Right and duty; or, Citizen and soldier; Switzerland prepared and at peace, a model for the United States

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Preface

THERE are two paths to preparedness. One is that of militarism, and is repugnant to freemen. It means a large standing army, in which each man would be compelled to serve his alloted term of years. It means being driven. It means the breaking down of equality, of democracy. It means subtracting hundreds of thousands of productive human units from the sum total of the nation's economic productivity.

The other path is the way of education, the training and proper development of the bodies of our boys while they are in school, so that no long period of military training when they are grown will be necessary to make .potential soldiers of them. That is the path that can be trod without upsetting the principles of a republic.

Physical training of the boys in the public schools, complemented at maturity by a short period of universal military training, has made the citizens of the Swiss Republic the best soldiers, man for man, on earth. A thing to be noted is, that system has not made Switzerland any the less democratic ; it has not made a militarist nation of her.

Universal military training is bound to come in America. Why not lay the foundation for it and make it easier by educating our boys to look forward to it as a joyful service, not a disagreable duty?

A system of voluntary military training might have been practicable some years ago. It is not practicable now, not only for the reason that no sufficient number would volunteer, but because of the utter impossibility of training hundreds of thousands of raw recruits when the enemy is almost at our door. The average American has come too much to place his personal comfort and convenience, the gratification of his appetites, the pursuit of material wealth above the spirit of self-sacrifice that must animate a patriot.

The poison has sunk deep. The antidote is universal military training.

Does that sound harsh? No doubt it does to the sadly increasing effeminate type of male human being that has grown up under the fostering paternal care of the pacifists. But would not a devastated land, sacked cities, helpless men slaughtered, women widowed, babes orphaned and dearly-bought wealth confiscated by an alien conqueror be harsher still?

That can never happen, say you? And why not? Isn't it possible to contemplate the day when the American people will thank German enterprise for the lesson taught us when the first submarine merchantman crossed the Atlantic, eluding enemy men-of-war and slipped into Baltimore harbor? Can America fail to heed that lesson? Is there a man honored by the American people with authority who will dare to be so base as to make light of it?

The minute the ''Deutschland" poked her periscope above the surface of Baltimore Bay there crumbled one of the stock arguments opponents of a larger Army and Navy have dinned into our ears from time immemorial. As assets of national defense the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are of little more value to the American Republic as though they did not exist.

Destruction of our fleet on either coast by hostile submarines sent from Europe or Asia is no longer a dream. It could be done, and we most reckon on the day it may be attempted. That once accomplished, fleets battering down our coast defenses would clear the way for landing an invasion, and then the future existence of the Republic would depend on the Army, and the number of trained men she could call to the colors.

It is so simple that extensive argument would be fatuous.

We must have the men — hundreds of thousands of them — trained to the use of arms, and the officers to command them. Now is the time to arrest the progress of the cancer with which pacificism has infected our social and poHtical institutions. Those who would never volunteer to undergo military training must be compelled to do so. The State must exercise its inherent right to take such measures as it deems needful for the protection of its own life.

Every American boy, physically fit, should spend at least six weeks each in his 19th, 20th and 21st year in military training for his country's and his own health's sake.

What nobler, prouder, or more patriotic spirit could animate the hearts of our sons when they go to the ballot box for the first time to exercise their right to choose a government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed, than the sublime consciousness they can also give assurance to the State that they are able to defend that government should necessity impose that duty upon them.

On the theory that such universal training is imperative, the author has undertaken to show by the achievements of the Swiss Republic what should be done, in a general way, and how.

II Historical Introduction

I. PERIOD BEFORE 1848.

Six centuries of experience with violent neighbors bent on conquest taught Switzerland the value of preparedness. Ages of growing civilization have served chiefly to refine, hardly to lessen, the spirit of *'Faustrecht" — the principle dominating the conduct of the powerful princes of Central Europe — ''the right of the mailed fist."

Switzerland had need to see to it that her military establishment kept pace with that of any power liable to be hurled against her. The hob-nailed shoes that enabled a handful of ill-armed mountaineers rolling boulders down upon their foe to overcome the flower of Hapsburg knighthood on the slippery side of Morgarten in 1315 would not avail today against mountain artillery. Hence, the wall of bayonets in August, 1914, warning Germans, Austrians, French and Italians alike that "Helvetia" was not to be another Belgium.

