Thus ended the battle of Sempach, with its signal victory to the Swiss, one of the most striking which history records, if we consider the great disproportion in numbers and in warlike experience and military equipment of the combatants.  It secured to Switzerland the liberty for which they had so valiantly struck at Morgarten seventy years before.

But all Switzerland was not yet free, and more blows were needed to win its full liberty.  The battle of Naefels, in 1388, added to the width of the free zone.  In this the peasants of Glarus rolled stones on the Austrian squadrons, and set fire to the bridges over which they fled, two thousand five hundred of the enemy, including a great number of nobles, being slain.  In the same year the peasants of Valais defeated the Earl of Savoy at Visp, putting four thousand of his men to the sword.  The citizens of St. Gall, infuriated by the tyranny of the governor of the province of Schwendi, broke into insurrection, attacked the castle of Schwendi, and burnt it to the ground.  The governor escaped.  All the castles in the vicinity were similarly dealt with, and the whole district set free.

Shortly after 1400 the citizens of St. Gall joined with the peasants against their abbot, who ruled them with a hand of iron.  The Swabian cities were asked to decide the dispute, and decided that cities could only confederate with cities, not with peasants, thus leaving the Appenzellers to their fate.  At this decision the herdsmen rose in arms, defeated abbot and citizens both, and set their country free, all the neighboring peasantry joining their band of liberty.  A few years later the people of this region joined the confederation, which now included nearly the whole of the Alpine country, and was strong enough to maintain its liberty for centuries thereafter.  It was not again subdued until the legions of Napoleon trod over its mountain paths.

ZISKA, THE BLIND WARRIOR.

Sigismund, Emperor of Germany, had sworn to put an end to the Hussite rebellion in Bohemia, and to punish the rebels in a way that would make all future rebels tremble.  But Sigismund was pursuing the old policy of cooking the hare before it was caught.  He forgot that the indomitable John Ziska and the iron-flailed peasantry stood between him and his vow.  He had first to conquer the reformers before he could punish them, and this was to prove no easy task.

The dreadful work of religious war began with the burning of Hussite preachers who had ventured from Bohemia into Germany.  This was an argument which Ziska thoroughly understood, and he retorted by destroying the Bohemian monasteries, and burning the priests alive in barrels of pitch.  “They are singing my sister’s wedding song,” exclaimed the grim barbarian, on hearing their cries of torture.  Queen Sophia, widow of Wenceslas, the late king, who had garrisoned all the royal castles, now sent a strong body of troops against the reformers.  The army came up with the multitude, which was largely made up of women and children, on the open plain near Pilsen.  The cavalry charged upon the seemingly helpless mob.  But Ziska was equal to the occasion.  He ordered the women to strew the ground with their gowns and veils, and the horses’ feet becoming entangled in these, numbers of the riders were thrown, and the trim lines of the troops broken.