The Swiss, confident of success, and trusting in the help of God and the saints, as of old, drew up in battle order, their force taking a kind of wedge-shaped mass [Drawing of trapezoid] the shorter edge foremost and the bravest men occupying the front positions. The Austrians, on the other hand, relying proudly on the superiority of their high-born knights and nobles, looked disdainfully on what they believed to be a mere rabble of herdsmen. And, in truth, the handful of fifteen hundred men, inadequately armed with short weapons or clubs, battle-axes or halberds, seemed but a sorry match for that steel-clad army of six thousand well-trained lancers, cavalry, and foot. But the possession of cavalry in such a spot could not in itself give any advantage to the Austrians, and their knights dismounted and handed their horses to the care of attendants. To avoid getting their feet entangled in the long grass of a meadow close by the noble cavaliers cut off the beaks or points of their shoes--then the fashion--and the spot is to this day called the "beak-meadow" (Schnabelweide). Claiming for themselves the right to win honour that day, they ordered their infantry to the rear. According to another account, however their infantry were still at Sursee, the noble horsemen declining their aid. After ancient custom, the Austrians formed themselves into a compact phalanx, the noblest occupying the front ranks, the preparations being necessarily hurriedly and somewhat indefinitely made. The onset was furious, and the Austrian Hotspurs, each eager to outstrip his fellows in the race for honour, rushed on the Swiss, drove them back a little, and then tried to encompass them and crush them in their midst. The Swiss quickly fell back, but some sixty of their men were cut down before the Austrians lost a single soldier. The banner of Lucerne was captured; the Austrian phalanx was as yet unbroken, and all the fortune of the battle seemed against the Swiss, for their short weapons could not reach a foe guarded by long lances. But suddenly the scene changed. "A good and pious man," says the old chronicler, deeply mortified by the misfortune of his country, stepped forward from the ranks of the Swiss--_Arnold von Winkelried_! Shouting to his comrades in arms, "I will cut a road for you; take care of my wife and children!" he dashed on the enemy, and, catching hold of as many spears as his arms could encompass, he bore them to the ground with the whole weight of his body. His comrades rushed over his corpse, burst through the gap made in the Austrian ranks, and began a fierce hand-to-hand encounter. Fearful havoc was made by the Swiss clubs and battle-axes in the wavering ranks of the panic-stricken enemy, whose heavy armour and long lances indeed greatly impeded their movements. Nevertheless the Austrians made a brave stand, and Leopold, who had been watching the issue, now rushed into the _mêlée_, and fell one of the bravest in the desperate struggle. The