AHC: Switzerland, the aggressor

Getting Switzerland to be invaded is common and (more or less) easy in the 20th century.

But your challenge is now to have Switzerland start a war and be the aggressor party in a war. It can win or lose, expand or get partitioned, but Switzerland (or Liechtenstein) must have been the aggressor party, i.e. the first country to declare war on somebody else and/or the first country to fire shots.

In such a war, Switzerland is allowed to have allies, but they must join at some later point...
 
Getting Switzerland to be invaded is common and (more or less) easy in the 20th century.

But your challenge is now to have Switzerland start a war and be the aggressor party in a war. It can win or lose, expand or get partitioned, but Switzerland (or Liechtenstein) must have been the aggressor party, i.e. the first country to declare war on somebody else and/or the first country to fire shots.

In such a war, Switzerland is allowed to have allies, but they must join at some later point...

A belligerent Switzerland would probably be a frustrated Power.
They'd need a coastline, and a navy (but not a good enough one to hold colonies). Maybe they had a coastal city like Venice, Italy took it, and that started the war.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Switzerland gets a Nazi coup (there was a contingent of Swiss Nazis) much like what almost happened to Austria before the Italians put a stop to it, and when war is declared in 1939, they are still haven't been folded into the Reich. They launch artillery strikes over the French border immediately as a member of team Germany, becoming the first country to fire a shot.

Or Nazi Switzerland decides that those Liechtensteiners have had it too good for too long and decide to launch a brief "war" in which they occupy and annex Liechtenstein right as the Germans take Czechoslovakia.
 
Barring an annexation of Liechtenstein, having Switzerland as an aggressor against any neighbour is out of the question. Even the scenario I and a few others proposed here is pretty way off. But my guess is a sudden overthrow of the Liechtenstein monarchy by radical communists or fascists and the exiled prince promising to join the confederation as a 'special' canton if Bern reinstates him and removes the revolutionary government.
 
Post 1990 is unlikely because Switzerland drastically cut defence spending after the Iron Curtain collapsed.
Which other Austrian or Italian or French or German provinces were unset with their rulers and tried to join Switzerland?
 
Not really aggression but what if the Nazi's had decided to try and take Switzerland and Switzerland had found out about it in advance. Knowing they can't stop the Nazi's taking the main part of Switzerland they execute their plans to fall back to the "National redoubt" in the alps, pull back what civilians they can and scream for allied aid. The day before the planned attack units of the Swiss army launch a raid into Germany to do as much damage as possible before either dying or fleeing back home. Its little more than slap and is no more than a face saving effort before the remainder of the army bugs out to the redoubt but technically the Swiss do start the war.
 
Post 1990 is unlikely because Switzerland drastically cut defence spending after the Iron Curtain collapsed.
Which other Austrian or Italian or French or German provinces were unset with their rulers and tried to join Switzerland?

Vorarlberg in 1919. Switzerland ended up deciding they didn't want it, and, in any event, that would not have resulted in war.
Talk of "Greater Switzerland" pops out on occasion, but should best be regarded as borderline joke.
 
Possibly the immediate post WW I period is an option. Suppose the Bavarian revolution succeeds and an expansionist communist state starts to move into adjoining areas, possibly the Swiss might launch a pre-emptive move, or there could be an intervention into a German civil war caused by the success of the reds in Bavaria.
 
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