Swiss Guard

“ There is carved in the face of a great rock at Lucerne a lion, wounded to death, resting upon a broken spear. It is the monument of the Swiss Guard massacred in the defence of the Tuileries at Paris in 1792. The close connection between France and Switzerland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries made it natural that the despotic French kings should employ the faithful and courageous Swiss mercenaries as guardians of their palaces. ”

“ The Swiss Guard of about a thousand men were all trustworthy; and there was also a small body of heavy cavalry of the gendarmery who had proved true enough to resist all the seductions of the conspirators. There were likewise a few cannon. In all, nearly four thousand men could be mustered for the defense of the palace; a force, if well equipped and well led, not inadequate to the task of holding it out for some time against any number of undisciplined assailants. ”

“ The incline afforded good shooting to the people, who, when they had forced their way to the top of the stairs, had slain every soldier who had faced them. The Swiss guard died bravely to the very last man.
After that it was massacre, not fighting. Wherever a Swiss was found on guard throughout the palace, he was hacked to pieces. Many were thrown alive from the windows to the people below. Some few of these solitary Swiss sentinels showed fight; many threw down their arms, and either faced death unarmed, or uselessly asked for mercy. ”

“ You know they are not a disciplined army. But if they show any lack of military manners, that is no excuse for our behaving likewise. And you, Swiss Guards, in the name of the King, I thank you for your obedience. You deserve more credit than the others. ”

“ When the king had left the Tuileries the Swiss Guards were withdrawn. As they went away from the palace they were attacked by the mob and, disdaining to fly, were slaughtered almost to a man. Of 800 officers and men only a handful survived. The incident—showing French patriots furious, cruel, and treacherous, Swiss mercenaries steadfast, brave, and true—gives a good standpoint from which to glance at the evolution of the Switzerland which had grown up in the Middle Ages to the modern Switzerland with its intensely democratic and socialistic Republic. ”

“ The origin of the introduction of the Swiss Guards (mercenaries) in the service of the French and other foreign powers may be ascribed to the fact that Switzerland itself, being too poor to maintain soldiers in time of peace, allowed them to serve other nations on condition of coming back immediately to their own cantons in time of war or invasion.
It is particularly with France that Switzerland contracted treaties to furnish certain contingents in case of need. The first of these dates back as far as 1444 between the Dauphin, afterwards Charles VII., and the different cantons. ”

“ The cantons are sufficiently a unit on all national questions, and together they form about as compact and sturdy a [Pg 108] little nation as the world has yet seen—a nation the size and shape of an English walnut, and a hard nut for any would-be aggressor to crack. There are not many entrances into Switzerland, and they would be very well defended. The standing army is small, but every Swiss is subject to a call to arms, and is trained by enforced, though brief, service to their use. He seems by nature to be handy with a rifle, and never allows himself to be out of practice. ”

“ The Swiss militia system may be our model. It will insure our internal peace and national independence. It will unite the citizens of all states into one band of brothers. Every people rears troublesome individuals. Switzerland had to contend with internal difficulties, factions, etc., as we have now, but the majesty of the law was upheld by the masses, and while the rebels were beaten in the field, the people of the different sections met again in friendship. ”

“ I am certain that the only permanently safe attitude for this country as regards national preparedness for self-defense is along its lines of universal service on the Swiss model. Switzerland is the most democratic of nations. Its army is the most democratic army in the world. There isn't a touch of militarism or aggressiveness about Switzerland. It has been found as a matter of actual practical experience in Switzerland that the universal military training has made a very marked increase in social efficiency and in the ability of the man thus trained to do well for himself in industry. ”

“ Switzerland is a typical democracy, and yet no country in the world has a more universal and efficient system of military training for its youth and young men.
After the conclusion of the war of 1870, Germany, guided by the iron will of Bismarck, divulged to Switzerland that the mailed fist had an itching palm for Swiss territory. Immediately an army of a hundred thousand Swiss mobilized on the frontier. They were the best-armed, the best-trained, and altogether the most efficient soldiers in Europe. Every man of them could shoot to kill. ”

“ Switzerland alone, of all the civilized nations, and the smallest of them all, stands to-day a living demonstration of the National Spirit and the National System of Universal Service to their Country that should be adopted by all the nations of the world, to the fullest extent that it can be made applicable to their conditions. The Swiss System provides adequate national defense by the entire citizenship of the nation. Any subversion of the people's liberties through the power of the Army is impossible because the people themselves constitute the Army. ”

“ Italian, Russian and German spies look upon Switzerland as a hunting ground, and the Swiss police are never so happy, as when they can render constable service to the governments of surrounding states. It is nothing unusual for the Swiss police to carry out the order of Germany or Italy to arrest political refugees and forcibly take them across the frontier, where they are given over into the hands of the German or Italian gendarmes. ”

“ There are a battalion and two companies of gendarmes in the palace, as well as the guards then on duty and those they had relieved. But as no orders are given to these troops, they either break their ranks or fraternize with the enemy. No obstacle, no resistance, is offered, and nobody defends the apartments. The assailants, who have taken a cannon as far as the first story, enter the Hall of the Hundred Swiss, whose doors are neither locked nor barricaded. ”

