The Swiss have memorials that mark the First World War. When I first discovered this surprising fact, I realised that the subject of Switzerland during that conflict deserved greater study. Here I will look at a few examples of different types of memorials in Switzerland.

Above: The impressive 18 metre high Forchdenkmal (Forch Monument) or Wehrmännerdenkmal (Soldiers' Monument) at Forch, in the canton of Zurich. It commemorates Swiss soldiers who died while on active duty during the First World War.

There are more than 70 memorials in Switzerland from the First World War. Sometimes the same memorials also commemorate deaths in either the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War, and/or the Second World War.

Perhaps the most obvious category of memorials is those to Swiss soldiers who died during the war while serving with the national armed forces. Well, the existence of such memorials is still quite surprising, as the Swiss army was not engaged in any fighting! In fact, 3,065 Swiss soldiers died in the First World War, of which nearly two-thirds died from Spanish Flu (Influenza) in 1918. However some did die directly as a result of their Swiss military duties. The monument below was erected at Zurich in 1916, while the war was still in progress, and commemorates four Swiss army aviators who had died in separate crashes since the mobilisation of the army in 1914. In the early days of aviation, fatal crashes were sadly not unusual.

The next, at ​Châtel-Saint-Denis, marks the death of 40 soldiers who died from Influenza while based in Berne in November 1918. They were guarding the city as a precaution against the General Strike. In some quarters, such memorials may have been intended (consciously or subconsciously) to promote Swiss national unity in the face of social unrest such as this strike which took place around the time of the war's end.

Now we  turn to a different kind of memorial. That at Col des Roches (Le Locle) was built by in 1923 within Switzerland but only metres away from the French border. It was created by the Société Française du Locle (French Society of Le Locle), and marks the deaths of Swiss volunteer from that area, and also of French soldiers, all of whom are described as having "died for France". In fact, across the whole of Switzerland a significant number of people met this fate. Over 11,000 Swiss men served in the French army during the conflict, many of them in the French Foreign Legion, and over 2,000 of them were killed (source). This and similar memorials would have been a focus of remembrance not just for the loved ones of those Swiss who had died in battle in this way, but also for their surviving comrades who sought to remember their experiences.

Below is a memorial created at La Chaux-de-Fonds in memory of 70 men from the town who had died while serving as Allied soldiers (seen here in October 1918). 

Another significant category of memorials in Switzerland is those marking the deaths of internees from some of the warring states. The "Monument to Internees" at Clarens in the Montreux area commemorates French and Belgian internees in particular. It was designed by a French officer and a Belgian soldier - an architect and a sculptor respectively - who were interned in the Montreux area. The sculpture depicts a dying French soldier who grasps his national flag with his last energies. In this case, the memorial is purely about foreigners interned in Switzerland, and does not commemorate Swiss citizens. Memorials in other locations mark the deaths of internees from the Central Powers.

At the end of the war, an event took place at Chateleine cemetery in Geneva (shown in next image) that was attended by 10,000 people. It marked the deaths of Frenchmen interned in Switzerland during the Franco-Prussian War, but also commemorated internees and others who had died during the First World War. The fact that so many Swiss turned out to such an event illustrates how significantly the war had impacted on them.

This was not the first such event of the war. ​The photograph below shows a ceremony on 14 July 1917 (Bastille Day) in Geneva, at the monument to French soldiers interned in Switzerland at the time of the Franco-Prussian War. 

As you can see, this article has just begun to look at this fascinating subject. Following these links for more information about WWI memorials in Switzerland:
Various Swiss WWI memorials: schweizer-festungen.ch
Belgian memorials in Switzerland: www.bel-memorial.org
French memorials in Switzerland: www.souvenirfrancaissuisse.com

Sources include: Sébastien Farré, "Commemorer les morts de la premiere guerre mondiale en terre de paix", in Christophe Vuilleumier (ed.), La Suisse et la Guerre de 1914-1918, pp.495-512.

The Western Front in the First World War stretched from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border. But what happened at that point, which is often called “Kilometre Zero” or “Km 0”?

The photo above shows one of the bunkers just across the frontier inside Switzerland, from which the Swiss army kept watch on the opposing forces.

Much of this information is readily available in French and German, but is less well known to English-speaking audiences.
​
The following image is another view of the bunker shown above but from the opposite side, with a trench approaching it. These bunkers were built from wood and earth, as they were not expected to come under direct attack, but were for protection from the occasional bullet fired in the wrong direction. The bunker was marked with the Swiss flag to ensure that it was not fired upon by French or German soldiers who were unfamiliar with the lay of the land – as both sides would occasionally fire on each other. Relations between the Swiss and the troops across the border seem to have been good. ​

As well as several bunkers on the Swiss side, there were also smaller observation points. Below you can see a small observation post on the right, and a bunker in the distance at far left. The frontier with Germany lay along the line of trees in the distance.

