Chapter 01 · 1291 – 1515
The Oath of the Forest Cantons and the Old Swiss Confederacy
An alliance of Alpine valleys defied the house of Habsburg, and its pikemen grew into the most feared infantry in Europe.
In the late thirteenth century the valleys of the central Alps lay within the loose authority of the Holy Roman Empire but were increasingly pressed by the rising house of Habsburg. In early August 1291 the rural communities of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden — the Waldstätte, or forest cantons — sealed the Federal Charter, swearing to aid one another, to keep the peace among themselves, to judge their own disputes and to accept no foreign judge. The charter, Switzerland's oldest constitutional document, was one of a series of such pacts, but later generations would make it the founding act of the nation; tradition set the oath on the Rütli meadow and gave it a hero in the crossbowman William Tell, whose defiance of the Habsburg bailiff Gessler first appears in the chronicles around 1470.
Habsburg attempts to bring the valleys to heel ended in spectacular failure. In 1315 the men of Schwyz and their confederates ambushed and destroyed a Habsburg army of knights at Morgarten, and in 1386 they shattered another at Sempach, where Duke Leopold III of Austria was killed. These victories of dismounted commoners over mounted nobility ensured the Confederacy's survival and drew in new members; from the original three the league grew to eight cantons by the mid-fourteenth century, adding Lucerne, Zürich, Glarus, Zug and Bern.
The Confederacy reached its martial zenith in the Burgundian Wars. Between 1476 and 1477 Swiss and allied forces three times defeated Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy — at Grandson and Murten in 1476 and finally at Nancy in 1477, where Charles was killed and the Burgundian state destroyed. Swiss pikemen became the most sought-after soldiers in Europe, hired by kings and popes alike, and the Confederation expanded to thirteen cantons by 1513 with the accession of Appenzell. The loose league of self-governing communities, bound by oath rather than ruled by a prince, had become a power in its own right.
“The men of the forest valleys swore to aid one another, to keep the peace and to accept no foreign judge — an oath later remembered as the birth of Switzerland.”
— On the Federal Charter of 1291
Turning points
- Aug 1291Formation
- 15 Nov 1315War & Rupture
Battle of Morgarten
Men of Schwyz and Uri ambushed and destroyed a Habsburg army of knights under Duke Leopold I at Morgarten, the first great victory of the Confederation and a celebrated triumph of foot soldiers over mounted nobility.
See the data - 9 Jul 1386War & Rupture
Battle of Sempach
The Confederates routed a Habsburg army at Sempach and killed Duke Leopold III of Austria, breaking Habsburg power in the region and confirming the Confederacy as a serious military force.
See the data - 1476–1477War & Rupture
The Burgundian Wars
Swiss and allied armies defeated Charles the Bold of Burgundy at Grandson and Murten in 1476 and at Nancy in 1477, where Charles fell; victory destroyed Burgundy as a power and made Swiss pikemen the most feared infantry in Europe.
See the data - 1513Formation
Figures of the era
William Telllegendary
Legendary marksman of Uri
The crossbowman who, in legend, refused to bow to the Habsburg bailiff Gessler's hat at Altdorf and was forced to shoot an apple from his son's head, then slew the tyrant — an emblem of the struggle for liberty. The tale first appears around 1470, and historians have found no evidence he existed.
Arnold Winkelriedlegendary
Legendary hero of Sempach
By tradition the Unterwalden warrior who at Sempach in 1386 threw himself onto the Habsburg pikes to open a gap for his comrades, sacrificing himself for the Confederation. Like Tell, he belongs to legend rather than verified record.
Chapter sources: The History of Switzerland, Switzerland: The Swiss Confederation during the Late Middle Ages, Battle of Morgarten, Switzerland: History, William Tell, a symbol of Switzerland known throughout the world, The story of Switzerland's federal borders
Chapter 02 · 1515 – 1648
Marignano, the Reformation and the Turn to Neutrality
Defeat in Italy ended Swiss expansion and pointed toward neutrality, while the Reformation split the cantons between Protestant and Catholic.
The Confederacy's age of conquest ended on the plain of Marignano, near Milan, on 13–14 September 1515, when a Swiss army fighting for the duchy of Milan was crushed by the forces of King Francis I of France. It was the first great Swiss defeat in two centuries. The Confederates withdrew permanently from the wars of Italy, and the peace they made with France the following year is traditionally seen as the beginning of the Swiss tradition of standing apart from the conflicts of the great powers — though the cantons would for centuries still hire out their soldiers as mercenaries across Europe.
