Talk:History of Switzerland

message: If anyone still maintains this page:
I am a student doing a report about Switzerland (Specifically its neutrality during world war two) and I came to wikipedia for quick information on Switzerland's background, specifically its tradition of being neutral in european wars essentially since its invention.
However, I am not permitted to cite wikipedia because of its potential for misinformation and vandalism.
Is it possible for whoever maintains this page to update the External Sources section with the source of this information? Credible books and websites would be appreciated. It may already be too late for me, but people who come to this page later would find it extremely useful. Thanks.--141.156.243.233 22:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: you want to look at :de:Die Schweiz im Zweiten Weltkrieg which is comprehenive and has a good bibliography. dab (𒁳) 20:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

text: This is a great source of information, but unfortunately I don't understand german too well :( --70.108.20.40 01:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: I googled a date of 1623 for the loss of the Valtellina. Why does it appear again 1798? (I'm not saying that must be wrong. The happenings in Grisons were quite complicated, and I don't have any detailed knowledge of the period) dab 11:33, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The Grisons (or more precisely, the Drei Bünde) lost control over the Veltlin in the events of the Thirty Years War in the area from 1620 - 1639, when it was occupied by Spanish troops. They even lost the north-eastern parts of their territory to Austria for some time, and regained it only at the end of the war.  looks pretty comprehensive and accurate, as far as I can tell. Lupo 12:09, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: Another good source is . Lupo 12:14, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: that's what I had gathered. But why do we say  "It lost the territory of Valtellina." under "Napoleonic era" for 1798, then? dab 12:35, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Because the Veltlin became part (or a dependency) of the Drei Bünde again after the Treaty of Westphalia and remaind so until the founding of the Cisalpine Republic by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797? It should be 1797, and the whole thing is a bit questionable anyway, the Grisons becoming part of Switzerland only in 1803! Before that, the Drei Bünde were a close associate of the Eidgenossenschaft, but not a member. (And similarly for the Valais, by the way. Geneva, too.)Lupo 12:52, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: ok, but unless we make a History of the Grisons article, this is the place to discuss these things. I try to make it all more clear. (also, the part of the intro "foussing on the fates of the Confederacy" may have to be expanded to explicitly allow accounts of post-1291, non-confederacy events on modern swiss territory) dab 13:25, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Valtellina

message: I don't agree with the statement made in the endof the Napoleonic years section that states that at that time "Swiss territory increased for the last time".  I don't have historical sources to cite, but being from Switzerland I know that Jura became a formal Swiss Canton only in 1974 or so and thus the territory changed.  Unless of course Jura was fully part of Berne before and thus geographically there was not increase in territory.  In any case I think it should be made clearer.
:the latter is the case. Jura was split off of Berne, and the Swiss territory remained unchanged. Also, it was in 1979 (as is stated quite unambiguously right here, in the "After 1945" section). dab (T) 13:11, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swiss territorial increase claim is wrong 