Next is a slightly different view of the same destroyed farm, looking roughly north from just inside Swiss territory (you can see two Swiss guards standing on their side of the frontier, infront of the ruin). Beyond the building was no man's land for the French and German forces.

A map will help put this in context. The area of Swiss territory that we are looking at (part of the Jura) projected out into what was then France and Germany. The north-eastern part of that area is shown on the map below. From the north-east corner of that 'peninsula', a small area of Swiss land (Le Largin) projects out into Germany.​ This last area was known to the Swiss soldiers at "Bec de canard" (the duck's beak)!

​As you can see on the map, the 1914 border between France and Germany was further to the west.
 
Alsace, the region stretching roughly 100 miles north from this part of the Swiss frontier, had been absorbed into the German Empire in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian War. Therefore in 1914 the French were determined to recover this territory. In the first month of the First World War, the French army managed to advance until they captured the city of Mulhouse (about 20 miles/32 km north-east from this part of the Swiss frontier), but were swiftly forced back by a German counter-attack, and the front lines then stabilised, with the French retaining control of the village of Pfetterhouse. On the German side, Moos was the nearest village. The two sides faced each other from either side of the valley of the Largue river. As on the rest of the Western Front, a system of trenches grew up behind the front lines.

After 1914, there was no longer any heavy fighting next to the Swiss frontier, but the vicious battles in the Vosges mountains took place some 30 miles/50 km to the north. The map below (published in the Swiss magazine "Mars" in July 1915 and annotated by me - click on it to see larger image) gives some idea of the terrain as you go north from Switzerland at this point. 

On the Swiss side, there were defences but the frontier was not a highly-fortified area. The following photograph shows a point roughly in the bottom right corner of the map, near Miécourt, Switzerland. A column of German soldiers marches along the road in the foreground, while in the centre several Swiss soldiers can just be seen standing in the middle of a road on their side of the border.

Part of the area was heavily wooded, but the Swiss used their ingenuity (and from a modern point of view, a certain disregard for 'health and safety' to create observation towers at treetop level. One of these, shown below, was celebrated by Swiss officer Charles Gos in his book "Point 510", which was also the name of that post.

While the actual frontier was not heavily fortified, it should not be imagined that the Swiss army had ignored the basic principles of military defence. Further back from the border were other defences such as trenches (below), barbed wire and supporting artillery.

Also marked on the map is the 'marker of three states' ('borne des trois puissances' in French) which marked the point at which (in 1914) the French, German and Swiss borders met. In fact there were three stones as markers, two of which are shown in the photograph below, which has a Swiss soldier on the left, and two Frenchmen on the right. The third stone, a corner of which is just visible on the right of the image, dated to the Middle Ages, whereas the other two were placed in the late Nineteenth Century. The marker stones are still there to this day, but the modern Franco-German border is much further east, at the River Rhine. 

Did troops from either side choose the opportunity to slip across the frontier and desert? Significant numbers of deserters did make their way into Switzerland, but I am not sure that they would have chosen such an obvious point to cross - but I would be interested if anyone knows otherwise. 

​An interesting incident: It was not far from this point that on 2 August 1914, one day before France and Germany were officially at war, that the first casualties of the conflict took place. Shots were exchanged between a German patrol that had crossed the French border, and French sentries. The commanders of the two detachments, French Corporal Jules Andre Peugeot and German Lieutenant Albert Otto Walter Mayer were both shot and died.
There is a good account of this incident here.

The area today: There is now an association called “Les amis du Kilomètre Zéro” (Friends of Km 0) which promotes visits to the area. Several of the nearby earthworks have been rebuilt. These and a couple of concrete fortifications are linked by a path, so that visitors can better understand the history of this area. Here is a leaflet from Jura Tourism, illustrating this route.

Here are some other websites relating to this area in the First World War and today that you may find interesting:

The Vosges Front (www.front-vosges-14-18.eu). In English, French and German language.

The Southern Tip of the Western Front 1914-1918: The Terminus of the ‘Underground Railway' Oostende-Switzerland (Western Front Association journal). Some interesting details about alleged frontier violations in this area. In English language.

An Unfortunate Region (www.unfortunate-region.org). In English language. In them menu, choose “Battlefields”, then scroll down to the “Vosges” section which includes articles on the Franco-German fighting near the frontier and in the Vosges battlefields, as well as on “Km 0”.

Swiss defences in the “Km 0” area (www.schweizer-festungen.ch). In German language.

The Western Front north of Pfetterhouse (front-du-sundgau-14-18.jimdo.com). In French and German language.

Here and here: some interesting photos of remaining fortifications in the area, within France (pages14-18.mesdiscussions.net). In French language.

A video tour of some of the frontier area at Largin from the Swiss side, including the reconstructed bunker. 

Since Switzerland was a neutral country, its frontiers had to be guarded to prevent the warring armies crossing them, deliberately or accidentally. However there were occasions when the border was crossed...

Image: A Swiss soldier (foreground) talks to a German border guard through the frontier wire.

