Plug-in war
Death of Lieutenant Rudolf von Werdt in the Stecklikkrieg, pen drawing by Karl Ludwig Zehender (1751-1814)
date | August 1802 to October 1802 |
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place | Switzerland |
output | Military victory of the insurgents |
consequences | Overthrow of the Helvetic Republic , renewed military occupation by France in October 1802 |
Peace treaty | Introduction of the mediation act dictated by Napoleon on March 10, 1803 |
Parties to the conflict | |
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Federalists from the cantons Uri Schwyz Obwalden Nidwalden Glarus City of Zurich Bern Aargau Solothurn Appenzell Ausserrhoden Appenzell Innerrhoden |
The Stecklikkrieg was a federalist uprising against the Helvetic Republic in the late summer and autumn of 1802. It got its name from the "sticks" (clubs) which the rebels of rural origin often carried with them for lack of other weapons.
In accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Lunéville , the French troops withdrew from Switzerland in the summer of 1802, where they had been since the invasion of 1798 and had enforced the establishment of a French subsidiary republic . The withdrawal of the protecting power destabilized the Helvetic Republic, pre-Helvetic institutions were reinstated in numerous places and areas and members of the authorities and supporters of the Helvetic Republic were expelled. The uprising, which spread mainly in central Switzerland , in Zurich, Bern, Solothurn and in Aargau, ended after several military confrontations with the poorly equipped and poorly motivated government troops (battle at the Renggpass on August 28, 1802, shelling of Bern and Zurich Mid-September 1802, battle near Faoug on October 3, 1802) overthrow the central Helvetic power, which had withdrawn from Bern to Lausanne after a military surrender on September 18, 1802 and which was only followed by the cantons of Vaud and Friborg. Power in the country was taken over by cantonal governments and a parliamentary assembly in Schwyz led by Alois von Reding .
The results of the uprising reversed the French troops, which re-entered in October 1802 and met with no resistance. Napoléon Bonaparte considered the uprising dangerous for the current political order in Europe. In the act of mediation of 1803 that he dictated, he made concessions to the opponents of the Helvetic Republic and gave up the unified state in favor of a federally structured Switzerland. Since the French intervention was a violation of the provisions of the Treaty of Lunéville , Great Britain took this as an opportunity, among other things, to declare war on France (May 18, 1803).
Literary implementation
William Wordsworth's poem Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland and Friedrich von Schiller's work on Wilhelm Tell go back directly to the Stecklikkrieg.