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On 25 July 1940 General Henri Guisan summoned all Switzerland's military commanders with the rank of major or higher to the Rutli meadow, where he informed them about the military's National Redoubt strategy. France had been defeated in June and Switzerland was surrounded by the Axis powers. In his radio address on 25 June, Marcel Pilet-Golaz, the President of the Confederation at the time, caused confusion among the population by mentioning the New European Order. General Guisan emphasised in his speech the army's willingness to offer unconditional resistance.
25.07.2019
| Defence Communication
Henri Guisan was born in Mézière in the Canton of Vaud on 21 October 1874. The son of wealthy parents, Charles Ernest Guisan, a doctor and major in the military and Louise-Jeanne Bérengier, Guisan obtained his baccalaureate in Lausanne. Later he studied agriculture in Écully, France, and Hohenheim, Germany. In 1896 he bought the Bellevue estate in Chesalles-sur-Ollon, and in 1903 he moved to Verte Rive, where he lived as a gentleman farmer.
Assigned to the field artillery, Henri Guisan was promoted to lieutenant in 1894, to captain in 1904, to general staff captain in 1908 and three years later to general staff major. At the request of General Theophil Sprecher von Bernegg, the Chief of the General Staff, he transferred to the infantry in 1911. In the Great War, he served as lieutenant colonel in the operations section of the General Staff in Bern (1916), Chief of Staff of Division 2 and, at the same time, commanded Infantry Regiment 9, with which he served in the city of Zurich (1919). In 1921, he was promoted to brigadier general, in 1927 to major general, and in 1932 to lieutenant general. On 3 August 1939, on the eve of World War II, the Federal Assembly elected him General of the Armed Forces, with 204 of 231 votes.
A conscript officer until 1927, Henri Guisan took a different approach to commanding from career officers. He rejected certain aspects of protocol and often inspected the soldiers in the field. During the war, he did not distinguish himself as being a great strategist but he listened to advisers, took decisions and risks, and defended his opinions firmly against political authorities and his subordinates. Above all, he was able to instil a spirit of resistance in both the military and the population by creating a symbiosis between these entities of Swiss society.
General Guisan was discharged from active military service on 20 August 1945. As an ordinary citizen he served on the boards of important organisations, such as the National Donation Foundation, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and other charitable organisations. Henri Guisan died in Pully on 7 April 1960. During the war, General Guisan was unanimously supported throughout the country, and on the day of his funeral on 12 April 1960, more than 300,000 people, many of them veterans in uniform, took part in the funeral procession.
François Pierre Félix von der Weid, born on 31 May 1766 in Fribourg, was the fourth and last general of the Helvetic Republic and the ninth commander-in-chief of the Swiss troops.
On 12 April 1798 the canton of Léman was established and its authorities took office. The people of the Pays de Vaud had already adopted Switzerland’s first Constitution ever on 15 February 1798. This had been given to them by the French generals who had invaded the Pays de Vaud on 24 January. Karl Ludwig von Erlach was entrusted with the supreme command of the troops called upon to defend the Confederacy against the French. However, von Erlach was unable to prevent the defeat of Bern, which lead to the fall of the Old Swiss Confederacy in less than three months.
On the battlefield of Neuenegg, on 5 March 1798, Major and Adjutant-General Johann Weber made a decisive contribution to the victory of the Bernese troops over the troops of the newly founded French Republic. It was only the announcement of the Bernese defeat at Grauholz on the same day that forced him to retreat. The war was lost, but the honour of the troops remained intact.
Niklaus Franz von Bachmann, former soldier in the service of the monarchs of France, Sardinia and Austria, died on 11 February 1831 at the age of 91 in his house in Näfels. In 1800, he presented his troops with the red flag with the white cross, last used in the Middle Ages, which became the symbol of the Swiss Confederation. In 1815, he was appointed supreme commander of the federal troops, and went to invade Franche-Comté, the last Swiss general to enter foreign territory.
Niklaus Rudolf von Wattenwyl was born on 3 January 1760 in Bern. His family was one of Bern's largest patrician families and represented in the city's government. Niklaus Rudolf von Wattenwyl was an officer in the foreign service, a member of the provisional government and of the Consulta in Paris, president of the Cantonal Council of Bern, Landammann (chief political officer) of Switzerland and President of the Federal Diet that appointed him Supreme Commander of the Army in 1805, 1809 and 1816.
8 December 1844 saw the first of two attempts to overthrow the cantonal government of Lucerne. The campaigns by the volunteer military units known as Freischarenzüge followed the decision of the Lucerne government to entrust secondary school teaching to the Jesuits and led to the establishment of the Sonderbund. A series of riots followed, prompting the Federal Diet to mobilise its troops under the command of General Peter Ludwig von Donatz.
