Foreign responses to the French debacle and the Paris Commune

As a small neutral country closely situated to the military operations in 1870–1, Switzerland reacted with greater sensitivity to the political and social implications of the war than von Moltke. While the federal government anxiously clung to a policy of neutrality, the citizens of Basel, Zurich, and Berne, moved by sympathy for the French people, privately organized the evacuation of several thousand noncombatants from beleaguered Strasbourg – with the consent of the commander of the German siege army, General von Werder, we might add. Other Swiss citizens, long resident in France, petitioned the Berne government for permission to help the French war effort by joining the national guard. But because the Berne authorities forbade the enlistment even in such local forces (whose primary task was order-policing), Swiss citizens in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, and Le Havre set up ambulance services and fire brigades, and some joined the national guard in defiance of their government. The Swiss volunteers were not alone in demonstrating sympathy for France. There were also young Americans serving in the Legion Franco-americaine and some 16, 000 Italians, Hanoverians, and Hungarians fought the Prussians under the command of Giuseppe Garibaldi.

The politicians in Berne manifested a more calculating attitude than their private compatriots, with a hint even of satisfaction at the humiliation currently suffered by France. This at least is the impression conveyed by various letters which were addressed by the political department, and in one instance by the Swiss president himself, to Swiss nationals living in France.