Liechtenstein's 80 soldiers and the army it disbanded in 1868

Liechtenstein has no army, and it hasn’t had one since 1868. What I like about the story is that it didn’t start as a pacifist gesture. It was far more down to earth than that. A small, costly and unpopular contingent that existed only because a confederation demanded it, and that lost its purpose the moment the confederation went.

An army kept out of obligation

For centuries the territory had local militias and supplied a handful of men to the armies of the Holy Roman Empire. In the 19th century, as a sovereign state, the scale changed. The Confederation of the Rhine asked for 40 men in wartime, and Liechtenstein met the obligation through treaties with the Duchy of Nassau. In the wars against Napoleon in 1814 and 1815 its troops marched as part of Baden’s forces and came home without having fought.

Under the German Confederation, from 1815, it had to maintain a contingent of 1% of the population plus a 0.5% reserve. The Historisches Lexikon has the numbers. It began with 55 line troops and 27 reservists, rose to 64 in 1855 and reached 82 men in 1862. The contingent wasn’t properly formed until 1836, when a joint battalion was agreed with the Hohenzollern principalities, and the first uniforms date from then. The barracks was Vaduz Castle, now the prince’s home.

1866, the last mission

In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 Prince Johann II put the contingent at the Austrian emperor’s disposal to defend the frontier with Italy. Liechtenstein’s soldiers stood guard on the Stelvio Pass, in South Tyrol, from July to September. The Lexikon stresses that they never saw combat and that the mission went ahead against the people’s wishes, sparking a serious rift between prince and population.

The same war finished off the German Confederation, and with it the obligation to keep soldiers. Parliament stopped voting money for a contingent that weighed heavily on a poor country’s budget, and its foreign commanders struggled to win acceptance. On 12 February 1868 Johann II disbanded the army. Liechtenstein has had no armed forces since.

So what about the 80 who came back as 81?

It’s the story most people search for, and you’ll find it on every list of Liechtenstein facts. Honestly, no official website I’ve checked carries it, and the Historisches Lexikon article on the army, which goes through its history century by century, doesn’t mention it. So I’m not going to pass it off as fact.

What is documented is nearly as charming. The contingent numbered 82 men, its final mission was guarding a mountain pass, and it came home without having fought. In 1849 it had been involved in a skirmish at Oos, in Baden, also without losses. And the Lexikon adds a detail I find telling, that Liechtenstein’s army was never once used against its own people.

No soldiers, but not defenceless

Having no army doesn’t mean the idea of defence has gone. Article 44 of the constitution obliges every citizen able to bear arms to defend the country in case of need. In the 1920s a militia, the Landeswehr, was planned but never created. The last veteran of the old contingent, Andreas Kieber, died in 1939.

The real test came with the Second World War. With a police force of seven and a few dozen auxiliaries, Liechtenstein declared neutrality and came through unoccupied, sheltering behind Switzerland, which, incidentally, never guaranteed its defence. Swiss border guards policed its frontier with Germany under the customs treaty, but they had orders to pull back if an attack came. The wartime story is told in full in Liechtenstein in the Second World War. And in peacetime, the army that has crossed its border most often, by shell or on foot, has been the Swiss one on exercises; you’ll find those episodes under Swiss invasions of Liechtenstein.

My take

To me Liechtenstein punctures the romantic image of the pacifist state. It didn’t give up arms on principle; it gave them up because the army was useless and expensive. The outcome is the same, though, a country that has gone more than 150 years without soldiers and has learnt to lean on its neighbours. For how it all fits together, start with my history of Liechtenstein.