I set up this website about two years ago, as a way of raising the profile of the subject of Switzerland during the First World War, publicising the information that I had on this topic, and encouraging others to share information they have. This has gone really well. See the blog posts on this site with information supplied by other people, such as on a painting made by British former prisoners of war interned in Switzerland, a series of photographs of German interned former prisoners of war, and on the Swiss national donation medal. But there was very little easily available information out there (in English at least) on Switzerland and the First World War. With the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of that conflict, this has changed and below I look at some of the interesting stories on the web.
I should mention that as my native tongue is English, and I speak a little French, I am concentrating on those languages. Sadly my German (and even, some would argue, my French) isn't up to doing more...
One of the first resources to appear was 14-18.ch which contains images and descriptions of, and commentaries on, a variety of Swiss postcards from the First World War period. The postcards are divided into different types, including: politics, propaganda, everyday life, humanitarian work and humour. The amount of information in the descriptions and commentaries is considerable.
Left: postcard taking a satirical look at the position of Switzerland as a neutral. A Swiss soldier is surrounding by French and German eggs, and thinks to himself "I need to look out in case I break one!"
(photo courtesy of 14-18.ch)
Left: postcard taking a satirical look at the position of Switzerland as a neutral. A Swiss soldier is surrounding by French and German eggs, and thinks to himself "I need to look out in case I break one!"
(photo courtesy of 14-18.ch)
The excellent Europeana1914-1918 website brings together historic material from national libraries and archives, as well as from individual people who have contributed the stories of their relatives. If you search for "Switzerland" you will find plenty of content, including photographs taken in Switzerland, and stories of soldiers from either side interned in that country. You can also look into sources from New Zealand, USA, Australia and Canada.
Above is a photograph from Europeana1914-1918 showing four brothers serving in the Swiss army during the First World War. Left to right they are Paul, Walter, Ernst and Arnold Bloch. (image courtesy of Alexandra Bloch Pfister/Europeana1914-1918).
Swissinfo.ch, which is the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, has a number of interesting pages covering that country and the First World War. "Waiting for a conflict in a neutral land" looks at the mobilisation of Swiss troops on the outbreak of war, and refers to a collection of 5,000 photographs of this period held by the Swiss Federal Archives. 25 of these photos can be seen on that web page. The whole set of photos can be seen on Wikipedia Commons and the Federal Archives are to be congratulated for releasing so much material to the public.
The photo above is just one of these, showing Swiss troops digging a firing trench on a steep hillside (image courtesy Swiss Federal Archives/Wikipedia Commons).
As the page title indicates, "Outbreak of war revealed divisions among the Swiss" is an interesting look at the varied reactions in Switzerland to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to the diplomatic crisis that unfolded over the following month, and to the actual outbreak of war. Politics, religion and cultural links were all factors in determining which of the belligerents an individual Swiss might have more sympathy for.
"War widens cultural divide in Switzerland" includes a video focussing on the Swiss army's wartime commander-in-chief, General Ulrich Wille. I had not realised before viewing this that in 1915, Wille proposed to the government that Switzerland should enter the war on the side of Germany and her allies. I also had not heard of the term "fried potato ditch" before (you will have to watch the video to find out what that means)! This video includes some interesting still photos and short films from the wartime period.
"1914: how war changed Swiss life" takes a detailed look at that subject, and incidentally uses this website as one of its sources!
"Swiss tell of horror in the trenches of 1914-18" looks at Swiss nationals serving with French troops during the First World War. As well as some Swiss who had adopted French nationality, there were also many Swiss in the Foreign Legion. Apparently at this time, just over one-third of the Legion's foreign troops was comprised of Swiss personnel. After the outbreak of war, it was estimated that some 300 Swiss-Germans and 500 Swiss-French or Swiss-Italians joined the Legion. Why? Anger at the German invasion of neutral Belgium is said to have been a major motivation.
