Swiss Watching Read online

  And for some hardy souls, boots are all they wear. Naked hiking is alarmingly popular, even in winter, though luckily I have yet to meet anyone who likes to let the sun kiss his whole body while out walking. Public nudity is not a trauma in Switzerland. Many Swiss bathing areas have FKK (Freikörperkultur or free body culture; that is, nudist) sections, and wellness centres usually require guests to strip off in the saunas and steam rooms. No one cares, except if you aren’t naked, but when it’s busy it can be like sitting cheek to cheek. It’s still not quite on the German scale, where you never know when the next naked person might appear. Have a picnic in the wrong part of Munich’s English Garden and you’ll never eat another Scotch egg. Thankfully, everyone on the Swiss Path is fully dressed.

  SKIPPING THROUGH THE MIDDLE AGES

  Down at the lakeside village of Bauen it seems a good idea to cut out two million people (or more exactly their share of path) by catching a ride for the 20-minute trip to the other shore. This second boat fast-forwards me through another hundred years, during which the Swiss defeated the Austrians again. This rivalry continues today, albeit more peacefully, most noticeably in sporting terms; no winter is complete without comparing how well Austrian and Swiss skiers did in various competitions. It’s like England and Germany at football all over again, though at least the Swiss win more often than the English.

  In the Winter Olympics, the overall medals tally6 is Austria 201, Switzerland 126, which cuts deep into the Swiss psyche. Then again, Switzerland actually has done far better in the Summer Olympics, thanks to shooting, riding, rowing and cycling. And no Swiss history book is complete without noting their victory in the 1386 Battle of Sempach against Austria. It might mean nothing to most Europeans, but it’s still commemorated every year by the Swiss. This was their Agincourt. The victory pretty much secured their independence within the Habsburg Empire and their reputation as soldiers to be reckoned with. In those days, Switzerland was not the goody-two-shoes of Europe but was as militaristic as anyone – invading neighbours, grabbing land, fighting wars and taking spoils were all totally acceptable. And this fearsome war machine would now play a major role in European history.

  It is 1476, and one of the richest and biggest powers is Burgundy, under its duke, Charles the Bold. He rules over a large part of western Europe, from Holland and Belgium through northern France and Alsace down towards Geneva. With France and England having spent the previous hundred years fighting each other to a standstill, and Germany and Italy divided into piecemeal states, the way is clear for Burgundy to rule the roost. However, for Charles it all comes unstuck when he picks a fight with the Swiss, who now number eight cantons. Twice in that year, in March at Grandson (which is a real place despite the odd name, pronounced the French way to rhyme with chanson) and in June at Murten, the Burgundians are resoundingly defeated and never truly recover. But Charles isn’t a quitter and tries again six months later, though he should have stayed at home. He dies on the battlefield at Nancy, killed by Swiss soldiers, and Burgundy disappears, absorbed by France, which goes on to dominate European affairs for the next few centuries.

  The boat docks at Flüelen, a busy little spot at the head of Lake Uri and about halfway along the Swiss Path; at least it’s halfway in terms of distance travelled rather than time covered. At this point on the path the now-powerful Confederation has 13 cantons, plus various subject territories, and that’s how it stayed for the next three centuries. But while the map of Switzerland remained stable, its history did not. Three crucial events changed the country fundamentally, so much so that all three still affect it today. A perfect time for a well-earned pause, with a late lunch and a quick skip through 300 years.

  HOW THE WHOLE NEUTRALITY THING STARTED

  There comes a time in every country’s history when it over-stretches itself and suffers a humiliating defeat, and Switzerland is no exception. Where Britain had its Suez and America its Vietnam, Switzerland had its Marignano. After trouncing the Burgundians, the Swiss flashed their military prowess around, defeating those Austrians yet again and then taking Milan from the French. In 1515 the French hit back, near the small village of Marignano in northern Italy, and the unthinkable happened: the seemingly invincible Swiss troops were bloodily crushed. It wasn’t the defeat itself that was momentous, but the way the Swiss responded. Unlike other would-be powers, they didn’t just go off and invade someone else, as the British did after losing the American colonies. Neither did they fight on while their world slowly disintegrated, as the Romans did for a couple of centuries. Instead they made peace with the French, gave them back Milan, and decided not to fight any more. Against anyone. This was the beginning of Swiss neutrality as we know it, though its formal recognition from the powers-that-be had to wait until the nineteenth century.

