Unpacking Swiss History, Identity, and Culture with Diccon Bewes (#11)
Episode Summary: Understanding Swiss History and Culture
In this episode, I sat down with Diccon Bewes, the renowned author of Swiss Watching, Slow Train to Switzerland, and Around Switzerland in 80 Maps. Diccon takes us through Switzerland’s fascinating history, exploring what unites the country despite its linguistic and cultural diversity.
Expect to learn about Switzerland’s unique path to neutrality, the evolution of its famous train network (originally built to cater to British tourists), and its past as a nation of mercenaries. We also dive into Swiss democracy, discussing how the federal system and frequent referendums shape the nation’s political landscape, as well as the ongoing balance between local autonomy and national unity.
This episode is packed with insights into the history, identity, and culture that define Switzerland. Enjoy!
About Diccon Bewes: Celebrated Author and Swiss History Enthusiast
Diccon Bewes is a British author and self-proclaimed “Swissophile,” whose works have become essential reading for anyone curious about Switzerland. With a knack for blending wit and depth, Diccon has written extensively about Swiss history, culture, and everyday life. His bestselling book Swiss Watching has introduced thousands to the quirks and charms of the nation. His expertise offers a unique perspective on what makes Switzerland tick.
Contact Diccon: https://www.dicconbewes.com/
Full Transcript
Discover every detail of my engaging conversation with Diccon Bewes. This transcript covers Swiss culture, historical milestones, and the country’s unique democratic and social systems, all through the lens of a seasoned storyteller.
Mike: [00:00:00] Diccon, thank you for joining How It Ticks. How are you today?
Diccon: You’re very welcome that I’m here and thank you for the invitation and I’m okay. The sun was shining today so it feels like autumn is off to a good start.
Mike: I thought a good place to start could be talking about what makes up the identity of a Swiss person. You’ve written about how Switzerland has a very strong sense of identity, despite it having a big diversity in language and culture.
What do you think makes up the Swiss identity, and where do you think it comes from?
Diccon: It’s a really good place to start, it’s also a difficult place to start. Um, I think even if you ask Swiss people, they might struggle to define what is the Swiss identity. Um, I think you can start with a German word.
Which is villains. That’s young, which literally means it’s a country because it [00:01:00] wants to be a country. Um, and that goes right back to 1291 when Switzerland, the traditional founding date of Switzerland, the first three cantons banded together to stand up to the bad guys. And the bad guys in those days were the Habsburgs in many Swiss minds.
The Austrians are still the bad guys, but that’s usually on the ski slopes. Um, and they. grouped together because they felt they were stronger together. They were three rural cantons around Lake, around Lake Lucerne. Now that has progressed to the 26 cantons we have 700 or so years later, and they still feel they are stronger together.
even though they have four national languages, even though they’re roughly split between Protestant and Catholic, which these days isn’t an issue, but 400 years ago was a big issue. And these days, a bigger issue is the urban rural divide and the fact that Switzerland doesn’t really have natural borders.
It’s not an island. It doesn’t have a mountain range [00:02:00] like the Pyrenees cutting it off from the rest of the world. Um, so it is a, it is a bizarre country in that sense. It shouldn’t really exist. But it does, and it has done for over 700 years, because the people want it to exist. And so I’ve done many events in the French speaking part, in Swiss Romand, in Ticino, the Italian speaking part, and they’re all very clear that they would rather be a minority in Switzerland than a forgotten province in France or Italy.
Even though they are a minority language, German is the majority, about 63 percent of the country. So, they might moan, and a lot of them do moan, about being overshadowed by the German speaking minority, and the German speaking majority moan about all those, those lazy Ticinese, or those Swiss Romands who drink wine at lunchtime and never really make decisions.
Um, but actually, the German speakers are also happy to have, The other languages, because without them, they would be a small German speaking [00:03:00] country. They would be a mini Austria, and they would hate that. So, a lot of Swiss national identity comes from a sense of community, whether that’s your own community, but as in the town you live, or whether it’s the Swiss community, which is this multilingual entity that has grown up.
And we have to remember that modern Switzerland, as we know it as a country, only dates back to 1848. It’s 176 years old. Before that, it really was a collection of City states or rural states called cantons and they kind of work together and then sometimes didn’t they sometimes fell out they went to war with each other and so this idea of we are stronger together has persisted and sometimes is made stronger by an external threat.
So that could be the Habsburgs as the founding moment, but it could also be Napoleon, or it could be Nazi Germany, or in modern day, it could be the European Union. [00:04:00] So if we stand up to the external threat together, we are much stronger than doing it individually. So that was a very long answer for a very simple question, but it’s, it’s an interesting conundrum that the Swiss definitely feel Swiss.
Um, and especially. In the last 175 years, we now have a flag and a currency and a capital, none of which existed before federal Switzerland came into being. So there are symbols of Switzerland that are identifiable these days, which weren’t there 200 years ago. Um, and yet the feeling hasn’t really changed is that we might be different.
We might speak different languages. We might pray in different churches or not pray at all. Um, but we have something in common which makes us stronger.
Mike: Over time, through your research, have you noticed whether the culture or [00:05:00] the identity of Switzerland has changed from starting off as three cantons and bit by bit as it’s growing and adding more and more villages to it, each village bringing its own sense of identity and sort of clipping on to Switzerland.
Do you think because of how it’s sort of grown over time, it would have changed?
Diccon: I think certainly as soon as you get French speaking areas, so Fribourg and Bern, two bilingual cantons, which were the first French speaking areas, although they’re still German speaking, they were the first ones to join, uh, the Swiss Confederation.
That changed things a lot, because up until that, I mean, Bern joined in 1353, so up until that, it was definitely a German speaking collection. I mean, you couldn’t really call it a country in those days, but it was more than just the individual units. Um, and the interesting thing for me is you still have this idea of the canton.
