By James O’Keefe
At any given moment, 4,300 stationary sirens sound off in Switzerland, indicating a foreign invasion and a nuclear holocaust.
Within 12 hours, a militia of 600,000 Swiss men enrolled in either Auszug, Landwehr and Landsturm, aged between 18 and 40, grab their Sturmgewehr M57 semi-automatic assault rifles and army fatigue from their closets and storm out of their apartments and chalets onto the front line to protect their homeland. Mined bridges and tunnels criss-crossing alpine passageways including the Gotthard, the Simplon and the Great St. Bernard are blown to pieces. “Dragon Feet” prevent tanks from climbing the mountains. Bunkers in Andermatt and Lucerne store 24-round magazine ammunition, and the Auszug foot soldiers continually reload near strategically placed stockpiles of war materials and foodstuffs. Swiss radiation and bomb shelters hold women and children near the Austrian border in Sargans. Bern, Geneva and Zurich are all destroyed, but the citizens do not surrender. The Swiss scatter themselves about, continually shooting while retreating into the higher elevated Alpine tundra where they resort to mountain warfare, strapping on their skis and battling at this point an unprepared, frostbitten foe. Disguised cannons near the Gotthard shoot at targets 17 km away and the heartland still stands.[1]
Fortunately for the Swiss as well as the world, the siren aforementioned is just a simulation, performed every year in an annual test of its mobile and highly technological full-coverage warning system.[2]
Put quite simply by one government publication, “the Swiss do not have an army, they are the army.” Switzerland, a confederation governed by direct democracy through referendum by virtue of its size and cantonal division (the method is so direct that in one town named Appenzell, leaders are elected by show of hands – a policy that would potentially bring mob rule if implemented in the US). The land of cheese and chocolate has managed to avoid armed conflict for hundreds of years, by virtue of two key elements; geography and manpower.[3] Strangely, the Swiss people have become so accustomed to thinking of non-alignment as a prerequisite of Swiss identity and Swiss prosperity, that it has reached near dogma status.
Even though not mandated in its constitution, Switzerland’s parliamentary-emphasized neutrality was officially recognized and respected by European powers at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, then in Swiss policy through the Alpine confederation in 1847. The landlocked country has a policy of armed neutrality, static defense and the somewhat mythical reduit; fortified defense structure. These military themes have been so unique and fruitful for the Swiss that the traditions have stood the test of time under recent, progressive, socio-cultural trends. For example, the right to bear arms in Switzerland is still as natural as the right to vote, unlike anywhere else in the western world. The gun crime-rate is so low that substantial date is not even kept.[4]
Conscription, a main pillar of the Swiss participatory system, begins at age 20.[5] Every Swiss male (other kinds of services are optional for females but possible due to “moral” pressures), goes through 118 consecutive days of recruit training in the Rekrutenschule. Because Switzerland is a land divided by four distinct languages and cultures, German, French, Italian and Romansch, this will usually be a young man's first encounter with his countrymen who speak a language other than his own.
From age 21 to 32, a Swiss man then serves in the Auszug, the “front-line” division of the military and devotes about three weeks per year (in eight of the 12 years) for continued training.[6] Then from 33 to 42 he serves in the national guard, or Landwehr. Every so often he reports for duty at two-week training periods. From ages 43 to 50, he serves in the Landsturm where he only spends 13 days total in the ultimate form of fortified defense: "home guard courses." Military Expenditures are approximately 3 billion a year and are 1% of the country’s GDP.[7]
The Swiss army is civilian, not professional, which impressed Adolph Hitler during World War II. In a 1940s conversation depicted on a contemporary postcard, the Kaiser of Germany asked what a Swiss Army of about 250,000 would do if faced with an invasion of 500,000 Nazis. A Swiss militiaman replied, "Shoot twice."[8] (It can be noted that the Swiss took in many Jews and others fleeing the Nazis -- far more, per capita, than any other country -- including the US. Hitler planned an invasion but believed it far too costly to invade a country where everyone was armed, and no one had the power to surrender.)
In fact, Swiss leaders advocated increased shooting skills so that as many enemy paratroopers as possible could be shot and killed while still in the air before landing on the ground and having any advantage.[9] Historically, a well-regulated militia was necessary for a secure, prosperous and free state.
However, given changes since the cold war, political challenges have became global and Switzerland potentially faces east vs. west conflict rather than Soviet pressures. The framework of a cold war rationale for neutrality has diminished in its relevance. But the populace’s justification for its armed neutrality continues. Although an internal weakening was thought to be revealed by the 35.6% of votes cast in favor of abolishing the army in November 1989, 70% turned out later and rejected an attempt to abolish the country’s army by the year 2000.[10] 64% in 1989 voted to keep the army whereas about 1.9 million voters voted against a constitutional amendment which simply says “Switzerland has no army.” Traditionalists called the attempts to remove the army “A slap in the face of the establishment,”[11] a form of rhetoric progressives claim indicated unjustified dogma. The government urged voters to reject the proposal since it was vital to Swiss “independence.” The head of the federal military department Kaspar Villiger attributed the unexpected number of anti-army votes to an ethos of relaxation and tension that “happily dominates the international scene.”[12]
The government’s emphasis on “independence” in the recent votes of the late 20th century traces itself back from a philosophy espoused by General Guisan, Commander-in-Chief of the Swiss Amry during WWII. He said that independence was even more important than neutrality, since without independence there would be no neutrality to protect.
