Helvetic Republic

• 1. French Invasion And Collapse

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  On the 5th of March 1798, French troops completely overran Switzerland and the Old Swiss Confederation collapsed. The invasion proceeded largely peacefully since the Swiss people failed to respond to the calls of their politicians to take up arms. This event marked the end of the ancien régime in Switzerland. The French Republican armies had expanded eastward during the French Revolutionary Wars of the 1790s. Napoleon conquered Northern Italy in 1796, which changed the situation significantly. Some Swiss nationals, including Frédéric-César de La Harpe, had called for French intervention on these grounds. On the 12th of April 1798, 121 cantonal deputies proclaimed the Helvetic Republic, One and Indivisible. A cantonal assembly was called in the canton of Zürich on the 14th of April 1798. Most of the politicians from the previous assembly were re-elected. The new régime abolished cantonal sovereignty and feudal rights. The occupying forces established a centralised state based on the ideas of the French Revolution.

• 2. Constitutional Struggles And Instability

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  The constitution of the Helvetic Republic came mainly from the design of Peter Ochs, a magistrate from Basel. It established a central two-chamber legislature which included the Grand Council with 8 members per canton and the Senate with 4 members per canton. The executive, known as the Directory, comprised 5 members. The Constitution also established actual Swiss citizenship, as opposed to just citizenship of one's canton of birth. Under the Old Swiss Confederacy, citizenship was granted by each town and village only to residents. These citizens enjoyed access to community property and in some cases additional protection under the law. Additionally, the urban towns and the rural villages had differing rights and laws. The creation of a uniform Swiss citizenship led to conflict. The wealthier villagers and urban citizens held rights to forests, common land and other municipal property which they did not want to share with the new citizens. No general agreement existed about the future of the Swiss. Leading groups split into the Unitarians who wanted a united republic and the Federalists who represented the old aristocracy. Coup attempts became frequent and the new régime had to rely on the French to survive. In order to weaken the old power-structures, it defined new boundaries for some cantons.

• 3. Armed Uprisings And Resistance

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  In response to the new regime, the Cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden raised an army of about 10,000 men led by Alois von Reding to fight the French. This army was deployed along the defensive line from Napf to Rapperswil. Reding besieged French-controlled Lucerne and marched across the Brünig pass into the Berner Oberland to support the armies of Bern. At the same time, the French General Balthasar Alexis Henri Antoine of Schauenburg marched out of occupied Zürich to attack Zug, Lucerne and the Sattel pass. Even though Reding's army won victories at Rothenthurm and Morgarten, Schauenburg's victory near Sattel allowed him to threaten the town of Schwyz. On the 4th of May 1798, the town council of Schwyz surrendered. On the 13th of May, Reding and Schauenburg agreed to a cease-fire. The terms included the rebel cantons merging into a single one, thus limiting their effectiveness in the central government. However, the French failed to keep their promises in respecting religious matters. Before the year was out there was another uprising in Nidwalden which the authorities crushed. Towns and villages were burnt down by French troops.

• 4. Economic Burden And Foreign Debt

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  The occupying forces insisted that the accommodation and feeding of the soldiers be paid for by the local populace, which drained the economy. By 1802, 1803, the Republic was 12 million francs in debt, having started with a treasury of 6 million francs. This financial collapse occurred within four years of its founding. Switzerland became a virtual battle-zone between the French, Austrian, and Imperial Russian armies in 1799. Locals supported mainly the latter two, rejecting calls to fight with the French armies in the name of the Helvetic Republic. The treaty of alliance of the 19th of August with France also reaffirmed the French annexation of the Prince-Bishopric of Basel. It imposed French rights over the Upper Rhine and the Simplon Pass for evident strategic reasons towards Germany and Italy. All this made it difficult to establish a new working state. Instability in the Republic reached its peak in 1802, 1803. It included the uprising and the civil war of 1802. Together with local resistance, these factors caused the Helvetic Republic to collapse. Its government took refuge in Lausanne.

• 5. Napoleonic Mediation And End

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  At that time, Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul of France, summoned representatives of both sides to Paris in order to negotiate a solution. Although the Federalist representatives formed a minority at the conciliation conference, known as the Helvetic Consulta, Bonaparte characterised Switzerland as federal by nature. He considered it unwise to force the country into any other constitutional framework. On the 19th of February 1803, the Act of Mediation abolished the Helvetic Republic and restored the cantons. With the abolition of the centralized state, Switzerland became a confederation once again, called the Swiss Confederation. Many of the draft constitutions were sent to Napoleon for review, and he made his preferred version known. He also assisted in some of the coups that overthrew interim governments organized along constitutional lines that did not meet with his approval. The period was marked by foreign domination and instability. For cantons such as Bern, Schwyz and Nidwalden it signified military defeat.

• 6. Legacy Of Centralized Governance

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  The Helvetic Republic is still very controversial within Switzerland. Carl Hilty described the period as the first democratic experience in Swiss territory. Within conservatism it is seen as a time of national weakness and loss of independence. For cantons such as Vaud, Thurgau and Ticino, the three who in 1898 celebrated the centenary of their independence, the Republic was a time of political freedom and liberation from the rule of other cantons. In 1995, the Federal Assembly chose not to celebrate the 200 year anniversary of the Helvetic Republic but to allow individual cantons to celebrate if they wished. The Federal Councilors took part in official events in Aargau in January 1998. The Helvetic period represents a key step toward the modern federal state. For the first time, the population was defined as Swiss, not as inhabitants of a specific canton. The differences between the cantons culminated in the Swiss Federal Constitution of 1848. The Republic's 5-member Directory resembles the 7-member Swiss Federal Council, Switzerland's executive.