Um, Being very [00:06:00] strong. So there was a, uh, a report in the newspaper just this week, a professor had proposed getting rid of the cantons because they’re inefficient because the smallest one only has 16, 000 people and et cetera, et cetera, and replacing them with 10 regions, which would be much more efficient and a much better use of resources and because Switzerland is a small country, only 9 million people.
Why have 26 individual units? He found some. People thinking, yes, it’s a good idea, but generally people. Like the cantons and so although the idea of Switzerland has changed what has stayed the same Pretty much all the time is the idea you are a citizen of your community in your canton rather than the country So when I became Swiss three years ago, I didn’t become Swiss.
I became Bernese And my nationality papers, my citizenship papers say I’m a citizen of Bern and I only actually became Swiss when I applied for a Swiss passport so I could [00:07:00] travel abroad. And there’s an old saying that’s been around for a long time saying you’re only Swiss when you’re abroad. Um, and until that moment you are Bernese or Tichinese or Genovese, um, and so it’s this idea that you’re Canton.
Is as important, if not more important for some people than the country, but overarching that we have a federal system and we have a national identity. You support Switzerland football team rather than as a burn football team, although you might support young boys, but nationally we have national, uh, emblems.
And I remember talking to a TV presenter when he was interviewing me and he came from Davos. in Graubünden. And Davos, if you’ve ever been there, it’s split between two villages, both with the name Davos, Davosplatz and Davosdorf. And he said, if you grow up in one Davos, your [00:08:00] enemy, if you’re a young boy, is someone from the other Davos.
Now, as soon as you leave the village and you go, say, to Chur, the capital of Graubünden, you are united because you’re both from Davos, and your enemy is some lout. In core, when you go off to university now, when you leave ground and go to Zurich to go and work, it doesn’t matter whether the guy from core was your enemy.
He’s now a fellow. And so you are united against anyone from Zurich. And then when you go abroad, it doesn’t matter which Canton you’re from, you’re both Swiss. So it’s this sort of hierarchy of. of allegiance, of identity. And the overall one is always Swiss, but generally when you’re abroad. And of course that has changed with modern travel.
So a hundred years ago, a lot of people in Switzerland didn’t leave their valleys or didn’t leave their towns. Um, even when the train system was [00:09:00] developed in Switzerland in the 1860s, it was for most Swiss people to use. It was built primarily for tourists, um, especially British tourists. I know it’s hard to believe in these times, but 150, 160 years ago, Britain was.
The British abroad had money and were rich and could afford trains, and so trains were built to take them to Grindelwald and to take them to Davos. And yet now the Swiss travel a lot abroad, and so their identity is no longer completely confined to the village they grew up in or the city that they visited every now and then.
It is much more about, we are Swiss. Once we are outside Switzerland,
Mike: here’s a few different directions. I want to take this now. I before I do want to talk to you about the sort of the history and origin of Switzerland, but just on that comment regarding the train system. I [00:10:00] remember. I was going to say, is it your book or someone else’s, but I don’t think I’ve read another person’s book about it.
It must be my book. It must have been your book. One of my books.
Diccon: There’s more than one.
Mike: You said that the Swiss train network, which is internationally known as one of the best train networks in the world, was quite poor for a long time because each canton couldn’t, cantons couldn’t agree on the train networks to develop.
And it wasn’t until the British decided they wanted to visit the As a tourist that they essentially funded and built, um, train network. Is that right?
Diccon: It’s sort of right. I mean, it’s up until 1848 when the federal government was created, Switzerland had one train line, precisely one, which went from Zurich to Baden, so 27 kilometers.
And that was it. And it really was because the cantons could not agree. There was no federal structure, and so the, and the cantons couldn’t agree who should finance them, who should give up the land to, uh, build, to have the railways there. Um, should it be the state, should [00:11:00] it be private companies, and so because they couldn’t agree, they just didn’t build anything.
Now in 1848, you have the federal government, and one of the first things they looked at was the train network in comparison to France, Germany, Britain, where there were already thousands of kilometers. And okay, the topography here is more challenging. And Switzerland didn’t have big industry and didn’t have big cities.
So there was still the issue of how do we build and how do we finance it? And what they did in 1852, they invited. Robert Stevenson, um, who was the son of George Stevenson, who invented the Stevenson rocket, the first passenger train in Northeast England. So Robert Stevenson came, the British were the train experts in those days, also now hard to believe, um, and he developed a network plan for the Swiss Federal Government, um, which you can see it’s in archives and also in one of my books.
And basically it was a cross. From north to south and east to [00:12:00] west. Uh, there was no concept of tunnels in those days. The first tunnels hadn’t been built, and so the, it was linking all the cities of what in Germany called the Middleland, the Swiss Plateau, so Geneva Lowland Burn Basel, Zurich St. Gallen. So it basically went from Lake Geneva to Lake Constance and Basel down as far as the mountains.
And the lines crossed, and that was the big interchange at Alton. And Alton is still the big interchange between North, South, and East, West. And if you go to Alton on platform 12, there is a zero marker on the platform to show this was the zero point for all Swiss train lines. It’s also the reason why Swiss trains run on the left, like in Britain, not on the right, like in Germany.
It’s a British system and British money was built. Um, and British engineers came over. So Thomas Brassie came over, built the first train tunnel, the Hauenstein tunnel, south of Basel. Um, that was a British. Uh, creation and a [00:13:00] lot of British money was involved at the beginning, but the Swiss very quickly realized that they had different topography.
They had, uh, the challenge of the mountains, but also at the exactly the same time. Um, Thomas Cook was bringing his first tourists, as they became called, to Switzerland in the 1860s and 70s. And they wanted to see the countryside. They wanted this unspoiled utopia of mountains and waterfalls and lakes.
But it was hard to get there on foot or on donkey. And so there became a financial motive for private companies and cantons. to build railway lines. So you very quickly get railways to places like Interlaken and even then in the 1890s up to Grindelwald. And there’s no reason to build a train to Grindelwald.
There’s nothing there. Cows don’t need a train. But if you want to take tourists quickly up there because they only have two weeks holiday, then there’s a big financial motive to build the railways. And primarily at the [00:14:00] beginning, those tourists were British and they brought money and they could afford.
