"Swiss Troops in the Sonderbund War 1847" Topic

Does anyone know a good source of information on the organisation and tactics of the Federal and Sonderbund armies in the war of 1847? Uniform information would be good as well.

Where do people find all of these fascinating little wars? Damn, this looks interesting, and another tempting reason to by Ally Morrison's "Shiny Toy Soldiers"!!

Playing around on the web I found this google book to download. "Der siegreiche Kampf der Eidgenossen gegen Jesuitismus und Sonderbund" link
Has black and white plates and some maps.
Andrew

You've got to dig around a bit, but considering they always say that Waterloo and the Congress of Vienna produced 50 years of peace in Europe, you have to wonder who decided on that. Between Waterloo and The Crimea there were wars in Spain (twice), the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Balkans, Denmark, Italy, Germany and, of course, Switzerland. Getting information on them in English can be difficult and Wickipedia only whets the appetite. You need other languages to be able to really dig deep.

No wars between the major powers though ;)

Try to find this:

A very civil war: the Swiss Sonderbund War of 1847
Joachim Remak

By the way: i read German pretty well but i really dislike that Gothic font :(

Jeroen, I have the book and it is a very good read. However, it tends to gloss over the military detail so though there is reference to some units and incidents, there isn't the detail the military student needs. Lots of strategy but not much tactics. And you are right about the major powers. Just because Britain, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia did not fight each other, there was 'peace'. Tell that to a Polish infantryman trying to fight off cossacks in 1831!

That's a hefty price tag for Remak's book (on Amazon). Even searched on Bookfinder.com and the cheapest I found was one hundred bucks! I think this little war is beyond my interest if the primary book (in English) is so expensive!

If you pull up the google book on 'plain text' that saves you the torture of Gothic font. If you have Google translator, you can translate the plain text to English…very rough, but it gets you in the ballpark…

Bill

If the wikipedia article is correct, you could easily get more casualties from a soccer (futbol) match between Brazil and Paraguay! Likely they were happy that it ended up without major mayhem!

"No wars between the major powers though"

Crimea – Britain, France, Russia, Turkey?

Italy – France, Austria?

Mollinary

"Major actions were fought at Fribourg, Geltwil, Lunnern, Lucerne, and finally at Gisikon, Meierskappel, and Schüpfheim, after which Lucerne capitulated on 24 November."

i love the concept of 'major actions' totalling 100-odd deaths… were they pelting each other with hot fondue?

The Crimean got very close to dissolving into world war… if Russia had been stronger it could well have done.

Mollinary, the point is that peace was supposed to be the state in Europe UNTIL the very wars you mention which took place in the 1850s

No, the point I was making was the Crimean War took
place less than forty years after Waterloo.

Mollinary

I think there are a few plates in Kannik's book and if memory serves, Knotel has a few as well.

Have you tried the uniform collection on the NYPL digital collection – don't have the hyperlink at present. That collection might have something.

The NYPL's digital collection for Switzerland starts with illustrations of the Swiss federal army in the 1850's.

I understand that during the Sonderbund War the various cantons raised and equipped their own militias. The armies that took part must have appeared in a mixed bag of uniforms – a jumble of French military fashion and Swiss sobriety, I imagine.

Touché Mollinary.

I have the Ortenburg book which features the uniforms of quite a few of the Cantons in 1843. They tend to be the German speaking 'Federal' Cantons but none of the Sonderbund. I suspect that Zinderneuf is correct and the answer on organisations is probably also a mix of German and French ideas.

I found these illustrations in the Anne S. K. Brown digital collection (another good resource, in addition to the NYPL collection) link

These uniforms are from the late 1830's – early 1840's, but must give some sense of what the various Swiss soldiers looked like. Of course, on campaign everyone seems to wind up bundled in yards of bulky wool, and oilskin, with pompoms, plumes, and braid stashed miles away in some regimental depot.

This book has uniform and organizational information:

link

And calling ANY of the actions "major" is indeed a major stretch!

I also recommend Three Weeks in November. It pretty much has all you need.

Ralph Weaver wrote a book about the Swiss civil war and the CWS did a display game at Salute, we used Perry Napoleonic figures slightly converted. Check Helion books website for Ralph's book.Cheers Roy

Mr. Weaver also did an article in Wargames Illustrated, #303, in January 2013.

TV interlude : the Sonderbund War seen by the Swiss TV, a 52 minutes docu-fiction but the 25 days-war itself begins really by 36th minute with reenactors in uniforms

french version
link
german version
link

not found the italian and romansh version but I though that there are few members able to understand the last 4th version

Saluti

Never heard of this war. A lot more wars between 1850 and 1914 than I ever thought. We have a guy in our club painting figs for the Balkan Wars. It is amazing that figures for all these wars are being made. We are really in the Golden Age of wargaming.

I can remember when the Franco-Prussian War was out on the edge. But now it is mainstream.