Your Swiss is no militarist. He does not strut about with a chip on his shoulder, looking for fight. He loves peace ; but he loves his liberty, his rights and his country's honor better than peace, and will fight to maintain them. Experience, as has been said, having taught the Swiss people that the best way to awe a bully nation was to be ready to repel encroachment, Switzerland is prepared.

An idea of how her military prowess sprang from her needs and so grew up amongst republican institutions as not to be in any way repugnant to them is necessary to complete understanding of the example America's little sister of the Alps offers us today.

SWITZERLAND DURING THE INTERREGNUM.

When Conrad IV. succeeded in 1250 to the crown which his weak predecessor, Frederick II., had permitted to sink to little more than a bauble, he tried manfully to wield again into a cohesive and powerful domain the historic Holy Roman Empire. Had he lived longer perhaps he might have succeeded. But four years were all too short for such a task and there followed until 1272 that period of disorder known as the Interregnum.

It was during the Interregnum that the seeds of the plant that was later to blossom into Swiss independence were sown. The Cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden were among those petty states caught in the maelstrom of warring emperors, nobles and Popes, who suffered from the near-anarchy and oppression resultant from lack of organized government.

Though obscurity surrounds the details of just what did take place among these three Cantons during the Interregnum, enough has been gleaned from documents of later date to make it certain that they formed some sort of an alliance for mutual protection and resistance against foes of any of them and to fix the date of this agreement as about 1260, six years after the death of Conrad IV.

The accession of Rudolph to the throne of the Empire in 1272 gained the three allied Cantons a powerful friend. Rudolph was the first member of the House of Hapsburg to wear the imperial crown. He lost no time in energetically setting to work to conquer the rebellious German princes who did not relish the thought of having a real sovereign after the eighteen years of license they had enjoyed.

LOYAL TO THE EMPIRE.

No more loyal vassals, no stronger aid against the rebels did Rudolph find than the Swiss people. The Swiss had always supported the Emperor for that matter, even against the Pope, so in the case of Rudolph they were merely following a course they had always pursued. But that did not lessen Rudolph's gratitude toward them and during his reign they enjoyed many favors.

Though the Swiss loved Rudolph they did not altogether trust the other princes of the House of Hapsburg, and, when Rudolph died in 1292, the Cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden lost no time in forming the League that renewed their earlier covenant and that was destined to be the keystone of the arch of Swiss independence. Before tracing the general conditions without, that caused apprehension among the three Cantons at the death of Rudolph, it may be well to explain their internal conditions in 1291.

In the ninth century, Louis of Bavaria, grandson of Charlemagne, had founded the convent of Zurich of which his two sisters became abbesses, receiving as a grant the greater portion of the Canton of Uri.

The Abbess ruled her vassals through a secular warden. This wardenship became so sought-after a post that the Houses of Zahringen and Hapsburg in turn had succeeded in having abrogated the provision of the

IS original grant making the abbey-lands of Zurich directly dependent on the Empire, and held the wardenship in their famihes. In 1231, however, Frederick II. revoked this Hapsburg privilege, and placed Uri once more in direct vassalage to the Empire. When Rudolph ascended the imperial throne, although himself a Hapsburg, he confirmed this privilege out of gratitude for the aid the Swiss had rendered him against his enemies.

Schwyz, also, had had a grant from Frederick II. in 1240, making its people directly dependent upon the Empire, but the Hapsburgs had succeeded in nullifying it, and likewise in prevailing upon their kinsman Rudolph not to renew it as he had that of Uri. In 1291 much of Schwyz was under control of Hapsburg nobles who were reaching out steadily, grasping greater power and wider domains. In addition there was in Schwyz a community of free peasants, but these, too, were under the government of the Emperor's delegates who in this case were scions of the same House of Hapsburg.

THE HAPSBURG MENACE.

Unterwalden was still more completely under the dominion of the Hapsburgs, being part of their personal holdings. The land itself of Unterwalden was all owned either by Hapsburg nobles or by the Abbey of Murbach, and the Hapsburg held the Murbach wardenship. Hence, Unterwalden had neither the free tenancy that obtained in part of Schwyz nor the privilege of direct dependence on the Empire that characterized Uri.

