The Animated History of Switzerland

this episode is supported by World of Tanks thank you to all of these nice people for supporting the channel on patreon if you'd like to join them and also get a free Sweeney enamel pin you can do so at patreon.com slash Sweeney also guys the merch store has a 20% off for Black Friday promo going on up until December 3rd so if you want to get some merch you can use the code Black Friday at checkout thanks what is Switzerland and who are the Swiss sorry to get old meta philosophical on you but I mean come on just look at the place ask anyone and you'll get a variety of answers it's the country with the cows and the cheese okay that's not helpful what about the Swiss language German right except German people can't seem to understand it and also some Swiss people speak French Italian and a fourth one everyone seems to forget this is even less helpful ah here we go the origins of the Swiss nation-state this should clear things up ancient Switzerland was dominated by the Helvetii and the racing's who flourished in the hallstatt culture living side by side in the valleys of the Alps before being conquered by the Romans so far so good when the Romans felt the Alps became the crossroads for Germanic tribes like the Alemanni and the Lombards invading the Empire so there we have our answer the Swiss are just a weird mishmash of Celtic Germanic and Roman people without their own identity turns out the truth resists simplicity look a little closer and we can find something that United these people over all those centuries Alpine transhumans what the heck is transhumance I'm glad you asked transhumance is the process of driving livestock to higher pastures in the summer to low valleys in the winter sounds almost too simple right well it's actually far more important to the fabric of the Swiss identity than we think the seasons and the mountains dictated literally everything where you lived what kind of house you built what you found to eat and what trade routes you were on the Swiss were tied together by the Alps passing down their way of life from culture to culture for centuries laying down a nationalistic identity deeper than religion monarchy or even what language they spoke the Swiss were Swiss long before Switzerland even existed all right this interest gone on long enough [Music] borders separate people they separate trade culture food and language some borders are man-made such as the ones we have today but nothing separates humans like natural borders rivers oceans deserts and in this case mountains the Swiss Alps formed the border between the Germanic Franco and italic language families okay that was easy let's talk about racks fry the Holy Roman Empire granted the state of Reich's right to cities or areas that were difficult to get to or largely self-sufficient like for example the Alps it made them self-governing with no count Lourdes or Duke to answer to only the Emperor three alpine Canton's survives hurry and untie Feldon were granted Reich's fried to govern the trade route linking Italy to the empire together they will vouch statin forests Canton's and the relationship with each other grew over time they worked together on matters of trade and eventually defense in a series of treaties why the need for treaties there turns out these areas really loved their Reich's FRA status ruling themselves high up in the mountains was a pretty sweet gig and when an Austrian royal family started eyeing up their land they were quick to retaliate we don't need no hungry hapsburgs eating up our villages and towns into a conglomeration of hereditary states forcefully perpetuated by selective marriage alliances including but not limited to incest which you know they could have just gone with like fight the power or something perhaps folks of course were that infamous Austrian noble house that practiced some pretty land-hungry marriage policies but they actually had their start in modern-day Switzerland coincidentally so we all learned something new today the forest Canton's banded together and drove the hapsburgs out of their land and at the Battle of moss garden the Swiss were allegedly so brutal that they gained a reputation as bloodthirsty warriors the swiss of all people I know right bet you weren't expecting that the three became known as the Alta I dunno sand shaft but we just called him the old Swiss Confederacy Swiss coming from the canton of scheisse the three Canton's soon became eight the cities of lucerne zurich clara span Zook also weren't fans of the stinky hapsburgs and like the cut of the Confederates jib so one by one they all became members of the Confederacy in an eternal alliance the Hapsburgs thoroughly unamused thought this whole Confederacy thing had gotten way out of hand and it was time to put an end to it twice they attempted to retake the Confederacy's land and twice they were repelled mowed garden was no fluke victory the Swiss were just really good at fighting suddenly everyone wanted a piece of the Swiss action Freiburg neuchâtel and solo turn joined his associates of Bern Appenzell and broke away from the abbey of st. gall agar was conquered after its Duke was exiled for supporting the anti Pope and yes anti Pope is a real thing the german-speaking half of the prince-bishopric of Seon broke away from the dukes of Savoy and Schaffhausen and st. Gallen became associates the last player we'll be looking at is the christens this territory was divided at the time between three alliances the Grey League the ten jurisdictions and the League of the house of God the area was notable for its from manche speaking population the often forgotten fourth stepchild of Switzerland remnants of the old romanized duration people from the days of the Roman Empire okay so the map is beginning to look a lot more like the Switzerland we all know and love not without some hiccups though like the old Zurich war and the ruin affair which would nearly collapse the whole thing but soon enough these brothers buns would be sealed in warfare firstly the Confederates conquered the turgor which really upset the Hapsburgs in retaliation Sigismund of austria made a deal with charles the bald of burgundy to attack the swiss in exchange for land however ironically the Hapsburgs and the swiss ended up working together against charles in the burgundy walls after he took the land without delivering on his part of the deal the Swiss and the Hapsburgs defeated Charles three times in battle in the last of which he was killed the Swiss proverb was coined Charles the bold lost his goods at Caen saw his fullness at Merton and his blood at North Sea to try and ensure this wouldn't happen again the hapsburgs decided to set up their own Confederacy with blackjack and called the Swabian League and the two became fierce rivals maximally in the first then tried to annex land in the Griffons to control the Braille pass and had passed reforms in the diet of verbs to centralize his power over the Empire this erupted the Swabian war and the Hapsburgs together with their Swabian League were swiftly defeated the two wars had numerous consequences along with creating a sense of unity and had allowed the Swiss to assert themselves as a strong military power able to project its influence outward west to the Jura mountains and south to the Levantine of Valley a traditional Lombard Italian speaking area right let's do an overview Switzerland is starting to look and feel pretty Swiss but there was still the matter of what being Swiss actually meant these cities had banded together in opposition to the burgundians French and Austrians but what exactly were they now well let's take a look at what the Swiss had to offer the world cows okay but not nation defining skiing now that won't be for another few centuries fighting hmm maybe we're onto something here turns out the Burgundian Wars had given the Swiss a bit of a reputation as incredible warriors in a time when Europe was moving away from feudal levies toward career