Prussia hesitated, recommending Neuchâtel prudence. Czar Nicholas could not understand an intervention unless the powers had sixty thousand men behind them. Great Britain would not interfere at all. Under the ministry of Lord Palmerston, a young statesman named Peel, son of the illustrious minister of that name, joined the Bear Club at Bern where radicals met. At Rome, the French ambassador, Rossi, an ancient deputy of the Geneva diet, was charged to solicit Pius IX to recall the Jesuits from Lucerne. It was thought both in London and Paris that the best means of restoring peace to Switzerland was to take from the radicals their principal grievance and their flag. The holy father contented himself with letting the Swiss know that he would remain passive in the strife (passive se habere decrevit).
Switzerland, under these circumstances, was persuaded that the moment had come frankly to declare to Europe her intention of being sole interpreter of her Pact of Alliance; to have done with the questions that agitated her; and to constitute herself on the basis of an enlarged and equitable democracy, which would soon see her the first on the road towards which all European peoples were proceeding. She knew the states which lavished advice on her to be torn by a revolutionary spirit and incapable of uniting against her in a common resolution. It was under the influence of this thought that Ochsenbein opened the confederation diet on the 5th of July, 1847.
Although only the son of a hotel keeper, without instruction in the classics, but gifted with prompt and pleasing intelligence, he presented himself unembarrassed before an assembly wherein the heads of the two parties dividing Switzerland were sitting, and at which the majority of ministers from foreign powers assisted. Frankness characterised his discourse. Foreseeing a European crisis—“Our modern world,” said he, “rests on worm-eaten columns, on institutions that have for support only the powers of habit and interests, a construction that the slightest storm will make a ruin. Well, this storm approaches; the colossus is quite aware of it. He sleeps a dangerous sleep.” Descending from these heights to questions of the moment, the president of the diet proclaimed the right of the majority, whom Switzerland had always recognised. When this majority had been declared, he courteously invited all the cantons to join with it. Callame, a Neuchâtel deputy, exposed in language firm and untouched by passion the gravity of events that had given place to a separate alliance, and demanded that they should leave those who had concluded it the time to convince themselves that it was no longer necessary.
In reality, the vote of the majority meant a declaration of war. The diet adjourned so as to give the parties time either to unite or to finish their preparations for hostilities. It reassembled on the 18th of October. Two delegates, envoys of peace, were sent from each of the Sonderbund cantons, but they met with scant welcome: one-half wanted war.
Colonel Dufour is Made Commander of the Army
On the 29th of October the deputies from the seven cantons left Bern, and on the 4th of November it was decided that the decree ordering the dissolution of their alliance should be executed by arms. The diet put on foot fifty thousand men, and entrusted the command, with the rank of general, to Colonel Dufour, of Geneva. No name in the army was more respected, none had more weight. Dufour did not belong to either side. In sympathy he was conservative, but was none the less a man of progress. He had been in the wars and published writings on military science, fruits of a long and wide experience. No chief knew as he did the canton militia, over whose manœuvres he had for a number of years presided in the camp at Thun, as chief instructor of the engineering corps. To these warlike qualities he united the virtues of a man of peace. He was occupied in the elaboration, on a plan he had conceived, of the fine map of Switzerland which bears his name, when he was called to quit the pursuits of the student for the field of battle. He comprehended the danger to his country. He clearly perceived his duty, and he thought only of accomplishing it.
In accepting the first command he made what he considered necessary stipulations, demanding a sufficient number of troops and absolute power. All this he obtained, though not without some resistance. He was given 100,000 men and 260 field pieces. This army he distributed into seven divisions. In the choice of superior officers, he exacted that he alone should judge of their capacity without any regard to political opinion; this was the way both to get excellent officers and to prepare for what he considered to be his duty—the quieting of hatreds after the struggle. In a short time there was no longer question of politics in the army. Addressing once his heads of divisions, “I shall never depart,” he said, “from the laws of moderation and humanity. A stranger to political agitation and faithful to my military duties, I shall try to establish order and discipline in the federal troops, to make public and private property respected, to protect the Catholic religion in her ministers, her temples, and her religious establishments—in a word, to do everything to soften the inevitable evils of war. If violence be used, let it not come from us. After fighting, spare the vanquished; however strong one may be, relieve the despair of the enemy: then we can congratulate ourselves after the fight on never having forgotten that it was between confederates.”
These instructions being made known, the general resolved to trust nothing to chance, and to make no offensive movement unless sure of the superiority of his forces; this he recognised as the surest way towards a speedy ending with the least bloodshed. Soon the confidence he inspired began to show itself. The city of Bâle, long undecided, sent him excellent artillery. Neuchâtel and Appenzell alone continued to take no part in the war. The promptitude with which the army got under arms, well ordered, well clothed, and well equipped, astonished foreigners. The redivision of troops was necessitated by the situation. The country occupied by the Sonderbund formed three distinct masses—Fribourg, the original cantons, and Valais. Dufour proposed to attack them separately, and to begin with Fribourg.
Preparations of the Sonderbund
The powers held exaggerated ideas of the Sonderbund forces. It could hardly put on foot more than thirty thousand regular troops. The Landsturm, it is true, meant a more considerable number of men, but not having received sufficient organisation could not be compared to the excellent reserves of the large cantons, and did not give the help expected of them. Far from one another, the separatist states could only with difficulty lend one another aid. The original cantons tried nevertheless to keep their ways open by means of boldness in offensive actions. Even before the diet began its campaign, the men of Uri seized the St. Gotthard passes (November 3rd); threw themselves across the Levantina, surprised three thousand Ticinese encamped at Airolo, and drove them as far as the Moesa bridge. But arrived at this point, they found themselves face to face with Grisons and Ticino militia, superior to them in number, who stopped their progress. The expedition had no other result than that of holding back two thousand excellent soldiers from the places where decisive blows were to be struck. Another attempt, made from Lucerne, to penetrate into Catholic Aargau and to free Fribourg, by means of a diversion, had no better success.