Switzerland’s history of standing unconquered by foreign aggressors since 1291 has not, however, remained unbroken. When the revolutionary energy of France, then Europe’s most powerful nation state, became harnessed to the ambition of one of history’s most charismatic leaders, the map of Europe was redrawn. The Swiss cantons found themselves forced to become a “protectorate of France.” This unhappy experience with Napoleon would live long in Swiss hearts and minds and provide a backdrop both to the fierce Swiss determination to resist the Nazis and to the type of warfare the Nazis could have expected had they invaded the country.
It began in May 1797. After scouting out the country to plan an invasion, Napoleon demanded that the mountain passes be opened to French troops. The Swiss refused the demand. Napoleon decided to invade.30
Then—just as the Nazis would do a century and a half later—the French Directory (the Napoleonic government) launched propaganda barrages and promoted rumor-mongering against Switzerland as part of a campaign to reduce the Swiss will to resist. The clarion calls of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” emanating from Paris found receptive ears among some Swiss, particularly in the French-speaking cantons. The last vestiges of aristocracy and feudalism, argued Swiss radicals, should be swept into the dustbin of history. A revolutionary, Peter Ochs, accepted Napoleon’s invitation to draft a new constitution for Switzerland. Before long, Geneva and parts of the Jura were occupied by French troops. Vaud was taken without a shot being fired. Lausanne fell on January 28, 1798, without resistance.31
The Swiss made a stand on March 5 in a field near the town of Fraubrunnen, where 400 years before they had defeated a horde of English mercenaries intent on abusing Swiss nuns in their convent. While the Swiss put up a brave fight against the French invaders, the rolling farmland was not defensible against Napoleon’s infantry and artillery. Many Swiss who turned out for the fight were simply locals intent on defending their families and homesteads. Most of them were poorly equipped. Women, children and the elderly armed themselves with pitchforks and other farm implements to fight the French.32
The unique Swiss system of collective security for the cantons had operated successfully from the founding of the country until 1798. In the face of the Napoleonic threat, however, the lack of a single command and superior French weapons and numbers led to Switzerland’s defeat. (Remembering this failure, after 1815 the Swiss would expend great effort to improve both their weapons and their military tactics.) Equally important, massive revolutionary propaganda promising a new and better order in Europe permitted the French to sow disunity among the cantons and achieve their purpose to divide and conquer the country. As a result, in the 1930s and World War II, Switzerland would be vigilant against the threat of Nazi propaganda and subversive activities in the country and adopt a concept of “spiritual national defense.”
After Napoleon’s victory in 1798, those Swiss fighters who survived disappeared back into their villages and waited for a new opportunity to defeat the invader.33 On April 12, after the French entered Bern—the first foreign army ever to do so—Peter Ochs proclaimed the Helvetic Republic. A new constitution replaced Swiss traditions of local democratic control with a highly centralized government and an executive dictatorship, the Directory of Five, headed by Ochs. Resistance movements that included thousands of Swiss citizens formed soon thereafter in several cantons, but were crushed by the French.34 Sporadic guerilla warfare continued and thousands of Swiss were killed.35
After Austria and Britain made peace with France in 1802, French occupation troops withdrew from Switzerland. However, the country remained under Napoleon’s heel. The second Helvetic Constitution, more centralist than the first, was promulgated even though the Swiss rejected it in a vote.36 Though Switzerland remained in her degraded state, Swiss fighting men continued to uphold their high reputation for courage. Constantly placed in the forefront of battle, only 700 of the 9,000 Swiss troops forced into French service would return from Napoleon’s disastrous 1812 Russian campaign. At the crossing of the Beresina during the retreat from Moscow, the Swiss bravely stood in the rearguard that allowed the bulk of Napoleon’s fighting strength to escape the converging Russian armies.