The start of the war was one of the points at which there was the greatest fear amongst the Swiss of invasion, in case the French or Germans tried to gain an advantage by outflanking their enemy through Switzerland. The frontiers were guarded by the Swiss army. Above: The frontier at Basle, blocked at the start of the war.

In places the frontier had considerable defences, including bunkers and barbed wire, similar to those used by the opposing sides in combat. However as this image shows, in places away from the fighting little separated the Swiss and their neighbours. Although Switzerland is a small country, the frontier was 1,400km (870 miles) in length, and could not be guarded in great strength everywhere! There are said to have been some 1,000 violations of the frontier during the war.

The Swiss strictly enforced their frontier. Under international law, troops from the belligerents who crossed the Swiss border (for whatever reason) had to be interned. Above is part of a patrol of 21 German soldiers who crossed frontier in 1914 and were interned (with a Swiss soldier in darker uniform at far left).

French, German, Italian, British or American aircraft also sometimes accidentally crossed onto Swiss soil. In certain cases the plane landed because the airmen did not realise they had crossed the frontier, while other times injuries to the crew meant they had to land immediately. Below is a German aircraft that landed at Bellach (about 30km or 19 miles from the frontier) on 13 October 1916.

Very occasionally, Swiss territory was actually attacked, most frequently through being bombed by aircraft. The town of Porrentruy was bombed several times. It was located in a small section of Swiss territory that projected out into France, and was only about 12km or 7 miles away from the point where the Western Front (the French and German front lines) met the Swiss frontier. This seems to have meant that there was potential for either side to make a navigational error and drop bombs on Swiss land. The house in Porrentruy seen below was damaged by bombs on 24 April 1917. Generally casualties were very light, though this was down to chance as much as anything else. (see here for a detailed account of one such bombing raid at La Chaux-des-Fonds, in French.)

Bombing incidents in the Porrentruy area were so frequently that a large cross, at least 20 metres wide, was placed near the town in order to indicate to even high-flying aircraft that it was in Swiss territory. The cross can be seen on the left side of the above image. Apparently it had electrical illumination so that it was even visible from the air at night! More active methods were also taken, such as the deployment of anti-aircraft guns (image below: a standard artillery piece on a special rotating mounting), the fire from which sometimes forced down belligerent aircraft that had strayed across the border.

On 7 October 1918, Swiss neutrality was infringed in an attack that caused great public controversy in Switzerland. An observation balloon tethered between Miécourt and Cornol (near Porrentruy, around 2-3km (1.5 miles) over the border into Switzerland) was shot down by a German aircraft. The burning balloon fell to earth and the Swiss soldier acting as observer, Lieutenant Walter Flury, was killed. Some Swiss newspapers questioned whether the attack was really an error or had been pre-planned, since the balloon was clearly marked as Swiss. Below is a balloon similar ​to the one that was shot down. Such apparently direct attacks were very rare however.

It was easy to fly over the Swiss border, but could it be crossed on land? Well, people certainly tried.

The two Serbian soldiers show below, Sergeant Lioubomir Romich (left) and private Svetozar Markovitch (right), had been captured by the Bulgarians and Austro-Hungarians respectively. In 1916, after spending two months working on a German farm they managed to escape. They travelled for 13 days until they managed to cross the Swiss frontier. In the centre of the photo is Johann Weber, the Swiss soldier who then escorted them to Geneva. The British soldier A.J. Evans, who wrote the book "The Escaping Club", also managed to get into Switzerland from Germany after 18 days on the run. Not everyone who tried to make the crossing was successful. On 10 April 1917, a Russian prisoner of war being held in Germany tried to cross to Switzerland, but was shot by the Germans as he did so.

Deserters also crossed the frontier. In the 1920s, a high-ranking Reichswehr (German army) officer estimated that 9,000 German deserters fled to Switzerland during the First World War! (information from Dr. Benjamin Ziemann)

Did anyone manage to make the crossing in the other direction? In 1916 two French airmen who escaped back to France from Switzerland: pilot Sergeant Madon (below, at left) and mechanic Corporal Chatelain (below, at right). Neither man had agreed to give his parole (his word) that he would not try to escape. They managed to get from Zurich to Lausanne, and then to ​Evian-les-Bains, which is on the other side of Lac Leman from Lausanne. 

If these men could cross the Swiss frontier, then no doubt spies could as well. But that is another story (that I need to research!). Actually, many spies would travel freely across the frontier, perhaps using the cover of being diplomatic or other government personnel for their nation.

Also on this website: "Kilometre Zero: Where the Swiss frontier met the Western Front.

Above: workers at a Swiss munitions factory in Basle.

Hang on! Switzerland was neutral during the First World War. What were the Swiss doing, making artillery shells? Well, international law allowed a neutral to trade with both sides. More than that, the Swiss were not simply taking advantage of the war to make a profit. The Allies armies needed as many shells as they could get, and those from Switzerland were a significant contribution.

