Conclusion 177
liberty. If towards the end of the sixteenth century the Swiss evinced an interest in
theories of republicanism, these were borrowed from the French or the Dutch.
That is why we should not be led astray by Ascanio Marso’s dismissive judgement
on the Confederation as a ‘league of discordant members’.30 For discord can easily
be inverted to suggest flexibility, and that for Andreas Würgler held the key to
Switzerland’s ability to overcome its many crises.31 Before the Burgundian Wars no
one gave the Confederation much chance of survival. And, shortly afterwards, the
Compact of Stans narrowly avoided a civil war between the rural and the city
cantons. Yet the Burgundian Wars did help to create a sense of collective identity,
manifest not in institutions but in patriotic narratives of Swiss valour and heroism, 32
which Zwingli then harnessed to his partisan vision of a Protestant city-led republic.
That vision was shattered in the Swiss Wars of Religion, but in the end pragmatism
and flexibility ensured that discord did not lead to disaster. Ultimately, aggression
yielded to accommodation.
If, as Max Frisch observed sixty years ago in the aftermath of World War II, the
Swiss were plagued by anxiety because they overestimated themselves as survivors
amidst the chaos of Europe, today that unease has returned in the face of Europe once
again in crisis. Switzerland, for so long proud of its rugged singularity, once regarded
as the key to its survival, now finds it hard to adjust in a globalized world where the
old certainties are crumbling and Europe as a whole increasingly resembles a league of
discordant members. Will the Swiss be able to rise to these new challenges?
30 Leonhard Haas (ed.), Der discorso de I Sguizzeri des Ascanio Marso von 1558, mit verwandten
Texten (Quellen zur Schweizer Geschichte, new series, section 3: Briefe und Denkwürdigkeiten, 7)
(Basel, 1956), 42.
31 Würgler, ‘ “League of Discordant Members” ’, 34–5, 42.
32 Guy P. Marchal, ‘Ein Staat werden: Die Eidgenossen im 15. Jahrhundert’, in Klaus Oschema
and Rainer C. Schwinges (eds), Karl der Kühne von Burgund. Fürst zwischen europäischem Adel und der
Eidgenossenschaft (Zürich, 2010), 41–51, here at 43–4, 47.