La Place de la Concorde Suisse

In German, La Place de la Concorde Suisse is rendered Concordiaplatz, and it is visible from the Jungfraujoch, which means "virgin saddle," and which is reached via funicular railway from Interlaken. Depending upon the season, one can either hike or ski from the Jungfraujoch down the Aletsch glacier to Concordiaplatz and view the redoubt containing the sunken armory described in McPhee's book. There may even be a visible contingent of soldiers guarding and maintaining it, just as their brethren maintain the explosives stashed in the outerworks of all key bridges in the country, or inspect the radar installations on key peaks such as the Weissflühgipfel above Davos. As one who lived and worked in Switzerland for eight years, and whose published memoir, Living Among The Swiss, is listed on this website, I can attest to the accuracy of McPhee's account. Most of my business colleagues were required to take annual two- or three-week military leaves, and one sees soldiers everywhere: on trains, in ski resorts, along low and vulnerable mountain passes such as those north of Sargans, and, increasingly, at airports. Their efficiency of organization has been admired not only by the Israelis, who imitated it, but also by the Russian defense minister, and McPhee accurately captures their esprit de corps - in the process expanding, as usual, the reader's vocabulary.

This is the first book I've read by Mr. McPhee, and I really enjoyed it. The author started out as a journalist and a lot of his pieces originally appeared in "The New Yorker." This background is apparent in the way he writes. He picks an unusual topic, or at least he looks at something from an unusual angle, and he is very economic with his words. This is not a criticism. You don't feel that you are being "shortchanged." Being linquistically economic allows Mr. McPhee to cram an awful lot of interesting information into a short book, in this case just 150 pages. We learn a lot about the workings of the Swiss Army and how it permeates the entire society. We get insight into the Swiss mentality and their philosophy of "neutrality." We also get a little history.....both concerning WWII and going back further, back to the days of the Swiss mercenaries. The famous Swiss precision even comes into play in the construction of bomb shelters: "....the Swiss started building one-bar (i.e.-being able to withstand a certain amount of pressure caused by an explosion) shelters to protect the extremely high percentage of the population that might survive explosions but without the shelter would be destroyed like the citizens of Hamburg and Dresden. Swiss calculations showed that something as thick as, say, a ten-bar shelter would be of negligible extra value, for the increased area of protection would be slight rather than proportional; for underground hospitals and command posts, three-bar construction was chosen." And even though Mr. McPhee is never wasteful with words, this doesn't stop him from occasionally inserting his dry sense of humor. Regarding the Swiss propensity for planning for all contingencies, and not being caught with their pants down, the author writes: "It would be very un-Swiss to wake up tomorrow to yesterday's threat and then attempt to do something about it. If Pearl Harbor had somehow been in Switzerland, a great deal of Japanese aluminum would be scattered all over the Alps." Now that I've dipped my toe in the water, I'm looking forward to reading a lot more by Mr. McPhee!

The latest reprint of John McPhee's 1983 La Place de la Concorde Suisse is a perfect complement to Stephen P. Halbrook's TARGET SWITZERLAND: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. As a Swiss-American, in 1951 I saw the WW II defensive preparations: valley to valley anti-tank barriers; rail iron roadblocks that could be set up in minutes; gun emplacements covering roads and passes, and a Reservist army of every male still on maneuvers. Today most men have an automatic weapon or pistol and sealed packet of cartridges at home. Yet a national mentalite' - a word that may be translated as an accute sense of the responsibility inherent in possessing a gun - precludes the use of these weapons in criminal acts. They're registered, just as automobiles are, and private gun ownership is strictly regulated by cantonal laws. None protest that their to right to own guns is infringed! McPhee follows a reconnaisance patrol of French-speaking reservists as they cull information in the mountains: how many men can fit in a cable car? Are explosive charges in place under a bridge? How long would a relief force take to reach a certain village? (89 minutes.) The leader of this somewhat laid-back unit is a vintner in civil life - when pondering a problem he uncorks a bottle of his own wine and shares it with his men. He has no ambitions toward promotion, although many Swiss corporations see a correlation between the prestige of army rank and their executives' jobs. Swiss preparedness and determination deterred invasion in WW II by implementing the dictum, "Switzerland doesn't have an army, Switzerland is an army." Today, not everyone agrees, but the national attitude may summed up in a bumper sticker: "Everyone talks about wanting peace. Our army assures it." Albert Noyer; author The Saint's Day Deaths. male

With the volunteer military facing staffing problems, and with the first tentative trial balloons about restoring the draft being lofted, this book offers insight into a fascinating alternative. The Swiss system is superior to a lottery-based conscript army because it encompasses everyone, not just the unlucky and the young. That not only makes it fairer, but provides protection for democratic values against the standing professional army that the Framers feared. Read this book together with Gary Hart's excellent book "The Minuteman: Restoring an Army of the People" (Free Press 1998), which argues for a Swiss-style approach in America.