soldiers Swiss soldiers became highly prized makes sense right the Swiss were basically stuck in the mountains all day defending their valleys and trade routes quietly getting really good at fighting having a Swiss contingent in your army could mean the difference between victory and defeat and just like that the Swiss mercenary industry was born everyone wanted them in their armies the mercenaries were so effective that the elite members were sought after as bodyguards a sort of late medieval personal detail for Royal Courts all over Europe the top echelon of these guards were the hundred Swiss the bodyguards of the kings of France and the Pontifical Swiss Guard of the Pope's in Rome having a Swiss Guard force was kind of a badge of honor since they were seen as fiercely loyal capable and would fight to the death with honor now it's time to talk about something that according to my comments I didn't go into nearly enough detail about in my Italy video the Italian Wars I'll let you guess where they were fought the Italian Wars were basically just between the rising powers of the time for influence over Europe France the Hapsburgs Spain Venice and the papacy and Italy was their battleground the wars themselves were long and complicated and ultimately fruitless other than setting the stage for a rivalry between the enormous Habsburg Empire of charles v and his french and ottoman enemies which admittedly became quickly overshadowed by charles dealing with a troublesome monk at home publicly declaring that the catholic church was corrupt and illegitimate his Protestant ideas would ring with some of the German leaders beginning the Shmuel called ik war child soon realized that the whole thing simply wasn't worth the headache inside the Peace of Augsburg legalizing Protestantism before abdicating and dividing his Empire don't worry buddy ain't no shame in quitting so why did I bring up the seemingly unrelated war in the first place turns out the Swiss were instrumental to the conflict everybody wanted Swiss mercenaries and war is good for business the Swiss fought on all sides and profited greatly off of the seemingly never-ending conflicts but let's get back to that monk he was of course Martin Luther the father of the Reformation his teachings would have a profound impact on a Swiss preacher Ulrich Zwingli and boy do we have to talk about swingley the humanist preacher from st. Gallen stunned onlookers in Zurich in an act of defiance when he publicly called for the people to partake in the sacrilegious and downright blasphemous sin of eating sausages that's right he defied the church by claiming that the practice of not eating meat during the time of Lent was unscriptural and should be voluntary not mandatory the event became known as the affair of the sausages soon enough the Reformation had taken a hold of Switzerland with some of the Canton's switching over to the Protestant faith I wonder where this will go now the Protestant Reformation you may recall had a massive impact on the European continent it kick-started the German peasants war against serfdom the French expulsion of the Hyuga knows the Catholic counter-reformation and eventually the thirty years war one of the bloodiest conflicts in European history now because all sides of the war had used Swiss mercenaries Switzerland basically stayed out of the war but soon the got tired of butchering each other and sat down to negotiate peace in Westphalia after signing the agreement the European powers capped off the meeting by recognizing Switzerland as independent then tossed in the keys and told them to lock up thanks I guess so Switzerland is now fully independent and Europe is at peace other than dealing with some local things they kind of just sat around for a while with not much to do okay just kidding let's talk about Swiss neutrality although their most Nerys fought in nearly every war and the Swiss Guard were the bodyguards of dozens of monarchical courts the Swiss themselves stayed out of wars in the early modern period why turns out the Europeans had become so dependent on Swiss mercenaries that neither side wanted the Swiss to land in the hands of the other so everyone kind of just mutually agreed that Switzerland was neutral territory you leave it alone we leave it alone everyone can buy mercenaries and everybody wins especially the Swiss who profited greatly off of the wars after all if you're good at something never do it for free the situation reached its zenith during the French Revolution the old Confederacy became the Health etic Republic and in the new Confederacy both client states of France now we all know how this story ends with Napoleon being defeated at Waterloo because he couldn't escape if he wanted to but as for the Swiss the European sat down at the Treaty of Paris and formally guaranteed Swiss neutrality disbanding the Swiss mercenaries and the Swiss Guard once and for all the ideas of the revolution being fully put into place in 1848 after the Civil War of the sundaland formally federalizing Switzerland into a modern constitutional and federal nation-state Switzerland was Swiss and its citizens no matter what language background or religion were given freedoms and rights by their government and surprisingly enough they remained fiercely loyal to that doctrine of armed neutrality staying out of the first and second world war even when compelled by others to get involved it allowed for the growth of the Swiss banking industry a controversial topic to this day as well as making it a haven for revolutionaries some of whom history has not been kind to something that embodies the Swiss legacy for me has always been the final last stand of the Swiss Guard in revolutionary France revolutionary stormed the palace italeri to capture the king whom they didn't know had already fled and the Swiss Guard fought to the death in one last triumphant stand to protect their king this monument of the Swiss lion protecting the coat of arms of the French King wounded and dying was carved into the stone wall at Lucerne to remember their sacrifice the last remnant of the Swiss Guard today are the Pontifical Swiss Guard who served the Pope in the Vatican City complete with old regalia but bear in mind the actual Swiss Guard and Duty are not on display they're probably somewhere where you can't see them but they can see you Switzerland today embodies neutrality some criticize the stance claiming that by not standing for anything they also don't stand up to anything such as in the case of the Second World War when they refused to enter the war against the injustice 'as of the Third Reich and the fascist regimes while still others applauded the neutrality stance as for me I don't know I'm going to Switzerland on this one but you don't have to you can take the fight to those regimes in World of Tanks the free-to-play massive multiplayer online game is the best way to play out tank based warfare scenarios with 11 nations to choose from more than 30 maps based on real world locations excellent music and visuals it's the best tanks based game out there World of Tanks is a great game and really fun to play and you should definitely check it out as a bonus if you use my link in the description you'll automatically get seven days free premium account with 500 in-game gold and a Soviet T 127 to start off with give the game a try World of Tanks supports this channel by signing up you'll also be helping me create more of these videos download the game to your PC in minutes using my link and start playing today thank you everyone for watching the links to my Twitter and reddit will be in the description below and also thank you to all those people who signed up on patreon to get the free pin if you'd like to support you can also do so on patreon also if you'd prefer to just do a once-off purchase the merch store is of course now live we have posters pins we have stickers and a few other projects still in the works so stay tuned for that alright until next time

