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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.
04.11.2019
| Defence Communication
Guillaume Henri Dufour was born in Constance on 15 September 1787. His family moved to Geneva, where, after leaving school, he studied humanities and physics. Later he continued his studies at the Ecole polytechnique in Paris and the Ecole supérieure d'application du génie in Metz. From 1811, he served as an officer in the French military engineer corps. In 1817 he left the French army and returned to Geneva where he worked as a cantonal engineer until 1850. From 1845 to 1856 he was also responsible for creating the cantonal land register map. He joined the newly established Swiss army as a captain in 1817. Three years later he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and in 1827 to colonel. In 1819 he co-founded the Federal Military School in Thun, where he was an instructor for the engineer corps until 1831. In 1832 he was appointed the army's Chief of General Staff.
On 21 October 1847 the Swiss Diet appointed him commander-in-chief of the Swiss army with the rank of general for the first time and tasked him with dissolving the Sonderbund. In August 1849, during the revolution in the Grand Duchy of Baden, the Federal Assembly again appointed him commander-in-chief of their forces in order to prevent possible attacks on Swiss territory. On 27 December 1856, in their attempt to defend Neuchâtel from the Prussian army, the Federal Assembly made him head of its troops for the third time. Dufour was appointed general for the fourth time in 1859, when the army was mobilised following a conflict in Lombardy in which the French and the Piedmontese were fighting against the Austrians.
Besides his activities as an engineer and an officer, Guillaume Henri Dufour enjoyed a successful political career. In 1819, he was elected to the Council of Representatives in Geneva, where he represented the Liberals. After the Geneva Revolution in November 1841 he was elected to the Cantonal Constitutional Council, and in 1842, to the Cantonal Council and the Communal Council. At national level, he represented the Seeland region in the National Council from 1848 to 1851, and Geneva from 1854 to 1857. From 1862 to 1866 he represented Geneva in the Council of States. In 1867 he retired from public office, and he died in Geneva on 14 July 1875 at the age of 87.
A successfull civilian life
Guillaume Henri Dufour is remembered for many achievements and not simply for his military career. From 1832 onwards, he was in charge of the triangulation work that led to the 1:100 000 scale national map, which was completed in 1864, and has been named after him. In 1863 he was one of the five co-founders of the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded that later became the International Committee of the Red Cross, of which he was the president during its first year. Also in 1863, the highest peak in Switzerland in the Monte Rosa massif (4634 m), was dedicated to him and named the Dufourspitze. On 25 February 1863 Napoleon III appointed Guillaume Henri Dufour a Grand Officer of the Legion (in which he already had been made a knight on 22 January 1813, an officer on 11 January 1832 and a commander on 16 March 1849).
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.
