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.
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