A SHORT HISTORY OF SWITZERLAND'S NEUTRALITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91T01172R000300060017-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 10, 2006
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: April 23, 1955
• Content Type: MEMO

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OCI No. 3377/55
Copy No.
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
OFFICE OF CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
23 April 1955
TO Deputy Director (Intelligence)
SUBJECT: A short history of Switzerland's neutrality
From the beginning of the sixteenth century, Swiss
neutrality in Europe "Just growed"--not as a result of paper
protection so much as Swiss skill and success in making
the principle of neutrality their overriding foreign policy. Ile
Swiss while engaging in numerous civil wars have not
declared war on anybody since 1516--except for the short
Iapolenonic interlude in 1815. Switzerland's neutrality
as envisaged by the Treaty of Vienna of March 1815 was
not a new conception, nor was its recognition by foreign
powers a novel idea.
The significance of the success of Swiss diplomacy
at Vienna was that, in addition to obtaining a guarantee
of the confederation's new frontiers, the Swiss were able
to get the great powers to re-endorse Swiss neutrality in
the general European settlement of 1815 which endured for
decades. The famous Act of Perpetual Swiss Neutrality
and Inviolability, signed on 20 November 1816 by Austria,
Great Britain, Russia and Prussia, declared Switzerland
a perpetually neutral country and contains the much-
quoted lines, "The neutrality and inviolability of Switzer-
land and its independence from all foreign influences are
in the true interests of the policy of the whole of Europe."
This act of 7 November 1815 expressed an unqualified
acceptance by foreign powers of Switzerland's special
position, but did not include a direct guarantee by the
signatories. On the other hand, the Quadruple Alliance
signed on the same day by the same four powers made
clear the powers' intention to maintain,by force if
necessary, the general?uropean settlement of which the
Swiss settlement was a part.
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It does not appear that the Swiss recognized or
believed that their neutrality was guaranteed. They would
not have desired any such guarantee, for by implication this
might have conferred on the guarantors rights of supervision
and even intervention.
Between 1815 and 1848, Austria, Prussia, and France
repeatedly intervened in the purely internal affairs of
the Swiss. For instance, Metternich forced the Swiss to
restrict the admission of political exiles because their
presence on Swiss territory was contrary to neutrality.
King Louis Philippe of France forced the Bern government
to stop its attempts to liberalize the status of the church.
Prince Louis Napoleon was forced to flee from Switzerland
because of French threats of war against the Swiss if he
continued to reside there.
At the conclusion of Switzerland's last civil war in
1847, a prelude to the unification of the country when the
victorious Radicals were just about to embark on their
much overdue and far-reaching constitutional reforms,
Austria, Prussia and Russia advised the Swiss they would
not permit any changes in the 1815 constitution. Thanks
to the passive assistance given by the English as well as
the revolutions of 1848 in Europe, the Swiss were able to
ignore these threats and were able to adopt the 1848
constitution which gave it the proper legislative and legal
set-up for a strong government and army. Whenever their
neutrality was challenged subsequently, the Swiss were
able to combine "firmness" with the skillful negotiation,
a policy backed by military forces.
It was also during the first year of the 1848
constitution that the question of sanctuary for political
refugees from other countries arose in Switzerland's
foreign relations, and that a humanitarian tradition, as
well as an assertion of independence, was established.
Closely connected with the granting of sanctuary to
exiles was the question of internment and disarmament of
retreating foreign troops driven onto Swiss territory.
In both World Wars, the principle and technique of intern-
ment acquired proportions of overawhelming importance to
neutral Switzerland and the belligerents alike.
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The international committee of the Red Cross established
in 1862, and its affiliated national Red Cross Societies,
raised the moral and practical significance of Switzerland.
During both World Wars I and II, its many philanthropic
services functioned with accustomed efficiency and generosity.
In addition, as a protecting power, it was at one time or
another representing the interests of most of the principal
belligerents, possibly an additional reason why the country's
neutrality was respected.
The Swiss joined the League of Nations in 1920, having
had the proper guarantees of Swiss neutrality inserted.
Article 435 of the Treaty of Versailles has a specific
reference to the 1815 treaties as "constituting international
obligations for the maintenance of peace." Their experience
in this organization left the Swiss disillusioned, however,
and they did not join the United Nations when it was established
in 1945, even though they since joined many of its specialized
agencies.
The end of World War II found Switzerland without
formal international recognition of its neutrality. In
the West, the European powers were more willing to go
along with the Swiss in their interpretation of their
own neutrality, more so than the United States was willing to
acknowledge. In the.Orbit, the Swiss were regarded with
deep hostility.
Most recently, however, the Swiss are meeting with more
success in their efforts to reassert their neutrality. They
were accepted as "neutral" by the Sino-Soviet bloc for the
Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission in Korea; they are
representing Soviet interests in Iraq, this being the first
time the Swiss have represented Soviet interests; and their
neutrality has been cited by Moscow as the model for
Austrian neutrality.
HUNTINGTON D. SHELDON
Assistant Director
Current Intelligence
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