Swiss Guards (French : Gardes Suisses; German : Schweizergarde; Italian : Guardie Svizzere) are Swiss soldiers who have served as guards at foreign European courts since the late 15th century.
The earliest Swiss Guard unit to be established on a permanent basis was the Hundred Swiss ( Cent-Suisses ), which served at the French court from 1490 to 1817. This small force was complemented in 1616 by a Swiss Guards regiment. In the 18th and early 19th centuries several other Swiss Guard units existed for periods in various European courts.
Foreign military service was outlawed by the first Swiss Federal Constitution of 1848 and a federal Law of 1859, with the only exception being the Pontifical Swiss Guard (Latin : Pontificia Cohors Helvetica, Cohors Pedestris Helvetiorum a Sacra Custodia Pontificis; Italian : Guardia Svizzera Pontificia) stationed in Vatican City. The modern Papal Swiss Guard serves as both a ceremonial unit and a bodyguard. Established in 1506, it is one of the oldest military units in the world. It is also the smallest army in the world. [1]
Two different units of Swiss mercenaries performed guard duties for the Kings of France: the Hundred Swiss (Cent Suisses) served in the Palace essentially as bodyguards and ceremonial troops, [2] and the Swiss Guards (Gardes Suisses), who guarded entrances and outer perimeter. In addition, the Gardes Suisses served in the field as a fighting regiment in times of war. [3]
The Hundred Swiss were created in 1480 when Louis XI retained a Swiss company for his personal guard. [4]
By 1496 they comprised one hundred guardsmen and about twenty-seven officers and sergeants. Their main role was to protect the King in the palace as the garde du dedans du Louvre (the Louvre indoor guard), but in the earlier part of their history they also accompanied the King to war. In the Battle of Pavia (1525) the Hundred Swiss of Francis I were slain before Francis was captured by the Spanish. The Hundred Swiss shared indoor guard duties with the King's Bodyguards ( Garde du Corps ), who were French. [5]
The Hundred Swiss were armed with halberds, the blade of which carried the Royal arms in gold, as well as gold-hilted swords. Their ceremonial dress until 1789 comprised an elaborate 16th century Swiss costume covered with braid and livery lace. A surviving example is on display in the Musée de l'Armée in Paris. A less ornate dark blue and red uniform with bearskin headdress was worn for ordinary duties. [6]
The Cent Suisses company was disbanded after Louis XVI left the Palace of Versailles in October 1789. It was, however, refounded on 15 July 1814 with an establishment of 136 guardsmen and eight officers. The Hundred Swiss accompanied Louis XVIII into exile in Belgium the following year and returned with him to Paris following the Battle of Waterloo. The unit then resumed its traditional role as palace guards at the Tuileries, but in 1817 it was replaced by a new guard company drawn from the French regiments of the Royal Guard. [7]
In 1616, Louis XIII gave an existing regiment of Swiss infantry the name of Gardes suisses (Swiss Guards). The new regiment primarily protected the doors, gates and outer perimeters of the royal palaces. [8]
By the end of the 17th century the Swiss Guards were formally part of the Maison militaire du roi . [9] As such, they were brigaded with the Gardes françaises (French Guards Regiment), with whom they shared the outer guard, and were in peacetime stationed in barracks on the outskirts of Paris. Like the eleven Swiss regiments of line infantry in French service, the Gardes suisses wore red coats. The line regiments had black, yellow or light blue facings but the Swiss Guards were distinguished by dark blue lapels and cuffs edged in white embroidery. Only the grenadier company wore bearskins, while the other companies wore the standard tricorn headdress of the French infantry. [10]
During the 17th and 18th centuries the Swiss Guards maintained a reputation for discipline and steadiness in both peacetime service and foreign campaigning. Their officers were all Swiss and their rate of pay was substantially higher than that of the regular French soldiers. [11]
The Guards were recruited from all Swiss cantons. The nominal establishment was 1,600 men though actual numbers seem to have normally been below this. [12] Disciplinary matters were the responsibility of Swiss officers within the regiment, under a code of punishments that was significantly harsher than that of the remainder of the French army.