The train lines, just to give you an example of what I mean by, um, the Swiss too poor to use them. In the 1870s, a ticket from Bern to Lausanne would cost seven francs. Now that was a week’s wages for a Swiss worker. So, uh, whereas for the Brits coming here, it was relatively cheap. Especially in those days, there were probably like 300 francs to the pound as opposed to almost one to one these days.
But, um, so whereas a lot of the early lines were specifically built either to connect the cities, but you have to remember Swiss, Switzerland has very little coal, almost no coal. So they weren’t transporting coal and, and other goods around like the train lines in Britain and Germany. They were primarily for transporting goods.
people. And at the beginning, the incentive, those people were tourists and travelers. [00:15:00] Um, eventually of course, you get the Swiss designing their own train lines. So the Louis Favre who designed the Gotthard tunnel, then the longest tunnel in the world in 1882, he was Swiss. And Adolf Giardzela, who wanted to build the train line, the highest station in Europe up to Jungfraujoch, he was Swiss.
So by the 1880s, you have the Swiss designing and building their own lines. Still with foreign investment. So the French, for instance, invested in the Lutschberg tunnel, which joins Bern to Valais. Um, and a lot of the time with foreign laborers, mainly Italian. So if you think of all the great train lines, like the Gotthard or Jungfraujoch or the Bernina, most of them were built with Italian labor because it was cheap.
So the Swiss train network is this amazing modern thing, but it’s, it’s not completely a Swiss creation. It’s a little bit British, a little bit Italian, a little bit French, and a lot [00:16:00] Swiss.
Mike: What am I missing? We’ve got the British building train lines in Switzerland, but in the 1800s, I’m no expert, but I feel like automobiles weren’t very advanced.
How do they get from Britain to Switzerland still? Are these lines coming by train?
Diccon: So 18, I’ll give you an example, 1863, the very first package tour abroad by Thomas Cook came to Switzerland in June 1863. And the reason he chose Switzerland, he had never been, he had no idea what to expect. He was a useless tour guide in that respect.
Um, a bit like flying with Ryanair, you don’t really know where you’re going to end up. Um, but he realized that Switzerland had this idealized picture because of paintings and poems and When he went to Paris, he discovered that the train line to Geneva had been completed a few months before. So he could get from London to Paris, using a boat for the important bit, obviously, no tunnel in those days, London to [00:17:00] Paris, Paris to Geneva.
He could get people to Switzerland in two days. rather than the two weeks it would take in a horse and coach and horses. So, suddenly, and this is his moment of inspiration, people could go on holiday for two weeks abroad rather than just to Scotland or Ireland. And so, if he, and then he realized that if he bought group tickets en masse from the train companies, and remember, the train companies in all the, in those days were all private.
Um, also in Switzerland, um, if he bought train tickets on mass and sold them as group tickets, that would be cheaper. So train travel instantly, thanks to Thomas Cook became affordable and achievable to the middle classes. So whereas Lord Byron came to Switzerland and Charles Dickens came to Switzerland, they were staying three months or so they, they, they were men of leisure, they didn’t have to go back to work.
Um, [00:18:00] what Thomas Cook realized is that doctors, teachers, lawyers, Wanted to travel abroad, but couldn’t afford to leisurely go on a mini grand tour. They wanted what became a holiday, uh, for two weeks. And so he instigated these programs, uh, and founded the world’s first travel agency, invented travelers checks, invented train passes, everything that became tourism was created for his guests coming to Switzerland.
And that was only possible because. There was a train link from Paris to Geneva, and then once you were in Switzerland, the lines were built quite quickly. Obviously, you had boats to take you across Lake Geneva or Lake Thun, and That very first package draw in 1863, they hiked a lot of the way in their crinoline dresses, um, and their, their three piece suits if they were men, because there were no train lines.
And I’ve, I have gone along the route. I didn’t wear a crinoline dress when I went along the
Mike: route.
Diccon: Not really my [00:19:00] style. Um, but I, I have retraced the whole route. And today, for instance, from Chamonix in France at the foot of Mont Blanc, to Martigny in southern Switzerland, in Valais. There’s a beautiful train ride, the Mont Blanc Express, one of the nice scenic trains of Switzerland.
The original tourists had to hike that, either on foot or with a donkey. Now it became so popular, that route, that there was an incentive to build quite a difficult train line up through the mountains and the forest in quite a wild part of the country. And yet, it was built, it was opened, and by the 1890s it was a great success.
And you can look almost anywhere in Switzerland, whether it’s Graubünden with the amazing Albul Alain, which is a UNESCO heritage site, or whether it’s the train up inside the Eiger to Jungfraujoch, which opened in 1912. And you think, how amazing is it they built these before all the modern technology, um, and they were built primarily as tourist attractions.[00:20:00]
Mike: You said that it would take approximately a week’s wages for a Swiss person to get on one of these trains because they were so expensive. Mm hmm. Was Switzerland a poor country relative to its neighbors back then?
Diccon: I would say, yes, they’ve had pockets of wealth. Um, so in the cities like in Bern or Zurich, you had the guilds, um, and the guilds, whether you were a carpenter or a barrel maker or a butcher, um, and you had noble families, um, and they had wealth, that’s why you have lots of beautiful castles all across Switzerland.
They weren’t only defensive. Um, and you have some, what in Britain we would call stately homes, so relatively luxurious houses. When you think that the majority of the population either worked, uh, in farms or on the fields, or once industrialization had started, they started working in factories, they [00:21:00] had very little spending money.
So, they were relatively poor compared to the rest of Europe. So that very first Thomas Cook tour, 1863, a woman on that tour wrote a diary, which is how I discovered it in the Thomas Cook archives and retraced the route using her diary. Her name was Miss Jemima. She was 31 year old from Yorkshire, middle class, not particularly rich, daughter of a vicar.
