Swiss conceptions of neutrality as an influence finding its mainspring in the beginning of a new order which produced in the end a democratic federal state and gave the country the international position cherished by all Swiss as a possession of first importance.

At the outbreak of the French Revolution Switzerland found itself united in an alliance (Bund) of thirteen communities (Orte). The thirteen allies were surrounded by an extensive territorial agglomeration of districts and towns which were in turn allied (zugewandte, verbündete) with the thirteen, but in quite various fashion. These latter allies were divided into two classes somewhat analogous to the socii and confoederati in the ancient Roman world; nor were their treaties made with the Swiss Alliance as a whole, but, for the most part, with individual Cantons or groups of Cantons, and their rights varied according to the possession on their part of a vote in the general federal assembly at Zurich or the absence of such a privilege. Of less consideration still were merely protected districts (schutzverwandte); examples of such were the District of Gersau on Lake Lucerne, the town of Rapperschwyl, lying along the Lake of Zurich, and the more extensive territory of Engelberg amid the high Alps of Unterwalden and Uri. The principal allies in this complex plan claimed rule, again, over a great number of strictly subject territories, termed gemeine Herrschaften, without right of representation in the great federal council, and administered by officials (Vogte) with few ideas of freedom or equal rights.

From such a condition, nothing, perhaps, short of the fires and stress of the Revolution and the Napoleonic conquests, could have freed the country and initiated the highly organized and truly democratic political framework of today which exhibits in such striking form the principles of democratic free government. Swiss neutrality, it will be seen, is in fact a political creation springing from very unusual necessities, and slowly working out a plan of union and independence under the inspiration of the spirit of freedom. Switzerland is limited in territory and lacks the wealth of states more richly dowered by nature; hence the Swiss political consciousness readily grasped the need of assured protection from outside aggression, if it were to be permitted to place its public institutions on a firm foundation. This con

ception of its destiny furnishes a key to the somewhat tangled scheme of events and negotiations which are found leading up to the finished product of a neutralized condition which must furnish, if the principles of civilization are to be maintained, a measure of perpetuity to Swiss institutions.

The leading documents in the history of the formation of presentday Swiss neutrality are to be found, first, in the series of constitutional instruments by virtue of which Switzerland emerged from its ancient and very loosely constructed federal condition and became, at the Congress of Vienna, a definitely established constitutional federation of communities enjoying equal political privileges as well as independence; and, second, in the numerous treaties, protocols, and declarations of diplomatic character by means of which the conception of a permanent neutrality or neutralization was slowly evolved. For the purpose of the present article, it will doubtless be simpler and perhaps clearer to consider these two source-currents together, rather than separately, since their interdependence furnishes the true key to their significance and aim.

No sooner had the French arms secured a practical guardianship of Switzerland on the part of France in the opening weeks of 1798, than the French commissioner Lecarlier announced, under date of March 28, an official interpretation from his headquarters at Bern of the new Helvetic constitution which, on April 12 following and with modifications introduced by the hand of Napoleon himself, was imposed upon the country. In its first title this highly unitary constitution proclaims that "There are no longer frontiers between the Cantons and the subject districts nor between the Cantons themselves. The unity of fatherland and interest succeed for the future to the feeble bond which joined by chance, as it were, many heterogeneous districts unequal and subjected to domestic differences. Heretofore there existed feebleness; in the future there shall be a strength which is the strength of all." While this constitutional attempt did not prove a success, it nevertheless introduced an effective blotting out of political inequalities, and in its conception of an executive modeled after the French Directory and collective in form, its influence is apparent in the formation of the present Swiss Federal Executive Council of seven

members. On August 19, 1798, there was also concluded a treaty of alliance with France, Article 3 of which guarantees on the part of France the independence and unity of the new Helvetic Republic.

This principle of the guarantee reappears in the celebrated treaty made at Lunéville between the Empire and France February 9, 1801, Article XI of which declares that the high contracting parties mutually guarantee the independence of the Helvetic and other republics which had issued from Napoleonic conquests. The failure, however, of so violent a change in Swiss political affairs as was contemplated by the Helvetic constitution made necessary a recourse to some other form of government, and on September 30, 1802, Napoleon, First Consul, issued a proclamation from the palace of St. Cloud summoning the Swiss to prepare to take part in a new constitutional plan to be proposed by himself as mediator. This mediation constitution was prepared as part of a most elaborate document, which also contained in complete form the new constitutions of the nineteen cantons into which Switzerland was now divided; the instrument bore date of February 19, 1803, and was accompanied by a new treaty of defensive alliance with France under date of September 7 in the same year, the second article of which pledges France to defend Swiss neutrality as against other Powers when summoned so to do by the Swiss Diet. Switzerland had, of course, merely reverted to its former condition of practical vassalage while being independent in name only, and no time accordingly was lost by the Swiss central government, when, after the battle of Leipzig in October, 1813, the allied forces moved toward the Swiss frontier, in asserting a neutrality as against both the allies and Napoleon. It was well understood, however, that this could not be defended, nor was it consonant to Swiss interests to maintain it against the allies, since they came as the true liberators from French domination. Thus it was that the allied armies entered Switzerland peacefully at Basel and were welcomed everywhere, especially at Geneva, which was now seen to be about to pass from French possession to membership in the Swiss Alliance.

