Abstract
The Great War shattered optimism that recently codified laws of war would curtail the extremes of inter-European warfare. The ‘limited’ wars of the late nineteenth century instead gave way to the totalizing impulses of the 1914–1918 conflict. Despite captured prisoners of war being hors de combat, their treatment was characterised by intensifying violence. Contrary to this dispiriting picture, Susan Barton has demonstrated that an antithetical experience occurred in neutral Switzerland where over 67,000 sick prisoners of war would be interned during the war.
Following ‘lengthy and complex negotiations’ (p. 13), agreement was reached between belligerents whereby Belgian, British, French and German prisoners suffering from tuberculosis, diseases and wounds were selected and transferred to Switzerland. Arriving from January 1916, nationalities were separated between internment ‘regions’. Following a survey of negotiations and the camp system, Barton's study comprises chapters covering the familiar experiences associated with internment: reception, camp conditions, work, education, sport, leisure and repatriation.
Internees were not accommodated in purpose-built camps. Instead they lodged in the mountain resorts that once catered for upper- and middle-class tourists. Hotels and lodges that had received heavy investment during the pre-war years faced a bleak future following the outbreak of war as they were now ‘starved of their usual guests’ (p. 27). The tourist industry successfully lobbied the Swiss government to billet prisoners in their vacant hotels. In turn, the estimated 134 million francs in revenue provided a lifeline to the industry. The arrival of foreign prisoners was not just financially beneficial. Offering to help alleviate the suffering of wounded prisoners also imbued Swiss neutrality with ‘a clear humanitarian and positive role’, and united the linguistically and culturally diverse population behind ‘a common cause’ (p. 210).
Prisoners in Switzerland shared experiences similar to other military and civilian captives. Having arrived, the ‘novelty or shock’ of the change in situation gave way to one of the realities of wartime captivity: boredom (p. 79). Work alleviated the onset of barbed-wire disease. Like other prisoners, those in Switzerland were subject to discipline and could be employed under the Hague Conventions. In common with other communities of internees, musical and theatrical groups were formed. Various educational programmes offered the opportunity for self-improvement and helped prepare internees for post-war life. Despite prisoners suffering physical and psychological wounds, organised sports, including football and boxing, played an important role in their rehabilitation. All these activities helped combat, although did not eliminate, the problem of drunkenness.
While aspects of their internment were common to prisoners elsewhere, Barton suggests their experiences imitated those of the health tourists who occupied the Alpine resorts prior to the war. In contrast to the violent reception of prisoners in France and Germany, those who arrived in Switzerland received a warm welcome much like pre-war tourists. Like health tourists, the prisoners hoped that fresh air and physical activity would aid their recovery. The key difference between the two groups was social class. In contrast to the affluent pre-war tourist, wartime prisoners were working class men who had never considered an Alpine retreat as a possible holiday destination. Beyond the picturesque surroundings and kindness shown by the locals, the experience of internment in Switzerland differed in a fundamental way from other nations. Fraternisation, a highly politicised and policed issue during both world wars, was much more relaxed in this neutral nation. As well as socialising with Switzer communities, internees benefitted from visits from their wives and families. This, Barton argues, ‘made internment there a completely different experience from the homosocial closed communities of the prisoner-of-war camps’ (p. 194). These benefits aside, the desire for repatriation was shared by internees in Switzerland as much as their countrymen held captive by the belligerents.
While Swiss internment was characterised by charity more than violence, Barton's study does not overturn the verdict that the latter was a reality for most prisoners during the Great War. Only a fraction of the 9 million prisoners held in Europe experienced the Alpine retreats of Swiss captivity. Nevertheless, the study is vital in demonstrating that the conflict was not one that witnessed the radicalisation of violence alone. The war was also a time of humanitarian experimentation and relief efforts undertaken to alleviate the suffering of sick and wounded prisoners.
Barton does not explore the legacy and impact of Swiss internment. As such, several questions are raised by her findings. Were these experiences drawn upon in 1939–1945 when Switzerland, again, remained neutral? Did they have any influence on the 1929 Geneva Convention? To what extent did compassion shown to sick and wounded prisoners form part of Swiss national identity and memory of the conflict? These questions lie outside the scope of what is a concise, accessible, and valuable study that will be of interest to scholars of neutrality, internment and humanitarianism in twentieth century Switzerland and beyond.