Map - Sattel, Switzerland (Sattel)

Sattel is a municipality in Schwyz District in the canton of Schwyz in Switzerland. Its name is the German word for "saddle".

The Battle of Morgarten occurred on 15 November 1315 near Sattel, at Morgarten (now part of Oberägeri). 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 Swiss, led by Werner Stauffacher, thoroughly defeated the Austrians, who were under the command of Duke Leopold I of Austria.

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. A chronicler described the Confederates, unfamiliar with the customs of battles between knights, as brutally butchering everything that moved and everyone unable to flee. This founded the reputation of the Confederates as barbaric, yet fierce and respectable fighters.

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. Within forty years, cities including Lucerne, Zug, Zürich and Bern had joined the confederation.

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).

The French invasion of Switzerland in 1798 brought about a swift end of the Ancien Régime. The French victories against the larger cities of the swiss plateau led to the creation of the French supported Helvetic Republic on 12 April 1798. Following the declaration of the Republic, the Cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden rejected it and raised an army to fight the French. Under Alois von Reding they were able to raise about 10,000 men. This army was deployed along the defensive line from Napf to Rapperswil. 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. Even though the Reding's army won victories at Rothenthurm and Morgarten, Schauenburg's victory near Sattel allowed him to threaten the town of Schwyz. On 4 May 1798, the town council of Schwyz surrendered.