Above: left to right, the shell, No.106 Mk II fuse and safety cap for a British 18-pounder field gun. This was one of the types of fuses supplied by the Swiss to the Entente armies. 
Image source: "Mili14" at collections.delcampe.net

Above: drawings of the No.106 "instantaneous" fuse.
Image source: "No106MkIIFuzeRLDiagram" by Royal Laboratory - "Fuze Diagrams".Supplied by Allan Brown : British Ordnance Collectors Network http://www.bocn.co.uk. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Of particular importance was the “instantaneous” No.106 fuse, which was designed during the war and exploded as soon as it hit the ground. This was intended to cause less cratering (which could obstruct attacking troops) and to increase the chance that the shells would break up enemy barbed wire. On visiting the French General du Cane in April 1917, British journalist Charles Repington recorded in his diary that: “Du Cane says that he must have the 106 fuse before he attacks the Hindenburg line.” During the British assault at the start of the Battle of Menin Road Ridge for example (September 1917), 50% of shells in some layers of the artillery barrage used No.106 fuses.

The quality and reliability of the fuses manufactured in Switzerland appears to have been high. In October 1918, a British inspector reported that: “In Switzerland there are whole districts such as Geneva and Le Locle whose industries are watchmaking, and whose people are therefore hereditarily trained to most accurate work. Fortunately these districts are French-speaking, and very pro-Entente. Large contracts were placed in both these districts with extremely satisfactory results... The fuzes produced by them on a very large scale gave complete satisfaction, and the rejects were only a very small percentage of the whole.”

Sources: UK National Archives, MUN 5/321B/28 and MUN 4/2026.

I recently heard about the Queen Victoria Jubilee Fund Association (QVJFA) for the first time from Dave Hill, who was writing an article on this organisation for “Stamp Lover”. Dave had come across a mention of the QVJFA in a letter in The Spectator magazine dated 22 September 1916: “Dear Sirs, The Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Fund Association, Rue Muzy No. 15, Geneva states that it has special permission from the German Authorities to enquire for missing soldiers in the camps and hospitals in the war zone in Germany and Belgium. It circulates illustrated sheets with pictures of the missing which are excellent reproductions...”

Dave Hill gave several examples of individuals who had been helped by the QVJFA. A note in a wartime issue of Flight magazine (from the Flight Global Archive website) stated: “Capt Noel William Ward Webb MC, a Flight Commander in the Royal Flying Corps was posted a missing in action on 16 August 1917, he has since been reported by the QVJFA as being killed on that date.” Lt Thomas Wright Carson served in 6th West Riding (Duke of Wellington’s) Regiment. On 7 January 1917 his family was told he was missing in action, but they said it did not necessarily mean he was dead. He had been in France less than eight weeks. His brother was in the same regiment but could not say whether he was dead or captured. While Thomas was out in No Mans’ Land with a couple of men on a raiding party, a flare went up and they took cover. When the flare died out, the other men looked for Thomas but there was no sign of him, nor could later patrols find him. It was assumed he had been captured as no shots had been fired. However four months later his brother was informed by the QVJFA that Thomas Wright had died on 27 December 1915.

The letter from the QVJFA to Thomas Wright’s family read: “Dear Sir, We are grieved to be the bearers of sad news about your brother Thomas. We have received the following information from Countess E. Blucher von Wahlstatt in Berlin. She saw in our last list of missing officers the name of 2nd Lt Carson, missing near Ypres, and wrote to tell us that a German officer on leave had told her that they came upon his body and later buried him with full military honours.” 

My research in the UK National Archives revealed some answers about the QVJFA, or to give it its full title, the Enquiry Branch of the Queen Victoria Jubilee Fund Association, Geneva. The organisation was created by a Mr S. Goodman, also known as Mr Guttmann (the Germanised version of his surname). He was a retired British officer of the Indian Postal Department, and was living in Geneva. Documents sometimes describe him as the British pro-consul there, but it is not clear whether he held this title originally or was awarded it in recognition of his work in tracing PoWs.

It all began in November 1914, when Lady Bullough asked Goodman to help find her brother, Captain Charles de la Pasture of the Scots Guards, since the ICRC could not help. Goodman decided to send handwritten circulars to a number of PoW camps in Germany. When this proved successful, he received enquiries about other British officers who were missing in action. He then asked for photos which were attached to the circulars. As the project continued, Goodman combined the photos into 'tableaux' (about 28 photos of individual officers, displayed on a sheet). 

Then in February 1915, the Germans forbade information on PoWs being passed on to private agencies. Consequently Goodman applied to the QVJFA for permission to use their name. This association provided assistance to needy British subjects in Geneva. The QVJFA agreed, and Goodman was appointed Honorary Manager of the association’s Enquiry Branch. Despite this, for most if not all of the war, the whole effort seems to have been run by Mr Goodman alone. 

Above: Most organisations aiding prisoners of war were quite large, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, some of whose volunteer staff are seen here. In contrast, the Enquiry Branch of the QVJFA was primarily run by one man.