In 1813, Switzerland became a battleground again and was overrun by Austrian and Russian troops—although the Swiss greeted them as liberators. It was not until Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo in 1815 that the nightmare ended. Departing from neutrality, Switzerland joined the allies and participated in the last military actions against Napoleon.37
While in exile on St. Helena, Napoleon paid tribute to the courage and obstinacy of the Swiss: “The Swiss treated the French as their ancestors had treated the Austrians; but what could they do against the French cavalry and artillery? They hurled themselves upon the cannons like madmen, yielding only to numbers and tactics.”38 In his Commentaires, Napoleon warned against campaigns in mountainous areas and described the Alps as a place where one must “make supernatural efforts to cross inaccessible mountains and still find oneself amid precipes, defiles and rocks, with no prospect other than having the same obstacles to surmount.”39
The period of Napoleonic domination was the last instance in which Switzerland’s democracy and sovereignty were lost to a foreign invader. This occurred only because the Swiss themselves were disunited in the face of a pan-European revolutionary idea and because the small, poorly-armed Swiss forces were crushed by overwhelming French military superiority. After the Napoleonic experience, the Swiss were determined never to allow an invasion again and spent the next century and a quarter building a strong citizens army that anticipated new threats. They would be ready when a new, and far more sinister, military adventurer arose in the 1930s to launch another war against all of Europe.
According to the Swiss concept, the army was “the people in arms.” Passed under the new 1815 Constitution, the general military regulation of August 20, 1817 organized the army of modern Switzerland. It required universal male service in the militia, which was subjected to uniform standards by, and came under the direction of, the Confederation as a whole.40 In reaction to the Napoleonic invasion of Switzerland, patriotic shooting clubs sprang up. The Swiss Shooting Federation (in German, the Schweizerischer Schützenverein, or SSV) united the local groups in 1824. Article I of its constitution stated the organization’s purpose:
To draw another bond around the hearts of our citizens to increase the strength of the fatherland through unity and closer connections and at the same time to contribute according to the capacity of each of our members, to the promotion and perfection of the art of sharpshooting, an art beautiful in itself and of the highest importance for the defense of the confederation.41
The SSV began to hold local, regional, and national shooting festivals, “Helvetic assemblies” designed to engender a stronger Swiss national feeling. The organization was heir to the centuries-old tradition of shooting festivals, about which records had been kept from the fourteenth century. It promoted a culture of marksmanship in the community and was an essential component of continued training for citizen soldiers.42
In the 1847 Sonderbund War, a separatist revolt in seven rural Catholic cantons was defeated by larger, more urbanized Protestant cantons. The war lasted only 25 days and took only 98 lives.43 The victory against the Jesuit traditionalists horrified the old order in Europe and inspired those seeking a stronger centralized government. Reformists proceeded to draft a liberal constitution to replace the post-Napoleonic Pact of 1815. By a vote of almost seven to one, the citizenry adopted the proposed constitution.
During the years 1856–57, Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia prepared to mobilize as many as 150,000 soldiers to march on Switzerland over a border dispute. The Swiss Federal Council positioned 30,000 troops at the border, instructed reserves to stay in readiness, and fortified the Rhine against a possible attack. A German observer remarked: “No Swiss, but a stranger dare say it, that this militia was worth half a dozen standing armies.” The possible w
ar sparked an international crisis that was eventually resolved in Switzerland’s favor through diplomacy.44
In 1866, Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck suggested to the Italian Ambassador that the French-speaking parts of Switzerland and Belgium could be given to France to compensate for territorial expansion by Prussia and Italy.45 That same year, in a war using newly designed rifles, the Prussians soundly defeated Austria. Seeing a need during this period to design a rifle that would be superior to that of the Prussians, in 1866 the Swiss Federal Assembly approved funding to develop a repeating rifle. In response, Frederic Vetterli designed a repeating turn-bolt rifle with a tubular magazine holding 12 metallic cartridges that was in use from 1867 to 1889.46 The Swiss adopted a new repeating rifle in 1889, using a straight-bolt system that allowed faster firing than the German Mauser rifles. The newer model carried 12 rounds of the Swiss-designed 7.5mm cartridge.47
For most of the nineteenth century, France would be seen as the greatest danger to Swiss independence and security. However, as time went on, Switzerland’s neighbor to the north once again began to appear more threatening. Particularly after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71—during which Switzerland mobilized to prevent the Prussians from invading to pursue the fleeing French—the Swiss came to fear the new Second Reich in Germany. The enduring expression “hatred of the Germans” first appeared in Switzerland at this time.48 The feeling of ill-will was reciprocated: one German writer of the time wrote that “for centuries, Switzerland has hung from our body like a paralyzed limb and sucks our juices without itself moving for them. To cut it off would be damaging to the limb and destructive to the body; it will again survive only through close association with the body.”49 Tensions between Germany and Switzerland increased in the late nineteenth century as German Social Democrats who had fled to Switzerland smuggled socialist newspapers back into Germany.
