The little western European country of Switzerland has garnered a notable reputation for always
being neutral in world affairs.
Despite being right at the center of all the action, the Helvetic Confederacy was able
to avoid everything from both world wars to the Cold War and didn’t even join the United
Nations until 2002, and forms that ever so famous gap in the map whenever you look at
a map of the European Union (despite being in Schengen).
So why did Switzerland become neutral in basically all world affairs, and perhaps more importantly
how were they able to get other nations to respect their neutrality for well over 200
years?
First let’s get to know the country a little bit before we delve straight into the history
of its foreign policy.
Switzerland-- the ever mountain-climbing, chocolate-eating, on-time-train-having, cheese-making,
multiple-language-speaking land paranoidly defending itself from its neighbors-- is a
country located in the Alps in Europe, nowadays bordered by Germany to the north, France to
the west, Italy to the south, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east.
Switzerland was formed out of the Old Swiss Confederacy, a loose confederacy of different
local cantons within that part of the Holy Roman Empire, which first came together around
the year 1291.
The original cantons were mostly self-governing, and unlike most other parts of the empire
only really had to swear allegiance to the emperor, as opposed to any regional lords
or kings, instead being largely allowed to carry their own affairs up high in the mountains,
while also providing that ever so important connection between the kingdoms in Germany
and Italy.
This confederacy however was not exactly neutral in the beginning, fighting wars like pretty
much everyone else in Europe back then.
The confederacy welcomed new cantons and city-states over the first few centuries, and grew through
impressive military victories over the Habsburgs.
These victories gave the Swiss a reputation of invincibility… no that’s invisibility.
Many foreign powers in turn would take note of this and decided instead of fighting against
the Swiss to fight with the Swiss, in the form of hiring mercenaries-- or Reisläufer--
one battalion of which is still in force today, the Pontifical Guard in the Vatican.
Because of this (as well as some serious reconsiderations from the Swiss after their loss at the Battle
of Marignano in 1515), Switzerland would largely stay out of the 30 Years’ War, seeing as
basically everyone’s armies and royal courts had Swiss soldiers and Switzerland was kind
of the source of these elite soldiers.
By the mid-17th century, after 30 years of continental fighting over religion-- including
a couple inter-cantonal wars among the Swiss cantons-- the Peace of Westphalia was enacted
in 1648, putting an end to the 30 Years’ War, and granting complete, formal independence
for the Old Swiss Confederacy.
Skipping over a little bit because this video is not supposed to be an in-depth history
of Switzerland, Napoleon steamrolled through the area in 1798 and basically did a hard
reset on Central Europe, disbanding the Holy Roman Empire and creating the short-lived
Helvetic Republic out of the old Old Swiss Confederacy, which itself would be disbanded
and the cantons restored by 1803, and the whole thing released from French rule by 1815,
the year in which the Congress of Vienna agreed that Switzerland should be a neutral, independent,
impassible territory for all outside powers… right after they use it just one last time
to give France a proper beating, though this would be Switzerland’s last participation
in a foreign war.
Okay so what about the world wars?
Well in the first one Switzerland of course stayed neutral, though the German population
largely supported the Central Powers and the French population the Allied Powers, with
one Swiss politician (Robert Grimm) actually trying to broker a peace treaty between Germany
and Russia for the interests of Socialism, something that would become known as the Grimm-Hoffmann
Affair.
After the war Switzerland actually joined the League of Nations in 1920, and initially
practiced “differential neutrality”, which basically meant their military was neutral
but they could still participate in sanctions, something which was disbanded in favor of
total neutrality by 1938.
So surely Swiss neutrality in the Second World War was basically, “Hey, mister demonetizing-moustache-man,
we don’t want to participate in the fighting, is it fine with you if we just sit this one
out even though you and your allies border us on all sides?”
Ha!
Nope.
And if you thought that’s how it worked, you’re dumb, because that’s not how Europe
worked back then!
Except if you’re already subscribed I still love you, please don’t take that the wrong
way, I’m so close to 100,000 subscribers…
So yeah Switzerland didn’t maintain their neutrality by just sitting out World War II,
they had to commit to their neutral stance, at least to not end up like Belgium.
Johnny Harris made a great video all about this which I would highly recommend, but in
a sense during the war the Swiss embraced the old Roman saying, “si vis pacem, para
bellum” (if you want peace, prepare for war), in a sense ensuring peace by making
themselves way too difficult, like comically difficult, of a target… and also way too
valuable, by signing a few deals with the devil.
After that war the Swiss again completely avoided the tensions of the Cold War, staying
more or less out of international politics, with the exception of joining the UN in 2002
after the passing of a referendum.
As previously mentioned, Switzerland has not participated in a foreign war for over 200
years, and even then they weren’t exactly signing up for every war in the previous couple
centuries.
Swiss neutrality has done quite a lot for the country (namely in helping it… exist),
but it has also arguably helped with international politics outside the country, with everything
from negotiations between countries that don’t get along that well, to international agreements
defining the rules of warfare itself.
And as someone who always tries to maintain political neutrality when writing these videos,
I’ll actually set that aside for a moment to applaud Switzerland’s dedication to staying
as true neutral as possible.
Thank you as always for watching.
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