“Great days… Zürich during the war”: 1917 Zürich
Why Switzerland was a magnet for artists and revolutionaries during WWI — and how it stayed that way
In Tom Stoppard’s Travesties — onstage at Lantern Theater Company September 8 through October 9, 2022 — Switzerland’s neutrality contrasts starkly with the great war raging outside its borders. Travesties is set in the middle of World War I, and history is at turning point — the world will change irrevocably, but it’s not yet clear in which directions it will go. In the trenches, there is no place for theater, experimental art, and revolutionary manifestos. But in 1917 Zürich — in real life and in Tom Stoppard’s version of it — there is space and time for all three.
Switzerland’s traditional neutrality dates back to the 16th century. After a crushing defeat at the hands of the French, the small Alpine country adopted a policy of neutrality out of self-preservation; the hope was that the larger, more powerful countries would leave it in peace if Switzerland promised the same. This held until 1798, when Napoleon’s forces invaded. Once Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, however, the value of a neutral country in the midst of competing powers became widely accepted. By 1815, the European powers of the day signed that neutrality into international law.
Switzerland remains neutral to this day, steadfast in its “armed neutrality,” with a standing army and mandatory military service for all Swiss men between ages 18 and 34. The Swiss Army is strictly for defense and stays trained as an insurance policy backing up its lawful neutrality. This neutrality would prove all the more precious to both Switzerland and the whole of Europe during World War I.
World War I started in 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo and was unlike any war that came before it. The causes were complicated, a series of falling dominoes of treaties and pacts that dragged several countries into conflict without a clear moral imperative. While patriotism called most citizens to rally behind their countries at the start, years of grinding violence, economic peril, and food shortages exacted a heavy toll and led to significant unrest throughout Europe.
But what was most shocking about the war was the incomprehensible brutality of it. New technologies — tanks, machine guns, planes, and more — mechanized death in a way that was previously impossible. Where soldiers used to have to meet on the fields of battle, World War I was the first time a soldier was likely to be killed without ever seeing his opponent. Evenly matched armies meant years of stalemate, with opposed forces dug into trenches and only making limited progress across the deadly emptiness of No Man’s Land — and causing its own breed of disease and injury, separate from the wounds of battle. Shell shock emerged as a common ailment, causing tremors, nightmares, fatigue, and confusion — the first time trauma was widely understood to cause its own psychological maladies, separate from the physical wounds sustained in battle. By the end of the war, military and civilian deaths topped 10 million, with total casualties nearer to 40 million.
In the middle of so much destruction sat neutral Switzerland. The first battle of World War I had shocked the country: Germany had invaded and quickly occupied neutral Belgium. To protect their own neutrality, Switzerland made the case for why it benefited the belligerents on both sides, and was able to convince them of the value of a neutral trading partner and buffer. They also offered a unique service, one that likely brought Henry Carr to Zürich: through the Red Cross, Switzerland made arrangements to take in wounded prisoners of war from both sides of the conflict. The agreement was that the prisoners would be transferred to Switzerland and cared for (at the soldiers’ home countries’ expense), and they would be free to enjoy the country. They would not, though, be free to leave. In exchange for care and safety, they would be kept in Switzerland until the war was over so that they could not return to the front.
With war raging and the beautiful Alpine safe haven beckoning, it was no surprise that Switzerland and its largest city, Zürich, became a beacon for artists, pacifists, exiles, and others who wished to avoid the chaos and violence inflicted on their countries. In Zürich, on a lake with a view of the mountains, the arts flourished. Theater, dance, opera, fine art, and music continued to entertain patrons. Zürich’s famous watchmakers kept their doors open, doing business with those who lived in the city and with both sides of the armed conflict. James Joyce made it his family’s home to escape the war. Vladimir Lenin fled there in exile to plot his revolution (and the end of Russia’s involvement in the war). Tristan Tzara came to study philosophy and ended up founding a worldwide art movement. And in Zürich and the surrounding mountain resorts, 68,000 wounded foreign soldiers recuperated in the mountain air and the warmth of the Swiss people’s welcome, which one officer claimed was so overwhelming that newly arrived soldiers would pass out from emotion. Among them was Henry Carr, first a gravely wounded soldier, then a British consular officer, and later an accidental literary celebrity.
Zürich was not immune from the pressures of the time. Inflation increased, and while some industries benefited from wartime needs and trading, others struggled. After the war, in November 1918, a national strike originated in Zürich; the Swiss government suppressed quickly, fearing another Russian Revolution. But in the rose-colored memory of Stoppard’s Henry Carr, and in the impact its relative safety had on art, literature, and revolution, Zürich was a special place to be in 1917.
Lantern Theater Company’s production of Travesties by Tom Stoppard is onstage September 8 through October 9, 2022, at St. Stephen’s Theater. Visit our website for tickets and information.