Channel: Suibhne

Views: 931,895

Rating: 4.8930964 out of 5

Keywords: Switzerland, history, suibhne, swiss, swiss german, reformation, Ulrich Zwingli, Huldrych Zwingli, swiss guard, alps, cantons, zurich, geneva, bern, lucerne, french, italian, german, romansh

Id: snFjkU85EqI

Length: 16min 50sec (1010 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 02 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/mimars9]

I'm impressed by the effort he put into researching and making this video

[u/cube303]

Azeig isch dusse!

[u/swearve]

I prefer “Swisstory”

EDIT: holy shit, my first reddit silver! Dangge!

[u/R4DGUY]

Years of history class resumed in 20 min... Fack

[u/xSaturnx]

Cool; I'll watch it later! :)

[u/The_Materialist]

LeMe: "I am from a nation known throughout history for it's fiersome and loyal warriors."

LeOthers: "You must be italian!"

LeMe: "No."

LeOthers: "Greek?"

LeMe: "Noo.."

LeOthers: "Japan?"

LeMe: "Noo... Noo..."

...

*This goes on for around 180 times*

...

LeOthers: "Are there even any countries left? Sweden?"

LeMe: "Don't you dare mixing me up with sweden!!!! We are swiss du Sausiech!!"

[u/gandraw]

It's extremely damn thorough but he still had to use rectangular Swiss flags :(

I actually learned something new, I didn't know the story about Friedrich IV and how the Aargau got yoinked https://www.aargauerzeitung.ch/aargau/kanton-aargau/als-der-papst-nach-laufenburg-fluechtete-128958980

[u/314159265358969error]

I'm a bit confused as of how Visp becomes the centre of the Upper Valais, considering that it's all been done in Sion. And the fact that my canton wasn't part of Switzerland till the very late we know.

Very nice video, otherwise. :)

[u/MetalOutside]

Can I get more detailed story on the "wounded lion of Lucerne" part... Seems a great story.