SS 2004

Department of English, University of Basel
Literature and Culture Studies: Seminar M. Marti


British and American Visitors in Switzerland:

History of Tourism in Switzerland
d

till 1789 / The Romantics (1789 - 1837) / The Victorians / 20th century

full timeline (
one page)

course programme (provisional)


Edward VII
1901-1910

1902

Accommodation:
Villa Cassel (Riederalp)

.

Winter sports:
Tour operator Sir Henry Lunn popularises winter sports in the Bernese Oberland. Adelboden is opened for one of his winter tours.

..

Visitors:
Benito Mussolini is arrested in Lausanne for vagrancy.

1903

Winter sports: E.C. Richardson founds the Ski Club of Great Britain and the Davos English Ski Club.

.

Visitors / Residents:
Anglican Churches as indicators of the most fashionable places for British tourists:
By 1903, there are English churches at: Arolla, Adelboden, Andermatt, Les Avants, Ballaigues, Beatenberg, Bex, Champery, Chandolin, Chateau d'Oex, Clarens, Davos, Les Diablerets, Eggishorn, Gletsch, Glion, Grindelwald, Interlaken, Leukerbad, Leysin, Locarno, Lucerne, Montreux, Neuchatel, Pully, Riffelalp, Saas-Fee, Samedan, Schinznach, St. Moritz, Tarasp, Thun, Verbier, Vevey, Villars, Wengen and Zermatt.

.

Music:
Geneva's concert hall (Victoria Hall) is given to the city by Daniel Barton, a former British consul.

.

Transport:
Albulatunnel (Grisons)

1904

Winter sports:
The first ski book written in English: Ski-Running, by Crichton Somerville, W.R. Richardson and E.C. Richardson

.

Visitors:
James Joyce spends a week in Zurich
Lenin visits Geneva, Berne, Meiringen.
Benito Mussolini is arrested for carrying a falsified passport.

1905

Winter sports:
Sir Henry Lunn forms the Public Schools Alpine Sports Club to popularize winter sports. The Club secures securing winter use of the major hotels in Adelboden, Montana, Villars, Beatenberg, Wengen, Murren, Engelberg, Maloja and Morgins.
St Moritz: Ski Club announces proficiency test: Members are expected to perform a Telemark swing, a Christiana swing, a stem turn. (Bernard, p. 160)

.

Travel books:
E. Lamprell, A Fortnight in Switzerland for Five Guineas (for cheap travelling)

.

Accommodation:
Montana:
Sir Henry Lunn's company ("Alpine Sports Ltd.") buys the sanatorium le Beauregard and changes it into the hotel Palace-Bellevue
St Moritz: Grand Hotel opened.

1906

Transport:
Simplon railway opened (The
Simplon Tunnel remains with 19,803 m the world's longest tunnel till 1985)
Postcars (automobiles) used for public transport in Berne.
Niesenbahn (mountain railway) completed

.

Accommodation:
Grand Hotel du Golf, Montana:

.

Sport:
Sir Arnold Lunn introduces Golf in Montana Crans.

1907

Winter sports:
1st horse race on the frozen lake of St. Moritz.
Ladies Ski Club of Great Britain founded by Mrs. Aubry Le Blond

.

Transport:
Railway Aigle - Ollon - Monthey

1908

Visitors:
Arnold Bennett (1876-1931) visits Vevey and comments: "Really the scene is enchantingly beautiful"
Frederic Harrison: My Alpine Jubilee "I hold, with Rousseau, Byron and Ruskin, that the highest and deepest charm the Alps can give is found in their combination of glories, as often as not in the lakes, their wooded valleys, their upland pastures - nay, even in their villages and towns - with their long record of memorable things in literature, science, history and art." (Wraight, p. 288)

.

Accommodation:
Flüelen: Gasthof Adler (1934: "Urnerhof")

1909

Winter sports:
Sir Henry Lunn opens up Mürren as a winter sports resort by organising tours.
Mountaineering: W.A.M. Moore crosses the Col de la Dent Blanche and the Col d'Hérens from Zinal to Zermatt on ski.

1910

Residents:
The number of British residents in Switzerland amounts to 11,000
Visitors:
Arnold Bennett in Lausanne (Clayhanger)
Llewelyn Powys (1884-1939) at Davos

.

Winter sports:
Vivian Caulfield: How to Ski

.

Transport:
Bernina railway (Berninabahn) opened
Martigny-Orsières railway opened

.

Literature:
Francis William Bourdillon (1852-1921): Ode In Defence of the Matterhorn against the proposed Railway to its Summit.