And yet, she was so shocked when she came to Switzerland and saw barefoot children in the streets of villages begging, saw women selling cherries by the roadside just to get some money to buy food for their children, men hassling them to carry their bags up mountains because they needed money. And very obvious poverty.
Everywhere they went because they were the first tourists, there were no indoor bathrooms. Um, so you can imagine she’s in her crinoline dress and then she’s hiking through the mountains [00:22:00] and there’s no what we would call or what even she thought of as modern comforts. Um, and the guidebooks from those days are very clear.
Be very careful because the Swiss, whether it’s an innkeeper or a porter or someone will try to rip you off because they need the money, they will charge you more because you are British and you are rich and they will hide the original bill. So for instance, you will automatically get a wax candle, not a candle made from animal fat, and it’ll be four or five times the price because they assume that You can afford it and you won’t question it.
And so they will make more money from you. So I think the image of Switzerland as a rich country is valid today. Um, but certainly 150 years ago, the pockets of wealth, uh, were concentrated around the cities. And that slowly changes with tourism because tourism was one of the motors for [00:23:00] Bringing money into the rural areas because all these tourists, whether they were British at the beginning, but also the French and the Germans and later the Americans wanted to see this amazing landscape.
They weren’t particularly fast about going to return or burn. They wanted the glaciers, which in those days were much bigger. They wanted the unspoiled countryside. And so as soon as you have people coming regularly, Thomas Cook brought 500 people the first year, 2000 people the second year, 10, 000 people the third year.
So it’s this huge influx, then you start building hotels, you start building paddle steamers and train lines and rural people get jobs as chambermaids or souvenir sellers or bag porters and have an income, especially in the winter months. when there’s not much farm work. And the other thing is, as soon as you have the big tunnels built, the Gotthard Tunnel and the Lutschberg Tunnel, southern Switzerland, for the first time, [00:24:00] is a few hours journey from northern Switzerland, rather than at least a day over the passes.
And so, for, let’s give you an example, the apricot and apple growers in Wallis, The Rhone Valley in Wallis is famous for apricots and apples, but to get their goods to market in Zurich took days. Whereas once the trains were built, they could put their fruit, pack it carefully, and it would be in Zurich in a few hours.
And so it gave a second impetus, other than tourism, to the rural areas. So, I, it wasn’t the only thing, tourism and the trains weren’t the only thing that pulled Switzerland out of poverty, but they were one of the big motivating factors for changing the Swiss economy.
Mike: Yeah, as you were talking, I wanted to ask that.
I mean, Switzerland now is this economic powerhouse and coming from this humble beginning of just a few Villages with the exception of the tourism Do you think there’s any other sort of key historic moments which really [00:25:00] sort of led them to be as developed as what they are?
Diccon: um That’s a hard question because the swiss economy is quite diverse I mean you can point to the start of the watch industry really change things especially for uh, swiss remand where the watch industry is, uh You based, and that goes back to Jean Calvin, who was a French Protestant preacher who settled in Geneva and turned Geneva into the Protestant Rome.
And in 1541, he banned anything fun. So he banned velvet trousers, which I don’t think it was fun, but there we are. He banned, he banned long meals or music and dancing, but he also banned jewelry because it was frivolous. And so the jewelry needed something to replace. Their jewels for, uh, a, a livelihood and they switched to watchmaking.
And so you have the creation of the world’s first watchmaking Federation. So that one, one example, or in Basel, you had. [00:26:00] the dyeing industry, not euthanasia, but dyeing cloth. And that eventually turned into the chemical industry and the pharmaceutical industry, or in St. Gallen, you have was what the world center for lace and fine embroidery.
And most of the city was employed in that. And it’s still there today. Michelle Obama’s inauguration dress was made in St. Gallen from St. Gallen material with St. Um, so whereas Any other economy has this broad spectrum. Switzerland has excelled in finding places where they can become specialists and becoming world leaders, um, because they had to compensate for not having many natural resources.
Basically, Switzerland has wood, water, and cows, and there’s only so many things you can make from wood, water, and cows, so they’ve always been really good at it. Socializing, becoming highly trained in one sector, and then exporting [00:27:00] something of high value. My favorite example from history is chocolate.
Switzerland has no cocoa trees, I always point that out. Um, but they are world renowned for their chocolate. Why is that? Well, that’s because in 1875, a man called Daniel Pater invented the first milk chocolate bar. Um, his father in law happened to be Francois Louis Cahier, who owned a chocolate factory.
Um, but in those days, chocolate was a drink, which you mixed with milk and sugar to make it palatable. And a friend of his who lived in Vevey was Henri Nestlé. And Nestlé, who was a German immigrant, um, had just invented condensed milk. And Daniel Pater put his father in law’s bitter chocolate and his friend’s sweet, thick milk together.
And eventually, created the world’s first milk chocolate bar, which is why in the 1880s and 1890s, milk chocolate is synonymous with Switzerland. I’ve seen packaging from British chocolate companies at that time, which shows idyllic Swiss mountain scenes and, [00:28:00] uh, cow herds and things, because that’s how you sold Swiss.
That’s how you sold milk chocolate. It was seen as this Swiss great creation. So they imported cocoa beans, Made something of much higher value that the world wanted and exported it and created an industry out of it. A modern example is kind of a weird one, Switzerland, in terms of value, is the second highest exporter of coffee in the world.
So Brazil is number one. Why is Switzerland the second highest exporter of coffee? And that’s because the crucial word is value, not volume. So they import coffee beans. Again, just like cocoa in the 19th century. Import coffee beans, there are no coffee trees in Switzerland. They make something of high value that the world wants and exports it.
And that is called Nespresso. And Nespresso was a Swiss invention, also in Vive. And so because of Nespresso, Switzerland is the second [00:29:00] highest exporter of coffee in the world in terms of value. And that is how the Swiss economy has grown and thrived by specializing in different things. And of course, you mustn’t forget that it helped that it wasn’t destroyed at all in either of the world wars.
