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.
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