George V
1910-1936

1911

Winter sports:
British skiers (Arnold Lunn) organise the first downhill ski race for the Kandahar Challenge Cup at Montana.
A Curling club is formed in Wengen.

.

Visitors:
Thomas Alva Edison: Bad Pfäfers

1912

Transport:
First non-stop flight from Paris to London. The Titanic sinks on its maiden voyage.
Jungfraujochbahn completed ("Top of Europe", 3457 m)
Sierre-Montana-Vermala-railway opened
Communication:
Anglo-Swiss Telephone service

.

Accommodation:
Mürren: Henry Lunn ("Alpine Sports Ltd") acquires the "Grand Hotel des Alpes" in 1912 and run it as the Hotel Palace.
Anton Sebastian Bon (1854.1915) and Major Goldman build the
Suvretta House hotel in St. Moritz.
A survey shows that there are 12,640 hotels in Switzerland, with a total of 384,744 beds (Bernard, p. 169)

.

Visitors:
Number of British tourists in Lucerne during the summer season: over 20,000.
"The Swiss tourism infrastructure, which already catered for an extended summer visitor season with a large number of `health stations', was converted into winter use. In 1880 the bed count stood at 43,850. The number had doubled by 1894 and in 1912 reached 168,625, the year an expected 18,000 British would visit the Alps for winter sporting." (E. J. B. Allen,The British and the modernisation of skiing:
History Today) 13 villages placed weekly snow reports in the Times.

.

Winter sports:
An association of British members of the Swiss Alpine Club founded. Britannia Club Hut (above Saas Fee)

1913

Transport:
Lötschbergbahn completed.
The railway net in Graubünden (
Rhätische Bahn) is completed.
Chantarella-Bahn in St. Moritz

.

Visitors:
D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930): "I walked all the way from Schaffhausen to Zurich, Lucerne, over the Gotthard to Airolo, Bellinzona, Lugano, Como. It was beautiful - Switzerland too touristy, hovever - spoilt." (Beer, p. 444)
(Twilight in Italy:, ch. 3 and 4:
Italians in Exile: "There is something very dead about this country. I remember I picked apples from the grass by the roadside, and some were very sweet. But for the rest, there was mile after mile of dead, uninspired country&emdash;uninspired, so neutral and ordinary that it was almost destructive." The Return Journey: "... I went on to a detestable brutal inn in the town. And the next day I climbed over the back of the detestable Rigi, with its vile hotel, to come to Lucerne. ")

1914

History / Politics:
The assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in Sarajewo leads to World War I.

.

Transport:
Furkabahn Brig-Gletsch completed.

.

Accommodation:
Montana: Hôtel d'Angleterre

1915

History / Politics:
Lenin and Trotzky organize the Third International at Zimmerwald.

Five British journalists are taken for spies and arrested. Four are released,
James Elroy Flecker (1884-1915) dies in Davos.
James Joyce (1882-1941) arrives in Zurich, he stays till 1919 and returns several times in the 1930ies. the fifth expelled.

.

Transport:
Leuk-Leukerbadbahn (railway), till 1967

.

Music:
Richard Strauss,
Alpensymphonie (Alpine Symphony), op. 64

1916

Literature:
Tristan Tzara discovers the word "Dada" at the Cafe de la Terrasse in Zurich.

.

Visitors:
1,800 British prisoners of war from Germany arrive in Switzerland for internment until the end of the war. They are put up by the Red Cross in hotels and camps in Mürren, Interlaken, Chateau d'Oex, Leysin.

1918

History / Politics:
Repatriation of POWs completed.
Vorarlberg would like to join Switzerland.

1919

History / Politics:
Treaty of Versailles ends World War I.

.

Visitors:
Woodrow Wilson becomes honorary citizen of Lausanne.

.

Transport:
The
Simplon Orient Express starts running daily from Calais and Paris Gare de Lyon to Lausanne, Brig, Simplon, Milan, Venice, Belgrade, Sofia and Istanbul, with a portion for Athens.

1920

History / Politics:
League of Nations (Völkerbund) in Geneva

1921

Visitors:
T.S. Eliot (1880-1965) comes to Lausanne. The Waste Land ("What the Thunder Said") refers frequently to mountains. Later in the year he spends some time in Lugano.

1922

Transport:
First electrified railway line: Chiasso - Luzern
Ad Astra Aero: regular flights beetween Zurich, Neuchatel and Geneva.

.

