Toward the end of the 13th century the House of Habsburg coveted the area around the Gotthard Pass, as it offered the shortest passage to Italy.

However, the Confederates of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, which had formalized the Swiss Confederacy in 1291, held imperial freedom letters from former Habsburg emperors granting them local autonomy within the empire.

[citation needed] The Confederates supported Louis IV because they feared the Habsburgs would annex their lands (which they had tried to do in the late 13th century).

[2] Frederick's brother, Habsburg duke Leopold of Austria, led a large army to crush the rebellious Confederates.

[5] Regardless of numerical considerations, the main contrast between the two forces was that a well-equipped and trained medieval army was meeting an improvised militia of farmers and herdsmen.

[citation needed] According to the 15th-century Swiss chronicles, Leopold upon reaching Ägeri debated with his nobles how to best invade Schwyz, with several possible routes under consideration.

After the decision was taken to take the direct approach, marching to Sattel from the north, Leopold is said to have asked his court jester, one Cuoni von Stocken, for his opinion.

[citation needed] According to Konrad Justinger's chronicle, written c. 1430, the people of Schwyz were warned by their neighbours, the lords of Hünenberg.

[7] According to Karl von Elgger, the Confederates, unfamiliar with the customs of battles between knights, brutally butchered retreating troops and everyone unable to flee.

[citation needed] There is some evidence to suggest that the attack at Morgarten involved the first recorded use of halberds against knights, the weapon that would become iconic of the Old Swiss Confederacy.

[citation needed] Matthias of Neuenburg writing in Latin around 1350 uses the term jesa to describe a type of polearm used by the Confederates; this has been interpreted as referencing an early form of the halberd.

Konrad Justinger, writing in German in c. 1430, cites the use of halberds explicitly: "the Swiss held in their hands certain most terrible murder weapons, known in the vernacular as helnbarten, by means of which even the best armed opponents were cut apart as with a razor blade, and hacked to pieces: this was no 'battle', but, for the reasons mentioned, so to speak a mere butchering of the men of duke Leopold by those mountain dwellers, as with a herd led to slaughter".

"[10]Within a month of the battle, in December 1315, the Confederates renewed the oath of alliance made in 1291, initiating a period of growth within the Confederacy.

A monument was eventually inaugurated in 1908 at the southern shore of Lake Ägeri, in the village of Hauptsee, in the canton of Zug.

The authorities of Schwyz refused to acknowledge a site of the battle outside of their territory and did not send any official representation to the monument's inauguration ceremony.

[13] In addition, a pistol competition over a distance of 50m was introduced in 1957, taking place in the territory of Schwyz, near the battle chapel.