* (asterisk) indicates that I have not seen the work, but it sounds like it would be useful!
Notes in [square brackets] are intended to help indicate the scope of the work.

General Swiss history

E. Bonjour, H.S. Offler & G.R. Potter, A short history of Switzerland (Oxford University Press, 1952)

Clive H. Church & Randolph C. Head, A concise history of Switzerland (Cambridge University Press, 2013)

* Sutton Croft, Was Switzerland pro-German? (Hazell, Watson & Viney, 1920)

Christopher Hughes, Switzerland (Ernest Benn Ltd, 1975)

Georg Thürer, Free and Swiss (Oswald Wolff, 1970) 

International Committee of the Red Cross and Prisoners of War

Henry P. Picot, The British interned in Switzerland (Edward Arnold, 1919) [the author was the senior British officer in Switzerland during WW1; text available online here]

Philip Lewis, "Alpine echoes", in Stand To! Journal of the Western Front Association No.33, pp.10-11, p.33.

Stéphanie Leu, “Visiting French Internees in Switzerland during the First World War: Women in the Construction of National States 1915-1918” (available online here) 

Caroline Moorhead, Dunant's Dream: War, Switzerland and the history of the Red Cross (HarperCollins, 1998)

* George Renwick, War wanderings: A record of war and war travel 1914-1916 (1916) [correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, the author escaped from Vienna to France via Switzerland in August 1914]

Richard B. Speed III, Prisoners, diplomats and the Great War (Greenwood Press, 1990)

Matthew Stibbe, "The internment of civilians by belligerent states during the First World War and the response of the International Committee of the Red Cross", in Journal of Contemporary History Vol.41(1), 2006, pp.5-19.

Richard van Emden, Prisoners of the Kaiser (Pen & Sword, 2000)

* Ernest Warburton, Behind Boche bars (1920) [written by a lieutenant in the British Army, Sherwood Foresters, who was a prisoner of war and was then interned in Switzerland]

John Yarnall, Barbed Wire Disease. British & German prisoners of war, 1914-10 (History Press, 2011) [includes chapter on prisoner exchanges and internments]

Other aspects

* Heinz K. Meier, Friendship under stress: US-Swiss relations 1900-1950 (Peter Lang AG, 1970)

* Alfred E. Senn, Diplomacy and revolution: The Soviet Mission in Switzerland, 1918 (Notre Dame University Press, 1974)

* Alfred E. Senn, The Russian Revolution in Switzerland, 1914-1917 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1971)

Some recent publications in French and German

* Urban Fink-Wagner, Der Kanton Solothurn vor Hundert Jahren. Quellen, Bilder und Erinnerungen zur Zeit des Ersten Weltkriegs (Hier und Jetz, 2014) [First World War period in Canton Solothurn, a part of Switzerland near German border; German language]

* Hans Rudolf Fuhrer, Die Schweizer Armee im 1. Weltkrieg – Bedrohung, Landesverteidigung und Landesbefestigung (NZZ Zuerich, 1999) [German language]

* Erika Hebeisen, Peter Niederhäuser, Regula Schmid, Kriegs- und Krisenzeit: Zürich während des Ersten Weltkriegs (Chronos Verlag, 2014) [the canton of Zürich during the First World War; German language]

* Georg Kreis, Schweizer Postkarten aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg (Hier und Jetz, 2014) [how the First World War was depicted in contemporary Swiss postcards; German language]

* Konrad J. Kuhn, Béatrice Ziegler, Der Vergessene Krieg. Spuren und Traditionen zur Schweiz im Ersten Weltkrieg (Hier und Jetz, 2014) [the memory of the First World War in Switzerland; German language]

* Jean-Jacques Langendorf et Pierre Streit, Face à la guerre. L’armée et le peuple suisses 1914-1919/1939-1945 (Infolio éditions, 2007) [French language]

* Hans Rapold, Der Schweizerische Generalstab, Band V. Zeit der Bewährung? Die Epoche um den Ersten Weltkrieg 1907–1924 (Volume 5) (Hier und Jetz, 2002) [history of the Swiss General Staff 1907-1924; German language]

* 1914 –1918: Neue Zugänge zur Geschichte der Schweiz im Ersten Weltkrieg / Nouvelles approches et perspectives de recherche en Suisse, Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte / Revue Suisse d’Histoire / Rivista Storica Svizzera Vol.63 No.3 (2013) [special issue of the journal focussing on Switzerland and the First World War; articles in both French and German languages]

Roman Rossfeld, Thomas Buomberger & Patrick Kury, 14/18. La Suisse et la Grande Guerre / 14/18. Die Schweiz und der Grosse Krieg (Hier und Jetz, 2014) [wide-ranging survey of Switzerland 1914-1918, with many illustrations; published in French or German language. See my review of this book here]

Christophe Vuilleumier, La Suisse face à l’espionnage, 1914-1918 (Éditions Slatkine, 2014) [espionage and First World War Switzerland; French language]