So in the 1950s, Was in a much better place to have an economic miracle because they didn’t have to rebuild Unlike France Germany and even the British cities or Poland or Italy so yes They were poor, but they have and they’re lacking in natural resources, but they have found a way consistently to specialize in in high value goods And to make the most of what they have.
Mike: That is a wonderful fact to tell at parties.
Diccon: The coffee fact. The
Mike: coffee fact, yeah.
Diccon: It’s a great fact, isn’t it? I mean, the chocolate, everyone knows about the [00:30:00] chocolate, but the coffee most people don’t think of as Switzerland as a coffee nation.
Mike: I also heard that it was Mr. Lint who invented the first machine which could automatically Roll coffee, uh, cocoa smooth enough to
Diccon: Conching.
A process called conching. Uh, Mr. Lint, who comes from Bern. Uh, I have to always say that. He wasn’t from Zurich, even though Lint is now in Zurich. Rudolf Lint came from Bern, as did Mr. Tobler, who invented Toblerone here in Bern. Um, so Mr. Lint, yeah, there’s a sort of A story which no one knows if it’s true.
He, he was grinding the cocoa mass as Daniel Pater had done. So, Rudolf Lindt came a few years after Daniel Pater, um, and he forgot to turn the machine off when he went to bed. And when he woke up the next morning, the machine was still running, but the cocoa mass had lost all its graininess and was completely smooth.
And this process, all, uh, chocolate manufacturers still use today is called conching to roll it. So that you have this [00:31:00] lovely smooth texture that we, that we like and the reason we buy chocolate. So yes, Rudolf Lindt invented that. How he invented it is, um, a bit of an old wives tale urban myth, but, um, it’s a nice story.
I like it.
Mike: Um, I wanted to use brief mention about Switzerland during the World Wars as a segue into sort of their history of Switzerland’s, um, neutrality during some of these big conflicts. I I know that Switzerland has a really interesting history about being mercenaries for different armies. And I wanted to ask you about, A, how that started, and B, how it finished.
In a way,
Diccon: the
Mike: mercenary aspect,
Diccon: well, the mercenary aspect, um, it kind of, it didn’t, it wasn’t one big bang moment. It’s like, Oh, we’re going to sell our men abroad as soldiers. [00:32:00] It kind of developed partly because the cantons were poor. And so a good way to earn money is to export your men to earn money abroad.
And it also gets rid of mouths to feed at home. Um, and it also gets rid of the inclination of some men to fight each other too much testosterone. So get them to go and fight abroad, not fight each other. So in some ways it was a practical solution to poverty at home in that. You export a part of the population.
So therefore you don’t have to feed them, but also they can earn money abroad. It’s also back to the fact that the cantons. Quite often we’re fighting each other. So you had wars of religion, Zwingli, who was the Protestant reformer in Zurich, he actually died on the battlefield in 1531. So you had the Canton still fighting each other.
You had militia armies, which you still have today with the militia principle of national service for men, not for [00:33:00] women. And so the Swiss soldiers were. In comparison to, say, a French farmer who was dragooned into the army, they were better trained and could use the long, um, pikes. They were famous for having these massively long pikes, which they set up as like a giant porcupine, so it was almost impossible to break through their lines.
And so they became highly sought after, especially By European royalty. So you had the French king had a Swiss guard They were massacred during the French revolution The British king had a Swiss guard. The pope had a Swiss guard and still is the only remaining mercenary army left Um, so it started as a way of earning money, but also as a way of projecting Swiss power as it were abroad because what we have to remember the Flip side of that is that Switzerland was not neutral in the Middle Ages.
So, Switzerland invaded and conquered [00:34:00] parts neighbors. That’s why Ticino, Italian speaking, is part of Switzerland, not part of Italy, because the Cantons conquered it, effectively turned it into a colony. You’re not allowed to say that, but it was effectively a colony, um, until it became a Canton in 1803. Um, Now, the beginning of Swiss neutrality kind of segues almost with the beginnings of the end of the mercenary system, but they do overlap quite significantly.
So for instance, there was a battle in 1515 in Marignano in northern Italy when the Swiss were roundly defeated by the French. And it wasn’t a big light bulb moment. They suddenly didn’t decide, Oh, we’re fed up with this. We’re not interacting with the world because 20 years later, the burn, the Bernese army conquered what is now Canton Vaux from the kingdom of Savoy.
And it’s remained Swiss ever since, but it was sort of the beginning of let’s rethink how we interact with our neighbors. And you have Switzerland becoming [00:35:00] neutral in modern terms, so during the Thirty Years War, it was not involved, it did not take sides. So that ended with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and that was the first time Swiss neutrality as a concept was roughly recognized by other powers.
Um, But at the same time, you still have the mercenary system in place. You still have Swiss soldiers going abroad. That actually didn’t end until the 19th century. Um, so again, with the creation of the federal government, national defense, those sort of things became a federal thing, not a cantonal thing.
And so the, the federal government quite quickly banned mercenary armies and banned recruitment and banned from, from a state or cantonal level. It’s still continued on a private level. So you had Swiss soldiers being employed by, [00:36:00] for example, the Dutch in Indonesia, uh, right up until 1914. There it’s estimated there were over 7, 000 Swiss, uh, soldiers.
Mercenaries, soldiers, being used by the Dutch for their colonial rule of Indonesia right up until 1914. But that was on an individual level. And that, um, didn’t, uh, wasn’t banned until the 1920s. So after the First World War. One of the most famous examples of a mercenary, uh, is a guy called Emil Frey. And Emil Frey, uh, went to live in the US in the 1850s.
The Civil War broke out. He was a Swiss citizen. He wasn’t American. Um, the Civil War broke out. He joined the Union Army, did relatively well, although he got captured, was a prisoner of war for a while, became a US citizen. Um, he fought the whole of the Civil War on the side of the Union Army. And then he came back, became a politician, was elected [00:37:00] to the federal council, um, became Swiss president and yet, and was a dual national.
