The Capitulations of Fribourg and Lucerne End the Sonderbund
Without taking much account of these movements, Dufour occupied himself only in concentrating his forces so as to surround the Sonderbund states, on all their accessible frontiers. His provisions were assured, his hospital organised. Immediately upon the rupture being announced, Colonel Ochsenbein, who presided over the diet, left office to put himself entirely at the disposition of the general-in-chief. The general placed him at the head of the Bernese reserves, which composed his seventh division and which he assimilated with the active troops. He stationed them first on the Lucerne frontier, and when he arranged to draw near Fribourg, he called Ochsenbein to advance towards that capital, in order to make the enemy think he would attack from the eastern side. However, twenty thousand men and fifty-four artillery pieces, under colonels Rilliet, Burkhard, and Donatz, advanced from the north and west by different routes, and kept their movements secret that they might arrive on the same day at the gate of Fribourg. On the 13th the town was surrounded. An experienced leader, Colonel Maillardoz, had raised defences all round, and they had prepared to attack these exterior forts when the Fribourg government, recognising the impossibility of resistance, gave up the town, dismissed the troops, and renounced the Sonderbund. The taking of Fribourg would not have cost the federal army a single man if through a mistake a Vaudois troop had not rushed under fire from the Bertigny redoubt, which resulted in seven killed and a large number wounded.
As soon as Fribourg had capitulated the general confided to Colonel Rilliet the care of occupying the military cantonments and watching the entrance of Valais. He himself hastened to Aarau, to prepare for the investment of Lucerne. Two rivers, the Emme and the Reuss, protected this town. The bridges on these rivers had been broken or fortified. The ground on which it was foreseen that the most serious engagements would be delivered was the labyrinth which stretches from the Reuss to the Lake of Zug; bristling with wooded hills, where passage had been stopped by barricades and mines had been laid in the defiles. It was necessary to attack these strong positions, because they served as a link between Schwyz and Lucerne, and success on this point was decisive, whilst elsewhere it was not so. The leader whom the five cantons had put in charge of their militia, Ulrich de Salis-Soglio, understood this, and went to these places. The forces he could dispose of were some twenty thousand regulars and a similar body of the Landsturm. Salis had learned warfare in fighting Napoleon. A sincere Protestant, he had nevertheless devoted himself to a cause which had his political sympathies, but of which he despaired.
A resolution being taken to force his entrenchments, Dufour set five divisions of his army on the march from the various points they occupied, giving them Lucerne as object. Ochsenbein’s reserves went down the Emme valley, overcoming a lively resistance. The Burkhard and Donatz divisions approached the Emme and the Reuss between the bridges of Wolhusen and Gislikon, at the same time that colonels Ziegler and Gmur at the head of some odd thousands of men attacked Salis in his intrenched camps. Ziegler mastered the Gislikon bridge and the Honau defiles. Gmur, after having received on his march the submission of Zug, scaled the heights of Meyers Kappel. Everything made for success. Victory was hotly disputed, but the Schwyzers were in the end thrown back towards Immensee, whence they fell back on Art and Goldau. Troops from the other cantons turned to Lucerne. The separation of Schwyz with its allies was accomplished. On every hand the federal troops marched simultaneously on that capital. The gates were opened to them by a convention, and on the 24th of November Dufour made his entry. On the following days the Waldstätte and the Valais made their submission. Twenty-five days after the decree of execution the task of the army was complete—the Sonderbund no longer existed.[d]
[1848-1874 A.D.]
The diet now debated the draft constitution drawn up by Kern of Thurgau and Druey of Vaud, which in the summer of 1848 was accepted by fifteen and a half cantons, the minority consisting of the three forest cantons, Valais, Zug, Ticino, and Appenzell (Tuner Rhodes), and it was proclaimed on September 12th.
From 1848 onwards the cantons continually revised their constitutions, always in a democratic sense, though after the Sonderbund War Schwyz and Zug abolished their Landsgemeinde. The chief point was the introduction of the referendum, by which laws made by the cantonal legislature may (facultative referendum) or must (obligatory referendum) be submitted to the people for their approval; and this has obtained such general acceptance that Fribourg alone does not possess the referendum in either of its two forms, Ticino having accepted it in its optional form in 1883. It was therefore only natural that attempts should be made to revise the federal constitution of 1848 in a democratic and centralising sense, for it had been provided that the federal assembly, on its own initiative or on the written request of fifty thousand Swiss electors, could submit the question of revision to a popular vote. In 1866 the restriction of certain rights to Christians only was swept away; but the attempt at final revision in 1872 was defeated by a small majority, owing to the efforts of the anti-centralising party. Finally, however, another draft was better liked, and on April 19th, 1874, the new constitution was accepted by the people. This constitution is that now in force, and is simply an improved edition of that of 1848. The federal tribunal (now of nine members only) was fixed (by federal law) at Lausanne, and its jurisdiction enlarged, especially in constitutional disputes between cantons and the federal authorities, though jurisdiction in administrative matters (e.g., educational, religious, election, commercial) is given to the federal council—a division of functions which is very anomalous, and does not work well.
A Swiss Finial