Christophe Vuilleumier (ed.), La Suisse et la Guerre de 1914-1918 (Éditions Slatkine, 2015) [an excellent series of chapters on different aspects of Switzerland and the war]

Christophe Vuilleumier, “Il n’y a rien à dire sur l’histoire de la Suisse pendant la Première Guerre mondiale”, in Revue administrative n° 396, pp.6-14. [memory of First World War in Switzerland French language: read it here]

Markus Wittwer, Die Schweizerischen Soldatenmarken 1. Weltkried 1914/18 (2004) [catalogue of the unusual 'soldier's stamps' used by Swiss troops, specific to each unit; German language but many illustrations]


There are many more books on this subject in French and German - too many to list here. The book "14/18. La Suisse et la Grande Guerre" by Roman Rossfeld, Thomas Buomberger & Patrick Kury has an extensive bibliography of such works.

I hope this bibliography has been useful to you. If you have suggestions for other books or articles that could be included, please do send them to me via the contact page. Generally I would not include works that only have a couple of useful pages, although it depends on the content. Thank you.

Last updated: October 2015

The 'fan' consists of hand-carved silhouettes of the heads of state of the six main Allied countries in 1916: French President Raymond Poincaré, King George V of Britain, the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, King Albert I of Belgium and King Peter of Serbia. At either end there is a rounded piece of wood that protects the fragile carvings. The clever feature of this item is that when held up to a strong light source, it casts detailed shadows of each of these men.

The first stage in researching this artefact was to examine the clues written on it. At one end was "Silhouettes des Allies. Ch: Poisson. Sergent blessé", and at the other end "Internée à Vernayaz. Valais. Suisse. 1916". The first three words refers to the carved wooden silhouettes of the Allied leaders. The remainder indicates that it was made in 1916 by a Sergent (Sergeant) Poisson, whose Christian name was abbreviated to "Ch", who had been wounded and was interned at Vernayaz, in the Valais canton of Switzerland. It does not explicitly say that he made it, but this seems a logical assumption. These details provided a good starting point...

Above: French internees in Switzerland doing agricultural work. Internees were expected to work if they were well enough.

ICRC records
The first stop in my research was the First World War prisoner of war archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). As I have described before, these records are not always straightforward to use but can contain detailed information. There were at least eight men called "Ch Poisson" in the ICRC's on-line records (one man can appear on multiple cards, and it may not be immediately obvious if each reference is to the same or a new individual). Further searching in the ICRC records revealed the following details about the man who carved this souvenir of his time in Switzerland:

• Charles Francisque Poisson was born in Paris on 11 May 1886, so he was aged 28 in 1914.

• He was a sergeant (sergent, in French) in 15th Company, 43rd Colonial Infantry Regiment (43e Régiment d'Infanterie Coloniale) of the French army.
• After being taken prisoner by German forces, he arrived at the 'Reserve-Lazarett' (hospital) at Bayreuth, Bavaria, on 21 August 1914, and left there on the 30th. 
• He was seriously wounded, and is later described as having a “stiff leg”, presumably meaning that he was left with a permanent disability as a result of his wound.
• He was held by the Germans as a prisoner of war in at “Gef. Btl II St Georgen Bayreuth”, presumably meaning Prisoner of War Battalion No.2, located in the St Georgen district of Bayreuth, Germany.
• In August-September 1915 the ICRC corresponded with his family, presumably to confirm that he was a PoW. 
• By early June 1916 he had moved to Vernayaz as an internee (note that the first French prisoners of war arrived in Switzerland for internment in January 1916). His accommodation was at the Grand Hotel des Gorges du Trient, and he was one of 60 French internees kept there.
• On 26 September 1918 he was one of a group of French soldiers repatriated to France.

So the ICRC's records gave a pretty detailed outline of Sergent Poisson's time as a prisoner of war (PoW) and then an internee in Switzerland. This could be fleshed out from other sources, as follows.

Above: illustration of the silhouettes cast by this artefact.

Events in 1914: The Battle of Morhange
What of Sergent Poisson's early history, before he became a prisoner of war? I have not found anything about his individual experiences, but the history of the French 43rd Colonial Infantry Regiment gives some clues (Source: tableaudhonneur.free.fr). The regiment did not exist before the First World War. It was formed on 2 August 1914 from reservists from Paris and the surrounding area, with some of the officers and NCOs having served in the colonial army (it is unknown whether these included Sergent Poisson). It began to assemble at the school in rue Huyghens, Paris (the building can still be seen on Google Streetview). 

In 1871 the former French regions of Alsace and Lorraine had been seized in the Franco-Prussian war and incorporated into Germany. In 1914, a key part of the French strategy was to advance into Alsace-Lorraine, both to try to recover these lost territories and to unbalance the German offensive. The 43rd Colonial Infantry Regiment was a small part of the French First and Second Armies that took part in this attack, which became known as the Battle of Lorraine (14-25 August 1914), of which the Battle of Morhange (14-20 August) was the action in which the regiment was involved. This was a period of mobile warfare, before the opposing forces began digging the extensive trench systems that dominated so much of the war on the Western Front.