Visitors:
Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961) spends 4 months in a cheap pension (Pension de la Forêt) at Montreux-Chamby. A Moveable Feast, ch. 1: "Now that the bad weather had come, we could leave Paris for a while for a place where this rain would be snow coming down through the pines and covering the road and the high hillsides and at an altitude where we would hear it creak as we walked home at night. Below Les Avants there was a chalet where the pension was wonderful and where we would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright. That was where we could go. Traveling third class on the train was not expensive. The pension cost very little more than we spent in Paris. "

1923

Mountaineering:
Three British mountaineers, George Finch, P.G. Forster and R.H. Pero, ascend the north face of the Dent d'Herens without guide.

1924

Winter sports:
Arnold Lunn, Walter Amstutz, Willy Richardet and Fritz Ammacher ascent the Eiger on skis.
Kandahar Ski Club founded in Mürren. Swiss Unversity Ski Club in Berne.
F. S. Edlin creates "The Parsenn Derby", a ski marathon.

1925

History / Politics:
Hitler founds Nazi party in Germany.

.

Transport:
Glacier-Express Zermatt - Disentis (summer season only)
Balair flies Basel - Freiburg (D) - Mannheim

.

Winter sports:
Walter Amstutz and Arnold Lunn organise Anglo-Swiss university ski races.

1927

Two English girls' public schools founded: St George's College at Montana-Clarens, Chatelard School at Les Avants (Montreux)

.

Transport:
Engelberg: Luftseilbahn Gerschnialp - Trübsee (
Geschichte der Seilbahnen in der Schweiz)

.

Visitors:
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

.

Winter sports:
First Winter Season in Zermatt.

1928

Winter sports:
St. Moritz hosts the Olympic Winter Games.
Colonel Sir Harold Mitchell (1900-83) wins the first Inferno Ski Race from the top of the Schilthorn to Lauterbrunnen.
Miss Maud Cairney makes the first winter ascent of the Gabelhorn on ski (with two guides)

.

Visitors:
D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930): Les Diablerets, Gsteig.

  Transport:
Corvigliabahn in St. Moritz

1929

Visitors:
35% of all Swiss earnings from tourism are estimated to come from British visitors.

.

Sport / Winter sports:
Opening of the 1st ski school of Switzerland.

.

Transport:
Plan to build a
link between German and Italian motorways (Gotthard Tunnel)

1930

Transport:
Luftseilbahn Beckenried - Klewenalp (
Geschichte der Seilbahnen in der Schweiz)

1931

Visitors:
Lord Baden-Powell: First World Rover Moot in Kandersteg.
Residents:
Bryher (Annie Winfried Ellerman, 1894-1983) starts to live at Kenwin, a Bauhaus villa at Montreux, together with Kenneth Macpherson, with her lesbian friend H.D. (Hilda Doolittle,1886-1961), the imagist poet, and her daughter Perdita. They attract a circle of friends (among them William Walton, the Sitwells, D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Elisabeth Berger, G.W. Pabst and Sergei Eisenstein)
F. Scott Fizgerald (1896 - 1940) stays in various hotels around Montreux and Lausanne while his wife Zelda is in a clinic in Prangins (cf. Tender Is the Night, 1934) He writes short stories to be able to pay for her treatment. (One Trip Abroad)

.

Film:
Kenneth Macpherson,
Borderline

.

Transport:
Ad Astra Aero and Balair become Swissair

1932

Transport:
Davos-Parsenn-Bahn (
Geschichte der Seilbahnen in der Schweiz)

1933

Visitors:
Due to recession and inflation, tourism goes down, railways, steamers and hotels lower their prices.

1934

Winter sports:
Davos: Opening of ice rink. Skilift Bolgen is the first T-bar skilift (Bügellift) (
Geschichte der Seilbahnen in der Schweiz), followed by more than a hundred ski-lifts within a year.
World Skiing Championships in St. Moritz.

1935

Transport:
Air service to London by Swissair. Return fare London-Basel for £ 12.15s, London-Zurich £13,16s

Eduard VIII
1936

1936

History / Politics:
Edward VIII abdicates after 325 days (because of his relationship with Mrs Wallis Simpson). his younger brother becomes George VI

George VI
1936-1952

1937

History / Politics:
Neville Chamberlain (Conservative) Prime Minister (till 1940).
German bombers under Franco attack civilians in Guernica in The Spanish Civil War.

1938

Transport:
Two direct air services between London-Basel and Zurich, taking 3,5 hours to Basel. Cross-Channel and rail rout London-Basel takes 13 hours.

..

Visitors:
Thorton Wilder (1897-1975) writes Our Town in Zurich
Having helped over 100 friends to flee from Germany,
Bryher leaves for England and stays there till the war is over, because she fears that Switzerland will be invaded by the Germans.

