3 ms·

>Being the source of mercenaries is literally the opposite of waging war as the country. Patently wrong: Swiss Neutrality explicitely bans mercenary work by an

• lazide 1y ago
  Maybe in the modern era, specifically since 1848, but [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries]. “The young men who went off to fight, and sometimes die, in foreign service had several incentives—limited economic options in the still largely rural cantons; adventure; pride in the reputation of the Swiss as soldiers; and finally what military historian Sir Charles Oman describes as a pure love of combat and warfighting in and of itself, forged by two centuries of conflict.” Either way, being a mercenary is explicitly the opposite of ‘fighting for your country’, which is the point I was making.
• Telemakhos 1y ago
  It does now, but Swiss mercenaries were a target of Thomas More’s satire in Utopia.
• amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  Doesn't the Vatican still have a Swiss guard? I wonder how that works
  • palata 1y ago
    There is an exception for them.
• palata 1y ago
  > Patently wrong No, but you just haven't understood that they were talking about the past :-).
• emmelaich 1y ago
  Interesting, considering the Vatican Swiss Guard. >The Swiss Guard is considered an elite military unit and highly selective in its recruitment: candidates must be unmarried Swiss Catholic males between 19 and 30 years of age,... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Guard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Guard