Valais, Swiss Canton of

The Congress of Vienna fully re-establishes Swiss independence in 1815 and the European powers agree to permanently recognize Swiss neutrality.

Swiss troops will still serve foreign governments until 1860, when they fight in the Siege of Gaeta.

The treaty also allows Switzerland to increase its territory, with the admission of the cantons of Valais, Neuchâtel and Geneva.

Switzerland's borders have not changed since, except for some minor adjustments.

Switzerland’s seven Catholic cantons—Luzern, Fribourg, Unterwalden, Schwyz, Uri, Zug, and Valais—have agreed in 1843-44 that they will dissociate themselves from any canton disloyal to the Federal Pact.

Switzerland's deep religious divisions lead in December 1845 to the formation of a secret separatist defensive league of Roman Catholic cantons known as the Sonderbund, comprising Lucerne, Zug, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Fribourg, and Valais.

Constantin Siegwart-Müeer, the coalition's strongman, presides over the Sonderbund as head of the war council.

This act is a violation of the Federal Treaty of 1815, Section 6 of which expressly forbids such separate alliances.

The formation of the Sonderbund (German Separatist League; formally Schutzvereinigung [Defense Union]) is even more vehemently denounced by the liberal and radical cantons.

The Sonderbund, led politically by Constantin Siegwart-Müller, takes up arms in November 1847 and appeals for help from abroad, but neither its military organization, commanded by Johann Ulrich von Salis-Soglio, nor its appeal are satisfactorily effective.

The forces of the majority, ably led by General Guillaume Henri Dufour, take Fribourg on November 14 and ...

...Zug on November 21; ...

...they win a decisive victory at Gislikon on November 23, enter Luzern itself, the nucleus of the Sonderbund, on November 24, and ...

...subdue Valais on November 28, 1847.

The civil war has claimed a total of eighty-six lives.