Switzerland was joined in a confederacy. A later war waged by Albert
proved disastrous to the Austrian cause, and ended by a further
consolidation of the Swiss cantons. In 1356, seventy years after
Morgarten, the Austrians made another attempt to bring the brave
mountaineers into subjection. An army of nine thousand men, the best
trained soldiers of the empire, under the lead of the Archduke
Leopold, invaded the country. To these the confederates opposed a
force of fourteen hundred. They met in a valley near the lake of
Sempach. The Austrians had learned something of Swiss warfare, and
knew that they stood no chance in a hand-to-hand conflict with the
Swiss, and so they formed their men into squares, with a wall of
bristling spears on every side. Upon this solid mass of men the Swiss
could make no impression. In vain they charged with the fiery courage
which had so often gained them the victory; they could find no
vulnerable point in the serried columns, and it seemed that the brave
mountaineers must all perish, and leave their homes again to the mercy
of the Austrian soldiers. But, when almost in despair, the tide of
battle was turned by the acts of a single Swiss soldier, Arnold
Winkelried, of Unterwalden. He communicated his plan to his immediate
neighbors, and then, rushing forward, he grasped as many of the
Austrian spears as he could reach; and, gathering them together, he
bowed to the ground with the spears buried in his breast. Into the
breach his companions rushed, and with their powerful swords they soon
widened the space, so that the whole Swiss force had room for action.
The Austrians were almost annihilated, Leopold himself being slain.
The poet Montgomery has given the following version of this event:

ARNOLD WINKELRIED.

39. "Make way for liberty!" he cried;