“ They are a more gentle and amiable people than the money-making Genevese; but so wretched where their unproductive territory touches that of Geneva, that, passing the frontier and the cross with its artificial flowers, the contrast from the clean comfort of the Swiss to their squalid misery is striking and sad.
The Swiss troops, with the exception of the few on permanent service, receive no pay, and perform their duty without murmur. Every year they pass three months encamped; so that Switzerland might, in case of necessity, find ready at her call an army of 180,000 men. ”

“ Prior to my departure from Thoune, I had been witness to the mobilization of the Swiss Army, and was much impressed by the smoothness with which that operation was conducted. There is nothing which touches more profoundly the life of each individual citizen than the exigencies of the defence of his country. Obligatory service has always been at the basis of the life of the Swiss people from the early dawn of their national history. ”

“ Maxim Guns.—Guns of small bore weighing 59 lbs., sighted up to 2500 yards.
Mobilisation.—Fitting an army for the field—bringing the units to war strength and calling out the reserves. The success of a war depends largely on the rapidity with which armies can be got ready previous to their being concentrated on the threatened points, and thus enabled to take the aggressive. In the Swiss army the whole organisation is so completely carried forward in time of peace that at the outbreak of hostilities the headquarters staff need do no more than telegraph the one word—mobilise. ”

“ At the same time, however, this system, in order to be of any use, would require the people to be naturally of a warlike tendency, and every man to be thoroughly accustomed to the use of a rifle; in fine, it would require that there should always be a nucleus of thoroughly-trained troops, even in peace-time.
Every Swiss is liable to service from the 20th to the 44th year of his age. Of these twenty-five years of service, thirteen are spent in the “Auszug” (Active Army) and twelve in the “Landwehr.” ”

“ He therefore would urge them to be assiduous in improving military training, to add such training to the education of the youth, to hold rifle contests and to perfect drills, all of which should be animated by a free fraternal spirit.” Notwithstanding the constitution forbids the Confederation to keep a standing army, or any Canton to have more than three hundred men as a permanent military body, every able-bodied Swiss is a soldier of the republic ”

“ If we were to go so far as to advocate the regular military training of our lads, their early enrolment into bands, and their instruction in the use of the rifle, we should most probably injure a good cause by over zeal. But we will not deny that we regard such a development as probable and desirable, and we are prepared to show that it is not without good precedent. With the exception of America there is no nation which owes more to the individual skill of its citizens in the use of the rifle than Switzerland. The respect which a true Swiss has for that weapon dates from his youth. ”

“ Nowhere such a diversified, broken battle-ground can be found as in the Swiss fore-lands. Especially in the neighborhood of Zurich one is at a loss which to choose. There are every where covers and ambuscades for riflemen; the infantry find numerous advantageous positions, and many heights easily accessible which command vales and plains are at the command of the artillery. The leaders have hard work to restrain the ardor of the boy-soldiers, especially of those in the broken chain of the sharp-shooters. ”

“ They are the farmers, dairymen, etc., but in French-Switzerland, in the neighbourhood of Geneva and Lausanne, the industrial population sides with the Allies. Millions of the delicate fuses used on shells have been manufactured in that part of Switzerland for the Entente. In retaliation for this the Germans boycotted Swiss watches.
The usual German-paid propaganda newspapers operate in the principal towns. The army officers are the first to be influenced. It is the same in Switzerland as with the officers of many armies, solely because of the past reputation of the German military machine. ”

“ To receive the subsidy, every member of the club must annually take part in at least three firing exercises, and must fire a total of fifty shots, of which at least ten must be at one of the regulation distances and regulation targets.
Every Swiss man therefore is drilled, armed, and ready to turn out and fight; in his house, within arm’s reach, must hang his gun, his uniform, and sword. ”

“ There, of course, the character of the country offers considerable difficulties, and if the Swiss defend themselves resolutely, it might not be easy to break down their resistance. Their army is no despicable factor of strength, and if they were attacked in their mountains they would fight as they did at Sempach and Murten. ”

“ Thus the whole nation can take up arms in defence of the country. The good quality of50 the citizen troops has been vouched for by many competent judges. Australia has imitated the Swiss system in her military organisation, and it is practically the same system which a powerful party in Great Britain urges as a measure of military reform in this country. The Federal Government has, of course, the control of the army; it has also the management of the railways, posts and telegraphs, universities and schools, and the regulation of the conditions of labour. ”

“ Thus, though every Swiss takes a pride in his schools, there is not one uniform standard throughout the state.
Every burgess is bound to perform military service, and at any time a force of 200,000 men of the élite, and first reserve, can be placed in the field, not including the Landsturm. Since the Franco-German war military matters are engaging the serious attention of the country, seeing the central position of Switzerland, and the unsettled state of Europe. ”

“ It seemed as if the whole north was about to descend in a cyclone of banners and spears upon the mountain land. The assembly sat breathless under this torrent of threats. Had their hearts been open to the invasion of terror they must surely have been overwhelmed, and have waited in the supineness of fear for the coming of their foes.
But the hearts of the Swiss were not of that kind. They were too full of courage and patriotism to leave room for dismay. Instead of awaiting their enemies with dread, a burning impatience animated their souls. ”

“ In the United States in 1913 94 million dollars was spent on the army—ten times and more above what Switzerland spent—and all it paid for was a scant ninety thousand fighting men. An army less than one-fifth as large as Switzerland’s cost more than ten times as much.
As an economic proposition it would appear that compulsory service was a better bargain in defense than the American system as it exists today.
The strong point of the Swiss system is that it renders every man available for defense without imposing a burdensome tax on the country. ”