Time as a prisoner of war and internment in Switzerland
So Sergent Poisson became a prisoner of war only weeks after the conflict began, and remained in confinement (as a PoW then an internee) for just over four years. Read more about the overall process of interning PoWs in Switzerland on this website here. The men chosen for internment in neutral countries were generally those prisoners who had severe and long-lasting injuries or illness, and/or who had been a prisoner for a long period (the latter point reflected the psychological toll on the individual of long periods of incarceration).

Above: a postcard showing the Martigny-Châtelard railway, not far from Vernayaz, which was sent in 1916 by another French prisoner of war, who was interned at Finhaut.

Interned at Vernayaz
The town of Vernayaz (map) sits in a mountain valley and is in fact only about 13km from the French border. The building that was the Grand Hotel des Gorges du Trient at Vernayaz still exists, though it is now used as offices and is no longer a hotel. Built in 1870, it was the most impressive of a number of hotels built in the town around this time to take advantage of tourists visiting the area to walk in the mountains, prompted by the extension of the railway to the valley. The most prominent local attraction was the 200 metre deep Gorges du Trient (Trient Gorge), which is fed by the Trient Glacier higher up in the mountains. The hotel had space for 80 people in its 50 rooms.  (Source: www.vernayaz.ch) By 24 June 1918 there were in fact 80 internees in this building, so it was full! (Source: hopitauxmilitairesguerre1418.overblog.com). Other records on the ICRC website show that there were a further 186 interned former prisoners of war close by at Salvan (just to west of Vernayaz, at a higher altitude), and more at Finhaut (to the south west) and Martigny (to the south east).

Above: A photograph of interned French soldiers infront of the building in which Sergent Poisson was interned - he may even be one of the men pictured here! Source:  booklet "Les internés en Suisse: Les Alliés" (Editions Atar, 1917).

To sum up: starting from a few details written on a First World War artefact, it has been possible to uncover a whole story. If anyone has comments on this or useful additional information, I would be pleased to hear.

I am pleased to see that the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War has led to the publication of a number of books in Switzerland on that country's history during the conflict. "14/18 La Suisse et la Grande Guerre" is the first one that I have seen. I have not had time yet to read it thoroughly, but here is an initial review.

Incidentally the striking but at first perplexing photograph on the cover shows a hot air balloon being transported by water from Lac de Neuchâtel  to Lac de Bienne in 1915.

"14/18 La Suisse et la Grande Guerre" is edited by Roman Rossfeld, Thomas Buomberger and Patrick Kury, and is published by the German publisher Hier und Jetzt. At the publisher's suggestion, I got my copy from the German publishing distributor Brockhaus, but at the time of writing it is also available elsewhere. My copy is in French, and it is also available in German as "14/18 Die Schweiz und der Grosse Krieg". The book accompanies the touring exhibition of the same name, which over the years 2014-2017 will travel to seven different venues in Switzerland: see this website for more information.

Exhibition, book and website were all produced by the association of historians "Die Schweiz im Ersten Weltkrieg" or "La Suisse dans la Première Guerre mondiale". According their website, this association "is dedicated to analyse the history of Switzerland during this period and make it understandable to a wide audience. The war upset and shook Switzerland as few events before. However, it remains unknown to many Swiss." As you might expect, I fully approve of these aims!

Example page: (C) Hier und Jetzt.

The book is printed on good quality paper in an attractive format. There are 16 chapters covering a variety of topics, with many illustrations in both colour and black and white image. Simply skimming through the book and glancing at images and captions will reveal considerable information.

A thorough perusal of the book's sixteen chapters will be even more profitable. The chapters - which are contributed by a total of 25 scholars - are divided into four parts, covering respectively:

• Mobilisation, the occupation of the frontiers and national cohesion.
  
• Economic aspects of wartime Switzerland, including the war's impact on food supplies and everyday life.
• Swiss neutrality and international humanitarian work, including the internment of prisoners of war in Switzerland.
• Government and private support for the Swiss population against the hardships of wartime; the 1918 General Strike; the place of the First World War in Swiss cultural memory.

Example page: (C) Hier und Jetzt.

If you are mainly interested in the International Committee of the Red Cross records about prisoners of war, start reading just after the second image below.

Lieutenant William Reid's papers are held at the Royal Air Force Museum, London. He was shot down by Immelman - inventor of the legendary 'Immelman Turn' air combat manoeuvre- on 1 August 1915.  