  Of course, some things are more important than not fighting, such as making money. And if all your strapping young men are not off killing an enemy, they may end up fighting among themselves. The perfect answer was to hire them out to whoever wanted an army, so killing two birds with one stone, though hopefully not many of your men. Why fight a war if you can get paid to fight someone else’s? Manpower was thus one of the earliest Swiss exports, with a ‘Made in Switzerland’ seal of approval. And these weren’t individual volunteers, they were whole battalions hired out by the cantons themselves, complete with officers.

  Swiss troops proceeded to fight and die for almost every European power, and they even fought each other when rented out to opposing sides. Their most famous moment was perhaps their futile defence of the Tuileries Palace during the French Revolution when over 600 died, a massacre commemorated today by the forlorn Lion Monument in Lucerne. Mercenary armies were abolished by the Swiss in the mid-nineteenth century, but one remnant remains: the Pope’s Swiss Guard. For over 400 years this elite troop has guarded the Pontiff, not always successfully, and stood still for millions of tourists’ pictures. New recruits have to be Swiss, of course, but also male, single, under 30, over 1.74 metres tall and have an ‘irreproachable reputation’.7 Protestants need not apply. As for those jaunty stripey uniforms, Michelangelo apparently had little to do with them; contrary to popular belief, they were designed in the twentieth century using the Medici colours.8

  The Swiss had barely got used to their new-fangled neutrality when along came the next big idea – the Reformation, which arrived in Zurich in 1519. Mirroring what happened in the rest of Europe, the country split down the middle, as did Canton Appenzell. This Catholic–Protestant rift still divides Switzerland today, and is such a fundamental part of the culture that it gets the next chapter all to itself.

  After those two upheavals the Swiss had a relatively quiet time, staying out of everyone’s way. Until Napoleon.

  BONEY SHAKES THINGS UP

  Despite being surrounded by bigger, stronger countries, Switzerland has only been conquered once in its history, a feat that is still the source of some pride. When the little Corsican came calling in 1798, there was short-lived resistance and the old Confederation was soon swept away. Up to that point, and in spite of linguistic and religious differences, the Swiss and the French had enjoyed good relations since their little altercation at Marignano. Not bad going, considering the French have been at war with someone for most of their history. While the French occupiers weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms, it’s fair to say that a few Swiss were glad to see them, at first anyway. Switzerland then wasn’t the über-democracy we know today. The old Confederation was essentially a loose collection of 13 mini-states, some still with aristocratic governments and feudal systems. Alongside them were over 70 territories, most of which are now part of what we call Switzerland. These ranged from independent allies, such as the powerful cities of Geneva and St Gallen, through subject dependencies, for instance Ticino, to mere protectorates, like the tiny republic of Gersau, population 2000. The first thing Napoleon did was to abolish the lot and create the Helvetic Republic, a unitary state with a central government. Switzerland a
s a nation-state was born.

  This being Napoleon, things didn’t work out as planned. No one liked the new government and its accumulation of power, but even less popular was being forced to host (and feed) an occupying army, especially when those pesky Austrians invaded again to try to oust the French. Being a battleground for the Great Powers did not suit the Swiss at all, proving to them it was right to stay out of such affairs. Switzerland’s first great experiment in central government lasted a mere five years before collapsing from internal squabbling and external power play. Seeing sense, Napoleon abolished the Helvetic Republic and created a new, improved version of the old Confederation.

