It began when a Swiss Confederation force of 1,500 infantry archers ambushed a group of Austrian soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire near the Morgarten Pass.

The Confederates prepared a road-block and an ambush at a point between Lake Aegeri and Morgarten pass where the small path led between the steep slope and a swamp.

When about 1500 men attacked from above with rocks, logs and halberds, the knights had no room to defend themselves and suffered a crushing defeat, while the foot soldiers in the rear fled back to the city of Zug.

Within a month of the battle, in December 1315, the Confederates renewed the oath of alliance made in 1291, initiating the phase of growth of the Old Swiss Confederacy.

The victory of the Confederates left them in their virtual autonomy and gave them a breathing-space of some sixty years before the next Habsburg attack resulted in the Battle of Sempach (1386).

Following the declaration of the Republic, the Cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden rejected it and raised an army to fight the French.

General Reding besieged French controlled Lucerne and marched across the Brünig Pass into the Berner Oberland to support the armies of Berne.

At the same time, the French General Balthasar Alexis Henri Antoine of Schauenburg marched out of occupied Zürich to attack Zug, Lucerne and the Sattel pass.

[4] During the last ice age the Reussgletschter completely covered the valley where Sattel currently stands and had two spurs arms up Unterägeri and Äussere Altmatt (Rothenthurm).