1939

History / Politics:
Nazi-Soviet
Nonaggression Pact. Germany invades Poland. Beginning of Wold War II.
Switzerland declares neutrality.

1940

History / Politics:
Battle of Britain, London Blitz
Sir Winston Churchill Prime Minister (Conservative Party) till 1945

..

Visitors:
James Joyce (1882-1941) spends the last year of his life in Zurich (and is buried there)

1941

History / Politics:
After bombs were dropped on Zurich and Basel, the Swiss government protests to the British government.

1943

Visitors:
Following the fall of Mussolini, there are mass escapes of prisoners of war from Italian prison camps trying to reach Switzerland via the mountain passes into the Valais.

1944

History / Politics:
Russians break the siege of Leningrad. The Allies land in Normandy (June 6th: D-Day)

1945

History / Politics:
Clement Richard Attlee Prime Minister (Labour) till 1951. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies. Mussolini killed. Germany surrenders. US President Harry S. Truman authorizes the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Yalta Conference. Beginning of Cold War

1946

Zurich: Winston Churchill's Speech "The Tragedy of Europe".

.

Music:
Sir Malcolm Sargent opens the Lucerne Festival with performances of Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst and Benjamin Britten.
At Glynebourne Opera House Ernest Ansermet (1883-1969) conducts the first English performance of Britten's The Rape of Lucretia.

.

Visitors:
Churchill spends several weeks on holiday in a villa on the Lake of Geneva. Field Marshall Lord Montgomery.

1947

Visitors:
British tourists begin to come again. (appr. 200,000)
Charles Grave: Switzerland Revisited

1948

Anglo-Swiss Society founded in London.

.

Film:
In Carol Leed's
The Third Man, Graham Greene lets Harry Lime (Orson Wells) say: ""In Italy for 30 years the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce. The cuckoo clock."

.

Winter Sports:
St. Moritz hosts its second Olympic Winter Game

1950

Travel books:
Monk Gibbon. Swiss Enchantment

1951

History / Politics:
Sir Winston Churchill Prime Minister (Conservative Party) till 1955

.

Transport:
Saas Fee can be reached by car.

Elizabeth II
1952 -

 

1953

History / Politics:
General
Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected president of the United States (remains till 1961). Death of Stalin. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay conquer Everest.

..

Music:
Michael Tippet's "Ritual Dances" from The Midsummer Marriage first performed in Basel, Basel Kammerorchester conducted by Paul Sacher.

Residents:
Charles Chaplin (1889-1977) moves to Montreux (Manoir de Ban).

.

Visitors:
Kandersteg: World Rover Moot

1955

Sir Winston Churchill resigns. Anthony Robert Eden (Conservative Party) till 1957.
Sputnik launched.
Webmaster born.

. 5

Music:
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) writes Alpine Suite (for recorder trio) while on a skiing holiday with friends in Zermatt.

1956

History / Politics:
Hungarian Revolt.

. 5

Transport:
TEE (Trans European Express) trains

.

Travel Books:
Switzerland on £25 shows how to spend ten days in reasonable comfort.

1957

History / Politics:
Suez Crisis. Eden resigns
Maurice Harold MacMillan (Conservative Party) PM till 1963. Succeeded by Sir Alec Douglas Home (Conservative Party, till 1965)

.

Music:
Yehudi Menuhin begins his annual summer music festival in Saanen near Gstaad.

1958

Nikita Khrushchev General Secretary of the USSR

Noel Coward (1899-1973) moves to Montreux (Les Avants)

.

Prof. Rudolf Stamm founds the Swiss-British Society in Berne.

1960

Music:
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) is commissioned to write a cantata in honour of the 500th aniverary of the University's foundation.

.

Visitors:
Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) comes to live in Montreux.
Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) builds a chalet at Corsier.

.

Transport:
Construction of motorways (
Nationalstrassen) accepted by vote in Switzerland

1961

History / Politics:
John F. Kennedy president of the US. Us attack at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba fails: Cuba Crisis (1961-62). The Berlin wall is built. Yuri Gagarin first man in space.

Visitors:
H.D. (see also 1931) dies at the Klinik Hirlanden (Zurich).

1962

Prof. Rudolf Stamm founds the Swiss-British Society in Basel.

1963

History / Politics:
Harold Wilson (Labour Party) Prime Minister. (till 1976)
"March on Washington" by the Civil Rights Movement. John F. Kennedy killed in Dallas, Texas; followed by
Lyndon B. Johnson (till 69). Escalation of the war in Vietnam.

