[ShadowWulf]

Originally Posted by Arteker [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

U Are wrong . do some research .u forgot That swiss royal regiment was also on service of spain and infact Reding and his swiss regiment were the key to the french defeat at bailen .

And worse the swiss mercs were cured of his tenacity by the spaniards on bicocca (having the honor to be the first army to lost agaisnt a army made almost of arquebusiers).

Yes you are correct more or less. I was off my a few decades.

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. Their final role in Spanish service was against the French in the Peninsular War, in which the six Swiss regiments in the Spanish army 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.

Military alliances were banned under the Swiss constitution of 1848, though troops still served abroad when obliged by treaties. One such example were the Swiss serving under Francis II of the Two Sicilies who defended Gaeta in 1860 during the Italian War of Unification. This marked the end of an era.

Since 1859, only one mercenary unit has been permitted: the Vatican's Swiss Guard, which has been protecting the Pope for the last five centuries, dressed in colorful uniforms reminiscent of the Swiss mercenary's heyday. Despite it being prohibited, individual Swiss citizens carried on the tradition of foreign military service into the twentieth century, including participation in the Spanish Civil War, usually on the Republican side.

The end of an era, and the birth of the "proofing" concept in regards to armor.