Thus did the Hapsburg menace face the Swiss when their friend and protector Rudolph died, leaving them at the mercy of nobles and abbots who were determined, no matter how unjust the means or oppressive the measures, to extend their own power and aggrandizement. Before Rudolph's reign, even during the Interregnum, the shadow of imperial power had been sufficient to give the Swiss some need of protection against encroachment of the Hapsburgs. Rudolph combined the power of the Hapsburgs and the Empire in one head, but the danger was averted because Rudolph loved and was loved by the Swiss. But at his death the Swiss, fearing the imperial crown would fall to some Hapsburg willing to assist his numerous noble kinsmen in their designs of conquest, took the position that "forewarned is forearmed" and the three Cantons promptly renewed their alliance of a generation before.

Thus was born the League of 1291 — the Magna Charta of Switzerland.

LEAGUE OF THE THREE CANTONS.

The original document is still preserved in the archives of the town of Schwyz. Its text, attended by the seals of the men of all three Cantons, reads as follows :

*'Be it known to everyone, that the men of the Dale of Uri, the Community of Schwyz, as also the men of the mountains of Unterwald, in consideration of the evil times, have full confidently bound themselves, and sworn to help each other with all their power and might, property and people, against all who shall do violence to them. That is our ancient Bond.

"Whoever serves a lord, let him obey according to the conditions of his service.

"We are agreed to receive into these dales no Judge, who is not a countryman and indweller, or who hath bought his place.

i8

U. S. Senator George E. Chamberlain Father of Universal Training in Congress.

"Every controversy amongst the sworn confederates shall be determined by some of the sagest of their number, and if anyone shall challenge their judgment, then shall he be constrained to obey it by the rest.

''Whoever intentionally or deceitfully kills another shall be executed, and whoever shelters him shall be banished.

''Whoever burns the property of another shall no longer be regarded as a countryman, and whoever shelters him shall make good the damage done.

"No one shall destrain a debtor without a Judge, nor anyone who is not his debtor or the surety for such debtor.

"Everyone in these dales shall submit to the Judge or we, the sworn confederates, all will take satisfaction for all the injury occasioned by his contumacy. And if in any internal division the one party will not accept justice, all the rest shall help the other party.

"These decrees shall, God willing, endure eternally for our general advantage."

The spirit that impelled the three Cantons to renew and enlarge their "ancient bond" in 1291 is fully revealed in this document. The mutual pledge of aid against any aggressor, "in consideration of the evil times," reflects all too plainly the determination of the Swiss to resist to the end anticipated encroachments of the Hapsburgs. But at the same time they made it plain they did not seek to overthrow lawfully established institutions, as witness the dictum that any man bound in vassalage to a feudal lord should fulfill the terms of his service. General law and order were guarded in the penalties fixed for murder, arson and robbery, while personal rights were held inviolable in the provision forbidding constraint "without a judge."

In other words the Swiss served notice on the Hapsburgs and any other who might attempt to oppress them :

"This far shalt thou go, and no farther ! The rights and grants the Empire has lawfully vested in you shall not be disturbed. But you shall not encroach beyond those rights, nor enslave a free people!"

The League of 1291 is often referred to as the Swiss "Declaration of Independence." While this is not altogether an inappropriate title for the agreement of the Cantons to defend their liberties against aggressors, the impression should not prevail that Switzerland undertook to become independent of all authority but its own in 1291. The Cantons still acknowledge the sovereignty of the Holy Roman Empire and purposed continuing to do so unless, the imperial crown remaining with the Hapsburg, those ambitious princes should seek to deprive the Swiss of their charters and grants.

Their spirit is expressed by Schiller in "Wilhelm Tell," when the delegates from the Cantons, assembling on the "Riitli," pledge to one another:

We will be One single fold of brothers, in no need Will sunder, nor no danger.

We will be Free, as our fathers were, and rather death Than life in shameful bondage!

We will set In God Most High our trust. We will not fear The might of man to hurt us!

