The little western European country of Switzerland
has garnered a notable reputation for always being neutral in world affairs. Despite being right at the center of all the
action, the Helvetic Confederacy was able to avoid everything from both world wars to
the Cold War and didn’t even join the United Nations until 2002, and forms that ever so
famous gap in the map whenever you look at a map of the European Union (despite being
in Schengen). So why did Switzerland become neutral in basically
all world affairs, and perhaps more importantly how were they able to get other nations to
respect their neutrality for well over 200 years? First let’s get to know the country a little
bit before we delve straight into the history of its foreign policy. Switzerland-- the ever mountain-climbing,
chocolate-eating, on-time-train-having, cheese-making, multiple-language-speaking land paranoidly
defending itself from its neighbors-- is a country located in the Alps in Europe, nowadays
bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south, and Austria
and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland was formed out of the Old Swiss
Confederacy, a loose confederacy of different local cantons within that part of the Holy
Roman Empire, which first came together around the year 1291. The original cantons were mostly self-governing,
and unlike most other parts of the empire only really had to swear allegiance to the
emperor, as opposed to any regional lords or kings, instead being largely allowed to
carry their own affairs up high in the mountains, while also providing that ever so important
connection between the kingdoms in Germany and Italy. This confederacy however was not exactly neutral
in the beginning, fighting wars like pretty much everyone else in Europe back then. The confederacy welcomed new cantons and city-states
over the first few centuries, and grew through impressive military victories over the Habsburgs. These victories gave the Swiss a reputation
of invincibility… no that’s invisibility. Many foreign powers in turn would take note
of this and decided instead of fighting against the Swiss to fight with the Swiss, in the
form of hiring mercenaries-- or Reisläufer-- one battalion of which is still in force today,
the Pontifical Guard in the Vatican. Because of this (as well as some serious reconsiderations
from the Swiss after their loss at the Battle of Marignano in 1515), Switzerland would largely
stay out of the 30 Years’ War, seeing as basically everyone’s armies and royal courts
had Swiss soldiers and Switzerland was kind of the source of these elite soldiers. By the mid-17th century, after 30 years of
continental fighting over religion-- including a couple inter-cantonal wars among the Swiss
cantons-- the Peace of Westphalia was enacted in 1648, putting an end to the 30 Years’
War, and granting complete, formal independence for the Old Swiss Confederacy. Skipping over a little bit because this video
is not supposed to be an in-depth history of Switzerland, Napoleon steamrolled through
the area in 1798 and basically did a hard reset on Central Europe, disbanding the Holy
Roman Empire and creating the short-lived Helvetic Republic out of the old Old Swiss
Confederacy, which itself would be disbanded and the cantons restored by 1803, and the
whole thing released from French rule by 1815, the year in which the Congress of Vienna agreed
that Switzerland should be a neutral, independent, impassible territory for all outside powers…
right after they use it just one last time to give France a proper beating, though this
would be Switzerland’s last participation in a foreign war. Okay so what about the world wars? Well in the first one Switzerland of course
stayed neutral, though the German population largely supported the Central Powers and the
French population the Allied Powers, with one Swiss politician (Robert Grimm) actually
trying to broker a peace treaty between Germany and Russia for the interests of Socialism,
something that would become known as the Grimm-Hoffmann Affair. After the war Switzerland actually joined
the League of Nations in 1920, and initially practiced “differential neutrality”, which
basically meant their military was neutral but they could still participate in sanctions,
something which was disbanded in favor of total neutrality by 1938. So surely Swiss neutrality in the Second World
War was basically, “Hey, mister demonetizing-moustache-man, we don’t want to participate in the fighting,
is it fine with you if we just sit this one out even though you and your allies border
us on all sides?” Ha! Nope. And if you thought that’s how it worked,
you’re dumb, because that’s not how Europe worked back then! Except if you’re already subscribed I still
love you, please don’t take that the wrong way, I’m so close to 100,000 subscribers… So yeah Switzerland didn’t maintain their
neutrality by just sitting out World War II, they had to commit to their neutral stance,
at least to not end up like Belgium. Johnny Harris made a great video all about
this which I would highly recommend, but in a sense during the war the Swiss embraced
the old Roman saying, “si vis pacem, para bellum” (if you want peace, prepare for
war), in a sense ensuring peace by making themselves way too difficult, like comically
difficult, of a target… and also way too valuable, by signing a few deals with the
devil. After that war the Swiss again completely
avoided the tensions of the Cold War, staying more or less out of international politics,
with the exception of joining the UN in 2002 after the passing of a referendum. As previously mentioned, Switzerland has not
participated in a foreign war for over 200 years, and even then they weren’t exactly
signing up for every war in the previous couple centuries. Swiss neutrality has done quite a lot for
the country (namely in helping it… exist), but it has also arguably helped with international
politics outside the country, with everything from negotiations between countries that don’t
get along that well, to international agreements defining the rules of warfare itself. And as someone who always tries to maintain
political neutrality when writing these videos, I’ll actually set that aside for a moment
to applaud Switzerland’s dedication to staying as true neutral as possible. Thank you as always for watching. If you liked this crap, be sure to like it,
share it with someone else who might, consider supporting the channel on Patreon or through
the merch store, and subscribe to learn something new this coming Saturday. Yeah it’s normally Sundays, but I have another
collab video coming, with someone you might already know, so stay tuned to see who it’s
with!
