Zurich, an imperial (free) city, expects to acquire Toggenburg as the latest in a line of many such domains recently incorporated in their territory.

The imperial city of Schwyz, however, quickly sets up communes in the Toggenburg and bars the road to Zurich in a preemptive action approved in 1437 by its canton officials.

The feudal domain comprising the Toggenburg district near Lake Constance had been freed by the death of its last count, Frederick VII, in 1436.

Rudolf Stüssi, who had risen from several minor appointments to the position of burgomaster of Zürich in 1430, has forced Zürich into a quarrel with the canton of Schwyz and its chief magistrate, Ital Reding, over the inheritance.

Zürich had appealed to the conservative Imperial Diet for succor  in 1440.

Stüssi, after eradicating his opposition and securing the general support of his townsmen, concludes an alliance with Austria.

When the archconservative Habsburg ruler Frederick III, Duke of Austria and King of Germany, agrees in 1442 to aid Zurich militarily, the Swiss Confederation demands the abrogation of this agreement.

Stüssi actively participates in the early hostilities but in July is slain in battle at Sankt Jakob an der Sihl, just outside Zürich.

Zurich’s forces retreat; the diet issues a conciliatory order that Austria rejects, causing Zurich to break with Austria.

The Swiss Confederacy aids Schwyz, besieging Zurich with twenty thousand troops.

French King Charles VII, hoping to gain control of Basel, responds to Frederick’s request for aid by dispatching forty thousand soldiers.

Schwyz and its ally Glarus declare war on both Zurich and Austria, and by May 1443 the cantons are again at war.

As in 1440 and again in 1443, Reding directs the war policy of the united cantons against Zürich and, despite his advanced age, sees service on the battlefield as well.