Switzerland

in 1792. The close connection between France and Switzerland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries made it natural that the despotic French kings should employ the faithful and courageous Swiss

heir lives." The reply cowed the rioters for the time and the king was safe for that day. When the king had left the Tuileries the Swiss Guards were withdrawn. As they went away from the palace they were attacked by the mob and, disdaining to fly, were slaughtered almost to a man. Of 800 officers and men only a handful su

witzerland. By 1792 there had been several peasant risings among the Alpine communities in protest against oligarchic oppression. The cry for Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, found its echo in the mountains as it came in a hoarse roar from the French cities. The exiles from aristocratic France to slightly more liberal Switzerland were in time matched by discontented exiles from Switzerland to Paris. The "Helvetic Club" formed at Paris of Swiss refugees had for its purpose the application of the principles of

" came into more or less peaceful existence. Later a Franco-Helvetic Alliance was signed, and almost immediately afterwards the little land suffered for its alliance by being invaded by Russia and Austria, then making war upon France. For the first time in history an Austrian invader was welcomed by a part of the Swiss nation. The story of the campaign need not be told in detail; but it had one vivid incident of which any visitor to Switzerland interested in military prowess should seek out the memorials. General Suwarow, commanding a Russian army, marched from Italy to junction with General Korsakow at Zurich. Suwarow forced the Pass of St. Gothard in the face of a French force and passed down the valley of the Reuss to Lake Uri. Here he found his path to Zurich blocked, as no b

fter his own heart. In 1803 he took thought for the vexed condition of the Swiss people and summoned to Paris the "Helvetic Consulta" of sixty-three Swiss representatives to draw up a new system of government. He presided personally at the meetings of this body, and the constitution agreed upon bears the impress of the grand political sagacity which was associated with Napoleon's military genius. Switzerland

THE ST. GOT

at Zurich drew up a new constitution, and this was submitted to the Vienna Congress in 1814, and with some changes approved. It was far inferior to the Napoleonic constitution, and plunged the country into another serie

n vouched for by many competent judges. Australia has imitated the Swiss system in her military organisation, and it is practically the same system which a powerful party in Great Britain urges as a measure of military reform in this country. The Federal Government has, of course, the control of the army; it has also the management of the railways, posts and telegraphs, universities and schools, and the regulation of the conditions of labour. Full religious liberty is allowed, but the Jesuits are not allowed to come into the country. No

salient features is worthy of space here. The system dates from 1874, the Franco-Prussian War on their borders having warned the Swiss of the possibility of their land being invaded. From his earliest days the Swiss citizen is prepared for

ecruit-the canton being subdivided into recruiting districts-and is fitted out with uniform and equipment, and in the year in which he attains 20 (the year, too, in which he becomes entitled to vote at elections) the recruit becomes liable to military service and presents himself for instruction at recruit schools, beginning either about March 15, May 1, or July 1, as

Landwehr or Landsturm. In all the citizen is forced to give about 160 days during his lifetime to the service of his country, an exaction which is very slight in the total compared

sed of the Minister of War (president), four General Officers (militia), four "Chefs de service" (staff officers), appointed for three years. This Committee stands at the head o

or service represents practically the total of the male population. Training for military service is looked upon not as a burden

the national exchequer and no burden at all on the national content, and which is yet withal highly

I do unhesitatingly affirm, and in this opinion I am supported by more competent judges than myself, that taken as a whole it is, for war purposes, not unworthy, so far as it goes, to court comparison with the most scientifically organised and most highly trained armies of the Continent. In some respects it even surpasses all other armies in its read

States, can be done towards producing for Home defence a really well-trained force under a militia system, provided that the system is based on universal liability to military service, and that all ranks alike bring goodwill and intelligence to bear on their allott

e Swiss people intimated their desire to have the army maintained at such a degree of efficiency as would ensure their independenc

nglishman named Colonel Williams, who in 1799 was in service with the Zurich government and commandeered a small fleet on Lake Zurich, having orders to oppose with it the French army. When the French, under Masséna,