And yet he had fought abroad in a war after the federal government had Uh, abolished mercenary armies, but he was a private citizen. So it’s kind of weird today to look back and think cost the Swiss, the Swiss were exporting their men as weapons. But today the Swiss export weapons. They don’t export their men as weapons, but they export weapons.
They are neutral, but they are certainly not Pacific. They have military service for men. They have an army, they have a very small air force. Um, and they have an arms industry to help sustain the army. And it exports weapons to around 70 countries around the world. Um, there are very often referendums initiatives to try and abolish.
The arms trade or even abolish the army. They never win. Uh, but there is a section of the population who doesn’t agree with it, but there’s a bigger section of the population [00:38:00] who thinks it’s fundamental to Swiss self defense, to have a military, to be neutral, to not take sides, but to be able to defend themselves.
Mike: During that time of mercenaries, when you had each Canton with their own military, There are any stories of Cantons? Still working together and teaming up to achieve, um, something or they’re very independent during this time as far as you know.
Diccon: I, I would, I don’t know. I mean, it may, it may come down to maybe Protestant cantons combining together and Catholic cantons combining together because a lot of the, uh, or German speaking and French speaking maybe.
So you have during the Franco Prussian war in the 1870s, Switzerland didn’t take sides, um, because German speaking, French speaking countries split for the same reason. Um, during the first world war, Switzerland was split. And it’s [00:39:00] sometimes you could say that Swiss neutrality was a good way of not choosing sides.
It wasn’t because like in the modern sense, they wanted to be neutral, maybe offer mediating services, be the home of the UN and the red cross, all the stuff that we associate with Swiss neutrality 200 years ago, it might’ve been more. It’s easier not to take sides and split your own country than it is to take sides.
So neutrality was. In some instances, a good political way out of a domestic problem. Um, whereas today it’s seen more as a strength of Switzerland to be neutral and to be able to mediate between warring parties, or to be able to represent, let’s say the United States in Iran, as they have done for years.
Um, so neutrality changes. With time, obviously, um, the most recent example is sanctions against Russia because of Ukraine. [00:40:00] Now, Switzerland has implemented the sanctions that the EU created and has followed the EU line, but it’s not completely popular in Switzerland, especially with. Many people are on the right of politics and so they have collected signatures and there will be a referendum about changing the constitution to clearly define Swiss neutrality as also including economic measures and not just military measures.
So whereas at the moment Switzerland cannot join a conflict or send army abroad in a conflict that the initiative wants to, uh, add to the constitution is that they cannot also implement sanctions against any warring party. So neutrality does shift. Um, at the moment it’s armed neutrality, uh, but also the defense minister, the current defense minister, Viola Amherd, has made it clear that she would like to be part of European Sky Shield, the defensive, uh, shield across Europe, [00:41:00] because as she has said, we depend on NATO for our security.
NATO almost surrounds us. Um, so if, uh, Let’s say Russia were to invade, they would have to go through NATO countries to get to Switzerland, so we do depend on NATO for our security, and therefore we should be a part, not of NATO, but of, maybe of the defensive measures. Now that’s very controversial, it will certainly go to a referendum, uh, who knows what will happen, but, I think the Swiss are quite pragmatic when it comes to referendums, and we can talk about that.
Um, and when it comes to defense, they have voted many times not to abolish the army, not to, uh, abolish the arms trade. Those initiatives come from the left wing, but they’ve also been pragmatic in terms of their relationship With the outside world, with the European union. So becoming part of Schengen, becoming part of the Dublin accord on refugees and realizing that a small country in the middle of [00:42:00] Europe is never totally going to be able to defend itself on its own, they need partners of some sort.
Mike: Before becoming. a sort of having a federal government. Was there a catalyst for such a change?
Diccon: Yes. So there was the last conflict in Switzerland, which was a civil war. It was actually a very civil war. It only lasted a month and 94 people died. Nothing like the American civil war. So there was 1847. And, uh, it was all over by Christmas.
It was literally a November war. Um, and it started because you had a growing divide between the Protestant cantons and the Catholic cantons. And generally, it wasn’t about religion anymore. The religious wars had been 200 years before. It was more about money and religion. And the Protestant cantons, for whatever reason you might like to think it’s Protestant work ethic, um, were richer and more prosperous.
All the big cities, Zurich, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, [00:43:00] Basel, St. Gallen, are all Protestant. Um, so the Catholic cantons tended to be more rural and poorer. And they kind of got fed up with, uh, and it, it wasn’t French or German because Catholic and Protestant do not fall along language lines in Switzerland. It was, they got fed up with always being the underdog.
And so they withdrew from the confederation. So in 1847, Switzerland was a confederation in the real sense. It, there was no federal structure. It was the cantons working together as. States, a little bit like what the Confederacy wanted in the southern USA in the 1860s. The Federal Forces, as they became called, decided to fight for the idea of Switzerland.
And so you had the Federal Protestant Cantons fighting the, uh, Secessionists. They were called the [00:44:00] Sonderbund Catholic Cantons. Now the Federal Forces won a very easy victory, um, defeated the Catholics in Less than a month. But the piece that followed was a federation, because even the victors, the Protestant cantons, realized that they couldn’t carry on as they were.
So they created a federation with a federal government, a federal parliament. The cantons are still the sovereign unit of Switzerland under the constitution. They secede power up to the federal government, so national defense, railways, things like that. And then they secede power down to the communities in terms of local roads and primary schools and things like that.
But generally the canton is the sovereign unit. But what has superseded that is this federal structure, which united Switzerland. So the first time you have An entity that we could recognize. They created the [00:45:00] Swiss national flag that we know today that didn’t exist before 1847. It was actually the battle flag of the federal forces and it became the Swiss national flag.
That’s why it’s square. One of the. Only two square flags in the world because it started as a battle flag. Um, they created a Swiss currency called the Swiss franc, which didn’t exist before 1850. That had to be minted abroad at first because there were not enough mints, uh, in Switzerland and they put in place a federal structure of.
