The Swiss Accident: Marignano 1515

A mercenary powerhouse loses a single battle and becomes the world’s broker of peace. We trace how Marignano in 1515 forced Switzerland to pivot from exporting violence to exporting trust, and the moral trade-offs that followed into the twentieth century.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting Up The Big Idea
• 0:43 Switzerland And The Meaning Of Neutrality
• 1:49 Armed To The Teeth Yet Neutral
• 2:50 From Mercenaries To Myth
• 4:12 The Battle That Changed Everything
• 4:29 Support The Show
• 5:28 Marignano: Death March Begins
• 8:31 Swiss Pike Perfection Explained
• 12:06 Business Of Exporting Violence
• 15:34 A Young King And His Artillery
• 17:58 Day One: Artillery Finds Its Range
• 21:05 Day Two: Realizing Defeat
• 22:33 Aftermath: Identity In Crisis
• 24:06 Geography Becomes Strategy
• 25:45 Reinventing As Neutral Ground
• 27:19 Twentieth Century Neutrality’s Price
• 29:07 The Durable Power Of Trust
• 31:03 Tease: Haiti Series

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. So let's talk about what we have here for you today. Quick question. Have you ever associated a single word with an entire country? Like, you can't see a bald eagle without thinking about the United States, right? Or maybe think of pizza and not think of Italy. Maybe the word technology immediately recalls visions of Japan. And yeah, I know these are all generalizations, but sometimes there's a ring of truth to them. Today we're talking about a country that is so synonymous with one word that it's basically impossible to think of that word without thinking of them. And that word is neutrality. And if you thought about Switzerland, then you'd be absolutely right. For almost five hundred years now, Switzerland has become the neutral country in the world. Through the most catastrophic conflicts in human history, they're just not there. Think about the Napoleonic Wars. Switzerland sits out. Well, okay, they were invaded by France in 1798, as France was looking to spread some revolutionary love, but that's the exception. In World War One, the Great War, where millions died across Europe, not in Switzerland. World War II, literally the greatest catastrophe in human history. Switzerland was still neutral, even when Nazi Germany surrounded them on three sides. Before and since, they've become this haven of neutrality. The place where enemies meet to negotiate, the perfect neutral ground, the place of the Geneva Convention, peace treaties, international organizations, all of that's in Switzerland. But here's where it gets a little weird. Switzerland, it's also like super armed. Every able-bodied man has to serve in the military. They are required. And when they're done with their service, they take their rifle home. They keep it in their house. The whole country is basically a standing army that just happens to have a day job. They make excellent chocolate and watches, both of which I enjoy thoroughly. And they also have shady financiers, which, if we're all being honest with ourselves, it's kind of true. Anyway, so how does that work? How do you become the most armed and most neutral at the same time? It's almost like being a pacifist who sleeps with a loaded gun under their pillow. The math doesn't seem to add up. Most people just assume that Switzerland was always like this, always neutral. Because they're a mountain people, because they're isolated. They kept to themselves with their cheese and their cows and maybe their very precise clocks, right? Except, five hundred years ago, Switzerland wasn't neutral. Not at all. They were the opposite of neutral. They were Europe's mercenaries. They were the absolute scariest military force on the continent. In fact, when a king wanted to guarantee victory, he would hire Swiss soldiers. They were so good and so disciplined, so terrifying, that just having them on your side could end the war before it started. The Swiss would hire out to whoever paid the most, sometimes even ending up on opposite sides of the same conflict, which I'm sure led to some awkward moments and dinner conversations. But for 200 years, Swiss pack formations were basically unbeatable. Their whole economy ran on exporting violence. Young Swiss men grew up knowing their career path was being really, really good at killing people in organized formations, and cousin, business was a boomin'. And if you don't get the reference, then go watching Glorious Bastards. It's a great movie. So what happened? How do you go from being Europe's most feared warriors to being its most trusted neutral party? That's not like an evolution, that's a complete identity transplant. And the answer isn't some gradual cultural shift that happened over centuries. It really comes down to one battle, one catastrophic day in 1515, when everything the Swiss believed about themselves just stopped working. And what they did next and how they