Long before the phenomenal success of books like "Longitude" and "Cod", John McPhee perfected the art of the 'single topic in depth' book, in many cases expanding on his trademark (long) New Yorker essays. In "La Place de la Concorde Suisse", he digs below the picture-postcard prettiness and deceptive blandness of Switzerland and its people to deliver a fascinating (and slightly sinister) portrait of the Swiss Army.

One of his most interesting books, written before he gave himself over to the fascination with geology that has inspired many of his more recent efforts.

To say that McPhee writes well is a gross understatement. He is the literary father of Malcolm Gladwell, with the same characteristic ability to take an apparently abstruse topic and write about it with extraordinary lucidity, weaving a fascinating story that draws the reader in and holds the attention right to the end.

If you haven't read any of McPhee's work, this would a good book to start with. Other favorites of mine include "The Crofter and the Laird", "The Headmaster", or either of the collections "Giving Good Weight" and "The John McPhee Reader".

Sometimes, you get a miraculous chance to have your cake and eat it too. My personal high-water mark is Jacques Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse, a French arthouse movie with impeccable credentials that just happened to show Emmanuelle Béart nude for about half of its 228 running minutes. (It's completely justified, given that the story is about the relationship between the artist and his model. Anything else would have been dishonest, don't you see?) But if you're a left-leaning person who also likes guns, this book may go one better. McPhee, an American journalist with a talent for finding good stories, describes a society based on unexceptionable ideals of peace and neutrality, which has pursued them so successfully that it hasn't been involved in a war with another country since 1516. He then spends the book arguing, with considerable plausibility, that Switzerland has only been able to afford such highflown ideals by developing an extraordinarily ferocious part-time militia and arming itself to the teeth.

It's depressing news if you believe in turning the other cheek. But if you're more a believer into doing unto others as they would do unto you but doing it first, you're going to like his message. McPhee has had a fine time as an observer with the Swiss Army, and tells you all about the ingenious ways in which the Swiss have learned to use their country's unusual topography to maximal advantage. The Alps, all on their own, form a brilliant first line of defence; there are only a few ways into Switzerland from most directions, and all the passes, tunnels and bridges are mined so that they can be blown to pieces at the touch of a button. There are supposed to be concealed military facilities everywhere, most of them buried in those same mountains. If we're to believe what he's telling us, your average blank Swiss rock face has at least a couple of camouflaged doors, which can be hiding anything from entrances to subterranean hospitals, to heavy artillery, to state-of-the-art fighter-bombers. And all deployable at a moment's notice.

I admit to a mean-spirited inner voice that's urging me to be skeptical. All of this is supposed to be classified, it says, so maybe his figures are inflated; he seems to have got very friendly with his hosts, and as far as I can see takes everything they tell him at face value. Maybe they thought he'd be a handy conduit for some pro-Swiss propaganda. But I'm ordering Doubting Thomas to keep his mouth shut. A politically correct version of Team America: World Police with better hardware: how can you resist that? I hope every word of it is true.

I begin to see why The Quiet Man loves John McPhee so much- the man is amazing, plain and simple and is fast becoming one of my favorite writers. While Encounters With The Arch Druid was a fascinating look at the impact of development on the unspoiled wildernesses of America, La Place de La Concorde Suisse plunges the reader into the fascinating world of Switzerland- and their army.

When one thinks of Switzerland, you don't really think of it as being an overly militaristic place. Dodgy banking regulations, excellent cheese and chocolate, crazy good watches and that fantastically neon currency of theirs, yes- but military prowess? Military power? Not so much.

And that's precisely the way the Swiss like it. McPhee tags along with a variety of citizen soldiers (as all Swiss Citizens have to do stints in the army) and explores the origins of the Swiss Army, how it came to be so important and such a vital party of the national fabric of Switzerland and slowly reveals just how expensive and costly an attempt to conquer Switzerland might be for someone.

Basically, the Swiss became the best soldiers because they had to be. Sitting in the middle of Europe they've had various hungry empires, Emperors and countries eye them up from time to time so defense of the Cantons that make up the Swiss Confederation became extremely important. They quickly developed a reputation as being the best mercenaries in Europe (because if you don't have a lot of fighting to do at home, you might as well get lots of practice abroad...) and the Vatican picked up some Swiss Mercenaries a few centuries back and has kept them- go to the Vatican and you'll see the famous Swiss Guards there to this day.

(Interesting bit of legal chicanery I didn't know: all Swiss mercenaries apparently had a loophole in their contracts- if Switzerland was attacked, they went home automatically to defend it. So as many countries came to rely on and use Swiss mercenaries frequently, the idea of attacking the place could kind of screw one over, depending on how many Swiss mercenaries you used.)

The entire Swiss military philosophy has been built around the idea of convincing various power-hungry countries that invading Switzerland would be so costly in terms of money and blood that it just isn't worth it. The geography helps a lot- as who wants to try and get an army through the Alps? But the fanatical devotion to the preservation of country and the sheer amount of practice means that the Swiss as a nation are very well trained (in as close to live-fire conditions as they can manage) and have obssessively planned for every possible eventuality. It also helps that their entire infrastructure is wired to blow in the event of an invasion- from chunks of bridges designed to collapse to rockslides waiting to be triggered to airstrips high in the Alps- they're ready for anything.