Parliament and government, and chose Bern as the seat of parliament and government because it was halfway between the big cities of Zurich and Geneva, it was roughly on the language border, it’s in the middle of the country, but technically Bern is not the capital of Switzerland. This is not a great quiz question.
If you’re on who wants to be a millionaire and the question is what’s the capital of Switzerland, the answer is Bern. I don’t want you to lose a million dollars because of what I’m saying, but Switzerland is the only country in the world [00:46:00] that does not have a capital city. Bern is purely the federal city because it’s home to federal parliament.
It’s not the federal capital like Washington DC. It’s not the capital of a federation like Berlin. Germany is a federation. It is simply a federal city. It has no capital status because that would imply that Bern is more important than Zurich or Geneva. And we couldn’t possibly ever have that. Um, so, but they needed somewhere to put the parliament and they chose Bern.
And so that was the, Um, instigation for the modern Switzerland that we have today, it was the last conflict on Swiss soil, um, the last civil war. And it brought about fairly radical change of not getting rid of the cantons, but putting a structure above the cantons for the first time.
Mike: And since the formation of this federal government, has there always been such frequent referendums?
Diccon: Uh, no, not at all. [00:47:00] So the referendum has evolved like everything in Switzerland. Nothing happens quickly in Switzerland. Um, women didn’t get the vote until 1971, one of the most famous, uh, backward moments of Swiss history. Um, change happens very slowly here. Uh, change would never be a winning election theme in Switzerland.
Um, but when it does happen, it tends to happen with the consent of the majority because of the referendum system. So the first constitution, 1848, introduced the idea of the referendum. But in those days, it was literally for the people to approve constitutional decisions, such as joining an international organization or changing the constitution to give women the vote.
Those are obligatory referendums. The government or parliament has no choice but to put it to the people. Um, those don’t happen very often. We don’t join the UN every year. We don’t change the voting rights every year. So those referendums are fairly [00:48:00] infrequent. The first big change came with the second constitution in 1874, when the people were given the power to collect signatures to overturn an act of parliament or a government decision, so an optional referendum.
That means in modern day, once something has passed through parliament, it could become law, but the people have a hundred days to collect. nationally to collect 50, 000 signatures and force a yes, no referendum. That means it doesn’t happen very often, about 20 percent of legislation becomes subject to a referendum.
So give you a recent one. Same sex marriage became legal in Switzerland three years ago. It went through parliament, but of course the right wing and the Christian parties did not agree with it. And so they collected signatures as is their rights. They forced a referendum and the people voted yes. We, we agree with the government.
[00:49:00] And so same sex marriage became law. So it doesn’t have to be. Matters of national defense, or it could even be a really boring example, like corporate tax reform, which took seven years to get through parliament and the people overturned it because they weren’t happy with the proposals. So that is the ultimate check and balance.
So the checks and balances that a lot of people talk about in a political system, the ultimate check and balance in the Swiss system is the people. Versus the politicians and it’s also inclusive because voting is not compulsory But turnout is relatively high generally when it’s something really boring like corporate tax Reform turnout is quite low but when it’s a big issue like abolishing the army or joining the european economic area then turnout is Six high 60s 70 percent and because people know their voice counts their vote counts um, and so In Switzerland, it’s quite [00:50:00] unusual to get protests saying, not in my name, not my president, because you’re asked every three months.
And if you don’t vote, that’s your choice. But then, you can’t really complain, oh, I don’t like that legislation, I don’t like what they’re doing, because you have a chance to overturn it, or be involved in overturning it. So that’s why change happens slowly here, it’s a very strung out process. Women didn’t get the vote until 1971, even though Parliament, didn’t voted to give them the vote in 1959, but the voters in a referendum, again, only male voters in those times, they voted to overturn the parliament’s decision.
So women did not get the vote in 1959 when they could have done. It had to wait for another act of parliament, another vote in 1971. So it’s a very slow process. But, it’s quite an inclusive process, because the big decisions are made not by a Supreme Court, not by Parliament, not by an executive order, they are made [00:51:00] by the people.
Mike: I find it interesting when you said that it’s very rarely comes to a split vote, meaning that the overall population is generally. in line with the overall majority of the cantons, um, when it comes to generally, yes, there
Diccon: was one example last year and it was the first time in, in decades.
Mike: So, it’s typically not like the U.
S. then, where you would have some cantons are one side of the political spectrum, other cantons not?
Diccon: So blue states and red states. Exactly. A little bit. I mean, I think you can generalize and say, typically, when you look at voting patterns, especially over, let’s say, the last 30 years, the French speaking cantons are generally more liberal, more pro European.
and less entrenched in Swiss nationalism, whatever that form that takes. So you have what is called a Röstigraben, uh, which is the language [00:52:00] divide. It’s, it’s a shorthand for the language divide between French and German speaking parts. And that runs down the bilingual cantons of Bern, Fribourg and Wallis.
But it’s also a political divide. The, one of the most famous examples is when you had the vote in 1992 to join the European Economic Area. All the French speaking cantons voted yes, and pretty much all the German speaking cantons voted no. And, it happens in other things like social rights, generally, the left are in the west, and the right are typically the conservative Catholic cantons in the center.
What swings it, most times, is, You have cantons like Bern and Zurich where the big city is quite liberal and the countryside, especially in Bern, is quite conservative. And so Bern, which is the second largest canton in terms of population, is [00:53:00] very often the last to publish its votes because in Bern we’re famous for being slow.
So when there’s a close referendum, you’re often waiting for the results from the canton of Bern before the referendum is actually decided. And that’s because Very typically the city of Bern and the surrounding suburbs tend to vote left and the countryside tends to vote right and they are quite evenly balanced in terms of population.
And so very often the, the vote margins in the canton of Bern can be quite slim and sometimes that will decide the referendum. So in Bern in a classic American example would be a swing state. It’s Pennsylvania, basically. Um, whereas. Not always, but a lot of the time, the French speaking parts are more liberal, the German speaking parts, not always, exclude Zurich, but especially, um, sort of Lucerne and Appenzell tend to be more conservative, not [00:54:00] always, and then Ticino, Italian speaking, Sometimes joins one side, sometimes joins the other.
