Military history of Switzerland

Despite maintaining neutrality since its independence from the Holy Roman Empire in 1499,[1] Switzerland has been involved in military operations dating back to the hiring of Swiss mercenaries by foreign nations, including the Papal States.

Swiss soldiers were noted for their combat skill and ferocious attacks in the phalanx, or deep column formation using pike and halberd.

Following the Battle of Marignano in 1515, the Swiss style of massed-combat fighting went into steady decline, to be replaced by the arquebusiers, artillery and earthworks.

The Swiss Guard has its origins in 1506 when Pope Julius II hired them as "bodyguards"; however the group of soldiers was large enough to be considered an army.

Internal resistance and economic problems destabilized the state and additional French troops were deployed to restore order.

Paragraph 18 declared the obligation of every Swiss citizen to serve in the federal army if conscripted (Wehrpflicht), setting its size at 3% of the population plus a reserve of one and one half that number, amounting to a total force of some 80,000.

In World War II, Germany made some plans for the invasion of Switzerland, most notably Operation Tannenbaum, but these were never carried out.

A major manoeuvre commanded in 1912 by Ulrich Wille, a reputed Germanophile, convinced visiting European heads of state, in particular Kaiser Wilhelm II, of the efficacy and determination of Swiss defences.

Simultaneously, economic concessions were made to Germany in the hope that the overall cost of a German invasion would be perceived as higher than the potential benefits.

This plan, known as the National Redoubt, meant that the populated lowlands – including the economic centres of the country – would effectively be ceded to the Germans and to the Italians.

The gold reserves of the Swiss National Bank in Zürich were moved farther away from the German border, to the Gotthard Pass and to Bern.

The caverns of those time were equipped with the needed infrastructure; beside cannons and howitzers they consisted of dormitories, kitchens, field hospitals, rooms for the sick and bakeries; and they provided space enough to accommodate 100 to 600 soldiers for a timespan of up to several months.

Because the tensions between the western countries and the USSR cooled down and bunkers became more or less obsolete because of newer weapon systems, a great number of the Reduit buildings were closed.

[6] However the inability to field an air force of sufficient capability to carry out such missions led to a return of traditional "protection of own territory" doctrine.

[8] Leading nuclear physicists at the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich such as Paul Scherrer made this a realistic possibility.

However, financial problems with the defense budget prevented the substantial funds from being allocated, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 was seen as a valid alternative.

Article 58.1 of the 1999 constitution repeats that the army is "in principle" organized as a militia, implicitly allowing a small number of professional soldiers.