But the Swiss were not the only ones who had felt alarm at the rapid strides with which the Hapsburgs were enforcing their claims to supreme power. The Electors, in whom abided the right of selecting Rudolph's successor, disregarded Rudolph's heir, Albrecht, and seated Adolph of Nassau on the throne. Albrecht, failing of election, had recourse to arms. The Swiss, consistent with their principles of always siding with the lawful Emperor, and likewise, no doubt, strengthened in it by the thought that the Hapsburg menace was personified in Albrecht, fought in the armies of Adolph. He, like Rudolph had done, rewarded them by confirming their charters.

THE TYRANNY OF ALBRECHT.

But in 1298 Albrecht slew Adolph in single combat at Goellheim and seized the throne of the Empire. The Swiss fear of what would happen if the Hapsburgs retained the suzerainty was justified by events. Albrecht made haste to aggrandize the House of Hapsburg and punish the Swiss for their espousal of Adolph's cause at one stroke. He transferred the Cantons from the condition of allegiance to the Empire to direct dependence on his own branch of the Hapsburg family. By this act Albrecht aimed to make certain that the Swiss would be subject to the Hapsburg regardless of who succeeded him as Emperor.

For ten years Albrecht and his Austrian "Landvogte," or baillies, sent by him to rule the Swiss, oppressed the people of the Cantons. There was much revolt and disorder, although a mist of legend makes it difficult to ascertain exactly just what events did take place. It is quite likely the Swiss met with some success in resisting Albrecht's representatives. The slaying of Wolfenschiessen, an Austrian governor, by Baumgarten in defense of his wife's honor seems to be a fairly well-authenticated indication of the sort of tyranny the Swiss were subjected to by their Hapsburg masters during the decade Emperor Albrecht reigned.

But Albrecht's proclivity to tyrannizing over those weaker than himself proved to be his own undoing. In 1308 he was killed by his ward and nephew, Archduke John, when the Emperor refused to turn over the Archduke's inheritance to him.

THE STRUGGLE BEGINS.

The answer of the Swiss representative to the appeal of Albrecht's widow to help her hunt down the slayer of her husband is characteristic to their sturdy self-reliance and disinclination to curry favor with one high in power. They said, in effect, that since John and his confederates were miscreants they would not shelter them or actually help them escape, but that inasmuch as Albrecht had wronged and oppressed them they saw no reason why they should join in the hunt for the man who had relieved them of his tyranny.

The Electors once more passed by the claims of the House of Hapsburg to the imperial throne and chose Henry of Luxemburg as Emperor. Henry confirmed the charters of the Swiss, but his regime was terminated by death in 13 13. From then dated the beginning of the three Swiss Cantons as a nation in arms, battling to preserve their liberties against the Austrians.

For this time Hapsburg, though again disappointed in the Elector's choice, took it upon itself to chasten the Swiss.

Frederick of Hapsburg and Ludwig of Bavaria were the claimants of the imperial throne at the death of Henry. After a brief interregnum the Electors chose Ludwig. In the meantime, however, adherents of the rival claimants had had frequent recourse to violence and the inhabitants of Schwyz, who, with those of the other Cantons supported Ludwig, had sacked the Monastery of Einsiedeln, of which Frederick of Hapsburg was warden, and had carried off the monks as captives. For this the men of Schwyz incurred the ban of the Empire and excommunication from the Church, but when Ludwig acceded to the throne he himself removed the ban and brought enough influence to bear to have the excommunication Hfted.

THE BATTLE OF MORGARTEN.

But apparently Ludwig was not powerful enough to protect his faithful against the Austrians who now set out to punish the impudent mountaineers. Duke Leopold of Austria, younger brother of the disappointed Frederick, led an army of between 15,000 and 20,000 infantry and heavy cavalry to Switzerland, vowing he would annihilate the peasants. A small body of Swiss, poorly armed, but heroic in heart, ambushed the splendid Hapsburg army as it filed into the Pass of Morgarten. Hurling great boulders and trunks of trees down upon the invaders who could not ascend the sHppery sides of the mountain, the Swiss fell upon them when they were in panic and butchered them. Leopold himself was hard put to it to escape with but a remnant of the powerful force he had led into with such intentions.

