ABSTRACT
It was in Germany, quite especially, that the declaration of neutrality by the Diet provoked the bitterest disappointment. Had these neutral Swiss, people wondered, no spark of the spirit of the old Eidgenossen, those old Germanic heroes who had been held up as an inspiration to the troops at Leipzig? The saga of the liberation of Switzerland had swelled to romantic proportions, and present events had been so directly interpreted in its light, that in the end Tell appeared as the guardian angel of the German armies. In the German mind, the boundaries between the Swiss and the German nations began to fade. It was taken for granted that the brothers of the Confederation would lend their active support.
