The story of this place
On 9 July 1386 the Swiss Confederates met the armoured knights of Duke Leopold III of Austria near Sempach. According to enduring legend, the Confederate hero Arnold von Winkelried gathered a bundle of Austrian spears into his own body, crying 'Make way for liberty!'—opening a breach through which his comrades poured. Leopold himself was killed and the Habsburg army destroyed. The victory broke Austrian power in central Switzerland and cemented the Confederation's independence. A battlefield chapel and annual commemoration still honour the fallen and the sacrifice that entered Swiss national myth.