The most famous episode in the history of the Swiss Guards was their defence of the Tuileries Palace in central Paris during the French Revolution. Of the nine hundred Swiss Guards defending the palace on 10 August 1792, about six hundred were killed during the fighting or massacred after they surrendered. One group of sixty Swiss were taken as prisoners to the Paris City Hall before being killed by the crowd there. [13] An estimated one hundred and sixty more died in prison of their wounds, or were killed during the September Massacres that followed. Apart from less than a hundred Swiss who escaped from the Tuileries, some hidden by sympathetic Parisians, the only survivors of the regiment were a three-hundred-strong [14] detachment that had been sent to Normandy to escort grain convoys a few days before 10 August. [15] The Swiss officers were mostly massacred, although Major Karl Josef von Bachmann, in command at the Tuileries, was formally tried and guillotined in September, still wearing his red uniform coat. Two Swiss officers, the captains Henri de Salis and Joseph Zimmermann, did however survive and went on to reach senior rank under Napoleon and the Restoration. [15]
There appears to be no truth in the charge that Louis XVI caused the defeat and destruction of the Guards by ordering them to lay down their arms when they could still have held the Tuileries. Rather, the Swiss ran low on ammunition and were overwhelmed by superior numbers when fighting broke out spontaneously after the royal family were escorted from the palace to take refuge with the National Assembly. A note written by the King has survived that ordered the Swiss to retreat from the palace and return to their barracks, but they only did so after their position became untenable. The regimental standards were secretly buried by the adjutant shortly before the regiment was summoned to the Tuileries on the night of 8/9 August, indicating that he foresaw the likely end. They were discovered by a gardener and ceremoniously burned by the new Republican authorities on 14 August. [16] The barracks of the Guard at Courbevoie were stormed by the local National Guard and the few Swiss still on duty there also killed. [15]
The heroic but futile [13] stand of the Swiss is commemorated by Bertel Thorvaldsen's Lion Monument in Lucerne, dedicated in 1821, which shows a dying lion collapsed upon broken symbols of the French monarchy. An inscription on the monument lists the twenty-six Swiss officers who died on 10 August and 2–3 September 1792, and records that approximately 760 Swiss Guardsmen were killed on those days. [17]
The French Revolution abolished mercenary troops in its citizen army, but Napoleon and the Bourbon Restoration both made use of Swiss troops. Four Swiss infantry regiments served with Napoleon in both Spain and Russia. Two of the eight infantry regiments included in the garde royale from 1815 to 1830 were Swiss and can be regarded as successors to the Gardes suisses. When the Tuileries was stormed again in the July Revolution (29 July 1830), the Swiss regiments, fearful of another massacre, withdrew or melted into the crowd. They were not used again. In 1831 disbanded veterans of the Swiss regiments and another foreign unit, the Hohenlohe Regiment, were recruited into the newly raised French Foreign Legion for service in Algeria. [18]
Swiss Guard units similar to those of France were in existence at several other Royal Courts and public entities at the dates indicated below:
In total, Swiss mercenary regiments have been employed as guard and regular line troops in seventeen different armies; notably those of France, [33] Spain [34] and Naples [35] (see Swiss mercenaries).
The first Swiss constitution, as amended in 1848, forbade all military capitulations, [36] a federal law, as amended 30 September 1859, all military capitulations and recruitment of Swiss by foreign powers, [37] although volunteering of individuals in foreign armies continued until prohibited outright in 1927. [38] The Papal Swiss Guard, reflecting the particular status of the Holy See and the Vatican City State and the character of the unit as a bodyguard, [32] remains an exception to this prohibition, explicitly defined between the parties.
When writing Hamlet , Shakespeare assumed (perhaps relying on his sources) that the royal house of Denmark employed a Swiss Guard: In Act IV, Scene v (line 98) he has King Claudius exclaim "Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door". [39] However, it may also be due to the word "Swiss" having become a generic term for a royal guard in popular European usage. Coincidentally, the present-day gatekeepers of the royal palace of Copenhagen are known as schweizere, "Swiss". [40]
A grenadier was historically an assault-specialist soldier who threw hand grenades in siege operation battles. The distinct combat function of the grenadier was established in the mid-17th century, when grenadiers were recruited from among the strongest and largest soldiers. By the 18th century, the grenadier dedicated to throwing hand grenades had become a less necessary specialist, yet in battle, the grenadiers were the physically robust soldiers who led vanguard assaults, such as storming fortifications in the course of siege warfare.
The insurrection of 10 August 1792 was a defining event of the French Revolution, when armed revolutionaries in Paris, increasingly in conflict with the French monarchy, stormed the Tuileries Palace. The conflict led France to abolish the monarchy and establish a republic.