handled that defeat created the Switzerland that we know today. Before we jump in, if you're enjoying the show and you like what we're doing, connecting the identity of nations to key moments and events that have shaped their DNA, please help the show by leaving us a rating wherever you listen. Written reviews work best, and they take around 30 seconds. The other thing you can do is you tell someone about the show, and if you do, maybe they'll tell someone else, and then so on and so forth. Helping the show grow gets us closer to the goal of weekly episodes, as I would be able to dedicate more time to the podcast. Also, if you are inclined to leave feedback, please drop us a line at double helixhistory podcast at gmail.com. All feedback is good feedback in my eyes, and it is how we make the show better. And finally, if you think the show is good enough for maybe three of your hard-earned dollars, then please support us. Just click on the link in the show notes and you will be able to donate and support the show there. Okay. That's out of the way, let us proceed. We are in September of 1515 in a field near Milan. Twenty thousand Swiss soldiers are about to learn that invincibility doesn't last forever. And in that learning, they're going to accidentally invent modern Switzerland. What you are hearing is death marching. Not metaphorical death, actual death. Organized into perfect rows, moving with mechanical precision through the Italian pre-dawn darkness. Twenty thousand Swiss pipemen, each carrying an 18-foot spear tipped with steel, advancing information so tight you can hear them breathing as one. At bass drum rhythm, thousands of men moving in lockstep. This is what military perfection sounds like. This is what 200 years of unbroken victories sounds like. Knights flee rather than face them. Armies surrender when they hear the Swiss are coming. Kings pay fortunes just to have them on their side. Johannes Kessler, a 23-year-old pikeman from Zurich, marches in the third rank. His grandfather fought at Nancy in 1477, where Swiss pikemen destroyed Charles de Bols's Burgundian army. His father fought at Navarra in 1513, where they crushed a French force twice their size. Now it's Johannes' turn to uphold the family tradition of being really good at stabbing people in organized ways. By tomorrow night, he tells the man beside him, we'll be drinking French wine in the lawn. His friend laughs. It's not optimism. It's a calculation. This is what they do. This is what they've always done. Thirty-six hours later, Johannes Kessler will be one of 3,000 Swiss dead soldiers in the fields around Marigneto. His body will lie in an Italian field, surrounded by thousands of others. Testament to the day Swiss invincibility died. That artillery thunder that you hear in the distance, that's the future arriving. And the Swiss aren't ready for it. This is the Swiss accident. Marignato 1515. You know how they say you can't understand someone until you walk a mile in their shoes? Well, I'd argue you can't understand a nation until you've walked through its history. Not just to highlight Rio or the sanitized version you find in textbooks. I mean really getting into its DNA. Those defining moments that shaped everything that came after. Those moments where paths were chosen, where decisions were made in palaces and backrooms and city streets that changed the course of millions of lives. I'm your host, Paul, and this is Double Helix, Blueprint of Nations, where we unravel the genetic code of countries through their most transformative moments. Think of it like ancestry testing, but for entire nations. We dig deep into the historical DNA, finding those crucial moments that made countries who they are today. To understand what's about to happen at Marignano, you need to understand what Switzerland actually was in 1515. And I promise you, it's not what you think. Picture the Alps in the late Middle Ages. Not the postcar mountains with ski resorts and chalets. Picture brutal, isolated valleys where winter means six months of near starvation, where the growing season is so short that one bad harvest means death. Small communities clinging to mountainsides, cut off from the world, united by exactly one thing. They absolutely refuse to be ruled by the Austrian Hashburgs. The problem is, independence and poverty don't play well together. These valleys can't support large populations. The soil's terrible. The winters are savage. Farming barely keeps people alive. So what do you do when you gap too many young men and not enough land to feed them? We are going to the Moorgarden Pest in Switzerland, December 15th of 1315. What you do with those young men is you export them. Except the Swiss discovered they had a particular gift. That they were terrifyingly good at killing people in organized ways. The nobles in their expensive armor don't see the ambush coming. They get pulled off