Soon afterward the Confederation was riven by the Reformation. From 1519 Huldrych Zwingli preached reform from the Grossmünster in Zürich, and the movement spread to Bern, Basel and other cities; in the French-speaking west, John Calvin made Geneva the disciplined capital of Reformed Protestantism from 1536. The rural inner cantons of central Switzerland held to the old faith. The split hardened into armed conflict — Zwingli himself was killed in battle at Kappel in 1531 — and left the Confederation permanently divided between Protestant and Catholic cantons, a division managed only by keeping the central institutions weak and the cantons sovereign in matters of religion.
That very looseness helped the Confederation survive the catastrophe of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which devastated the German lands around it. The cantons, divided by confession, had every reason to stay out, and they did. When the war was ended by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the treaty formally exempted the Swiss Confederation from the jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Empire and its courts, confirming in international law an independence the cantons had long exercised in practice.
“The defeat at Marignano in 1515 ended the Confederation's wars of conquest and turned it, over time, toward the neutrality that would define it.”
— On the origins of Swiss neutrality
Turning points
- 13–14 Sep 1515War & Rupture
Battle of Marignano
A French army under Francis I decisively defeated the Swiss near Milan, the first great Swiss defeat in two hundred years; the Confederates withdrew from Italy, a retreat traditionally seen as the dawn of Swiss neutrality.
See the data - 1519Religion
Zwingli's Reformation in Zürich
Huldrych Zwingli began preaching reform from the Grossmünster in Zürich, launching the Swiss Reformation; the movement won over several cities while the inner cantons remained Catholic, dividing the Confederation by confession.
- 1536Religion
Calvin and the Reformation in Geneva
John Calvin began the work that made Geneva the international centre of Reformed Protestantism, deepening the confessional division between the Protestant west and Catholic centre of Switzerland.
- 24 Oct 1648Independence
Peace of Westphalia: independence from the Empire
The settlement ending the Thirty Years' War formally recognised the Swiss Confederation's exemption from the Holy Roman Empire, confirming in law the independence the cantons had long held in fact.
See the data
Figures of the era
Huldrych Zwingli1484 – 1531
Reformer of Zürich
The leading figure of the Swiss Reformation and founder of the Reformed Church, Zwingli preached scriptural reform from Zürich's Grossmünster from 1519. His austere theology reshaped much of northern Switzerland; he was killed in battle at Kappel in 1531.
John Calvin1509 – 1564
Reformer of Geneva
A French theologian who from 1536 made Geneva the model city and intellectual capital of Reformed Protestantism. His Institutes of the Christian Religion and doctrine of predestination shaped Calvinism across Europe and the wider world.
Chapter sources: Neutrality, Switzerland: History, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, Peace of Westphalia, The History of Switzerland
Chapter 03 · 1648 – 1815
The Helvetic Republic, Napoleon and the Recognition of Neutrality
Revolutionary France swept away the old Confederation, but the Congress of Vienna restored the cantons and guaranteed Switzerland's permanent neutrality.
For a century and a half after Westphalia the Confederation drifted on as a patchwork of self-governing cantons, allied territories and subject lands, conservative and increasingly oligarchic. That order was overthrown from outside. In 1798 Revolutionary France invaded and abolished the old Confederation, imposing in its place the Helvetic Republic, a centralised unitary state modelled on France that swept away cantonal sovereignty and the privileges of the patrician towns.
The unitary experiment satisfied few and provoked endemic strife between centralists and federalists. In 1803, exasperated Swiss delegates appealed to Napoleon Bonaparte, who issued the Act of Mediation, restoring a confederal structure: the old cantons were re-established as near-sovereign states and six new ones — including Vaud, Ticino, Aargau, Thurgau, St Gallen and the Graubünden — were created with full rights, raising the Confederation to nineteen cantons. Switzerland remained a French satellite until Napoleon's defeat.
With Napoleon's fall the future of Switzerland was settled at the Congress of Vienna. On 20 March 1815 the European powers issued a declaration recognising the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland as in the interest of all Europe and guaranteeing the inviolability of its territory; the Confederation accepted it, and the arrangement was confirmed in the Treaty of Paris in November 1815. The cantonal borders that the settlement fixed have endured almost unchanged, and the principle of permanent armed neutrality recognised at Vienna became the cornerstone of Swiss foreign policy for the next two centuries.
