Swiss citizen soldiers and the enemy from within

Defence of democracy and neutrality

In respect of General Henri Guisan (1874-1960) and the revision of the Swiss Constitution in 1874

Honorable mentions and diploma from the Swiss Shooting Festival of 1924, awarded to the Swiss Military Gunclub of Bendel, a hamlet in the Swiss valley Toggenburg. For 100 years, until 1996, every Swiss man in compulsory military service was obliged by law to be a member of a gunclub.
 

In the Middle Ages, the Alpine country of Switzerland couldn't produce enough food for her population and thus exported people: soldiers, expert workers in factories and on large farms. In Germany, farm employees responsible for dairy cow management and milking are still called Schweizer (Swiss). Swiss mercenaries, named Reisläufer, who served in foreign armies in the Middle Ages, had contracts that obliged for them to be sent back to their homeland if the country were attacked. Thus, the Swiss Confederacy had Europe's best army of the time, without having to pay for its maintenance. The Pope's Swiss Garde of elite soldiers is a remnant. The Swiss Confederacy invented neutrality, because it was situated in the middle of Europe and guarded the passage through the Alps. During World War II, Switzerland defended successfully armed neutrality, sovereignity and democracy against totalitarians from across and within its borders, by mobilizing its citizen soldiers and social cohesion, so-called spiritual defense.