Switzerland’s astonishingly polite armed conflict of 1847 (2019)

On a tangent, the list of Liechtenstein-Switzerland military conflicts on Wikipedia is hilarious and kind of cute.<p>For example:<p>&gt; On 26 August 1976, just before midnight, 75 members of the Swiss Army and a number of packhorses mistakenly took a wrong turn and ended up 500 metres into Liechtenstein at Iradug, in Balzers. The Liechtensteiners reportedly offered drinks to the Swiss soldiers.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Liechtenstein%E2%80%93Switzerland_relations#Incidents_involving_the_Swiss_military" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Liechtenstein%E2%80%93Switzerl...</a>

Much of this was thanks to General Dufour afaik, the federalist General. Can’t think of a better way to navigate 150k combatants to come out of this war basically unharmed, on both sides. The conclusion was foregone, but convincing everyone of this was the tricky part.

&gt; Yet, leave it to the Swiss (those masters of neutrality) to give us at least one example of a truly civil war<p>The same Swiss that banned their citizens from joining mercenary armies after two predominantly Swiss mercenary armies slaughtered each other.

Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.<p>- Harry Lime, The Third Man

Another example of the Swiss being polite and avoiding bloodshed during extreme conflict was the general strike of 1918.<p>It lasted two days but the strike leaders capitulated after being threatened by the Swiss military. It could have ended rather brutally.<p>After the strike there was a phase of reforms for workers and democratic rights. It was understood that there had to be good faith negotiation with unions from there on.

Very interesting article for me. I actually grew up in Gisikon (where the battle of Gisikon took place) and my parents still live there. Altought the battle of Gisikon was somewhat a key event in the formation of the modern swiss state (which was founded in 1848), the battle was not a topic in our school curriculum. One funny thing: There is one small remembering-stone right next to the town hall which nobody knows what it’s all about…

Having lived here for the past 3 years I would say that this was less about being polite and more about avoiding human interaction, which is something I find quite common in Swiss culture even today. Highly introverted and wanting to stick to ones self is the norm here. Villages so quiet you could hear a mouse fart.

There has been a similarly polite disagreement about land between Canada and Denmark, however from the Wikipedia page it looks to have been resolved as of ~2005<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Whisky_War" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Whisky_War</a>

Astonishingly polite indeed, compared to them claiming neutrality in WW2, yet:<p>- shooting dead American soldiers they found inside Switzerland who had escaped from German POW camps<p>- abusing banking privacy laws to seize bank accounts from murdered Jews (who had been using Swiss banks for a number of years because they saw the writing on the wall), refusing to grant access to surviving relatives<p>- happily accepting Nazi gold, knowing much of which was melted down jewelry and dental fillings collected from the ashes of human incinerators.<p>Post WW2, Switzerland was required to return <i>twelve percent</i> of the gold they accepted from the Nazis.

If you liked this you should know about endemic warfare and ritualistic warfare, in the most civil examples it amounted to a very intense game apparently where they&#x27;d just raid for stuff or women without killing each other. Sicilian decade long vendeta feuds are something like endemic warfare.

I like the characterization so much of a &quot;polite armed conflict&quot;. Seems almost cartoonish.

In contrast to most European wars which were save gully barbarous in their conduct and ignored human life.