  As the nation’s only conqueror Napoleon has a special place in Swiss history, even if it’s one they don’t like to celebrate, and his influence can still be seen today. Six cantons owe their existence to his changes, as does the concept of being a Swiss citizen rather than a cantonal one. His republic may have been an example of how not to rule, but he did at least give every Swiss man the same rights (women had to wait a while longer), abolishing both feudalism and subjected territories. And in Bern there’s a physical reminder of his army’s presence: the street signs in the city centre are still in four different colours, a system used to help illiterate French troops find their quarters. In some streets signs are green on one side, yellow on the other; a little historical anomaly that modern tourists barely notice as they take photos.

  One other by-product of Napoleon’s intervention was the creation of a Swiss national flag. Until then each canton flew its own flag both at home and in battle. Napoleon brought in a tricolour, a rather ugly green, red and yellow affair that vanished as quickly as the republic it represented. However, the lack of national cohesion in the face of invasion prompted General Dufour (he of the highest peak in Switzerland) to promote the value of one flag for the army. This new flag was square, like its cantonal cousins, and red with a white cross at its centre. As an army flag it saw action only once (in 1847, see below) before being adopted as the national flag. Nevertheless, as this is Switzerland, there was a heated debate over the exact shape of the cross until a law in 1889 defined the arms as being of equal length but one sixth longer than they are wide.9 The Swiss flag is still square, one of only two national flags to be that shape; the other being that of the Vatican City, home of the Swiss Guard. Coincidence? I think not.

  THE NAME’S TELL, WILLIAM TELL

  The next few kilometres of path cover the six cantons Napoleon created, all of which joined en masse in 1803, rather like the European Union’s big expansion in 2005. This rebirth of the Confederation coincided with the reappearance of a Swiss folk hero: William Tell. Thanks to a play written by a German and then a catchy piece of music composed by an Italian, Mr Tell became a household name across Europe. These days he’d probably be designated a terrorist and incarcerated without trial, but back in the early nineteenth century Romanticism was all the rage and so Tell became a hero in the mould of Robin Hood. For the Swiss he’d always been that, but his legend becoming an international phenomenon dovetailed neatly with a bit of nation building. The trouble is no one really knows if he existed, although to dismiss the story as fiction is tantamount to treason for Swiss nationalists. Seeing as William was a native of these parts, this seems an appropriate moment to tell his story.

  Every legend has its baddy and in this one he’s an Austrian (what else?) called Hermann Gessler. As the new Habsburg bailiff in Altdorf, the capital of Canton Uri, Gessler puts his hat on a pole in the main square, demanding that everyone bow to it when they pass. Our hero, who is in town with his son Walter, wanders past without so much as a nod to the hat, and is promptly arrested. Gessler gives Tell a challenge to win his freedom: shoot an apple from Walter’s head. Needless to say, Tell is a crossbow whizz and the apple is shot clean away. An unimpressed Gessler asks Tell why he has a second arrow ready. When Tell tells him it was for him, in case it was Walter’s head and not the apple that was split by the first arrow, Gessler’s less than happy and has Tell dragged off to prison in Küssnacht, on the other side of Lake Lucerne. Luckily, a storm whips up as they cross the lake by boat and Tell leaps to safety as they near the shore. Then he legs it to Küssnacht, ambushes Gessler in a dark alley and fires the arrow into his heart. Tell is a hero, the baddy is dead and the Swiss are inspired to fight for their freedom from those dastardly Austrians.

  In Altdorf’s main square, the site of the apple-shooting incident, there now stands a huge statue of Tell, who’s portrayed all beardy and barrel-chested, a giant of a man more like Little John than Robin Hood. Every summer Schiller’s play is produced in an open-air theatre in Interlaken, a town which has nothing to do with the Tell legend but is full of tourists willing to watch a rollicking affair with local actors, galloping horses, a cast of hundreds (if you include all the cows) and Rossini’s rousingly bouncy tune to wrap things up, and not a lone ranger in sight. Schiller casts Tell right in the heart of the events leading up to Rütli, which means that at least Fürst, Stauffacher and Melchtal all get a role. But they still take a backseat to Tell as the father of the nation; a poll in 2004 showed that 60 per cent of Swiss people believed he actually lived.10

  Incidentally, the play was once banned by Hitler11 even though Schiller was an upstanding eighteenth-century German (he also wrote the poem ‘Ode to Joy’, which Beethoven used in his Ninth Symphony). Perhaps Hitler didn’t like its message of standing up to tyranny and oppression. Either that or he objected to the choice of bad guys; he was Austrian, after all.

