SWITZERLAND 529 inches of the service, especially for the ar- tillery and riflemen. All the different classes required to devote a certain number of iys in each year to battalion and brigade
- ills and field manoeuvres. The Swiss are
irate marksmen with the rifle, and meet mstantly to practise and engage in trials of There are clubs and societies in almost very valley and parish, and frequent match- besides which a federal rifle match is held jvery year. The number of riflemen in the rmy list of 1874 was 13,918. Annual con- in wrestling also are held in many parts >f Switzerland. In September, 1874, the field numbered 84,369 men, the reserve army ),069, and the militia 65,981 ; making, with Iministrative troops and the sanitary corps, total of 201,257. The first inhabitants of Switzerland are supposed to have been of Gel- origin, and to have immigrated from the lortheast. Their Collective name was Hel- vetians. (See HELVETII.) The high valleys ar the sources of the Rhine, in the present iton of Grisons, were occupied by a tribe to the Tyrrhenians or Etruscans, called Rhastians. In 113 B. 0. two tribes of [elvetians, the Tigurini and Tugeni (from rhich are derived the names of Zurich and Jug), joined the Cimbri and Teutons in their iroads into Italy. In this war the Helvetian )ivico, in 107, completely routed the Romans ider their consul L. Cassius Longinus. Af- the defeat of the Cimbri in 101, the Hel- vetians returned unmolested to their moun- iins, followed, it is believed, by the scattered smnants of the Cimbri, to whom the founda- ion of the town of Schwytz is ascribed. In time of Csssar an entire tribe of the Hel- vetians, instigated by their leader Orgetorix, " 3termined to conquer scats in Gaul, destroyed leir towns and villages, and under the corn- id of Divico crossed the Sa6ne ; but they rere conquered by Csesar at Bibracte (Autun), id driven back to their country. Soon after- rard the Helvetian tribes were gradually sub- lued by the Romans, and even the Rhgetians, /ho were the last to maintain their freedom, TQYQ compelled at length to yield. For sev-
- al centuries Switzerland remained a province
of the Romans, who introduced their manners, laws, and civilization, and founded several towns, as Augusta Rauracorum (Augst, near Basel), Curia Rhaatorum (Coire), Vindonissa (Windisch, in Aargau), Aventicum (Avenches, in Vaud), and Eburodunum (Yverdun). In the 2d, 3d, and 4th centuries the country was often harassed by the invasion of German tribes, especially the Alemanni ; the Celtic and Roman elements of the population mostly perished, the towns were sacked, and the country laid! waste. In the 5th century the Burgundians, Alemanni, and Goths divided the country among themselves ; but their do- minion was short, and in the 6th century they were all brought into subjection by the Franks. Christianity, which had already be- gun to take root in Burgundian Switzerland, became under the rule of the Franks the re- ligion of the entire country. Many bishoprics and convents were founded, and the bishops and many abbots obtained great political in- fluence. Though wholly incorporated with the empire of the Franks, the country was in point of administration divided into two parts : the one, extending from the lake of Constance and the Rhine to the Aar and St. Gothard, was called Rheetia and Thurigau; and the other, comprising the present cantons of Geneva, Valais, Neufchatel, Bern, Fribourg, Solothurn, &c., was called Little Burgundia. Under the weak reign of Charles the Fat (died 888), Switzerland, like many other parts of the empire, was lost to the Franks. The N. part came into the possession of the duke of Alemannia (Swabia), and thus became part of the German empire, while the S. part be- longed to Burgundy. During the invasion of Germany by the Hungarians in the 10th cen- tury, many towns, as St. Gall, Basel, Zurich, and Lucerne, were fortified, and rose in im- portance. During the reign of the emperors of the house of Saxony the country was mostly held as fiefs by the vassals of the empire, in particular by the bishops and abbots, the counts of Kyburg (Zurich), Hapsburg and Lenzburg (Aargau), and Rapperswyl and Toggenburg (St. Gall) ; later also by the count of Savoy and the duke of Zahringen. Many of these noble families became extinct during the cru- sades ; and the power and prosperity of the towns rose still higher, Bern and Fribourg even becoming free cities of the German em- pire. Zurich, Bern, and Basel formed an al- liance, and tried to make themselves inde- Eendent. Yet the independence of Switzer- md did not proceed from them, but from the three ancient cantons of Schwytz, Uri, and Unterwalden, the inhabitants of which are believed to have descended from immigrants from Sweden, and which had never been con- quered. They were only under the protection of the German emperor, near whom their rights were guarded by a vogt, first a count of Lenzburg, and afterward a count of Haps- burg. The elevation of Rudolph of Hapsburg to the imperial throne of Germany in 1273, and his conquest of Austria and other posses- sions of Ottocar of Bohemia, greatly increased the influence of the house of Hapsburg in Switz- erland. Albert, the son of Rudolph, sought to incorporate the Swiss with Austria. Bern and Zurich at once resisted successfully ; but in Schwytz, Uri, and Unterwalden he succeed- ed for a time. The convention entered into by 33 distinguished men of the three cantons on the Grutli or Riitli, a meadow on their common frontier, during the night of Nov. 7- 8, 1307, led, on Jan. 1, 1308, to the expul- sion of the Austrian officers and the destruc- tion of their castles. The legend of Tell be- longs to this period. The relation of the three cantons to the German empire remained at