The perception of a new German threat convinced the Swiss to unify the armed forces in the federal system in 1874. The Federal Constitution provided that military instruction, armament, and equipment be in the federal, not cantonal, domains, and Article 18 stated that “Every Swiss is liable to military service.” Rather than the citizen providing his own arms, as had traditionally been the case, the new constitution provided that “servicemen shall receive their first equipment, clothing, and arms without payment. The weapon shall remain in the hands of the soldier, subject to conditions to be determined by Federal legislation.”50
During this period, in sharp contrast to the increasing centralization of power in other states in continental Europe, in Switzerland the federal government was becoming more responsive to the wishes of individual citizens. The 1874 Constitution introduced the referendum, under which a petition signed by 30,000 citizens would require a popular vote on an existing law. Under the 1891 amendment, the initiative was established, granting 50,000 signatories the power to demand a vote on new legislation they endorsed.51
After a series of reforms, by 1912 the Swiss Army included 281,000 men and could call on an additional 200,000 auxiliary troops. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany visited Switzerland that year. As the Kaiser observed Swiss army maneuvers, Swiss President Ludwig Forrer told his guest that “we have the resolute intention of protecting our independence against any attack on this [land], our dearest possession, and of upholding our neutrality against anyone who fails to respect it.”52 In a conversation depicted on a contemporary postcard, the Kaiser queried what the quarter of a million Swiss Army would do if faced with an invasion of half a million Germans. A Swiss militiaman replied, “Shoot twice.”53
During the period just before the Great War, Americans were intensely interested in Swiss marksmanship culture. General George W. Wingate expressed the sentiment as follows:
Switzerland has no regular army, but depends for her defense on her riflemen. Though poor, she spends annually large amounts in developing them, both in and out of the schools. Out of a population of but three million—less than that of the City of New York in 1904—she had 3,656 rifle clubs with a membership of 218,815, who shot twenty-one million cartridges with the army rifle.54
These words were uttered the year after the Swiss had developed two new infantry rifles to replace the model of 1889. The Schmidt- Rubin Infantry Rifle Model 1911 had a 6-round detachable magazine and used the more powerful Model 11 7.5mm cartridge. The Karabiner Model 1911, a handy carbine version, was also adopted. Both used the fast-acting straight-pull bolt. Over 300,000 Model 1911 rifles and carbines were manufactured and distributed to the populace.55
In 1911, American Colonel George Bell noted that Swiss soldiers marching in parades were not impressive to watch, but these soldiers had all the essential skills to defend their country. He wrote:
Any nation, however powerful, will pause before invading Switzerland, for, combined to this preparedness, there is a Spartan patriotism and valor, inherited from ancestors who had no fear of death, and a love of country unsurpassed by any known people, and this army, or nation in arms, before being killed or annihilated by sheer force of numbers, will inflict terrible losses, as, while the Swiss believes in peace, and desires it above all else, his good sense tells him this is best assured by preparedness at all times.56
When the “Great War” broke out, on August 1, 1914, with combatants on all borders of Switzerland, the Federal Council ordered mobilization of the entire army. Some 450,000 men answered the call. Switzerland’s Parliament elected Lt. General Ulrich Wille, distinguished by his complete faith in the abilities of the citizen soldier, to the rank of general.57 On August 4, the Federal Council reaffirmed that Switzerland would maintain “the strictest neutrality vis-a-vis the belligerent States”58 in the widening conflict.
