Napoleon’s Role in the Making of Modern Switzerland

Authors

Jost Auf der Maur

Keywords

Napoleon Bonaparte, translator, Switzerland

Abstract

The federated and neutral nation state we know today as Switzerland owes its modern origins to Napoleon Bonaparte. When Napoleon came into the world in 1769, the Swiss Confederation was a loose configuration of tiny quarrelsome states. As the contemporary, Johannes Bürkli from Zurich, wrote:

[Switzerland] is a virtually unnoticeable dot on the map of Europe, yet it combines all species of government: despotic, oligarchic, aristocratic, democratic. You can find all of them thrown together here in a nutshell.

Recommended Citation

Maur, Jost Auf der (2023) "Napoleon’s Role in the Making of Modern Switzerland," Swiss American Historical Society Review: Vol. 59: No. 1, Article 3.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol59/iss1/3