Neutrality under Pressure. Swiss-Italian Relations in the Years of Fascism (1922-1943). The Swiss Strategy for Avoiding Military Conflict.

Abstract

The project discusses the relations between Switzerland and Fascist Italy with particular focus on politics and economy as decisive factors for avoiding military conflicts. The research aims at discovering how the neutral and the authoritarian state managed to co-exist peacefully in the turbulent period between two world wars and how they have collaborated to overcome problems such as the existence of the fuorusciti group in Switzerland, the Great Depression, and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the mid-1930s. The strengthening of the relations between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany further increased the difficulties for the Swiss political leadership and preserving the independence of the Confederation became even more complicated. After the occupation of France in June 1940, Switzerland was surrounded by Axis powers, which posed new challenges to the state’s neutrality and to the Federal Council. The study argues that Switzerland’s defence strategy was a rigid application of the Hague Convention agreements from 1907 in political, military and economic terms in the years between the start of the Second World War and the fall of the Fascist Regime in September 1943. The ethics of the decisions made by the Swiss political leadership may be debatable, but any discussion thereof calls for serious consideration of the extremely complicated conditions in which they were taken.