Armée de l'Est
Armée de l'Est (German Eastern Army ; also Second Loire Army ; unofficial name: Bourbaki Army , after General Charles Denis Bourbaki , its first commander) was the official name for a French army in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71. It was only formed towards the end of the war from units of the Loire Army , militants and freshly recruited troops.
history
The object of the army which was to the relief of the besieged fortress Belfort and the interruption of German supply lines to be. However, she suffered a defeat at Belfort in the Battle of the Lisaine . The retreat towards the south was chaotic and slow; the army was surrounded by German troops in the greater Pontarlier area. General Bourbaki was then removed from office on January 26, 1871 and attempted suicide. The new commander Justin Clinchant asked on January 28, 1871 in Switzerland to intern his troops.
Border crossing
In the early hours of February 1, 1871, the Swiss General Hans Herzog signed the Treaty of Les Verrières . From February 1 to 3, 1871, 87,000 men and 12,000 horses crossed the Swiss-French border at Les Verrières , Sainte-Croix , Vallorbe and in the Vallée de Joux , had to hand over weapons, ammunition and material and were charged six Interned for weeks. The Swiss general Hans Herzog (1819-1894), Commander-in-Chief z. During the occupation of the border in 1870/71, accepted the border crossing of the defeated Bourbaki army. The transfer of the Bourbaki army is shown on the Bourbaki panorama in Lucerne .
It is true that General Herzog had moved contingents of troops from his partly already demobilized army to the places where the border was to be crossed. Nevertheless, against an attack by General Edwin von Manteuffel's German troops pursuing the French, these units would have had little chance of winning. And theoretically there would have been a motive for such an attack: in the Neuchâtel trade of 1856/57, after mediation by the European powers, without the actually intended war against Switzerland, Prussia had renounced its sovereignty over the former Prussian Principality of Neuchâtel . There could be various reasons why the Germans did not use the confusion at the Swiss border to strike Neuchâtel in February 1871:
- King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Had expressly renounced Neuchâtel in the contract of 1857 on behalf of his descendants ; a command that one in Berlin could not easily violate.
- The Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck instigated wars to achieve concrete political goals and then ended them again early, before the losses escalated and before the British government could feel compelled to maintain the balance of power against Prussia's opponents militarily to support. The Franco-German War served to bind the southern German princes to Prussia and thus to establish the German Empire as a clearly defined hegemonic territory of Prussia. These goals would have been jeopardized by a conflict with Switzerland.
internment
The reception, organized by Chief of Staff Rudolf Paravicini , of 87,000 soldiers (3% of the Swiss population at the time) who had suffered hunger and cold and who had to be housed, fed, medically cared for and guarded, made extreme demands on the still young Swiss federal state. Many of the soldiers had to be equipped with new clothes and new shoes. The internees were distributed to 190 localities in all cantons except Ticino. Ticino was left out because it did not seem reasonable for the internees to cross the snow-covered Gotthard in January - the Gotthard tunnel was only opened in 1882. In addition to the military, authorities and aid organizations - including the still very young International Committee of Aid Societies for the Care of the Wounded (today's ICRC) - the civilian population also participated in a broad wave of assistance in care.
The internment was not entirely without problems: When German citizens celebrated in the (old) Tonhalle in Zurich at the beginning of March , French officers broke into the ballroom and started a fight. As a result, five people died in the unrest known as the Tonhalle riot and the army had to be called in to calm the situation.
The internment lasted six weeks. The internees were able to return to France between March 13 and 22. The French government paid CHF 12.1 million for the costs. 1700 of the interned soldiers died of exhaustion, their wounds or diseases that were carried along with them. They were buried in Switzerland. Monuments have been erected at several places where internees are buried, see list of museums and monuments about the Franco-German War # Switzerland .
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
Coping with a humanitarian task such as the internment of the Bourbaki army contributed to the self-confidence and identity of the young Swiss federal state. The war was also a test for the International Committee of Aid Societies for the Care of the Wound , founded in 1864 , which still had very few resources but could already count on many volunteers. Many helpers also worked as paramedics with the troops during the war. As a companion of the Bourbaki army, Edouard Castres from Geneva also returned to Switzerland with the troops. Since he had personally witnessed the war and the internment, he was later commissioned to paint a panorama picture , which was to become well known as the Bourbaki Panorama .
Derived from the poor condition of these soldiers, the Swiss army still occasionally speaks of a Bourbaki tenue when a particularly adventurous or non-compliant uniform wearing style is to be criticized.
literature
- Emile Davall: Les troupes françaises internées en Suisse à la fin de la guerre franco-allemande en 1871, Rapport rédigé par ordre du Département militaire fédéral sur les documents officiels déposés dans ses archives. Bern 1873.
- Patrick Deicher: The internment of the Bourbaki army in 1871. Dealing with a humanitarian challenge as a contribution to the formation of national identity. 3rd revised edition, self-published, Lucerne 2009.
- Edouard Jacky: L'occupation des frontières suisses en 1870–1871 et l'entrée en Suisse de l'armée française de l'est. Delachaux & Niestlé, Neuchâtel 1914.
- Peter R. Jezler, Elke Jezler and Peter Bosshard: Asylum for 87,000. The Bourbaki Army entered Switzerland in 1871. Classen, Zurich 1986.
- Bernhard von Arx : Confrontation. The truth about the Bourbaki legend. Verlag NZZ, Zurich 2010, ISBN 3-03823-618-7 .
Web links
- Hervé de Weck : Bourbaki Army. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Bourbaki Panorama: Information for teachers and those interested
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Hervé de Weck: Bourbaki Army. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- ↑ Robin Schwarzenbach: Federal against General: Located in the German-French war there is in Switzerland a dangerous power struggle In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung on January 27, 2020
- ↑ Robin Schwarzenbach: The Franco-German War and its Consequences - and how the Bourbaki Panorama came to Lucerne In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from January 30, 2021
- ^ F. Schaffer: Outline of Swiss History , 1972.
- ^ Script from the University of Münster on the British balance of power policy
- ^ Albert Schoop: Bourbaki soldiers in Thurgau. Thurgauer Jahrbuch, Vol. 46, 1971, pp. 74-85, accessed on March 24, 2020 .