As a neutral country, Switzerland was not involved in the devastating military c…
40 Results
Survey Articles (Regional)
Regional
Switzerland
By Jakob Tanner
Regional Thematic Articles
Regional Thematic
Commemoration (Switzerland)
By Béatrice Ziegler, Konrad Kuhn
This article examines how Switzerland has remembered and commemorated the First …
Regional Thematic
Domestic Politics and Neutrality (Switzerland)
By Carlo Moos
Neutrality is a fundamental problem in modern Swiss history and played a pivotal…
Regional Thematic
Exile and Migration (Switzerland)
By Anja Huber
This article analyses Swiss migration policy and Switzerland’s role as a country…
Regional Thematic
Historiography 1918-Today (Switzerland)
By Daniel Marc Segesser
In a rapidly expanding universe of publications it is important to reflect from …
Regional Thematic
International Committee of the Red Cross
By Daniel Palmieri, Irène Herrmann
This article seeks to analyze how the International Committee of the Red Cross (…
Regional Thematic
Internees (Switzerland)
By Thomas Bürgisser
Swiss governmental and non-governmental organizations were intensely involved in…
Regional Thematic
Labour, Labour Movements, Trade Unions and Strikes (Switzerland)
By Christian Koller
This article analyses the development of the Swiss labour movement and working-c…
Regional Thematic
Literature (Switzerland)
By Nicole Billeter
During the First World War, many authors from neighbouring countries who spoke o…
Regional Thematic
Swiss Companies in World War One (Switzerland)
By Roman Rossfeld
This article describes the business development and the opportunities and risks …
Regional Thematic
Wartime and Post-war Economies (Switzerland)
By Tobias Straumann
Though Switzerland was not conquered, its economy was strongly affected by the F…
Regional Thematic
Women, Gender, Social Movements (Switzerland)
By Elisabeth Joris
This article explores the war’s impact on women’s economic and legal status in S…
Encyclopedic Entries
Entry
Ador, Gustave
By Irène Herrmann
Ador was the third president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (IC…
Entry
Border Occupation (Switzerland)
By Michael M. Olsansky
Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, the Swiss army moved into a s…
Entry
Cendrars, Blaise
By Laurence Campa
The life and works of the poet Blaise Cendrars testify to a disturbing paradox: …
Entry
Dada
By Josepha Laroche
Dada, a transnational movement of artists, was founded in Zurich in 1916. It dis…
Entry
Feminist Pacifism
By Annika Wilmers
A minority section of the women’s movements opposed World War I and organized th…
Entry
Grimm, Robert
By Adrian Zimmermann
Robert Grimm was the most powerful socialist politician in Switzerland throughou…
Entry
Influenza Pandemic (Switzerland)
By Patrick Kury
The Spanish flu, the heaviest influenza pandemic in history, coincided with the …
Entry
Island of Peace (Switzerland)
By Béatrice Ziegler
During World War I, the idea of Switzerland as a peaceful island was created and…
Entry
Landesstreik (Switzerland)
By Bernard Degen
From 12 to 14 November 1918, a national general strike took place in Switzerland…
Entry
Military Justice (Switzerland)
By Sebastian Steiner
In neutral Switzerland, the executive powers were strengthened more than in some…
Entry
Neutrality
By Samuël Kruizinga
During the 19th century, neutrality evolved into a set of legal and political to…
Entry
Oberstenaffäre
By Sebastian Steiner
The so-called “Oberstenaffäre” (colonel’s affair) was a political scandal in Swi…
Entry
Oltener Aktionskomitee
By Bernard Degen
The Oltener Aktionskomitee was elected in February 1918 by the committee of the …
Entry
Schweizerischer Vaterländischer Verband
By Dorothe Zimmermann
The Swiss Patriotic Federation (Schweizerischer Vaterländischer Verband, or SVV)…
Entry
Société Suisse de Surveillance Economique (SSS)
By Florian Weber
The privately organized SSS existed from October 1915 to July 1919 to prevent Sw…
Entry
Voices in the Storm (journal)
By Nicole Billeter
“Stimmen im Sturm” was a Swiss cooperative which published nine issues with deci…
Entry
Vollmachtenregime
By Oliver Schneider
During the First World War, the Swiss federal government imposed a state of emer…
Entry
Vorarlberg Referendum
By Wolfgang Weber
The latter Austrian Land Vorarlberg saw the rise of a grass root movement for a …
Entry
Zimmerwald Conference
By Bernard Degen
Anti-war socialists from ten countries met in Zimmerwald in September 1915. They…
Entry
Züblin-Spiller, Else
By Elisabeth Joris
In the context of the Swiss organisation Schweizer Verband Soldatenwohl Else Spi…
See Also
Thematic
International Law and the Laws of War
By Jean H. Quataert
The article examines international efforts to curb states’ war-making prerogativ…
Thematic
Labour Movements, Trade Unions and Strikes
By James Thompson
This article compares the history of labour movements during the war across a ra…
Thematic
League of Nations
By Anita Ziegerhofer
The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919, the same day on which the L…
Thematic
Negotiating and Mediating Conduct of War
By Matthew Stibbe
Many issues surrounding the conduct of war in the years 1914-1918 were imperviou…
Thematic
Red Cross
By Cédric Cotter
National Red Cross societies played a very important role in the First World War…
Thematic
Social Conflict
By Claire Morelon
This article deals with the nature of social conflict during the war. The length…
Thematic
Willingly to War. Public Response to the Outbreak of War
By Jean-Jacques Becker
It may surprise us to learn that some sectors of the European public were in fav…