On December 29, 1813, the Swiss allied council (Tagsatzung), sitting at Zurich, passed the famous resolution (Übereinkunft) repudiating the mediation constitution and pledging itself to the formation of a

new alliance in the spirit of ancient Switzerland (im Geiste der alten Bunde). Such an act was in fact a declaration that the Diet possessed constituent as well as legislative capacity; nor did any opposition to such a character long maintain itself; it was this assembly, reinforced later by the delegates of temporarily recalcitrant Cantons which, known as the Long Assembly, finally produced, under pressure of the Powers, the Swiss federal constitution of August 7, 1815, under which the country lived until the adoption in 1848 of the form of government continued, with various amendments, to the present day. The second article of the federal instrument of 1815 provides for cantonal contingent troops for the maintenance of the neutrality of the country, which had just been, as we shall see in a moment, recognized by the Powers at Vienna.

For the obtainment at Vienna of certain definite aspirations, the Swiss had already made careful preparation when the allied sovereigns met at Basel in December, 1813. Of the delegates from the Diet and various Cantons, the Genevan Pictet de Rochemont was easily the most gifted, and it proved fortunate for his Canton and for Switzerland itself that he found sufficient favor with the Russians to be appointed Secretary-General to the Baron de Stein, becoming in consequence of this a member of the Russian Council of State. This brought him into immediate relation with the various chancelleries when the allied Powers met again at Paris in the following spring. It was not, however, without a persistent struggle on the part of de Rochemont and his colleagues that Switzerland there obtained an adequate hearing. Nevertheless, when, on May 30, 1814, France concluded identical treaties with Austria, Great Britain, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden and Norway (the several treaties being collectively known as the first Peace of Paris), Switzerland was able to obtain in Article I, paragraph 7, the union of Geneva with Switzerland, and in Article VI, a recognition of Swiss independence; while Article II of the separate and secret articles of the Austrian treaty contained the important clause: "France will recognize and guarantee conjointly with the allied Powers and in like manner as they do the political organization which Switzerland will give itself under the auspices of the said Powers and on the bases agreed upon with them." It is precisely here that

we have the practical documentary foundation of Switzerland's present international position. In addition to this forecast of a neutral guarantee, de Rochemont succeeded in obtaining, in Article IV of the Austrian treaty, the consent of France to a practical neutralization of the great highway then running from Geneva along the westerly side of the lake through French territory to Canton Vaud. It remained to secure at a later date a cession of this territory itself in order to place Geneva in direct territorial affiliation with the remainder of the Swiss country.

The opening of the Congress at Vienna in the following November found various Swiss delegates prepared to press the aims of their several Cantons as well as of the Diet at Zurich. On the part of the Diet the points of importance were: (1) a recognition of Switzerland as an independent state; (2) the assertion of its neutrality and the attainment of an adequate military frontier; (3) the possession as Swiss federal territory of the wide-lying lands of the bishopric of Basel; (4) the addition to Geneva of an adequate territory; (5) the reunion of the city of Constance with Switzerland; (6) the return of the beautiful Val Tellina on the southerly side of the Alps; (7) indemnity for the seizure by Austria and the Grand Duchy of Baden of sundry Swiss ecclesiastical foundations. As events turned out, Switzerland was destined to obtain the majority of these demands, though it failed to secure either Constance or the Val Tellina. Nevertheless, the bishopric of Basel eventually became Swiss, the most part of it going to Canton Bern while smaller portions were assigned to Neuchâtel and Canton Basel itself. The three French-speaking Cantons of Neuchâtel, Geneva, and Valais were united with the Swiss alliance, thus completing the number of twenty-two Cantons as they stand today and affording, from a territorial point of view, a strong military frontier.

On March 20, 1815, the Vienna Congress undertook to formulate in a Declaration the chief points to be conceded to Swiss needs, this Declaration afterwards taking shape as Annex No. 11 of the Final Act of the Congress June 9, 1815. The preamble to the Declaration announces that the Congress,