..

Film:
The ski-station on the summit of the Schilthorn is chosen as the main setting for the James-Bond-film On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

1965

History / Politics:
Capital punishment abolished in Britain. First anti-Vietnam war march in Washington

1967

Music:
Rolling Stones in Zurich (rioting fans)
First
Montreux Jazz Festival

1968

Assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis. Vietnam War: Massacre in My Lai. Prague Spring; Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Revolution in Paris.

1969

Richard M. Nixon president of the US. Neil Armstrong the first man on the moon.

..

Visitors:
Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) dies in Visp.

1970

Harold Wilson (Labour) resigns as Prime Minister. Edward Heath (Conservative Party) till 1974, succeeded by Harold Wilson (Labour).

Visitors:
Timothy Leary gets asylum in Switzerland (Montana) - extradited in 1974.

1971

State visit:
Edward Heath addresses a big audience in Zurich, commemorating the 25th anniversary of Winston Churchill's speech on European unity.

1972

History / Politics:
Watergate scandal in US

1973

History / Politics:
cease-fire in Vietnam

1974

History / Politics:
Harold Wilson (Labour) Prime Minister till 1976. Nixon (impeached for covering up Watergate) abdicates. Gerald Ford (till 1977)

1976

History / Politics:
Wilson unexpectedly resigns;
Callaghan succeeds him as PM (till 1979)

1978

Film:
Charles Chaplin dies in his home in Lausanne.

.

Residents:
After Queen's concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival
Freddie Mercury (1946-91) buys an appartment at Territet (Montreux).

1979

History / Politics:
Margareth Thatcher ("Iron Lady") Conservative Prime Minister (till 1990)

1980

Visitors:
State visit by Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh.
Residents:
The cosmopolitan actor and writer Sir Peter Ustinov (1921 - ) settles in Bursins (on the Lake of Geneva)

.

Transport:
Gotthard Motorway Tunnel opened..

.

Literature on Switzerland:
Graham Green: Dr Fischer of Geneva or the Bomb Party (novel)

1981

History / Politics:
Ronald Reagan elected as 40th US president (till 1989)

1982

History / Politics:
Falklands War

.

Transport:
Furkatunnel enables Glacier Express Zermatt-Disentis-Chur in the winter season.

.

Residents:
David Bowie (1947-) moves to Lausanne.
Patricia Highsmith moves to Locarno.

1984

Transport: Metro Alpin ( high-mountain underground railway) Saas Fee.

1985

Michael Gorbachov General Secretary in USSR

.

Winter sports: St. Moritz: 1st polo tournament on the frozen lake.

1986

Winter sports:
First Swiss Snowboarding Championship in Davos.

1989

History / Politics:
George Bush 41st American president (till 1993). Berlin Wall comes down. Ayatollah Khomeini pronounces Fatwa (death sentence) for Salman Rushdie.

1990

History / Politics:
John Mayor Conservative Prime Minister (till 1997). Iraqi troops invade Kuwait. Gulf War

1991

History / Politics:
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed in Moscow. Boris Yeltzin elected as President of Russia. End of Cold War. The USSR dissolved into 15 nations. Gorbachev resigns as head of CP

.

Graham Greene dies in Vevey, where he has lived for the last ten years.

1993

History / Politics:
Bill Clinton 42nd American president (till 2001)

1994

Music:
Ralph Williams-Morgan (b. 1934)
Alpine Symphony

1995

Patricia Highsmith dies in Locarno, where she has spent her last years. She leaves over 250 unpublished texts to the Swiss Literary Archives.

1997

History / Politics:
Antony Blair (Labour) PM

1997

Music:
Don Robertson:
Alpine Symphony

2001

George W. Bush elected as 43rd president of the US.



till 1789 / The Romantics (1789 - 1837) / The Victorians / 20th century

full timeline (one page)

Bibliography:

de Beer, G. R. Travellers in Switzerland. London 1949
Bernard, Paul B. Rush to the Alps. New York 1978.
Jud, Markus. Geschichte der Schweiz,
Verkehr [http://www.geschichte-schweiz.ch/verkehr.html]
Müller Science:
Ausländer in der Schweiz [http://www.muellerscience.com/SPEZIALITAETEN/Schweiz/Auslaender_in_der_Schweiz.htm]
Wraight, John. The Swiss and the British. Salisbury: Russell:1987

course programme (provisional)

other timelines:
American History:
Colonial America / 1789 - 1901 / 1901 - 2003
British History:
History of Great Britain