True story: my Godparents live in Switzerland not far from Geneva and in their basement is an honest to goodness nuclear fallout shelter. All Swiss houses have them- and McPhee hints that there are probably whole complexes buried beneath the Alps in case of nuclear war. If that happens someday- which I hope it doesn't- I have no doubt it'll be the Swiss that will be rebuilding civilization.

(Another thing I didn't know: Switzerland only appoints Generals in times of grave national Emergency- so far, there have been four of them.)

Overall: Fascinating, just fascinating- a portrait of a country so devoted to preserving it's neutrality and protecting its own that it's one of the most quietly militarized societies on Earth. McPhee does it again- I felt like I was reading a novel packed to the brim with delicious knowledge cookies. McPhee wrote my face off- and yes, I do want to read more of him. If you haven't read this brilliant writer yet, you don't know what you're missing.

John McPhee is my favorite writer, and with this, I've now read every single one of his books. All 31. I can't wait to read them all again.

un acuto giornalista americano ha scritto questo spassosissimo saggio dal quale si capisce perchè la svizzera è la svizzera.

When an English friend here in Geneva said he buys up all the copies of this he can find, I broke the habit of a lifetime and asked if I could borrow it. I'd recently been discovering the ferocious history of the Swiss Army which I guess is one of the factors that still has its influence. Another is that the people are the army, the army the people. Eye-opening for me - though I guess it is blindingly obvious if I'd ever stopped to think - is that neutrality isn't a moral position, it's a function of possibility, at least in the Swiss case. Both the people and the landscape of Switzerland bristle with what is needed to defend neutrality. I knew that modern buildings here are all built with nuclear bomb shelters, but I had no idea how much of the countryside has massive support structures and escape mechanisms underground, including hospitals. I had no idea that it is common for mountains in Switzerland to be effectively hollow inside, with plastic granite blocks fitted into the sides of mountains, camouflaged entries into these secret areas.

Rest here:

http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...

Actual rating: 2.5/5

Quite an interesting book to understand Swiss mentality through its army. The book was written in the 80's which means parts of the book is not up-to-date. The book already assumed a wide knowledge of the country and its customs, which makes it hard to read unless you are Swiss or live here for a couple of years. I wouldn't recommend this book to most people.

Curioso e piacevole trattatello sull'esercito svizzero scritto da McPhee, famoso per il suo "Tennis". Il libro parte dalla tesi che la Svizzera sia una fortezza imprendibile perché il suo esercito è numerosissimo, di leva, ottimamente addestrato e motivato, e la conformazione del territorio è sfruttata al meglio. L'autore segue e intervista alcuni soldati che stanno eseguendo il servizio periodico, e ne approfitta per penetrare non solo nel rapporto degli svizzeri con l'esercito, ma anche nel loro carattere e il rapporto col loro paese.
Solo che, silenziosamente, la tesi viene smontata, sia da presupposti teorici (l'esercito si focalizza nella difesa delle montagne, ma il nucleo economico e popoloso del paese, l'area pianeggiante tra Basilea e Ginevra, è indifendibile) che storici (si racconta di come, nonostante il mito della neutralità, nella II guerra mondiale se la siano vista davvero brutta, ci siano stati combattimenti e bombardamenti, c'erano piani di invasione da Hitler ma anche dagli alleati, e i funambolismi diplomatici sono andati a volte bene per il rotto della cuffia).
Il libro è del 1983, da allora molte cose potrebbero essere cambiate, ma secondo me non molto: ogni maschio svizzero ha ancora il suo fucile d'assalto in cantina, e ogni ponte e tunnel strategico è tuttora minato. E anche il carattere degli svizzeri, questo popolo buffo e con un'identità unica, penso proprio che sia rimasto immutato.

As a New Yorker staff writer, McPhee’s written many classics of long-form journalism, which I have been slowly trying to get through over the years. Fortunately, one of my customers this summer was married to a man who had just written his PhD thesis on McPhee, and who was looking to unload some trade paperback copies of McPhee’s books before moving to a new university, giving me the chance to check a few articles off my list. This book is about Switzerland, the “Army with a Country,” which has hidden guns covering every strategic corner, has every bridge and tunnel rigged to blow up, has massive basses hidden within mountains, and which calls back all citizens, from plumbers in Germany to CEOs in New York, back every year to train. Interestingly, while all Swiss are required to keep a gun at home after finishing their time as conscripts, using the guns is strictly forbidden. Much of this book/piece consists of McPhee walking around Switzerland with a Franchoponic reconnaissance patrol consisting of reservist troublemakers (the NCO is a vintner who meant to pull a practice grenade off his superior’s tunic, but accidentally left the pin attached to the tunic), who report on the transportation capability of various roads, bridges, and hidden passages. In the memorable final scene, the patrol climbs a mountain while reporting on a faux Soviet attack (when this book as written, in the 80s, the Warsaw Pact was seen as the only true possible enemy), while stopping for drinks and snacks. At the very end, the patrol, which is ostensibly standing in a field, but really drinking in a summit bar (the farmers sitting nearby are making mooing sounds), reports the detonation of a “petit bombe atomique.”

