Act of mediation

The Acte of mediation is an act written by Bonaparte, the February 19th 1803 allotting a news Constitution to the Suisse after the failure of that of the Swiss République. Switzerland is organized according to a federal model allotting more authority to the cantons.

Context

In 1798, the France was directed by a Directoire, a committee of five members in charge of the executive power. To reinflate the cases of the State, the Directory annexed the town of Geneva and invades the Swiss Confédération to make of it a “République sister”, kind of State-vassal on which France could perceive taxes. At that time, Napoleon Bonaparte was commander-in-chief of the French Army and prepared a military campaign in Egypt. Having already practically all the capacities, Bonaparte left enliser the government of the Directory for better preparing a future coup d'etat. It thus did not deal a situation with Switzerland.

The Suisse was from now on under French domination and its political system was transformed and copied on the French model. The Swiss Confederation thus became the Swiss Republic and adopted a centralized government and an exact counterpart of the French Constitution of 1795. The French model did not prove however at all applicable to Switzerland which was, from its differences of religion, languages and culture, completely unsuited to a unit mode. The interior situation degenerated quickly: the Swiss territory was attacked of everywhere by close powers wanting to adapt the alpine collars, the government, was mined by internal struggles between federalists and unit, in front moreover to plant the bases of a new State and to find the resources financial to launch the economy of the new Republic, was unable to impose its authority. Once the French occupation became lighter, the civil war burst in the country. The Swiss Republic capitulated even the September 18th 1802 vis-a-vis the federalists.

The catastrophic interior situation of the Swiss Republic did not constitute however a threat for France and Bonaparte preferred to leave embourber a problem of which it did not have to be occupied for the moment, while making sure of being able to draw an interest from it thereafter as it hoped for it since the departure. In fact indeed Swiss themselves had finally to be solved to ask for the assistance of Bonaparte, become First consul in 1799. This one promised its assistance in to them 1802 and ordered the drafting of a new Swiss Constitution under the control of four French senators. It is finally in 1803 that it will reveal with a Swiss delegation the written text: the Act of mediation.

Contents of the act

According to this new constitution, Switzerland became again a confederation, consisted of nineteen cantons, that is to say six of more than before since the Act also envisaged the removal of the prone or allied countries. Each canton had its own constitution.

Although the Swiss Republic was defined like independent, the influence of France on its Constitution was very clear. It is thus Bonaparte which laid down the foreign politics of Switzerland, the latter being an essential strategic point on the European chess-board. France influenced the Swiss economic policy also clearly.

Moreover, France “drew” many soldiers in the Swiss quota to join them to the French Army.

In Switzerland, the executive power was again allotted to the Diète, within which each canton had a deputy charged to take care of the interests of its State. The cantons of a population of more than one hundred thousand inhabitants had two votes at the time of the vote. Six cantons, namely Freiburg, Bern, Soleure, Basle, Zurich and Lucerne occupied, in turn by one year period and the order quoted previously, the function of directing canton whose representative became, for one year, the Landammann of Switzerland. Each canton found its autonomy and its sovereignty. Each one had its own military quota.

Switzerland unified however with the suppression of the interior customs and the adoption of a single currency. Moreover, the new Constitution inherited some measurements founded by the Swiss Republic like, for example, fundamental freedoms of the individual.

Impact

The Act of mediation, in general, well was thus accepted by the Swiss cantons. Bonaparte had managed to restore peace in Switzerland, but the latter lost at the same time a good part of its independence and became State-vassal France.

Bonaparte had managed to benefit from its role of mediator in a war which it had let itself burst. However, the constraints imposed by France became, after a few years, increasingly difficult to accept. Switzerland had evil to gather enough men to be able to provide troops to the army of Napoleon, crowned Empereur in 1804. Moreover, the continental blockade imposed by France on its State-vassal against England slows down the Swiss economy considerably. Switzerland continued in spite of very making trade with the English, which led Napoleon to threaten it of annexation. In front of the increasingly important pressures imposed by France, the Swiss people will end up revolting. The element release of these risings was the failure of the military countryside that the Emperor carried out in Russia. The Napoleonean troops were destabilized by the eagerness of the Russian soldiers as by the Siberian cold which decimated the troops, among which many Swiss soldiers.

Switzerland took again its independence after the fall of the empire of Napoleon, who had not resisted the interior economic crisis and the repeated attacks, its adversaries being combined against him.

The domination of Napoleon was cement which allowed the mode Mediation to exist. This last collapsed at the same time as the Empire. The cantons reflect a term with this mode after the defeat of Napoleon to the Bataille of Leipzig, in 1813. The fall of the mode made it possible new political currents to clash for the capacity. Switzerland found a new face, just like the rest of Europe, with the Congrès of Vienna in 1815 the purpose of which was to redefine the European borders after the Napoleonean era.

Letter of Bonaparte to delegated cantons

“" Switzerland does not resemble in any other State, is by the events which have followed one another there for several centuries, either by the geographical location, or by the various languages, the various religions, and this extreme difference in manners which exists between its various parts. Nature made your federative State, to want to overcome it is not man sage"

… …

" What is at the same time the desire, the interest of your nation and of the vast States which surround you is thus:

1° equal rights between your eighteen cantons
2° a sincere and voluntary renunciation of the privileges on behalf of the classes patricians
3° a federative organization, where each canton is organized according to its language, its religion, its manners, its interest, its opinion" ”

See too

Qualities von Reding which chaired the federal Diète of Schwytz after the capitulation of the Swiss République

Internal bonds

political Mediation

External bonds

the Act of mediation

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