Old Swiss Confederation

>lick French boots long enough and have small strategic value for anyone to bother

>>1781613
t. Jacques Surrendermonkey

>>1781594
You have to understand that Switzerland was not really democratic, it was more of a confederation of mini states with local oligarchs, at least in the early stage, where peasants had more freedoms and rights than the average european pleb
The montainous terrain, and the fact they held the passes between north and south of the Alps ever since the conception of the confederation, made for very easy defense
The defense of Switzerland was however also brought by the fact that basically every man was part of the army. You try and be tyrannical in a state where you depend on your armed serfs to protect your own land

>>1781622
>being so buttblasted by the truth your only answer is a meme

never change hans

>>1782405
Switzerland is in a very strategically interesting position
The real reason is that, before modern warfare, the effort to put to conquer what is relatively a small piece of land would have been insane
Also Switzerland didn't ever "lick French boots". They lost a tremendous war in 1515 after which France imposed a neutrality treaty on them, in 1800 it was conquered by Napoleonic forces, to which it successfully rebelled after 3 years of occupation. And before 1515 Switzerland and France had several wars against each other

>>1781594
Same way as Venice did.

>>1782438
But how did they conquer the land in the first place, afaik they took turf from France (Burgundy?) Italian States and the HRE. How did they get away with it? Each one of those should be able to crush the fairly easily?

File: Swiss wars.png (2MB, 1928x1771px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1928x1771px

>>1782940
the late 1200s and 1300s are a period of great decentralisation, we have the rise of the house of Habsburg, the House of Savoy, several different independent counts and communes in the general alpine area, both in Switzerland and northern Italy
The Italian States and the HRE were never a cohesive force, Switzerland has been a part of the HRE formally up to 1648 or something
Burgundy was the biggest threat to Switzerland but they were kinda busy reuniting the north and south parts whilst being ravaged by France
Once France had some spare time from assfucking Burgundy it went in and rekt Switzerland in 1515
The swiss army was, prior to that, not short from formidable, anyway

>>1782971
Most impressive kill ratios! How do you get away with fucking over the HRE and Max I? How comes no one came full force at them and just crushed them? The territory seems tiny. Even if they had good soldiers, the power gap could not be that high and all their opponents can field way bigger armies.

>>1783033
As I said, the HRE was just not a cohesive force, it's been France's punchbag ever since
Why would the Emperor give a damn about the swiss taking a ridicolous small amount of clay, when they are loyal subjects of himself already, while there is Austria hegemonizing and slavic kindgoms on the east, and especially France, the superpower of medieval Europe, on the west?
Why would anyone give a shit about country peasants taking some more valueless land?