Germany, with the huge mass of Russia on one side and the lithe strength of France on the other, must sleep in armor; during any respite from the partisans of la revanche on the one frontier or a murmur of Panslavism from Moscow, Germany confronts serious problems with her congeries of states. It remains to be seen how Germany will get on without the large, comprehensive, incomparable skill and the mettle of unyielding determination with which the Iron Chancellor laid all international questions under tribute to the Vaterland. This continental entanglement points to England as holding the balance of power; jealous of Russia’s encroachments in the east, jealous of Austria, jealous of the power of Germany, worried with a certain uneasiness that “the circles of the morning drum-beat” may be broken, England finds in this situation much food for contemplation and conjecture. All European movements, especially on the part of the Great Powers,[121] profess to have no other object than to preserve their “political equilibrium” or the “balance of power.” Excepting the wars of religion, most European wars of the last three centuries have sought justification in this pretext, which is but another phase of the boundary question. Up to a very recent date the English Parliamentary grants for supplies needed to support the army were expressly recited to be made for the purpose “of preserving the balance of power in Europe.” The “European Concert,” with its brood of auxiliaries, in the modus vivendi, status quo, and entente cordiale, interlarded with numerous pourparlers, separating re infecta, is not the harmonious institution its musical title would indicate; but disagreements are constantly arising as to who shall be chef de musique and who shall play second fiddle. It is a mere decorous synonyme for “European discord.” When not having in view a general scheme of spoliation, it is looking to the carving out the shape, the conditions, and the destinies of the remaining small states, with a cynical indifference as to the weal or wish of the populations. European powers are simply racing in the absurd and ruinous rivalry for the mightiest battalions and the heaviest budgets. Under the plea of si vis pacem para bellum each one is striving to steal a march upon its neighbors, absolutely blind to the obvious fact that with each fraction of accelerated speed in one all the rest perforce quicken their pace. The danger of this much misused axiom, which advises the securing of peace by preparing for war, brings a crushing burden of apprehension; it involves conduct that betrays designs of future hostility, and if it does not excite violence, always generates malignity with a sly reciprocation of indirect injuries without the bravery of war or the security of peace. From such a condition some chance tide rather than any chosen course may any day cause a rupture. Nations drift into war, and peace is rarely disturbed by serious matters. The commercial necessities of Europe cannot much longer bear the severe strain of this unnaturally swollen and crushing militarism, a conscription so ruthless which demands one inhabitant out of every hundred and takes one producer out of every twenty, transferring him from the ranks of tax-payers to the ranks of tax-consumers. This strain must be lessened or it will infallibly snap; the people are merely the soldiers of an army, they are drilled rather than governed; the workman is getting tired of going to his labors carrying a soldier upon his back; the masses are coming to regard appeals to their patriotism as full of bitter mockery, being mere appeals to kill their neighbors or distant races that they and their children may be more permanently enslaved at home. A universal revolt is inevitable against exactions so intolerable, idiotic, and inhuman. If those alone who “sowed the wind did reap the whirlwind” it would be well, but the mischief is that the madness of ambition and the schemes of diplomacy find their victims principally among the innocent and the unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp, like the torrent which originates, indeed, in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale. If there is no check on this increasing demand upon the lives and property of the masses, “this devouring mischief of militarism which is consuming the vitals of Europe,” the mightiest potentate may find that he has to face a combination of the toiling and suffering classes against which all his weapons will be futile. “Great,” says Carlyle, “is the combined voice of men, the utterance of their instincts, which are truer than their thoughts; it is the greatest a man encounters among the sounds and shadows which make up this world of time.” There is no constitution and no despotism which could stand against it for a moment. The modern emperor is only an apparition in comparison with the imperial muscle and bone of his ancient prototype; no longer he is regarded as the “deputy elect of the Lord,” whom the “breath of worldly men cannot depose.” A revolt, political in its aims but economic in its origin, will take place; an economic revolt tending to change the economical conditions of the masses and a political revolt tending to modify the very essence of the political organization, demanding that these vast armies be disbanded, the swords turned into ploughshares, and the victory of the industrial over the military type of civilization be established. A revolution toward the final abolition of feudalism with its arbitrary privileges for the few and its excessive burdens for the many, toward the fuller participation of the people in the work of government and their more efficient protection in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labor. Otherwise the dilemma is a sad one,—to remain a colossal arsenal or become a wild field of devastation; war would mean destruction of human life and of the elements of national prosperity beyond precedent. Whether these immense armaments will be peacefully discontinued or war ensue as the only solution, and if so, what will be its effect on the map of Europe, are all momentous questions beyond the ken of man. The powers leagued together in the Triple Alliance may, if favored by the wealth and maritime power of England, serve as a potent guarantee for the maintenance of peace. This European drama is unfolding its actions slowly, so that no one can tell what it will bring forth; constantly new novelties are being introduced upon the stage with an increasing number of hints of stranger things to come. The prominent persons in the play, though preserving a romantic air of mystery, manage constantly to throw off a multiform mass of suggestions, speculations, and visions. What is developing astonishes the mind while it fascinates the imagination, for it seems to be nothing less vast and portentous than the passing away of the whole existing order of things almost without notice, certainly without comprehension. What proportions this gigantic, this politico-social movement will assume, how much of what is old it will leave standing, what the new order will be like, these are questions which Europe’s brain has not yet fairly grasped, much less tried to answer.