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Awkward English at best, arguably not even a real sentence, something perhaps emanating from the quill of Henry James, the Second Amendment has proved to be a challenge to those charged with interpreting it and a slippery opportunity for those seeking to exploit it. For a couple of hundred years the United States Supreme Court gave full measure to the first thirteen words until rather recently, to achieve the opposite result, it didn’t.

I bring this up not to be provocative or even smarmy but because reading this book reminded me that in the United States we don’t have militias anymore nor – and here I am being smarmy – the excuse of a militia. But in Switzerland – in Switzerland the whole country is a militia.

By its Constitution and legislation Switzerland is prohibited from invading other countries but everyone – all males anyhow – must defend its borders. At the time of this book, 650,000 men were in the Swiss Army. And that’s in peacetime. Then again, it’s always peacetime in Switzerland. They give laurels to Generals when there is no war.

The army trains. Officers leave boardrooms; soldiers leave their farms, their lathes, their students. And they train with live bullets, live bombs. There are six hundred thousand assault rifles in Swiss homes.

My point being the Second Amendment would make sense in Switzerland where unlike us, forgive the repetition, they have a militia.

They have a lot of wine in Switzerland, too, and like their military, they do not export. Switzerland produces about a hundred million litres a year, and consumes virtually all of it. Moreover, Switzerland imports two-thirds of what it drinks. Switzerland imports more Beaujolais than is imported by the United States.

It was interesting learning about Switzerland in the Second World War. For instance:

After France surrendered, the German military attaché sought out Jakob Huber, the Swiss chief of the general staff, and made it clear that he felt the time had come for Switzerland to open its doors and welcome a German Europe. There was a six-decilitre pause. Huber studied the attaché and said, “No one comes through here.”

And this:

A German plane carrying an experimental package of supersecret radar made an unintentional landing near Zurich, possibly guided by the supersecret radar. The Swiss seized the radar and hid it in an alp. The Nazis threatened invasion. The Swiss offered a deal. They brought the radar out of the alp and destroyed it in the presence of German witnesses in return for a dozen fighter planes, on which the iron crosses were painted white.

Albert Einstein, by the way, was rejected by the regular army because of varicose veins and flat feet. But, he had to serve otherwise, in the Service Complémentaire.

When I read John McPhee I get transported, so that I want to drive a hazmat truck, want to build a canoe out of a tree, want to vacation on a Hebridean island, want to fish for shad. I really enjoyed La Place de la Concorde Suisse, learned a lot, was amused, but I have no desire to join the Swiss Army.

"In the Swiss Romande, we say, 'Why do we go to the army, anyway? There are always enough Swiss Germans to defend us.'"
- John McPhee, La Place de la Concorde Suisse



An enjoyable read. John McPhee delivers a tour of the Swiss Army, full of its contradictions. At once fierce and ever vigilant, it also has (or had, I'm not sure what the current status of the Swiss Army is) its own share of malingering "volunteers." The army is huge, at the writing of this book it was supposed to be 450,000 Swiss nationals serving in the Army. Don't confuse neutral with peaceful. The Swiss spend a lot of capital keeping their country out of the hands of the stray Italian or German fascist.

The book made me think a bit about the different approaches of the Swiss and the Americans to military preparedness. Americans spend an ungodly amount of money on our military for equipment, bases, and personnel (and money taking care of veterans of our many, many military adventures overseas). The Swiss spend money, certainly, but they are a bit like the Marines. They will gladly fly and older plane that gets the job done, keep it going, and spend the money on bullets. Where the Swiss are unique is the amount of time many of the people spend. Most of the civilian army spends at LEAST 1 month a year doing Army stuff. Those of higher rank, might spend a lot more time. That is a cost that can't be under appreciated.

That bleeds into the other dynamic that separates the Swiss form of defense from the American: class and influence. The Swiss Army is Switzerland. Rank in the military influences jobs in the civilian world and vice versa. As much as they might want to paint it a bit milder, the Swiss Army is VERY class conscious. The American military, since it is largely a full-time, volunteer army, depends a lot of the lower class to fill its enlisted ranks. At the top, you also start to see a big cross-over between higher ranks and the corporate world. 3 and 4 star generals retire into jobs at Military Defense companies, and often sit on corporate boards. The difference with the Swiss is this happening at the same time.

The first part of this book (first 90 pages) appeared in the October 31, 1983 edition (Under Reporter at Large) of the New Yorker. The final part of this book (last 60 pages) appeared in the November 7, 1983 edition of the New Yorker.

This mountain-bound corner of Europe has withstood threats from all modern conflicts by being armed to the teeth and ever vigilant. Israel in the alps, but never conquered. A model for other societies? Or a throwback to the Middle Ages? The only threat not covered here is the cyber threat. But perhaps there are cyberwarriors deep in a mountain redoubt? It would be comforting to think so...