Consolidation of Swiss Neutrality Tradition

Timeline

1. 1648–1650Osnabrück/Münster (site of treaty signing) · WestphaliaArticle VI of the 1648 Treaty of Osnabrück explicitly exempted the Swiss Confederacy from the jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Empire, formally recognizing its independent status. In the following years, the Swiss cantons gradually clarified their foreign policy principles at the Federal Diet (Tagsatzung): joining no alliance of any European power, and maintaining political autonomy while gaining economic benefits from mercenary exports.
2. 1653Rural areas of Bern, Lucerne, Basel · Swiss PlateauAfter the end of the Thirty Years' War, inflation and debt pressures sparked rural discontent, and a large-scale peasant uprising (Schweizer Bauernkrieg) broke out in spring 1653. Peasants from the cantons of Bern, Lucerne, and Solothurn formed a "Covenant League" demanding the abolition of new taxes and the restoration of traditional rights. Urban elites jointly suppressed the uprising, and its leader Niklaus Leuen was executed that same year. Although the uprising failed, this internal crisis further reinforced the cantons' political orientation toward external restraint and resolving internal differences through consultation.
3. 1654–1659Baden · SwitzerlandAfter the peasant war, the Federal Diet worked to repair inter-cantonal trust, coordinating military cooperation among the cantons through the 1655 Defense Compact (Defensionale), while explicitly opposing active intervention in neighboring conflicts. Both France and the Spanish Habsburgs sought Swiss mercenaries; the cantons leaned in different directions due to religious and economic interests, but at the confederal level the consistent stance of not declaring war was maintained, laying a practical foundation for the formalization of armed neutrality policy in the 18th century.