  A NEW BEGINNING

  On the south side of the lake the path is most definitely a walk not a hike, not least because a large section of it is asphalted. But it is as interesting as any rocky mountain path because it’s a surviving part of the historic Axenstrasse, a road blasted through the rock in 1865. Walking through the narrow, deserted tunnels and galleries is rather spooky, like being in one of those films where the hero wakes up and everyone else has vanished. The modern road is half buried in the hillside, though unfortunately not buried enough and I have to walk alongside it for a stretch.

  It’s a relief to get back into the woods – maybe the hikers have a point – for the next stretch of path to the Tell Chapel, built on the spot where our hero supposedly leapt ashore from Gessler’s boat. At the top of the many steps down to the water’s edge is a rather incongruous sight: Switzerland’s largest carillon, with 37 bells in total. For the first ten minutes of every hour it plays a selection of 20 tunes, including the ‘William Tell Overture’, naturally, and more bizarrely ‘Auld Lang Syne’. This metal tower of bells was donated by the Swiss chocolate industry, though the connection isn’t immediately clear, nor why it’s out here in the middle of nowhere. Still, it leaves me humming Rossini all the way down to the chapel and the next boat.

  Taking this easy way to reach the end of the path neatly bypasses a whole chunk of time. After the 1815 Congress of Vienna established Switzerland’s borders and guaranteed its neutrality, not a lot changed on the map front. No cantons came or went, meaning that the Swiss Path doesn’t exactly represent the rest of the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth. Although the Swiss map might not have changed in that period the country certainly did, most notably in 1848 when it was completely reinvented. With revolutions rippling through most of Europe in that year, it’s not too surprising that Switzerland succumbed as well. The big difference is that the Swiss revolution was a political one, with no shots fired or blood shed. Both of those had occurred the previous year during Switzerland’s last armed conflict, a mini-war that lasted less than a month. It was the final round of the religious struggle that had divided Switzerland since the Reformation, but the reconciliation between Catholic and Protestant was remarkably quick, and has remained intact almost ever since. And that is all down to the reinvention of the country.

  Out went the confederation of self-governing cantons, in came a brand new system. Under the Federal Constitution, a central government and parliament w
ere created in the newly designated capital, Bern. Cantons had their powers reduced, although they still had enough to act as a balance to the centre and keep the Catholics happy. Switzerland was now a federal state and the new government brought order to the chaos, giving the Swiss what they have wanted ever since: proper rules and regulations. A common market was created by abolishing internal tariffs, a single currency was established, and citizens had the freedom to move to any canton. All rather like what happened within the whole of Europe a century or so later, showing that the Swiss were well ahead of the rest of us.

  The new constitution was a pragmatic, peaceful solution to an intractable problem, and that became the typically Swiss way of resolving conflict. Ever since, communication and compromise have defined the Swiss attitude in almost every sphere of life. From government and politics through business and finance to local communities and clubs, finding a consensus is the accepted way forward. Carefully deliberated conclusions are so much more Swiss than instant action. Hardly any decision is taken without weighing up every argument, possibility, ramification and viewpoint, so that the outcome is acceptable to everyone, or at least the majority. This all-inclusive approach is fair and worthy, but also tediously slow and cumbersome, even back in the nineteenth century.

  To the outside world in those days, this new politics meant very little; it was during the height of European imperialism after all. Everyone else was far too busy carving out empires, racing arms, converting the natives and plundering colonies to notice a nation built on consensus. However, the events of one year would change all that and make the world look at Switzerland in a fresh light.

  MR COOK AND THE CROSS