Emperor Ludwig must have gloated at this victory of the Swiss over their common enemy for he unhesitatingly gave his approval to a renewal of the League of 1 29 1. The authority of the Empire was acknowledged in the new document, as were the rights of the feudal lords, but it was made plain again that no encroachment beyond the limit of these rights would be countenanced. The next demonstration of the prowess of the Swiss mountaineers was given in 1339 when at the battle of Laupen they helped thrash the jealous nobles who had moved to attack the free imperial city of Bern.

THE LEAGUE EXPANDS.

By 1353 the League of the Cantons had grown from the original three — Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden — to eight. Lucerne entered the League in 1332, Zurich in 135 1, Glarus and Zug in 1352 and Bern in 1353.

Lucerne had long been the market place of the people of the three Forest Cantons, consequently she was bound to them by ties that made her accession to the League easy. Under the rule of the Murbach Abbey, Lucerne had enjoyed a large degree of self-govrnment, but, in 1291, the Abbey found itself in financial difficulties and sold the town of Lucerne to the Hapsburgs. For more than forty years the people of Lucerne chafed under the Austrian yoke, and in 1332 saw their opportunity to throw it off in joining Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden.

Zurich had enjoyed unexampled power and prosperity under Burgomaster Brun, who had made himself dictator by placing himself at the head of the common citizens and crushing the nobles. Brun, however, was not antagonistic toward Austria, in fact he rather favored the Hapsburgs. So, in the alliance Zurich entered into with the other Cantons in 1351, it was provided that she might make treaties with other states outside the

League. Zurich began to extend the territory of the Federation by conquest. In November, her forces invaded Glarus and conquered it. It has been always suspected that the people of Glarus permitted themselves to be conquered, for they also had previously fallen under the Hapsburg rule.

In any event the following spring they themselves routed an Austrian force that was sent to redeem the territory, and in June, 1352, Glarus was admitted into the League.

Zug was surrounded by territory of the Federation after the admission of Glarus, and the Cantons considered it necessary that she become one of them. They sent a Federal force to besiege the town of Zug which surrendered June 2y, 1352. In spite of her resistance, Zug was taken in as a full-fledged member of the League.

Bern had held the Cantons in high regard ever since 1339 when, at the Battle of Laupen, the city had been rescued from a besieging force of some powerful nobles by the arrival of six thousand soldiers from the League. Bern had grown to great military importance during her years of warfare with the surrounding feudal lords, but she herself had a thoroughly aristocratic form of government. After the Battle of Laupen, Austria, anxious to obtain so potent an ally, induced Bern to make a treaty with her. This alliance lasted ten years. In 1353, following the Peace of Brandenburg, Bern joined the League of the Cantons, raising its number to eight.

But it must not be supposed that haughty Hapsburg had looked on unconcerned while the Swiss Confederacy was being augmented and strengthened by these new accessions. Full well did Austria realize that the motive underlying this steadily growing union of the Cantons was that of lifting a barrier against her own expansion. In 1332 Austria had protested against Lucerne joining the Confederacy and when, nineteen years later, Zurich followed suit, she had recourse to action.

AUSTRIA RENEWS WAR ON THE LEAGUE.

In 1354 the Hapsburg princes brought to bear on the Empire sufficient influence to obtain its assistance, and a combined force of Austrian and imperial troops besieged Zurich. But a change of policy soon caused the withdrawal of the Empire's forces and the siege perforce was abandoned. Another unsuccessful attempt of the Austrians in 1368 to crush the sturdy Swiss was followed by eighteen years of comparative peace between them.

Duke Leopold IL, grandson of the ill-fated Emperor Albrecht, took up in 1386 the ancient quarrel of his house. He led six thousand of his finest soldiers against Lucerne, and joined battle at Sempach with a poorly equipped force of two thousand from the Cantons. The Austrian phalanx presented a solid front, and the Swiss had nothing more formidable than rude boards to ward off the spears of the Hapsburg knights. At this critical juncture Arnold Struthan von Winkelried, whose feat has reliable historical foundation, dashed to the forefront of his compatriots :

''Dear and faithful comrades, I will open you a passage. Protect my wife and children!" Winkelried shouted and raced headlong toward the Austrian lines. With arms outstretched he gathered into his own breast as many of the lances as he could encompass, broke the phalanx and made a lane through which his fellows, inspired to the acme of valor and prowess by his unprecedented sacrifice, charged over his mangled corpse to victory. The Austrians were routed, six hundred and fiftysix of their chiefest nobles being dead on the field of Sempach.

