Outcast

by Peter Darman Book 1 in the Alpine Warrior series.

First published 2021

Amazon

4.3(1,691)

Set in the Swiss Confederation during the Old Zürich War in the mid-1440s, leon Muller, resident of the city of Bern, has it all – a wealthy family, an excellent education and a very bright future. But he throws it all away on a rash impulse and as a result is thrown into a world that is totally alien to him. Cast out of his home city, he is forced to join an army of impoverished, half-starved soldiers that is fighting for the freedom of the Swiss people.
Derided as ‘alpine shepherds’ by their aristocratic enemies, Leon and his comrades are plunged into a life-and-death struggle as the nobles and armies of the Holy Roman Empire and the Austrian Habsburgs circle the Swiss Confederation like ravenous wolves, united in their determination to wipe out the Swiss nation once and for all. It is a war of no quarter and great butchery.

The wider background is the Old Zürich War, a struggle that pitted Zürich and its Habsburg allies against other Swiss cantons. The fighting exposed the fragile nature of the Confederation while helping create the military reputation of Swiss pike infantry. Battles such as St. Jakob an der Birs in 1444 showed both the extraordinary aggression of Swiss soldiers and the appalling losses that late-medieval warfare could inflict.