THE NEUTRALITY OF SWITZERLAND

I

THE VIENNA TREATIES

SWITZERLAND's neutrality, as exhibited during the present European conflict and also on the occasion of other wars of the past century, does not found itself simply upon principles of international law, but rests directly upon a series of explicit international and constitutional documents and is deeply interlocked with the historical development of the country and with the foundation and growth of its government. Differentiating itself widely from that attitude of mere aloofness exhibited by a nation which declines to join a struggle in which others may be engaged, Swiss neutrality is an essential element of the country's governmental existence and is intended by the nature and sanctions of its origin to be as permanent as the nation itself. Such an aspect of neutrality is termed neutralization; though in origin quite dissimilar to that of Switzerland, this international quality was also characteristic, at the outbreak of the present war in 1914, of Belgium and Luxemburg, as well as of a variety of smaller governmental entities or adjuncts.

We may, perhaps, assign a beginning to Switzerland's neutral existence by dating it from the permanent peace between Switzerland and France concluded at Freiburg, November 12, 1516, since from this date Switzerland, considered as a homogeneous federal alliance, did not again take any direct part in warlike activities, as it had done in the Milan campaign undertaken for the purpose of driving France from northern Italy and which had culminated in the battle at Marignano September 14, 1515. On May 5, 1521, an offensive and defensive alliance was made with France and renewed in 1663, 1715, and 1777. On the latter occasion Swiss neutrality was expressly guaranteed by France.

Again, the conclusion of the celebrated treaties at Münster and Osnabrück in 1648, and known as the Peace of Westphalia, furnishes another landmark in Switzerland's neutral development; it here definitely parted company from the Empire and attempted to introduce into its neutral attitude the principle that thereafter no Swiss territory should be open to the transit of a foreign army, although the associated German-speaking Cantons, then known as Orte, thought it no impairment of neutral principles for their several state governments to furnish mercenary contingents to the various armies of Europe, a practice, in fact, continued far into the nineteenth century.

During the years following the Peace of Westphalia, the Swiss states, by way of defining and strengthening their neutral attitude, determined to affirm their position against possible aggression, and on March 18, 1668, executed, though not for the first time, a document known as Defensional, by which the various Orte and their allies became mutually obliged to furnish certain armed contingents for territorial protection, thus making the important principle of armed neutrality (Wehrverfassung) a permanent element of their constitutional frame work.

Switzerland's neutrality was now and for long years afterward almost continuously threatened, both on the part of France and the Empire, and doubtless the ambitions and activities of these powerful neighbors did much toward developing Swiss conceptions of a fundamentally neutral state as furnishing the only certain condition of continuity in that allied existence through which the Swiss pastoral and agricultural communities could realize their ideals of freedom and independence.

Coming now to the practical initiation of Swiss neutrality in its present-day aspects, we note, in the first place, the treaty with France of 1777, concluded under pressure of threatened Austrian aggression and whose tragic issue was seen in the memorable defense of the Tuileries at Paris by the Swiss Guard on August 10, 1792. It was, however, from the Revolution itself that Swiss progress really takes its rise. With the French invasion of Canton Vaud, in 1798, there begins a long series of constructive constitutional activity, a view of whose various steps is indispensable if we are to rightly understand

Swiss conceptions of neutrality as an influence finding its mainspring in the beginning of a new order which produced in the end a democratic federal state and gave the country the international position cherished by all Swiss as a possession of first importance.

At the outbreak of the French Revolution Switzerland found itself united in an alliance (Bund) of thirteen communities (Orte). The thirteen allies were surrounded by an extensive territorial agglomeration of districts and towns which were in turn allied (zugewandte, verbündete) with the thirteen, but in quite various fashion. These latter allies were divided into two classes somewhat analogous to the socii and confoederati in the ancient Roman world; nor were their treaties made with the Swiss Alliance as a whole, but, for the most part, with individual Cantons or groups of Cantons, and their rights varied according to the possession on their part of a vote in the general federal assembly at Zurich or the absence of such a privilege. Of less consideration still were merely protected districts (schutzverwandte); examples of such were the District of Gersau on Lake Lucerne, the town of Rapperschwyl, lying along the Lake of Zurich, and the more extensive territory of Engelberg amid the high Alps of Unterwalden and Uri. The principal allies in this complex plan claimed rule, again, over a great number of strictly subject territories, termed gemeine Herrschaften, without right of representation in the great federal council, and administered by officials (Vogte) with few ideas of freedom or equal rights.

From such a condition, nothing, perhaps, short of the fires and stress of the Revolution and the Napoleonic conquests, could have freed the country and initiated the highly organized and truly democratic political framework of today which exhibits in such striking form the principles of democratic free government. Swiss neutrality, it will be seen, is in fact a political creation springing from very unusual necessities, and slowly working out a plan of union and independence under the inspiration of the spirit of freedom. Switzerland is limited in territory and lacks the wealth of states more richly dowered by nature; hence the Swiss political consciousness readily grasped the need of assured protection from outside aggression, if it were to be permitted to place its public institutions on a firm foundation. This con