Page "Swiss mercenaries" Paragraph 24

Another prime employer of Swiss mercenaries from the later 16th century on was Spain.

After the Protestant Reformation, Switzerland was split along religious lines between Protestant and Catholic cantons.

Swiss mercenaries from the Catholic cantons were thereafter increasingly likely to be hired for service in the armies of the Spanish Habsburg superpower in the later sixteenth century.

The first regularly embodied Swiss regiment in the Spanish army was that of Walter Roll of Uri ( a Catholic canton ) in 1574, for service in the Spanish Netherlands, and by the middle of the seventeenth century there were a dozen Swiss regiments fighting for the Spanish army.

From the latter part of the seventeenth century these could be found serving in Spain itself or in its possessions, and fought against Portugal, against rebellions in Catalonia, in the War of the Spanish Succession, War of the Polish Succession, War of the Austrian Succession ( in the fighting in Italy ), and against Britain in the American Revolutionary War.

By the 1790s there were about 13, 000 men making up the Swiss contingent in a total Spanish army of 137, 000.

Their final role in Spanish service was against the French in the Peninsular War, in which the five Swiss regiments ( Ruttiman, Yann, Reding, Schwaller and Courteen ).

mostly stayed loyal to the Spanish — at the Battle of Bailén, the Swiss regiments pressed into French service defected back to the Spanish Army Swiss under Reding — and were eventually ground down by years of fighting.

The year 1823 finally saw the end of Swiss mercenary service with the Spanish army.