Second War of Kappel The Second War of Kappel ( " Zweiter Kappelerkrieg " ) was an armed conflict in 1531 between the Protestant and the Roman Catholic cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy during the Reformation in Switzerland . Cause . The tensions between the two parties had not been resolved by the peace concluded after the first war of Kappel two years earlier , and provocations from both sides continued unabatedly , fuelled in particular by the Augsburg Confession of 1530 . Additionally , the Catholic party accused Zürich of territorial ambitions . As the Catholic cantons refused to help the Three Leagues ( " Drei Bünde " ) in the Grisons in the Musso war against the Duchy of Milan , Zürich promptly considered this a breach of contracts between the confederacy and the Three Leagues and declared an embargo against the five alpine Catholic cantons , in which Bern also participated . While the " Tagsatzung " had successfully mediated in 1529 , on this occasion the attempt failed , not least because Zwingli , the Protestant Leader , was eager for a military confrontation . Pressed by the food embargo the Catholic cantons declared war on Zürich on 9 October 1531 . Battle of Kappel . On October 11 , 1531 , a force of approximately 7 , 000 soldiers from the five Catholic cantons met an army of only 2 , 000 men from Zürich at the Battle of Kappel . Zürich ' s army was unsupported by the other Protestant cantons and was led by Zwingli , while the combined Catholic army was led by Hans Jauch of Uri . The main Zürich force arrived at the battlefield in scattered groups and exhausted from a forced march . The Catholic forces attacked and after a brief resistance , the Protestant army broke around 4 in the afternoon . About 500 Protestants were killed in the battle and while fleeing . Among the dead was Zwingli and twenty - four other pastors . Zwingli ' s body was taken by the victorious Catholic army and burned as a heretic . After the defeat , the forces of Zürich regrouped and attempted to occupy the Zugerberg , and some of them camped on the " Gubel " hill near Menzingen . Protestant response . Following the defeat at Kappel , Bern and other Reformed Cantons marched to rescue Zürich . Between 15 – 21 October , a large Reformed army marched up the Reuss valley to outside of Baar . At the same time , the Catholic army was now encamped on the slopes of the Zugerberg . The combined Zürich - Bern army attempted to send 5 , 000 men over Sihlbrugg and Menzingen to encircle the army on the Zugerberg . However , the Reformed army marched slowly due to poor discipline and looting . By the night of 23 – 24 October , they had only reached Gubel at Menzingen . That night they were attacked by a small Catholic force from Aegeri and driven off . About 600 Protestant soldiers died in the attack and the panicked retreat that followed . This defeat destroyed much of the combined Zürich - Bern army and , faced with increasing desertion , it retreated on 3 November back down the Reuss to Bremgarten . The retreat left much of Lake Zürich and Zürich itself unprotected . Zürich now pushed for a rapid peace settlement . Aftermath . Heinrich Bullinger who had been a teacher at Kappel , and since 1523 an outspoken supporter of Zwingli ' s , at the time of the battle was pastor at Bremgarten . Following the Battle of Kappel , Bremgarten was re - catholicized . On 21 October , Bullinger fled to Zürich with his father , and on 9 December was declared Zwingli ' s successor . The peace that ended the war , the so - called " Zweiter Landfrieden " ( Second Territorial Peace ) forced the dissolution of the Protestant alliance . It gave Catholicism the priority in the common territories , but allowed communes or parishes that had already converted to remain Protestant . Only strategically important places such as the Freiamt or those along the route from Schwyz to the Rhine valley at Sargans ( and thus to the alpine passes in the Grisons ) were forcibly re - catholicised . One result of the treaty — probably not anticipated by its signatories — was the long - term establishment of religious coexistence in several Swiss subject territories . In both the Thurgau and Aargau , for example , Catholic and Protestant congregations began worshiping in the same churches , which led to further tensions and conflicts throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries . The treaty also confirmed each canton ' s right to practice either the Catholic or Reformed faith , thus defining the Swiss Confederation as a state with two religions , a relative novelty in Western Europe . The outcome of the war also confirmed and cemented the Catholic majority among the thirteen full members of the Swiss Confederation : after later settlements in Glarus and Appenzell , seven full and two half cantons remained Catholic ( Lucerne , Uri , Schwyz , Unterwalden , Zug , Fribourg , Solothurn , and half of Glarus and Appenzell ) , while four and two halves became firmly Swiss Reformed Protestant ( Zurich , Bern , Basel , Schaffhausen , and half of Glarus and Appenzell ) . An unsuccessful effort by the Protestant cantons , especially Zurich , to change the terms of confessional coexistence in 1656 , the First War of Vilmergen , led to a reaffirmation of the status quo in the " Dritter Landfrieden " ( Third Territorial Peace ) . A second religious civil war in 1712 , the Second War of Vilmergen , ended in a decisive Protestant victory and major revisions in the fourth Landfrieden of 1712 .