Known as the “occupation of frontiers,” Swiss strategy during World War I was a strong border defense by three divisions, backed by a reserve of three more divisions, with four brigades in the southern mountains.59 The border troops were concentrated at the northwest corner of the country to protect the frontier against both France and Germany.60
As they had in previous conflicts, the outnumbered Swiss placed great emphasis on superior military training and equipment. The army was supplied with Maxim machine guns and updated artillery. Both aviation and anti-aircraft defenses were introduced.61 Although the Italians briefly contemplated a march through Switzerland,62 both they and the Germans decided to respect Swiss neutrality. The French continued to fear the possibility of a German attack on France through Switzerland until the very end of the war and discussed the concept of a joint defense with the Swiss in the event of a German invasion. These talks, which took place during the last stages of the war in 1917–18, were the precursor of similar joint plans in 1939–40.63
The concept of armed neutrality served Switzerland well in World War I as it had for centuries. Despite her location in the center of the continental European powers fighting the war, Switzerland successfully preserved her strict neutrality and avoided becoming a battlefield.
Trade was vital to the existence of landlocked Switzerland. As a neutral she exercised her right under international law to trade with both groups of combatants, and she disregarded the objections of each military bloc against trade with the other. Surrounded by war for only the third time in her history, the nation could not afford to play favorites. Neutrality did not lead to prosperity during World War I— Switzerland faced shortages of food and other commodities.
At the outset of the war, many German-speaking Swiss sympathized with Germany, and French-speaking Swiss supported France. Over time, however—and especially prompted by Germany’s invasion of neutral Belgium—the Central Powers were seen more and more to represent anti-democratic forces contrary to the Swiss tradition of individual liberty and democratic government.
In 1916, the U.S. Senate published a report entitled The Military Law and Efficient Citizen Army of the Swiss. Perhaps the most telling item in the report was the observation of American Attaché Eric Fisher Wood about French
soldiers: “The only shooting that they had ever done was gallery shooting at a range of about 40 yards, and they were singularly poor even at this.”64 Further, the German soldiers “shoot poorly from an American standpoint, but do better than the French.”65 That same year, Julian Grande, in his book A Citizens’ Army: The Swiss System, wrote that Switzerland had remained out of the Great War because “the Swiss Army, or part of it, is always mobilized, and its military value is well known to all the belligerents, none of whom are anxious to encounter the resistence of an army of 500,000 trained soldiers, all good marksmen.”66
For a great power, or a country whose geographic position makes her unassailable, a declaration of neutrality is relatively cost-free. For a small country strategically located in the heart of Europe, however, the cost of neutrality was higher and needed to be earned by strength of arms and resolve to resist aggression. From the fall of Napoleon to the fall of the Kaiser, with every succeeding generation the Swiss renewed their commitment to the principles of local defense and democracy that had served the country well over the centuries. Little could anyone have predicted, however, how well the model would serve Switzerland when she found herself surrounded not merely by combatants in a general European war, but by the forces of one of the most aggressive totalitarian states in history.
Chapter 1
FROM 1933 TO THE EVE OF WAR
ADOLF HITLER WAS NAMED CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY ON January 30, 1933. Immediately, a reign of terror began. The Nazis attacked Social Democrats, Socialists and Communists. Their animosity toward Jews, Slavs, gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill and persons with birth defects or handicaps quickly became evident. The rights to assemble and to a free press were taken away.1 As an essential component of preventing any armed resistance, the Nazis searched homes and seized firearms from private citizens on a wide scale.2
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