Finally from Swissinfo.ch, "Swiss Air Force celebrates 100 years" tells how the Swiss Air Force was founded on 31 July 1914 at Bern, beginning with "nine pilots who brought their own planes and mechanics"!
The photo above is just one of these, showing Swiss troops digging a firing trench on a steep hillside (image courtesy Swiss Federal Archives/Wikipedia Commons).
As the page title indicates, "Outbreak of war revealed divisions among the Swiss" is an interesting look at the varied reactions in Switzerland to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to the diplomatic crisis that unfolded over the following month, and to the actual outbreak of war. Politics, religion and cultural links were all factors in determining which of the belligerents an individual Swiss might have more sympathy for.
"War widens cultural divide in Switzerland" includes a video focussing on the Swiss army's wartime commander-in-chief, General Ulrich Wille. I had not realised before viewing this that in 1915, Wille proposed to the government that Switzerland should enter the war on the side of Germany and her allies. I also had not heard of the term "fried potato ditch" before (you will have to watch the video to find out what that means)! This video includes some interesting still photos and short films from the wartime period.
"1914: how war changed Swiss life" takes a detailed look at that subject, and incidentally uses this website as one of its sources!
"Swiss tell of horror in the trenches of 1914-18" looks at Swiss nationals serving with French troops during the First World War. As well as some Swiss who had adopted French nationality, there were also many Swiss in the Foreign Legion. Apparently at this time, just over one-third of the Legion's foreign troops was comprised of Swiss personnel. After the outbreak of war, it was estimated that some 300 Swiss-Germans and 500 Swiss-French or Swiss-Italians joined the Legion. Why? Anger at the German invasion of neutral Belgium is said to have been a major motivation.
Finally from Swissinfo.ch, "Swiss Air Force celebrates 100 years" tells how the Swiss Air Force was founded on 31 July 1914 at Bern, beginning with "nine pilots who brought their own planes and mechanics"!
The website Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland includes transcripts of some Swiss diplomatic documents from the First World War. A full list of these documents in French and German can be found here. The website states that "the military command regarded the Italian irredentism as the greatest danger to Switzerland’s territorial integrity during the first year of the war" and that "when Italy entered the war in May 1915 the general chief of staff Theophil Sprecher von Bernegg considered the situation to be more dangerous than in August 1914". The documents also cover topics such as food shortages, diplomacy, humanitarian activities and fear of revolution. With the fear of Bolshevik revolution widespread throughout Europe, apparently the Entente (Allied) states expressed to the Swiss envoy in Rome their willingness to intervene in Switzerland should revolution break out there.
Finally, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced in January that the archives of the International Prisoners-of-War Agency would be available for public viewing from this August "through an online application". The ICRC collected huge amounts of information about prisoners of war held by both sides, and attempted to put prisoners in touch with their relatives back home. These archives - of the International Prisoner-of-War Agency - are included in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, and comprise around 500,000 pages of lists and six million index cards! To quote from their website: "Each year up to July 2011, the ICRC processed several hundred requests for information submitted by historians and relatives of prisoners. In 2008, the ICRC’s archivists began a project to restore and scan the lists and index cards. As a result, the documents are currently unavailable for consultation and the ICRC cannot at present deliver certificates of captivity for people who were prisoners during the First World War.
Once this project has been completed, more efficient research methods can be developed and time will be saved in accessing the information. Thanks to the online application, anyone will be able to search the archives directly on the internet as of August 2014." This is exciting news for researchers. There is also an interesting free publication from the ICRC about their archives that is worth looking at.
Once this project has been completed, more efficient research methods can be developed and time will be saved in accessing the information. Thanks to the online application, anyone will be able to search the archives directly on the internet as of August 2014." This is exciting news for researchers. There is also an interesting free publication from the ICRC about their archives that is worth looking at.
If you know of other relevant material on the web about Switzerland and the First World War, do let me know!
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