“The powers recognised that the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland was in the true interest of the whole of Europe.”
— Declaration of the Congress of Vienna, 20 March 1815
Turning points
- 1798War & Rupture
French invasion and the Helvetic Republic
Revolutionary France conquered Switzerland and replaced the old Confederation with the Helvetic Republic, a centralised unitary state that abolished cantonal sovereignty and the privileges of the patrician towns.
See the data - 19 Feb 1803Politics & Power
Napoleon's Act of Mediation
After years of factional strife Napoleon imposed the Act of Mediation, restoring a confederal system and creating six new full cantons, including Vaud and Ticino, while keeping Switzerland tied to France.
- 20 Mar 1815Independence
Congress of Vienna recognises permanent neutrality
The European powers declared the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland to be in Europe's interest and guaranteed its territory; confirmed by the Treaty of Paris later that year, this made armed neutrality the foundation of Swiss policy.
See the data - 1815Politics & Power
Figures of the era
Napoleon Bonaparte1769 – 1821
First Consul / Emperor of the French
Having conquered Switzerland and created the Helvetic Republic, Napoleon recast it through the 1803 Act of Mediation, restoring a confederal structure and enlarging it with new cantons. His defeat opened the way to the Vienna settlement of 1815.
Charles Pictet de Rochemont1755 – 1824
Genevan diplomat
The Swiss negotiator at the Congress of Vienna and the Paris peace whose diplomacy secured international recognition of Switzerland's permanent neutrality and the inviolability of its territory in 1815.
Chapter sources: Helvetic Republic, The History of Switzerland, Neutrality, League of Nations recognizes perpetual Swiss neutrality (Congress of Vienna, 1815), The story of Switzerland's federal borders
Chapter 04 · 1815 – 1914
The Federal State and the Birth of Humanitarian Geneva
A brief civil war gave way to the federal constitution of 1848, and from Geneva a Swiss businessman founded the Red Cross and modern humanitarian law.
The restored cantons of 1815 were soon caught up in the liberal currents sweeping Europe. Tension between progressive, mostly Protestant cantons that wanted a stronger central state and conservative Catholic cantons that defended cantonal sovereignty came to a head when seven Catholic cantons formed a separatist league, the Sonderbund. The federal Diet ordered it dissolved, and in November 1847 a brief civil war followed. The federal army under General Guillaume-Henri Dufour defeated the Sonderbund in under a month with remarkably few casualties, and Dufour's insistence on restraint toward the defeated did much to preserve national unity.
Victory cleared the way for a new constitutional order. The Federal Constitution of 1848 transformed the loose confederation of states into a single federal state with a bicameral Federal Assembly, a collegial executive, a common currency and customs union, while leaving the cantons extensive powers — a structure of direct democracy and federalism that endures, much amended, to this day. The Federal Assembly met for the first time in the new capital, Bern, in November 1848.
It was in this period that Switzerland gave the world its enduring humanitarian institutions. The Geneva businessman Henri Dunant, horrified by the suffering of the wounded he saw after the Battle of Solferino in 1859, published A Memory of Solferino in 1862 calling for volunteer relief societies and a treaty to protect the wounded. In 1863 a committee of five Genevans — the embryo of the International Committee of the Red Cross — took up his proposals, and in August 1864 a diplomatic conference convened by the Swiss government adopted the first Geneva Convention. The red cross on a white field, the Swiss flag reversed, became the emblem of neutral medical aid, and Geneva the permanent home of international humanitarian law.
“From the horror of one battlefield in 1859 grew the Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions, and with them Switzerland's enduring humanitarian vocation.”
— On the legacy of Henri Dunant
Turning points
- Nov 1847War & Rupture
The Sonderbund War
After seven Catholic cantons formed the separatist Sonderbund, the federal army under General Dufour defeated it in under a month with fewer than a hundred deaths, ending Switzerland's last civil war.
See the data - 1848Politics & Power
- 1859Culture & Ideas
- 1863Culture & Ideas
Founding of the Red Cross (ICRC)
A committee of five Genevans took up Dunant's proposals and formed the body that became the International Committee of the Red Cross, adopting the red cross on white — the inverse of the Swiss flag — as the emblem of neutral medical aid.