message: Switzerland and History of Switzerland seem to have a number of inconsistencies.  According to these articles, Switzerland won de facto independence from the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire in 1315, 1385, and 1499, with no mention of becoming dependent between these dates.  In addition, the article on Habsburg indicates that the Habsburgs weren't in control of the Holy Roman Empire on the first two of these three years (during which the House of Luxembourg had control of the empire, such as it was).  Even if these seeming contradictions are somehow technically true, they should be clarified so as not to confuse readers. Calbaer 19:28, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Right. Talking of independency in 1315 (Battle of Morgarten) is utter nonsense. All the Swiss achieved in this battle was preventing being squashed by the Habsburgs right away. It's also nonsense for 1385 (should be 1386, Battle of Sempach). Again, this did not give them independence in any formal way, but it (and the following victories at Näfels etc.) firmly established the Swiss control over formerly Habsburg territories. One could perhaps say that in these battles at the end of the 14th century, the Swiss gained the indepency from the Habsburg dukes. They were, however, still a part of the Holy Roman Empire. 1499 (Swabian War) can indeed be seen as resulting in a de facto independence from the HRE, although that's simplifying a bit. The Old Swiss Confederacy still remained part of the HRE, but was exempt from the jurisdiction of the Imperial Chamber Court and did not have to pay imperial taxes. However, the Confederacy was perceived by other European rulers as a separate entity. Finally, in 1648 (Treaty of Westphalia), the Confederacy as a whole was granted formal exemption from the HRE and acknowledged internationally as a separate state. I don't have the time to fix all this now. Lupo 07:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: well yes, 1315 just established them as troublemakers to be reckoned with. But I think the point is that the OSC expanded over the 15th century, with some parts having more "de facto independence" than others. After 1386, the Urkantone may have been de facto independent, while the cities were still happy to entertain the emperor from time to time and saw no reason to aggressively detach themselves from the HRE. 1499 marks when the full OSC (approx. today's Alemannic Switzerland, minus the Grisons) cut the remaining bonds with the HRE for good. 16th century Switzerland cannot in any way be considered part of the HRE, and the Westphalia treaty was just a belated recognition of the status quo. dab (ᛏ) 08:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Uhm... I don't agree with "1499 marks when the full OSC ... cut the remaining bonds with the HRE for good. 16th century Switzerland cannot in any way be considered part of the HRE, and the Westphalia treaty was just a belated recognition of the status quo." That's the simplified schoolbook view. Modern historians disagree. While it is true that other rulers in Europe considered the OSC a separate entity (and often also viewed the OSC as a more homogeneous entity than it really was), the OSC was by no means independent yet, and the Swiss people did still consider themselves subjects (although distant ones, and reichsfrei) of the emperors. Even after 1499, Schaffhausen, Basel, and also the associated city of St. Gallen still had to respond to the Imperial Chamber Court because the emperor did not consider them included in the Peace of Basel as they joined the confederacy only later. (Which, BTW, was a major motivation for Wettstein's lobbying for formal exemption in 1648. This was initially his own initiative!) Look at crests in Switzerland from the 16th century, e.g. :Image:COA Lenzburg.jpg (1596) or also :Image:Schweizer Chronik Etterlin.jpg (1507): the imperial insignia were still used, and, as can be seen at Lenzburg, normally topped the Swiss' own insignia. See e.g. Jorio, M.: 1648: Die Schweiz und Europa: Aussenpolitik zur Zeit des Westfälischen Friedens, Chronos Verlag, Zürich 1999; . Lupo 09:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: you are, as almost always, completely right :) 'all bonds' and 'full OSC' was exaggerated, and I suppose especially the more urban and upper-class strata cultivated "imperial nostalgia" for a long time after 1499. dab (ᛏ) 09:27, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Independence 

message: insertion of "i love katie" into link 
--Carolinacosmina 17:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  reporting vandalism 

message: Quote (this article as of 4 Feb 2010): After the war, Swiss authorities considered the construction of a Swiss nuclear bomb. Leading nuclear physicists at the Federal Institute of Technology such as Paul Scherrer made this a realistic possibility, and in 1958 the population clearly voted in favour of the bomb. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 was seen as a valid alternative, however, and the bomb was never built. - This is complete nonsense. First of all, there was no popular vote on the subject (there were two popular initiatives in the 60s, both aimed for a halt of the programme or at least a moratorium; both were rejected). There was a statement of the federal council in favor of the programme (published on 11 July 1958), nothing more. Beyond that, the consent is today that there was nothing like a realistic possibility for the project to succeed, quite the opposite was the case - the project grew to be the Swiss military's worst embarrassment of all times and led to the resignation of a federal councillor. Before that happened, the project had already proven to be practically impossible to finish: extensive surveys didn't show any useful resources in Switzerland, so the army acquired the material needed illegally; the first two reactors were failures and proved useless, and the third reactor had to be abandoned. 
Planes meant to carry the Swiss bomb were to be built (or at least assembled) in Switzerland, but sheer incapability of the strategists involved rendered this enterprise a financial crash. When the national council in 1964 was asked for additional credit to finance the Mirage project, they said no - which led to the creation of a legendary investigation commission, a report and, after that, to the government giving half of the general staff the sack and the defense minister stepping down. Who wrote that entry? We need a new one. Meapappia (talk) 15:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The bomb 

message: It seems that there are three articles with overlapping information:
1. History of Switzerland
2. Modern history of Switzerland
3. Switzerland during the World Wars
I think these should be combined -- or if that is too long for one article, at least edit them so they do not overlap. --Semitemos (talk) 01:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly not. History of Switzerland should a summary-style overview article covering the whole history. Each of its sections should link to one of the "main articles" from the series. Switzerland during the World Wars (1914 - 1945) and  Modern history of Switzerland (1945 - present) should be two articles of that series detailing specific periods in more detail. If there's a lot of overlap between these two, it should be decided where the info should go, and in the other article, again only a summary (with a pointer to the main article) should be left. Lupo 16:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge articles 

message: CH means Helvetica Confederation (placing swapped in Latin, thus CH) also, in the Reformation section, it mentions that Nidwalden was one of the cantons that remained Catholic, however, it is of my knowledge that Obwalden was the one remaining Catholic while Nidwalden turned Protestant no?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.198.91.95 (talk) 04:07, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Nidwalden remained Catholic (see "Nidwalden", section 3.4, "Kirche, Kultur und Bildung"). "CH" stands for "Confoederatio Helvetica", in use since 1848. That really could be mentioned somewhere. Lupo 08:07, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning of CH and Nidwalden Protestant? 

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thread_title:  External links modified