The Irish Brigade was a brigade in the French Royal Army composed of Irish exiles, led by Lord Mountcashel. It was formed in May 1690 when five Jacobite regiments were sent from Ireland to France in exchange for a larger force of French infantry who were sent to fight in the Williamite War in Ireland. The regiments comprising the Irish Brigade retained their special status as foreign units in the French Army until nationalised in 1791.
A royal guard is a group of military bodyguards, soldiers or armed retainers responsible for the protection of a royal family member, such as a king or queen, or prince or princess. They often are an elite unit of the regular armed forces, or are designated as such, and may maintain special rights or privileges.
The Russian Imperial Guard, officially known as the Leib Guard were military units serving as personal guards of the Emperor of Russia. Peter the Great founded the first such units in 1683, to replace the politically motivated Streltsy. The Imperial Guard subsequently increased in size and diversity to become an elite corps of all branches within the Imperial Army rather than Household troops in direct attendance on the Tsar. Numerous links were however maintained with the Imperial family and the bulk of the regiments of the Imperial Guard were stationed in and around Saint Petersburg in peacetime. The Imperial Guard was disbanded in 1917 following the Russian Revolution.
The French Guards were an elite infantry regiment of the French Royal Army. They formed a constituent part of the maison militaire du roi de France under the Ancien Régime.
The Women's March on Versailles, also known as the October March, the October Days or simply the March on Versailles, was one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. The march began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of 5 October 1789, were nearly rioting over the high price of bread. The unrest quickly became intertwined with the activities of revolutionaries seeking liberal political reforms and a constitutional monarchy for France. The market women and their allies ultimately grew into a crowd of thousands. Encouraged by revolutionary agitators, they ransacked the city armory for weapons and marched on the Palace of Versailles. The crowd besieged the palace and, in a dramatic and violent confrontation, they successfully pressed their demands upon King Louis XVI. The next day, the crowd forced the king and his family to return with them to Paris. Over the next few weeks most of the French Assembly also relocated to the capital.
A facing colour, also known as facings, is a common tailoring technique for European military uniforms where the visible inside lining of a standard military jacket, coat or tunic is of a different colour to that of the garment itself. The jacket lining evolved to be of different coloured material, then of specific hues. Accordingly, when the material was turned back on itself: the cuffs, lapels and tails of the jacket exposed the contrasting colours of the lining or facings, enabling ready visual distinction of different units: regiments, divisions or battalions each with their own specific and prominent colours. The use of distinctive facings for individual regiments was at its most popular in 18th century armies, but standardisation within infantry branches became more common during and after the Napoleonic Wars.
The Régiment de Royal Suédois was a foreign infantry regiment in the Royal French Army during the Ancien Régime. It was created in 1690 from Swedish prisoners taken during the Battle of Fleurus. The regiment eventually acquired the privilege of being called a Royal regiment.
The Cent-Suisses were an elite infantry company of Swiss mercenaries that served the French kings from 1471 to 1792 and from 1814 to 1830.
The Gardes du Corps du Roi was the senior formation of the King of France's household cavalry within the maison militaire du roi de France.
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The Lion Monument, or the Lion of Lucerne, is a rock relief in Lucerne, Switzerland, designed by Bertel Thorvaldsen and hewn in 1820–21 by Lukas Ahorn. It commemorates the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris. It is one of the most famous monuments in Switzerland, visited annually by about 1.4 million tourists. In 2006, it was placed under Swiss monument protection.
Karl Joseph Anton Leodegar von Bachmann was a Swiss military officer in French service, best known as the commander of the Swiss Guards during the Insurrection of 10 August 1792.
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The French Royal Army was the principal land force of the Kingdom of France. It served the Bourbon dynasty from the reign of Louis XIV in the mid-17th century to that of Charles X in the 19th, with an interlude from 1792 to 1814 and another during the Hundred Days in 1815. It was permanently dissolved following the July Revolution in 1830. The French Royal Army became a model for the new regimental system that was to be imitated throughout Europe from the mid-17th century onward. It was regarded as Europe's greatest military force for much of its existence.
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The pantalon rouge were an integral part of the uniform of most regiments of the French army from 1829 to 1914. Some parts of the Kingdom of France's army already wore red trousers or breeches but the French Revolution saw the introduction of white trousers for infantrymen. Following the 1814 Bourbon Restoration white breeches or blue trousers were worn but red trousers for infantry were adopted in 1829 to encourage the French rose madder dye-growing industry. Madder red is a shade darker than the scarlet of British uniforms.
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ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)The Swiss (Schweizeren) were at that time doormen at the royal palaces and thus the first to receive the royal family's private and official guests.