At the time, the need for independence came from the threat from Germany. On his orders a thousand factories, public works and public services and Switzerland's numerous tunnels were prepared for demolition. On the Rutli, Swiss army officers took an oath to resist, exemplifying another Swiss military doctrine; fortification.[13]
The military doctrine of reduit, or fortified defense structure, is based on the assumption that heavily defending a region such as the Alps to make it untakable, will be too costly to merit attack an enemy attack. Max Wiebel, Chief of Infantry, and Alfred Ernst, Commander of the 8th Infantry Division, believed that only an infantry-oriented army clinging each foot to Swiss soil could guarantee a successful resistance to enemy forces in either a traditional or nuclear war. Inspired by the dramatic philosophy of General Guisan, a mountain redoubt would be fortified where fighting would go on even if Switzerland's borders were forced and its frontier cities; Geneva, Zurich, Basel and Bern, were all taken.[14]
When Switzerland was surrounded by German and Italian forces, General Henri Guisan revealed at Rütlirapport, a meeting of theSwiss army staff at the founding site of the Swiss confederation on 25th July 1940, that in case of attack the Swiss would only defend the high Alps, a natural defense line, including the important transport routes. Mountain forts would become the new strategic importance. Nestled at the crossroads of three major Alpine passes--St. Gotthard, Oberalp, and Furkatiny, would lie the very heart of Swiss resistance. If invaded, the army would destroy the access routes to these alpine passes.[15]
Major cities would be defended by artificial fortifications backed up by large numbers of infantry units with supporting artillery. The primary objective was to be strong enough on the frontiers. If the cities are taken, the Swiss would retreat into its Alpine redoubt, and every foot of Swiss soil would be defended without surrender – all in order to make the cost of pursuing the attack prohibitive, using a dispersed continuing resistance movement throughout the alps. To provide the large number of troops necessary for this “static defense,” conscription became mandatory.[16]
Speed of mobilization was aided by strategically placed stockpiles piles of war materials and foodstuffs. The Swiss constitution provides that the government maintained a minimum reserve 80,000 tons of food grains at all times. The actual amount of materials kept in readiness in vast man-made Alpine caverns during the cold war has been classified. [17]
Also classified is how many tunnels, roads and bridges were mined. However, Christoph Schuepbach, who works on developing Swiss combat infrastructure, said recently in an article about explosives found underneath a residential neighborhood in Lucern in Swissinfo that “Yes, we are still maintaining several hundred sites with permanent explosives.” There also seems to be a divide between conservative, traditional military experts and modern society. For example, a mother complains in Lucerne, “I think it’s unfair that [the explosives] were there for years and years, and none of us knew about it.”[18]
Some of these citadel bunkers fortresses have recently been declassified and the Swiss government begun selling them off to repay debts. On the top of Rigli, a camouflaged green door opens up into a huge underground mountain bunker, one in a chain estimated at 10 billion dollars. The entrances were covered with foliage. The bunker could hold 1,000 soldiers at a time.[19]
The sight of Swiss units on their summer maneuvers is familiar to tourists, especially where the four valleys meet near the ski resort of Andermatt. Today Swiss troops have come here for decades to train in the art of mountain warfare. Drop onto one of the glaciers below 9,721-foot Gemsstock and you pass soldiers in groups of 20. Soldiers flounder in the deep snow with skinny skis and camouflage packs doing avalanche training, setting up tents above the clouds, where storms hit Andermatt from all sides, consistently blanketing it with more snow than anywhere else in the Alps.[20]
This “Static defense” was even thought no longer feasible by The Swiss Chief of General Staff himself. Hans-Ulrich Scherrer discussed the future of Switzerland's military in 1998, making three major recommendations as a result of the profound upheavals taking place in Europe. The first was that the strategic environment has to be reassessed and the necessary security policy deductions made. Second, as a small state, Switzerland can no longer deal with all dangers and threats on its own. As a result of the first two recommendations, Mr. Scherrer said it has become necessary to cooperate with other nations. The extent of this cooperation will have to be defined in a political process, what some think lead to Switzerland joining the United Nations and cooperating with the European Union.[21]
But however explained, there may always be a mystique associated with Switzerland’s armed forces, just as there is a mystique and ambivalence about the country itself. The armed forces has come to define Switzerland’s continued neutral presence; consummate, uncontroversial and withdrawn. As one business writer put it, “in Switzerland, they may not produce anything, but they don't produce Baywatch either.''[22]
[1] See Halbrook, Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II.
[2] http://www.ascom.com
[3] Codding Jr., George A. Foreign Affairs. Vol. 40 Issue 3 (Apr62): p489.
[4] Halbrook, Ibid.
[5] Jonathan Steinberg, Why Switzerland? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
[6] www.wikipedia.com
[7] The Economist
[8] Halbrook, Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Jonathan Steinberg, Ibid.
[11] “64% of Swiss Vote to Keep Army.” New York Times. 28 Nov 1989: pA6.
[12] Ibid.
[13] See Pecer Calvocoresssi and Guy Wint, Total War: pp 248.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Codding Jr., George A. Foreign Affairs. Vol. 40 Issue 3 (Apr62): p489.
[17] Ibid.
[18] http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=41&sid=4123773
[19] “Swiss Reveal Secret World: Their Defense From Nazis.” The New York Times 25 Jul 1999: p4.
[20] “Switzerland by Train.” Skiing Vol. 57 Issue 6 (Feb2005): p66-69.
[21] Hans-Ulrich Scherrer. Military Technology. Vol. 22, Issue 6 (Jun 1998): p 43.
[22] Business Week. Issue 3751 (Oct. 2001) : pg 24.
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