There is a strong continental opinion that in the event of war Switzerland can hardly hope to successfully maintain the position assumed by it in 1870; that it occupies too small a space in the great chart of European political and military calculations to have much weight attached to its views. With less confidence in treaty guarantees than in the maxim of Cromwell, whose Ironsides were taught to “put their trust in God and keep their powder dry,” Switzerland will heed the advice given in the reply of the German chancellor, when asked in 1870 to what extent Swiss neutrality would be observed, said, “to the extent to which you yourselves respect the device of the Scottish Order of the Thistle, ‘nemo me impune lacessit.’” Switzerland can no longer rely upon its mountain wall, which for so many ages, combined with other geographical advantages, formed a safe breastwork against the invader. Nature herself seemed to have thrown her arms around Helvetia to protect her from the invader; and by encompassing her with inaccessible mountains, tremendous precipices, and stupendous masses of eternal ice, to make her, as Frederick the Great of Prussia described the lords of Savoy, “kings by virtue of their locality.” The craggy escarpments, bastioned with horrid precipices, parapeted and battlemented with eternal snow, were the ramparts of the cradle of her liberty; they played a great part:
“That like giants stand
To sentinel enchanted land.”
Then Switzerland was self-contained, and enemies could not get at it. It could say with the Psalmist, “I will lift mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” “We did not fear,” said the shepherds of Uri, “the armies of France; we are four hundred strong, and if that is not sufficient, four hundred more in our valley are ready to march to the defence of the country.” In the same spirit wrote the Council of Bern, “A handful of Swiss is a match for an army; on our own soil, with our mountains behind us, we can defy the world.” The Helvetic Confederacy made the greatest and most powerful nations of Europe tremble in the fifteenth century; but Switzerland is no longer defended by natural frontiers; its two great cities, that of Geneva on the one side, and Basel upon the other, lie open to the invader, and the occupation of two or three points upon its railway system (which but for its army could be easily reached) would paralyze its defence; the strength with which nature had endowed Switzerland under the old condition of things has been wellnigh cancelled by the grand appliances of modern science, wealth, and organization. Modern Switzerland is now no stronger than any other part of Europe. Defence no longer can be intrusted to natural ramparts, the Alps, and mountaineers, led by the sound of the horn, and armed with the bow of Tell. The strength of Switzerland is exactly proportioned to its armed force; numerical strength preponderates in military fields, and victory attends the largest army. This implies no impeachment of Swiss courage and patriotism; that love of country, wrought into a great and noble sentiment, which summons to its aid every better portion of human excellence; that exalted power which gives vigor and efficacy to our exertions as citizens, which strengthens our constancy and animates our valor, which heightens our contempt of danger and inflames our impatience of oppression. There is no safer criterion of the virtue and happiness of a people than the height to which their attachment for their country is raised, and the difficulties which they are prepared to encounter in rescuing it from danger or exalting it to glory. As patriotism is always more intense in small states, where union for the purposes of self-preservation is more indispensably necessary, so the same institutions which have engaged the affections of the Swiss will likely inspire them with the courage and wisdom requisite for their defence. Switzerland will be prepared in event of a rearrangement of the map of Europe, by which it is likely to be effected, to demand a voice in the general summing up. Even to the diplomatist, who, wanting to reach an understanding, must have something behind it to command attention and respect, and exclaims, “Don’t trouble me with your arguments, tell me with what force you will back them,” Switzerland is not without an answer. The republic is not unprepared for war, as already shown in the chapter on the army; every man in shop and field would start into a soldier at the bugle’s call; a soldier armed, equipped, and ready for the march. Great sacrifices are willingly made in order to keep on foot an admirable democratic army. All the adjuncts for making this army a mobile factor in the field are under the Swiss system complete and in thorough working order. It could put into the field and maintain effectively 200,000 men, to prove that Switzerland was not a “mere geographical expression,” but a very formidable entity. The Swiss General Dufour, in a letter addressed to the French minister of war, just before the war broke out in 1870, after giving the size of the Swiss army, added: “Beyond all these defences we can count upon the national spirit in the heart of every citizen; a resolution to protect our independence and neutrality, let the storm break on us from whatever side it may.” What 200,000 brave Swiss sharpshooters might do defending their liberty in those mountain fastnesses no European army would care to learn by close experience. Their stout hearts and hardy arms will be ever ready, as in preceding ages, to vindicate against countless hosts their personal liberty and the independence of their country.
