The Stecklikrieg was a civil war in Switzerland in 1802 that resulted in the collapse of the Helvetic Republic, the renewed French occupation of Switzerland and ultimately the Act of Mediation dictated by Napoleon Bonaparte on 19 February 1803. The conflict itself was between insurgents, mostly drawn from the rural population, and the official forces of the Helvetic Republic. The term Stäckli, or "wooden club," from which the conflict draws its name, refers to the improvised weaponry of the insurgents.
The death of Lieutenant Rudolf von Werdt during the siege of Bern on 18 September 1802, an episode of the Stecklikrieg. Drawing by Karl Ludwig Zehender, 1805.
The Helvetic Republic was a sister republic of France that existed between 1798 and 1803, during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was created following the French invasion and the consequent dissolution of the Old Swiss Confederacy, marking the end of the ancien régime in Switzerland. Throughout its existence, the republic incorporated most of the territory of modern Switzerland, excluding the cantons of Geneva and Neuchâtel and the old Prince-Bishopric of Basel.
Strategic situation of Europe in 1796
Alois von Reding led Central Swiss troops against the French.
William Tell fights the revolution (1798), by Dunker, praises the struggle of the Old Confederation against the Helvetic revolution supported by French invasion. It depicts the Swiss folk hero William Tell, carrying a shield with the Rütlischwur, and his son fighting the revolution, represented as a chimera wearing a phrygian cap
The awakening of the Swiss (1798), by Midart, celebrates the transformation of the Old Confederation into the Helvetic Republic. It shows a Swiss who wakes up from his sleep (the ancien régime) and is handed his weapons by Liberty. In the background, the rising sun and the Gallic rooster herald the new era