grandson to Nancy
Charles raised a new army and was defeated by the Swiss again at Morat, or Murten, in June 1476. In January 1477 he was killed in battle outside Nancy, and Burgundy ceased to be a great power. At Grandson the Swiss infantry, armed mostly with pikes and halberds, had shown what disciplined foot soldiers could do against the knights and guns of the richest prince in the West. How the pike, the longbow and gunpowder ended the age of the armored knight is traced in our guide to the greatest battles of the Middle Ages.7
Note: army sizes and losses are estimates, and the text names the source for each figure.
Also on this day
- 1714: Battle of Napue. A Swedish force made up almost entirely of Finns fought a larger Russian army at Napue, in today's Finland, in the last land battle of the Finnish campaign of the Great Northern War.