Two years later the last effort on the part of Austria to subdue her doughty little foe was made. At Nafels the Swiss, imitating the strategy that had won for their forbears at Morgarten in 13 15, administered another crushing defeat to the Austrians. From 1338 dates the actual and admitted independence of Switzerland as a nation. The Swiss celebrated the 500th anniversary of their freedom by flocking to Nafels from all corners of the Republic on April 5, 1888, to take part in the ceremonies the people of Glarus hold there each year.

In 1389 Austria and the Cantons arranged a seven years' peace. This agreement was prolonged subsequently for seventy years. Finally, Austria gave up all claims to dominion over Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Lucerne, Zurich, Glarus, Zug and Bern.

GRADUAL GROWTH OF THE FEDERATION.

By 1 5 13, 125 years after the Battle of Nafels, the number of Cantons in the League had increased from eight to thirteen. Freiburg and Solothurn were admitted in 1 481 ; Basel and Schaffhausen in 1501, and Appenzell in 15 13.

This extension of the League's territory during the 15th century was, however, gradual. Some of the States eventually admitted to full membership in the Federation had, prior to their admission, entered into alliances of various sorts with the Cantons. Some of them were inferior allies such as Appenzell became in 141 1; others put themselves under the protection of the League; while still another class became, through conquest, subject lands. In 1436 Zurich and Schwyz engaged in civil war over territory which each claimed to have inherited from Emperor Frederick VII. who died in that year. This disputed land composed what is now the Canton of St. Gall, a considerable part of Graubiinden, Voralberg and other territory. The other Cantons aided Schwyz and their combined force besieged the city of Zurich. Austria saw her opportunity and took up arms against the Federation.

Austria and Zurich combined were no match for the League, so France was prevailed upon to join them. The Dauphin (later Louis XL) led an army of thirty thousand against Basel.

The Swiss advanced to meet them. One division of the Swiss were surrounded on an island in the River Birs and annihilated.

SWISS MILITARY FAME SPREADS.

What was left of the Swiss force, not over six hundred men, confronted the French army thirty times their number, at the infirmary of St. Jacques. Twice in the course of six hours they repulsed furious French attacks and twice made heroic sorties themselves. But, finally, the French stormed the infirmary walls, rushed in and overwhelmed the Swiss in a hand-to-hand conflict. The Swiss would not surrender, preferring to die instead.

The French lost four thousand men in the Battle of St. Jacques, and the heroism of the Swiss so impressed Louis that he made an honorable peace with them. This battle went a long way toward establishing the military reputation of the Swiss.

The civil war between Zurich and the other Cantons did not actually end until six years later, when, at the Peace of 1450, Zurich abandoned her alliance with Austria. The Cantons became reconciled, and the League a more cohesive union than ever.

The Burgundian Wars (1474- 1477) served still further to enhance Switzerland's military standing. The story of how Louis of France, still mindful of St. Jacques, bent all his efforts toward gaining the aid of the Swiss in his design to destroy the power of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and how he succeeded in attracting them to his cause, is too long a one to be related here.

A force from Bern, Freiburg and Solothurn invaded Vaud in 1475. This territory was subject to Savoy, and Savoy was an ally of Burgundy. The Swiss took considerable territory from Savoy, the most important being Lower Valais. Charles the Bold proceded to retaliate by invading Switzerland with an army of fifty thousand, accompanied by heavy artillery. Following some pre- Hminary skirmishes he was met by a well-equipped force of eighteen thousand Swiss infantry and cavalry at Grandson early in March, 1476. Mistaking a maneuver of Charles for an order to retreat, at the very moment the main body of the Swiss came up to support their advance force, the Burgundians were thrown into a panic and, to quote a chronicler of the time, "took to their heels, and disappeared from sight, as if a whirlwind had swept them from the earth."