The Washington herald., 1915-09-12

A LTHOUGH America, the greatest
~ of the neutrals and 1900 miles
Z y away, has not had the good for
tune to keep out of the cross-fre
of the belligerent powers of Europe.
little Switzerland thus far has es-
capped, although she is in the very center
of the big battlefield. Her neutrality and
her rights as a neutral have not been as
sailed from any side.
The U-boats. to be sure. cannot find the
Swiss merchant marine any more than
the young reporter can find the Swiss
navy when assigned to report its arrival
and interview the Swiss admiral. But
even the warning navies of the sky seem
to respect the neutral air above the
island of peace which Switzerland has
become in an ocean of strife.
For she is indeed, a small body Of land
entirely surrounded by war. whose angry
surges beat upon all her rocky bounds.
Armed camps are at her every door, and
drawn up across her every avenue to the
outer world. From hef mountain tops
she looks down upon the eubattled
armies Of four nations as they press
against her frontier. to the north and
the south to the east and to the west.
and the roar of battle shakes the stiffness
of her valleys. Yet no foreign soldier
has trespassed against her. and hardly
stray shot has fallen upon her soil
Why Not BeIgium's Fate?
Why was this tiny nation spared when
Belgium was sacriiced-Belgiun. which
has more than twice as many men and
is infinitely richer? The powers stood
equally pledged to let both alone. But
such pledge. to the Swiss no less than
to the Belgians. is only scrap of paper
to light a soldiers pipe.
The answer oftenest made to this ques-
ton is that the Swiss army was strong
er than the Belgian. and that it saved
the republic from invasion. But that is |
not the whole story II does not account
for the greater immunity of the Swiss
in the past. when they had no organized
military force.
For Switzerland has succeeded as we'll
in keeping out of most OF the great wars
between her neighbors, while Belgium, |
on the other hand. has had the unhap-
piness to be the battlefield IN so many of
the conflicts that have blotted the pages
of European history. In the Hundred
Years War. in the Thirty Years War
in the clashes Of Romans and Goths. of
Gauls and Teutons, in the bitter strug-
giles over dynastic SUGGESTIONS. this for
tunate little land of the Swiss remained
almost alone an oasis of peace in a des-
ert of hate.
Poor Belgium is SCARED all over by
the struggles of alien hosts. who have
used her as their duelling field. But in
many centuries hardly another battle be-
tween foreign armies has stained Swiss
soil than that in 17aa. when French and
Austrians and Russians fought for ten
davs. and Massena hurled Suvaroff back
over the Alps.
At the Birthplace of Neutrality.
Switzerland was neutral ground long
before she had conscript army or held ,
the guarantee Of the powers She was ,
neutral long before Arnold Winkelreid
or William Tell those tabled champions
ot her neutrality. She vindicated it ,
against Caesar himself. when he came to ,
take revenge upon Helvetia for having +;
slain in battle his wifes great-grandfath- ,
err and was glad enough to accept the G
Helvetians as the associates or allies of ,
Rome And ten centuries beyond Cae-
sar. Switzerland already was the abiding
place of neutrals. Why else than to es-
cape the ravares OF war did those y
strange. prehistoric lake dwellers build r
their villages on piles in the water 1000 S
years ago: +
From the bow of a little steamer on
Lake Lucerne the pictorial story Of e
Swiss neutrality for 1000 years unrolls f
like panorama before the voyager. For
on the gentle bosom of that blue sea Of L
the Four Forest Cantons the independ- i,
ence. the neutrality of the Swiss was
From its Alpine walls the flag .
of freedom and republicanism first was G
unfurled above feudal world. and about q
its shores few rude shepherds with r
their halberds broke the lances of knights r.
il armor. >,
First to Challenge the Hapsburgs. s.
1t is not a wild stretch of fancy to say p
that this very war today began amid y
those mountains. For the Swiss were the h
earliest. as the Serbians are the latest, a.
challengers of the house of Hapsburg.
which started in the Alps and which o.
through the centuries has been only II
slowly and painfully driven down into G,
the Balkans. Perhaps half of the wars e.
in the 900 years that lie between the Bat o,
tie of Morsarten in 1875 and these battles b,
Of 1915 were precipitated by this stubborn it
A>-Aa~