So it’s not classic red state, blue state, and then a few swing states like in the German, uh, the American model. It’s probably a bit more like British politics where you have Liberal, urban centers, and conservative rural areas.
Mike: Well, Dickon, I think I have written down more questions than I started with.
And I mean that in the best possible way. Is that a good thing? This is absolutely a good thing. Um, I’ve really enjoyed listening to you. I spoke far too much. No, you did not. It’s impossible. Before I finish up, if people listening want to find you and your work, where can they go?
Diccon: Um, luckily I have a very unusual name.
I’m not John Smith. So if you, if you Google Dickonviews, D I double C O N B E W E S, you get me. I’m the only one in the [00:55:00] world. Um, so you find my website, Dickonviews. com. You also find that I’m on Twitter, as I still call it. I refuse to call it that one letter word. Um, and I’m also on Facebook. On Facebook, I’m under Swisswatching, which is the name of my first book.
So you can find me online. I do, I, I read books. I don’t read eBooks. I write books. You can find my books in, in Switzerland. They’re easy to find. Orofusli or Pio will have Um, always Swiss watching is the most famous one. The first, the one that came first, but then there’s the story of Thomas Cook and how tourism began in a book called slow train to Switzerland.
There’s also a great children’s Atlas, um, which I like, even though I’m not a child called Cartographica Helvetica, which explains a lot of the things we’ve been talking about, like women’s rights and direct democracy and history. But in bite sized pieces of information with great infographics and maps.
So, um, that was the labor of love. During the pandemic, actually, I had to have something to keep me busy during the pandemic. And so I created a children’s [00:56:00] atlas of Switzerland, uh, which fortunate for me, became a bestseller, won a design award and has been translated into French and German as well. So bookshops, you can find my book online.
You can find me.
Mike: You also have a wonderful TED talk about
Diccon: the cartography. I do have a wonderful TED talk, um, which is about maps. I love maps. I think they’re a great visual way of, of transmitting information. And TEDx in Zurich invited to give me a talk. It was a few years ago now, it was pre pandemic. Um, And if you’ve ever watched a TED talk or given a TED talk, you know, they have exactly 17 minutes.
So I had to compress as many maps as possible into 17 minutes without overwhelming people, but I chose some of my favorite maps. So I wrote a book called Around Switzerland in 80 Maps. Which is exactly what it says on the cover. I found lots of beautiful maps in archives all around the country and abroad.
Some of them are just works of art. So they’re in there because they’re [00:57:00] beautiful. Other, other ones are in there because they’re important moments in Swiss history. So for instance, the German invasion plans of 1940, which we found in the German military archives in Germany and were published for the first time.
And. The, the reciprocal Swiss defense plan from 1940, um, called the Swiss National Redoubt when they were going to retreat to the mountains and build, and they built all these fortresses inside the mountains. So those maps are in there, but there are also really cool maps like the sex maps of Zurich. So 1977, um, there was a map that was freely available in kiosks showing men where they could find sex in Zurich.
And it was either brothels, or it was street prostitutes, or it was for the first time it showed gay meeting places openly on a map. Um, or one of my reader’s favorite maps is the pig map of Switzerland, which is a wartime map, but it was a very special wartime map. So it’s 1941, [00:58:00] Switzerland was completely surrounded and cut off.
They had to know how much food they had to survive, so they instituted the National Animal Census, which has been going every five years ever since. And the Swiss being Swiss, they had a bit of time on their hands, they weren’t involved in the war. They didn’t just publish tables of how many animals they had, they turned the tables into lovely maps.
And the one that survived is the pig map, and it shows you where all the pigs lived in Switzerland, lived in Switzerland in 1941. Most of them. We’re bizarrely in tour gal. Um, whereas these days, most of the pigs are in Canton Lucerne. Canton Lucerne has more pigs than people. And not only that, it showed you all the different breeds of preeks.
And so it had a pig density map. Um, and it’s a really fascinating look at how Switzerland. excels at compiling and tabulating statistics, um, but then also making them accessible. And so I love the pig map, which I [00:59:00] found in the Zurich cantonal archives, and it had never been published before because no one else thought it was interesting, but I did.
Um, uh, bizarrely, I found pigs in 1941, strangely fascinating, and It became one of the hits. I mean, the book has 80 maps, obviously stretching from the very earliest depiction of Switzerland in the 1400s, right through to a NASA satellite map from a few years ago. And then, and it shows you things like suicide rates in the 19.
And it shows you different views of Switzerland, like things that could have happened. The cantons that never were, because Switzerland conquered various parts of neighboring countries, or they voted to join Switzerland and then were overturned. Um, but the pig map is one of those ones which, sort of, Caught the imagination, I ended up on national TV with the big map on, on Seine Fort Seine, um, because no one could believe that the Swiss went into such detail when it comes to animals.
Mike: If there’s [01:00:00] one thing to become famous for, that’s, that’s not a bad one.
Diccon: I think it’s a great one. I mean, it could have been the sex map of Zurich, which also, which also got a lot of traction. Um, especially the, the one thing I like about the sex map of Zurich, one, it was completely open and on sale and it was the fifth edition.
So it obviously had been a success. It wasn’t a one off. Um, it’s the little comments. It has the map and on the back, it tells you how much you should expect to pay for certain services. So it was quite helpful. It was a consumer guide and then it had little icons. So for some of the street prostitutes, it had this.
very long legged brunette young lady. And then for other street prostitutes, the icon was a rather dumpy house frown with a blue rinse and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. And the comment underneath was a little bit over the hill, so maybe cheaper. And so it was again, level of detail, which, uh, you would only [01:01:00] expect in Switzerland.
Mike: Incredible. Well, Tekin, thank you very much for your time. I really enjoyed this conversation. You’re most welcome. Thank you. Bye bye.