their horses and butchered. It was brutal, but it was effective, and it thought to Swiss something crucial. Infantry could beat cavalry if they had discipline and the right weapons. So they perfected it. The pike. Eighteen feet of ash wood, tipped with steel, became Switzerland's primary export. Not cheese, not watches, and not chocolate, not yet. But death. Delivered with mechanical precision. Here's what made the Swiss Pike Formation revolutionary. They fought like a single organism. In an era when most armies were basically armed mobs, the Swiss drilled endlessly. They moved in perfect coordination and maintained formation under any pressure. Picture a Pike Square. Five thousand men bristling with spears on all sides. From a distance, it looks like a massive porcupine. Up close, it's your worst nightmare. The pikes are layered, front ranks level, back ranks angled upwards, creating an impenetrable forest of steel. Now imagine being a French knight. You've trained your whole life for war. Your armor costs more than a village makes in a year. You're in a war horse bred for size and aggression. You're supposed to be the ultimate warrior. And then you charge at what looks like a force of spears and watch your horse impale itself. The formation doesn't break. It actually advances towards you while you're trapped in the dying cavalry and screaming of men. Your expensive armor just made you a slow-moving target. That's what fighting the Swiss meant. And they cultivated their reputation for ferocity. They didn't capture enemies, they executed them. Surrendering forces were given no quarter. The message was clear. Hire the Swiss and win. Fight the Swiss and die. By 1500, every major European power wanted Swiss mercenaries. They all paid massive sums to have Swiss pike squares in their side. And the Swiss? They took contracts from whoever paid the most, including opposing sides in the same war. This, of course, created bizarre situations. Two Swiss contingents facing each other on opposite sides of a battlefield. They're countrymen, sometimes relatives. So what do they do? They negotiated. They compare contracts, discuss which side was paying better, and one contingent would withdraw. It was always business, never personal. But think about what this does to a society. Your economy runs on exporting violence. Your young men grow up knowing their career is selling military skill to foreign powers. Your villages survive on the money sons send home from foreign wars. This was Switzerland in 1515. Not neutral, not peaceful, aggressively militaristic, thoroughly invested in perpetual European warfare, because warfare was their business model. Swiss mercenaries were everywhere. They guarded the Pope, and they still do. The Swiss Guard at the Vatican. They fought for France, then against France, then for France again, depending on the contract. But here's the problem with building your entire identity around being the best at something. What happens when the technology changes? When your advantage evaporates, when someone figures out how to beat you. That's where we're headed. To a battlefield near Milan, where twenty thousand Swiss soldiers are about to discover that invincibility has an expiration date. Northern Italy, September 1515. Italian politics is his usual chaotic masterpiece at this point. City-states fighting, foreign powers intervening, alliances shifting weekly. The Swiss have been right in the middle of it, fighting for Milan and against Milan, collecting territory and treasure. But now there is a new player who is changing the game. He's twenty years old, desperate to prove himself, and he's got his eyes on Milan. More importantly, he's got something new. Artillery. The Swiss think they know how to handle cannons. Their tactics have always worked. Advance fast, hit hard, close the distance before artillery can do real damage, and shred enemy formations with pike squares. Speed and aggression, overwhelming firepower. It worked at Granson against the Germans. It worked at Murten against the Burgundians. Why wouldn't it work again against the French? Here's what they don't fully grasp. Francis' artillery isn't the slow, clumsy bombards that they're used to. These are mobile cannons with crews who've been drilled to reload faster than anyone thought possible. And Francis has studied Swiss tactics. He knows exactly what's coming. On the evening of September 13th, the Swiss make camp near Marignano. They're tired from marching all day, but they're confident. Tomorrow they'll sweep the French aside like they've swept aside everyone else for two centuries. Hans Waltmann, the younger, a company commander from Bern, writes home to his wife that night. Tomorrow we finish this business with the French, he writes. Then I'll be home for the harvest. He'll never make it home. His body will be found three days later, crushed beneath his death horse. Mark Nato, September 