The German Frontier Closure – The Reich – The War Council

** Bern, December 1. Thank God! The official news of the imposition of the German frontier closure is at last said to have reached the Federal Council, so we shall now presumably know where we stand. It was high time, after the right honourable central authority had for so long hoaxed and made fools of us Swiss. The Federal Council is said to have resolved, in the face of this whole mighty imperial troop deployment of 50,000 men, not to post a single company of Swiss troops on picket. The imperial authority may see from this how greatly people here in Switzerland fear its resolutions, precautions, threats and troop deployments. It is true that the “Reich” has no such military constitution as Switzerland, which, without paying a single man of standing troops, can put 150,000 men, ready for action and trained soldiers, on their feet within eight days – that is, proportionally twice as many as the classical land of the parade-march with its much-vaunted Scharnhorst system of defence.

Although the amusement derived from the contradictory rumours about the closure now threatens to run out for the Swiss, the “Reich” continually sees to it that we have something to laugh about. Yesterday the German papers, and in particular the Frankfurt Reichsblätter, bring us with the gravest countenance in the world a new fat canard: the new incursion of the refugees, or rather bandits, into Lörrach, together with the engagement in which four veritable Baden dragoons are said to have been killed! I need hardly tell you that the whole ridiculous story, which aroused the greatest merriment here, rests on a hoax. But I can tell you that the fear of the citizens of the Reich on account of the two and a half freebooters who may still be roaming about the border makes the most comical impression in the world on every Swiss. A new phrase has already become current here: “he is as frightened as six citizens of the Reich before a single freebooter.” The new article in the *Frankfurter Ober-Post-Amts-Zeitung* on the incessant intrigues of the refugees on the border has not a little contributed to keeping this amusement alive at the Reich’s expense. What colossal disclosures have the spies of Herr Schmerling not brought forth! Metternich is staying in Muttenz and has been seen on the Birsfeld, where Neff is staying and writing and receiving many letters; in Emmishofen Siegel and Katzenmaier are staying, and the Reich should not tremble! Indeed, what is still more terrible, in Dornach, hard on the German border, in Dornach the Swiss government tolerates – – “a few fugitive innkeepers from Lörrach and the surrounding area”!!! Moreover, “the conviction generally prevails” that new “raids” would have taken place if, etc. Indeed, has not sharp shooting been carried on from Groß-Laufenburg across the Rhine? – by whom, when and how, the Reichszeitung of course does not know. In short, if the Reich is so badly carpentered that it trembles to its very foundations when Metternich is seen on the Birsfeld and a few fugitive innkeepers mourn in Dornach, then Switzerland will certainly not lend herself to serving as a prop to this rotten edifice! And moreover these confusedly concocted reports of the Reich’s mouchards contradict one another in every line: for instance, it says Metternich is the only refugee in Muttenz, and three lines further on “intelligence is received from Muttenz that they (!!) are arming there again”!! They – i.e., Metternich all alone! And for this, that the imperial authority makes itself ridiculous before the whole world through such clumsy contradictions, it pays its mouchards in Switzerland! Tremble, Byzantium, Metternich has been seen on the Birsfeld and “several fugitive innkeepers” in Dornach have sworn thy downfall!

But let us leave the Reich aside. The Federal War Council has been dissolved pro forma, but immediately restored as a military commission, the chairmanship of which Herr Ochsenbein has taken over as head of the Federal War Department. The *Berner Zeitung* criticises this restoration, or rather continuance, of the most cumbersome and costly piece of the old federal administration in sharp words. The War Council, it says, never accomplished anything except the appointment of a few aristocratic officers and, after long birth-pangs, the final delivery of a federal gaiter regulation, which cost so much that the entire army could have been provided with gaiters and shoes for the same money. For the rest, it had confined itself to drawing its 16 francs per head per day, and amid sheer difficulties and pettifoggery had long since abandoned any attempt to bring anything to fruition.

In addition to the duel between Luvini and Benz, a second was in prospect as a result of the Ticino debate in the National Council – between Pioda and Michel of Graubünden. Colonel Michel had expressed himself most improperly and finally, in a rage, gave Herr Pioda a flat denial. Pioda answered with extreme calmness and propriety, but afterwards called the Graubünden swashbuckler to account. Herr Michel thereupon made such explanations as completely satisfied Herr Pioda and his friends, and with that the matter fell to the ground.