On 4 November 1847, General Dufour, commander-in-chief of the Swiss army, fully aware of Switzerland's difficult situation, (the day after the cantons of the Sonderbund had attacked the Canton of Ticino and triggered hostilities) urged his division commanders to curb their feelings of hatred towards the Sonderbund cantons in order to avoid compromising the future cohesion of the Confederation. The Confederation's last civil war ended 25 days later, leaving less than 100 casualties on the battlefield and laying the foundations for a new constitution.
200 years ago, on 28 October 1819, Hans Herzog, the son of Johann and Franziska Salomea Herosé, was born in Aarau, Switzerland. During the Franco-Prussian War, he exercised supreme command over the Swiss army from 19 July 1870 to 15 July 1871. Hans Herzog was the second general of modern Switzerland, and the 15th in the history of the Swiss Confederation.
On 25 September 1792, Wilhelm Bernhard von Muralt of Bern was appointed commander-in-chief of the Swiss army, which included troops from all the cantons. Stationed at headquarters in Nyon, von Muralt prepared to defend Geneva from the French threat with 20,000 deployed soldiers and 12,000 reservists under his command. On 27 October, after long negotiations, the French agreed that they would not attack Geneva and withdrew their troops. The last Bernese garrison was able to leave the city on 30 November and the Swiss army was demobilised in December.
On 31 August 1790, a mutiny within the garrison of Nancy in France was crushed. The uprising broke out on 5 August because the soldiers were convinced that their officers had made unfair deductions from their pay. For his role in suppressing the revolt, Joseph Leonz Andermatt, an officer in the Swiss Châteauvieux regiment that was part of the Nancy garrison, was awarded the title of knight of the Order of Saint Louis.
On 25 July 1940 General Henri Guisan summoned all Switzerland's military commanders with the rank of major or higher to the Rutli meadow, where he informed them about the military's National Redoubt strategy. France had been defeated in June and Switzerland was surrounded by the Axis powers. In his radio address on 25 June, Marcel Pilet-Golaz, the President of the Confederation at the time, caused confusion among the population by mentioning the New European Order. General Guisan emphasised in his speech the army's willingness to offer unconditional resistance.
At the end of June 1630, during the War of the Mantuan Succession, the imperial army besieged the capital city Mantua, which was eventually seized and plundered on 18 July. Lieutenant Colonel Sebastian Peregrin Zwyer of Evibach fought under the imperial ensign as one of commander Matthias Gallas's men.
On 22 May 1844 Johann Ulrich von Salis-Soglio, colonel in the Swiss General Staff, was in the Valais, where a faction of the Young Europe association was causing unrest. The Federal Council had appointed him commander of the troops and tasked him with disarming Young Switzerland, which was a revolutionary liberal group modelled on the Young Italy movement founded by Giuseppe Mazzini. In August 1847 Johann Ulrich von Salis-Soglio was released from the service on account of his conservative views. Shortly thereafter, however, he was back in military uniform again, having reluctantly accepted his appointment as supreme commander of the Sonderbund army.
On 19 April 1512, the Swiss Tagsatzung, the legislative and executive council of the Swiss Confederacy, appointed Ulrich of Hohensax supreme commander of the confederate army, which was preparing to enter Lombardy. The Council of War confirmed the Tagsatzung order on 30 May, making Ulrich of Hohensax the first commander-in-chief in Swiss history. The campaign ended on 31 December, when Ulrich of Hohensax led the Swiss army into Milano and restored Massimiliano Sforza to the throne. With the success of this operation, the Confederates strengthened their position, becoming equal partners with other European powers.
On 28 March 1799, in the midst of a period of upheaval the commander of the Helvetic Legion, Colonel Augustin Keller, was promoted to brigadier general and appointed commander-in-chief of the Helvetic Republic's army. However, the hurriedly assembled troops proved completely incapable of fighting a battle. Augustin Keller was released from his duties on 24 May 1799 due to failure and the militia army was disbanded on 12 August of the same year.
The first Battle of Rheinfelden took place on 28 February 1638, during the Thirty Years' War. On one side of the field was the Bernese Johann Ludwig von Erlach, the Chief of Staff to Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar and organiser of the High Rhine campaign, which ended with the cession of Alsace to France. Johann Ludwig von Erlach ended his career as Marshal of France, and is regarded as one of the greatest generals in the mercenary service of the 17th century.
On 24 January 1798, the national representatives declared the Pays de Vaud's independence from Bern. Charles-Jules Guiguer de Prangins enlisted in the Vaud military forces as a lieutenant to join the liberation struggle alongside the French forces. He was promoted to captain within a year, and later, as a general, commanded the Swiss forces in 1831 and 1838.
On 11 November 1918, World War I ended when the armistice of Compiègne came into force. Fears sparked by the first general strike from 12 to 14 November, however, led to an extension of mobilisation in Switzerland. Finally, on 11 December 1918, General Wille, commander-in-chief of the Swiss military, handed over command and was discharged from his duties.