14th, 1515. The battle begins before dawn on September 14th. The Swiss advance in their traditional formation, moving fast, trying to close the distance. And at first, it looks like it's working. The formation smash into the French infantry with devastating force. French units break. Cavalry wheels away from the Bristoling Spears. In the first few hours, it looks like Marignano will be just another Swiss victory. But then, the artillery finds its train. It's not just about killing individual soldiers, it's about the mathematics and the psychology. Each cannonball that crashes to a pipe where it doesn't just kill who it hits. It opens gaps in the formation. The Swiss power depends entirely on maintaining formation. You can't disperse. The whole system requires staying packed height. You can't charge fast enough to escape, and you're in formation carrying an 18-foot pipe. You just have to advance through it and hope. That is suicide. Instead, they harass the flames. They prevent maneuvering. They keep the Swiss, and the artillery kills them. Not brilliant tactics, it's just combined arms warfare. Infantry, cavalry and artillery working together. But the Swiss have spent 200 years perfecting tactics for medieval armies. They are now fighting a Renaissance army, the medieval method. Giovanni de' Medici, commanding Italian infantry with the French, watches and rights later. They come on with such courage that one almost pities them for their slaughter that they're walking into. They maintain formation even as entire ranks are swept away. But courage without adaptation is just another word for suicide. The battle lasts two days. Not because it's close, because the Swiss just won't retreat. They can't retreat psychologically. Their entire culture is built on never backing down, never showing weakness, never giving ground to retreat, is to admit that 200 years of victories was just luck. On September 14th, both armies camped on the field. The Swiss have lost thousands, but they're still formed up, still ready. In every previous battle, this is when the enemy withdraws, when the Swiss determination wins. But on September 15th, in the morning, the French are still there. Fresh French forces arrived overnight, more artillery position in the darkness, and the Swiss commanders realize something unthinkable. They are going to lose. Even in defeat, Swiss discipline holds. Artillery can break their formations. Their price in money and fear just crash. The immediate military consequences are significant, but the long-term psychological consequences they are going to reshape Switzerland forever. Zurich Town Hall, October 15, three weeks after Marignano. Hans Steiner from Zurich stands up. He's 40, a veteran of a dozen campaigns, and he is furious. For 200 years we've been the best. One battle, and we're supposed to give up everything? Across the chamber, Wilhelm tell, yes, a descendant, shakes his head. You're not listening. It's not about one battle. Artillery has changed warfare forever. Our tactics are obsolete. We can adapt or keep dying for foreign kings when they laugh at us. This conversation is happening in every Swiss valley, every town hall, every family dinner. Their entire economy is built on mercenary service. Their reputation depends on military excellence. Their young men's future depends on foreign wars. And suddenly, all of it is in question. Some want to double down, adapt to artillery, prove Marignanu was a fluke. Swiss mercenaries will continue serving in foreign armies for centuries. They're still good. They're just not invincible anymore. That changes everything. Others see the bigger picture. Switzerland is a small collection of cantons surrounded by major powers. France to the west, the Holy Roman Empire north and east, Italian states south. When Switzerland was Europe's military powerhouse, that wasn't a problem. But now here's the geographic reality that suddenly becomes critical. Switzerland sits at Europe's crossroads. The Alpine passes are crucial for trade and military movement between Italy, France, and Germany. Every major power needs access through Swiss territory. Before Mark Nano, the Swiss dictated terms because everyone feared them. After Mark Nano, they need a new strategy. And this is where the Swiss show their real genius. Not in military tactics, that's obsolete now, but in strategic thinking. They look at their situation and they ask, how do we turn geographic vulnerability into diplomatic advantage? The answer emerges gradually, but the seeds are planted immediately. Instead of being Europe's most fear warriors, they become Europe's most reliable neutral ground. Instead of exporting violence, they export stability. You're asking a warrior culture to give up war. You're asking a society that's defined itself through military prowess for two centuries to find a completely new identity. You're asking people whose economic