- Aug 1864Politics & Power
Figures of the era
Guillaume-Henri Dufour1787 – 1875
General, engineer and cartographer
Four times commander-in-chief of the federal army, Dufour led the swift, restrained defeat of the Sonderbund in 1847, produced the first topographic map of Switzerland, and presided over the 1864 Geneva conference that created the Red Cross.
Henri Dunant1828 – 1910
Founder of the Red Cross
A Geneva businessman whose horror at the suffering after Solferino led him to write A Memory of Solferino and to inspire the founding of the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863. He shared the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.
Chapter sources: Sonderbund, Guillaume-Henri Dufour, The History of Switzerland, Switzerland: History, Founding and early years of the ICRC (1863-1914), The Geneva Conventions: a common priority and ongoing relevance
Chapter 05 · 1914 – present
Neutral Switzerland: World Wars, Sovereignty and the Modern Confederation
Switzerland kept out of both world wars, guarded its sovereignty outside the great alliances, and only slowly extended democracy and joined the world's institutions.
Armed neutrality steered Switzerland through the catastrophes of the twentieth century. It stayed out of the First World War, though the linguistic divide between German- and French-speakers strained domestic unity, and afterwards joined the new League of Nations, based in Geneva, on the understanding that its neutrality would be respected. In the Second World War, encircled by the Axis after 1940, Switzerland mobilised its army under General Henri Guisan, who symbolically rallied his officers on the Rütli and adopted the Réduit strategy of withdrawing into an Alpine fortress. The country remained unoccupied, but its wartime record — the turning away of Jewish refugees and its banks' dealings in looted assets — became the subject of painful national reckoning decades later.
Neutrality also shaped Switzerland's distinctive distance from the institutions other states rushed to join. Wary that membership might compromise its independence, Switzerland stayed outside the United Nations for decades, joining only after a referendum on 3 March 2002 made it the 190th member state. It has never joined the European Union, choosing instead a web of bilateral treaties, and its borders still enclose two foreign enclaves — the German village of Büsingen and the Italian town of Campione d'Italia — relics of the territorial settlements of earlier centuries.
At home, the Confederation extended its celebrated direct democracy only gradually. Swiss men repeatedly refused to grant women the vote, and it was not until a referendum in February 1971 that women won the right to vote and stand in federal elections; the last canton, Appenzell Innerrhoden, was compelled by the Federal Supreme Court to admit women to its cantonal assembly only in 1990. Today Switzerland is a prosperous federal republic of twenty-six cantons and four national languages, neutral but deeply engaged through Geneva as a centre of diplomacy and humanitarian law, its institutions still resting on the cantonal autonomy and popular sovereignty that the oath of 1291 first foreshadowed.
“Switzerland does not take part in armed conflicts between other states, joins no military alliance, and joined the United Nations only in 2002.”
— On modern Swiss neutrality
Turning points
- 1920Politics & Power
- 1940War & Rupture
Armed neutrality in the Second World War
Encircled by the Axis, Switzerland mobilised under General Henri Guisan, who rallied the army on the Rütli and adopted the Alpine Réduit defence; the country stayed unoccupied but later faced reckoning over refugees and looted assets.
See the data - Feb 1971Politics & Power
Women win the federal vote
A referendum in 1971 finally granted Swiss women the right to vote and stand in federal elections, one of the last democracies in Europe to do so; the final canton was compelled to follow only in 1990.
- 3 Mar 2002Politics & Power
- presentPolitics & Power
Figures of the era
Henri Guisan1874 – 1960
General of the Swiss Army in the Second World War
Elected commander-in-chief in 1939, Guisan embodied Swiss resolve during the war. His 1940 address to officers on the Rütli and the Réduit strategy of Alpine defence rallied the nation as it stood encircled by the Axis.
Charles Pictet de Rochemont1755 – 1824
Architect of recognised neutrality
The Genevan diplomat whose negotiations in 1815 won the international guarantee of Swiss neutrality that carried the Confederation safely through the wars of the following century.
Chapter sources: The History of Switzerland, Neutrality, Henri Guisan, The long road to women's suffrage in Switzerland, When Switzerland joined the United Nations, The story of Switzerland's federal borders