The image above (courtesy of RAF Museum) shows the front of Reid's casualty card, and is from was the records kept by the Royal Flying Corps (RFC). The card indicates Reid's original regiment - 6th Battalion, King's (Liverpool) Regiment - from which he was attached to the RFC. The card records that Reid went missing on 1 August 1915. News that Reid was a prisoner of war at Munster was received through a letter sent by another PoW that October, Lieutenant H.M. Goode RFC. By February 1916, the card indicates that Reid's father was hearing from him regularly (presumably through the letters that are now at the RAF Museum). For example, that April he wrote home to his parents: “You ask about the bread from Switzerland. Well, it takes about two weeks to arrive, so it is rather stale by the time it gets here. It is also remarkably full of holes, but it’s quite eatable.” Around this time, the Swiss Red Cross were sending out about 25,000 bread parcels each week (note that this was the national Swiss Red Cross society, as opposed to the international body that was the ICRC).

He was then being held prisoner at Fürstenburg, Germany). According to this source, this was: "A small town fifty miles north of Berlin. The officer prisoners are quartered in a well-known summer hotel or Erholungsheim, with a good view over the surrounding country and lake, a mile from the town. It has a glass verandah and the grounds are considerable. Walks are permitted."

On 4 June 1916, the card indicates that Reid was transferred to Switzerland - in other words, he was interned. Reid was in the first group of British prisoners of war held by the Germans to be interned in Switzerland. His letters home (as I mentioned, held in the RAF Museum's archives) suggest that officer internees had a relatively easy life. On arriving in Switzerland, Reid wrote to his parents to request clothes, 1000 cigarettes, Gilbert and Sullivan records for his gramophone, his camera and his butterfly collecting equipment! He seems to have spent most of his time in Switzerland catching butterflies, playing tennis and bridge, dancing, going to tea and having picnics. Of course it is possible that he omitted to mention any hardships in order to prevent his family from worrying!

The back of the card  (below, again courtesy of RAF Museum) shows that in March 1918, Reid was repatriated to England. This was presumably because his injuries were persisting and were felt to prevent him being of any use to the war effort. Such repatriations of German and British personnel had begun in 1917 following an agreement between those two countries. There was also a similar Franco-German repatriation agreement.

Turning now to the ICRC records, which cover Reid's time as a prisoner of war in Germany...

The first thing that is not exactly straightforward is that you will not find "Reid" in the logical place in the alphabetical sequence of names. As the ICRC website explains, names that sounded similar were filed together, so "Reid" is under "Read", which also includes men called "Reed". Read/Reed/Reid (etc.) is then broken down by regiment, with 'our' Lt. Reid being found under "Read (King's Liverpool Regiment)". The two 'PA' numbers on this card link to other records held by the ICRC, shown below.
(Image at left courtesy of ICRC).

'PA 4108' leads to this handwritten list (left) of British officers held  as prisoners of war at Fürstenburg, dated 26 January 1916. Some names, including Reid's, are circled in red, while other names are circled in blue. I have not yet attempted to work out what this means.

Below is a detail of the section showing Reid's entry.


Both images courtesy of ICRC.

The number PA 5191 refers to this typed list dated 28 June 1916 of hospitalised British officers who were prisoners of war. Reid's name is underlined, along with one other. Given the date - one day before the air force records state that Reid was interned in Switzerland, it seems likely that there is a connection with the fact that he was about to leave for internment.

Again, below is a detail of the section showing Reid's entry.

Both images courtesy of ICRC.

As is often the case with this sort of research, there are a number of possible leads going off at tangents that you could pursue, and that might lead to useful contextual information.

Regarding Reid himself, as he was an air war casualty, and due to the fame of the man who shot him down, there is considerable relevant (and reliable!) information available on the internet. Here is a diary from a member of Reid's RFC squadron (No.2) that records that unit's actions on the day he was shot down: "1 August 1915. Lt.s Reid, Leather & I ascended at 5.0 am with six bombs each to drop on Vitry aerodrome... At the time of writing Lt. Reid has not returned. 2 August 1915. The Germans dropped a message last night over the French lines saying that Lt. William Reid is a prisoner & wounded in two places in the left arm but not seriously. He was hit by anti-aircraft fire." (see the source website for an explanation about the mention of anti-aircraft fire). 

And here is an interesting newspaper article from the Ilkley Gazette that gives more details about Reid's wartime and post-war life. It describes how in 1920 he gained second place in a motorcycle race despite the persisting effects of his wartime injuries to his elbow. Apparently Reid fired about 60 shots before his gun jammed. He then flew with his left hand and fired a pistol with his right. He was hit four times in his left arm, and lost his engine. After Reid had crashed, Immelmann landed near him and took him prisoner.” The article quotes his grandson, who confirms that Reid "was interned both in POW camps and Switzerland, having been deemed by the Germans to be unfit to be of any use in further active service." He add “He married his Swiss-Italian nurse whilst in Switzerland and on his return to England he taught the Queen’s father to fly, at RAF Cranwell."

So there you have it: an interesting set of records that allows us to trace the story of an individual prisoner of war who was held by the Germans and then interned in Switzerland.

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)

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 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.

If you know of other relevant material on the web about Switzerland and the First World War, do let me know!