model is based on selling violence to instead profit from not taking sides. But the Swiss have something working in their favor. They are pragmatists. Mountain people always are. You don't survive in the Alps by being ideological. You survive by adapting. Mercenary service does not end immediately. But Swiss foreign policy starts shifting. When European powers go to war, Switzerland gradually stops taking sides. When tray routes need protection, Swiss neutrality becomes valuable precisely because everyone trusts them not to favor anyone. Within a few generations, the transformation is complete. Warrior culture becomes diplomatic culture. Mercenary economy becomes banking economy. Aggressive posture becomes neutral stance. And it works. By the Napoleonic Wars, Swiss neutrality is a recognized principle. By World War One, it is so established that even total war swirls around Switzerland without pulling it in. That discipline, that precision, that organizational skill that made in fear on the battlefields, it does not disappear. It gets rechanneled. Fast forward to the twentieth century. Two world wars remake Europe, empires collapse, borders are redrawn, ideologies clash. And Switzerland? Switzerland stayed neutral. This isn't easy. Staying neutral during World War II when you're surrounded by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy takes more than declaring neutrality. It takes careful diplomacy, military deterrence, economic utility, and importantly, moral compromise. The Swiss allow German trains through their territory. They buy gold from the Nazis, gold stolen from occupied territories from concentration camps. They turn away Jewish refugees at the border. Thousands who could have been saved die because Switzerland chose neutrality over mercy. This is not Switzerland's proudest moment. The Swiss will spend decades grappling with this legacy, compensating victims, acknowledging complicity, trying to reconcile neutrality with justice. But they never abandoned neutrality itself. By the 20th century, it is too valuable, too central to Swiss identity, too economically profitable. Geneva becomes home to the International Red Cross, founded by Swiss humanitarian Henry Dunant, the European UN headquarters, the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, and countless peace negotiations. All possible because Switzerland, starting with pragmatic calculations after Marignanu, built a reputation for neutrality so solid that even global conflicts couldn't shake it. So here's the thing about Switzerland. They did not plan this. Marignanu was an accident. It wasn't some grand strategy. They got beaten, plain and simple, and then they had to figure out what to do about it. That's what makes this story matter. Every country, every organization, every person eventually faces a moment when what made them successful stops working. When their advantage disappears, when the world changes and they have to decide whether to adapt or keep pretending nothing's different. Most societies choose denial. They double down on what worked before, convince themselves that trying harder will bring back the glory days. Spain kept building galleons after the naval warfare moved on. The Ottomans kept training cavalry after machine guns made cavalry suicide. But Switzerland? They looked at Mari Nano and asked, What else can we be? The answer neutrality, precision, reliability, being where everyone else can be. That wasn't a step down, it was something more durable than military dominance could ever be. Military power is always temporary. There's always better weapons, better tactics, more soldiers. Diplomatic trust that can last centuries if you protect it. When circumstances change, you can choose to change with them, but successful change isn't about abandoning who you are, it's about finding new ways to be yourself. Switzerland today is still recognizably Swiss, still organized, precise, and disciplined. But they took those straits and built something that works in a world where being the best at organized violence isn't valuable anymore. Every nation eventually faces its own Marek Nano. Some moment when what made them special becomes obsolete. The question isn't whether that moment comes, it's what do you do when it arrives. Sometimes the worst thing that happens is also the best thing. Sometimes defeat is just opportunity wearing camouflage. Sometimes the day everything falls apart is the day you figure out who you really are. Next time, on Double Helix, we're starting a four-part series on Haiti. We're going to August of 1791, the richest colony in the world, half a million enslaved people, and a revolution that will change everything. The only successful slave rebellion in history, the world's first black republic, and the prize they paid for their freedom, that prize still echoes today. Until next time, thank you for listening. We will see you soon.