| Year. | Elite. | Reserve. | Landwehr. | Landsturm and Complementary Services. | Total Effectives. |
| 1640 | — | — | — | — | 36,000 |
| 1782 | — | — | — | — | 63,697 |
| 1817 | 33,758 | 33,748 | — | — | 67,506 |
| 1850 | 69,569 | 34,785 | — | — | 104,354 |
| 1874 | 105,368 | — | 97,012 | — | 202,380 |
| 1899 | 148,435 | — | 87,290 | 275,590 | 511,321 |
| 1911 | 142,054 | — | 69,513 | 275,284 | 486,851 |
The Army is now composed of the whole of the fit male population between the ages of 20 to 48; the Elite being drawn from men of the ages of 20 to 32 years, the Landwehr from 33 to 40 years, the Landsturm from 41 to 48 years. The effectives increase from year to year with the increase of population. As regard instruction, the training of the infantry recruit lasts 65 days, of the cavalry 90 days, of the artillery 75 days, per annum. Repetition courses for the trained soldier take place annually, and vary, according to the branch of the service, from eleven to fourteen days. The Landwehr has a "repetition course" once every four years. The Landsturm is only occasionally called up for a few days at a time at long intervals.
According to Colonel Egli, the expenditure for military purposes for the year 1911 amounted in all to frs. 44,777,894, being 25·9 per cent. of the revenue of the country. The fact that Switzerland is able to maintain a force of nearly half a million men at an expenditure of less than £2,000,000 sterling speaks for itself. The war has, of course, added greatly to the annual Budget. The additional expenditure from 1914 to 1918, owing to mobilization, extra material, higher rates of pay and living, etc., form no small part of the accumulated deficit of the country, which cannot be far short of £40,000,000 sterling, and is steadily increasing.
The Military Regulations are so framed as to interfere in the least possible degree with the civil life of the soldier, and yet, despite the shortness of training, a very fair state of efficiency is reached and maintained.
The Corps of Officers is highly educated, and embraces in its ranks all the best brains of the country. It receives its military instruction at special military schools.
A valuable adjunct to the training of the rank and file is supplied by the Shooting Clubs, of which thousands exist, and as shooting is the one national sport, this important branch of instruction receives special attention.
The disorganization which immediately resulted in the economic and industrial life of Switzerland on the outbreak of war, became a matter of great concern to the Government, who, under their first impression of the World War, feared that economic ruin might become inevitable. It looked as though the business of the hotels, in which enormous capital has been invested, would cease to exist, whilst the future of hundreds of thousands of skilled artisans and mechanics would be imperilled. Foreign markets would certainly find their purchasing power greatly reduced, and there was every likelihood of a shortage in the half-finished products received from Germany and Austria, which finally reached foreign markets after receiving at the hands of the Swiss workmen that finish which gave them so great a part of their value. The future was painted in the blackest of colours, but the outcome has differed greatly from the first crude picture.
Never in the history of the peasant have such large profits been made as during the last four years. The hotel industry has no doubt been crippled, but it has been kept alive by the not inconsiderable influx of wealthy refugees from Central Europe and neutral countries, and the hospitalization of some 30,000 French, British, Belgian, and German Interned prisoners of war. The watch and clock, automobile, electric, and other mechanical industries, have made good by devoting their attention to the manufacture of munitions or other war requisites, in which the exceptional skill of the Swiss artisan has proved of inestimable worth. The dye industry has been developed to such an extent, that Switzerland may confidently expect to retain a portion of this trade in competition with Germany in the future.
The war will, I would fain believe and hope, have given to Swiss economics an elasticity and adaptability of which they stood in need, and from many points of view will not have proved that unmixed evil foreseen by her pessimists under the influence of their first fears.
German industrial circles have watched this development with misgivings, and are busily taking precautionary measures to turn it to their advantage by the loan of capital, by the infiltration of expert management into all those concerns in which they foresee rivalry, and often by the purchase outright of commercial undertakings likely to be useful in supplementing the work of the Fatherland in the economic struggle it will have to face after the war.