The Swiss government is not unaware that its neutrality may at any time be endangered; that a small state is always in danger when it stands in the way of the arms or the ambition or the greed of the great ones, that if its territory offers a convenient route for the rival armies, they would not hesitate to brush away its neutrality, in spite of all guarantees, as the Allies did in 1814. Accordingly for years past the government has been quietly but steadily preparing to defend the country in such an event. The plan, so far, consists in the fortifications of the summit of St. Gothard; the plateau of Andermatt commands not only the base of the St. Gothard, but the valleys, and whoever is able to hold it can prevent any passage across Switzerland from south to north. Since 1885 nearly 10,000,000 francs have been spent on the strengthening of this commanding position; forts have been placed so as to confront each of the four roads by which alone the stronghold can be passed, and it is thought that a large force of troops make it convenient to be cantoned in the vicinity, ready to make the most of the facilities for repelling intrusion when the occasion requires. They certainly could offer stubborn resistance to any junction being effected between portions of the German and Italian armies. The military Alpine roads, Furka, Ober-Alp, and Axenstrasse, are all kept in good condition by liberal appropriations.
Ever since 1830, when the religious refugees from France, England, and Flanders sought shelter there, and who, Sismondi relates, were wont to fall down on their knees and bless God when they came in sight of the Swiss mountains, the right of asylum has been a difficult question for Switzerland, occasioning constant diplomatic collision. In 1838 the demand of the French government for the expulsion of Louis Napoleon, which was declined by Switzerland, almost led to war, and it was probably only avoided by his voluntary departure. Switzerland has never flinched from this sacred and most embarrassing duty of hospitality to the oppressed. The influx of political fugitives from the despotic countries of Europe, seeking shelter from their pursuers, has involved it in many a bitter discussion with powerful neighbors, but it has stood firm in maintaining the sanctity of its principles and soil, in the face of their overwhelming force and domineering spirit. A determined rejection of foreign interference in its domestic affairs has been maintained, and when in 1847 the blockade or cordon was established, all access to the rebel district was forbidden to foreign agents. Under the constitution the federal authorities have the right to expel from Swiss territory any foreigners whose presence endangers the internal or external security of the Confederation. An asylum is offered to the members of all parties suffering political persecution, as long as they show themselves worthy of such consideration by peaceful conduct. The republic, however, grants them no asylum, if, while on its territory, they continue their intrigues and attacks on the existence and security of other states. It preserves a faithful regard for its international obligations, and, as an evidence of its firm determination to fulfil them, keeps a federal official, known as the Procurator General, whose duty it is to prosecute any foreigners, socialists, nihilists, and agents provocateurs, and other dangerous types, who abuse the hospitality of the country for the shelter and promotion of schemes endangering either its international peace or internal security. In July, 1890, Germany gave notice to Switzerland that the treaty between the two countries, regulating the “settlement of foreigners,” would not be renewed at its expiration, which occurs at the end of 1891. This question of asylum involves in its handling the utmost skill and judgment; anything like bravado or anything like servility would be equally out of place. A dignified and wise discretion is necessary to enable Switzerland to continue to offer a safe refuge to the proscribed victims of the endless political revolutions and counter-revolutions of the surrounding nations, but it is believed, complicated as it is with delicate entanglements of diplomatic relations, and suspicions of countenancing schemes of anarchy, it will continue to meet every exigency of the question with an honest and fearless policy.
If the acquisition of power has a certain tendency to weaken the ties of federal union, we should expect that a Confederacy, deprived by natural as well as adventitious circumstances of all pretension to political power, would for that reason possess in a superior degree the merit of stability. Everything that sets in motion the springs of the human heart, engages the Swiss to the protection of their inestimable privileges. Bold and intrepid; a frame fitted to endure toil; a soul capable of despising danger; an enthusiastic love of freedom; an abhorrence of the very name or emblem of royalty illustrated in ages of heroic and martial exploits, that with steadfast and daring enterprise built up a nation and a state; with these qualities they will, if the necessity comes, bear in mind the warning of their own Rousseau, “Ye free nations, remember this maxim, freedom may be acquired, but it cannot be recovered.” In the moment of peril the Swiss will be moved by the spirit of their brave old Landammann, who answered the Duke of Burgundy: “Know that you may, if it be God’s will, gain our barren and rugged mountains; but, like our ancestors of old, we will seek refuge in wilder and more distant solitudes, and when we have resisted to the last, we will starve in the icy wastes of the glaciers; men, women, and children, we will be frozen into annihilation together, ere our free Switzer will acknowledge a foreign master.”
There may be a deeper danger awaiting Switzerland, to which no spirit, however vigorous and resolute, can be commensurate—a danger from within and not from without. The nation which, by the adverse circumstances of numerical inferiority, poverty of means, or failure of enterprise, cannot sustain its own citizens in the acquisition of a just renown and material welfare, is deficient in one of the first and most indispensable elements of strength. A small state is apt to waste its strength in acts too insignificant for general interest, frittering away its mental riches, no less than its treasure and blood, in supporting interests that fail to enlist the sympathies of any beyond the pale of its own borders; glory and strength, like riches, finding themselves, and being most apt to be found, where their fruits have already accumulated. If from any source evil should come to this little republic, in the patriotic words of its latest historian, “Generations will point to the spot where it arose and flourished, and will say, Here once lived a free, self-governing people, a small but active republic, with remarkable institutions, with a famous and memorable history.”
POPULATION AND SOIL, CENSUS, 1888.