Swiss Confederation's Maintenance of Neutrality during the Thirty Years' War

Timeline

1. 1630–1631Baden (seat of the Swiss Federal Diet) · Canton of AargauFacing the full outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in neighboring countries, representatives of the Swiss Confederation's members formally reaffirmed at the Federal Diet (Tagsatzung) their neutrality toward all belligerents, passed resolutions refusing passage to any foreign troops across Confederation territory, and declared strict limits on the large-scale export of mercenaries to any single power.
2. 1631–1635Graubünden (Grisons) · Canton of GraubündenThe Confederation's allied territory of Graubünden controlled the strategic Alpine corridor linking Milan in Italy with Germany, and both Spanish Habsburgs and France fiercely contested control of it. Through mediation and diplomatic maneuver the Confederation gradually restored Graubünden's autonomy; the 1635 agreement largely reinstated local self-government in the region, at the cost of limited concessions to each power.
3. 1636–1639Bern · Canton of BernIn the late 1630s, despite religious divisions between Protestant and Catholic members, the Swiss Confederation used neutrality as its common denominator to maintain the alliance's unity, successfully taking in war refugees, providing financial services to all sides, and laying the diplomatic groundwork for the explicit recognition of Swiss independence and neutrality in the later Peace of Westphalia.