Is Sweden the real Switzerland?
- Hastings (England) 1 September 1949. Ritz Cinema premiered The Third Man, directed by Carol Reed and based on the script of writer Graham Green.
In one of the most famous scenes in the film, Harry Lime, a character played by Orson Welles, says: “You know what the other said. In Italy, during the 30 years that the supremacy of the Borgians lasted, there were wars, massacres, murders -- but also Michelangelo, Leonardo and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, however, there have been 500 years of love, democracy and peace. And what's the result? Cuckoo clock!”
These words are not in Greene's script; Orson Welles had to improvise them as a stuffing to fit the scene times. Although James Abbott McNeill Whistler or writer Geoffrey Household are considered potential sources, he himself said that he took them from an ancient Hungarian work.
In this phrase there are two historical errors: on the one hand, the Cuckoo clock was not invented by the Swiss, but by the Germans; on the other hand, when the film premiered, Switzerland officially ceased to participate in international conflicts just over a century ago. But, wrongly, in any kind of conflict, Switzerland is synonymous with neutrality.
Starting in 2021, in particular, it is 206 years when Switzerland is not at war with another country. The State of the Alps participated in the Napoleonic Wars, so it officially left its participation in international conflicts in the Vienna Assembly of 1815.Sin embargo, Sweden has been one more year in “peace”; two or three months before the Vienna Assembly, the war between Sweden and Norway ended with the signing of the peace treaty on 14 August 1814. Therefore, for a few months it can be said that the real Switzerland is Sweden.
Or there's no real Switzerland. Despite the fact that in 200 years the two States did not officially declare war on another State, Switzerland, among other things, maintained a three-week civil war in November 1847 and several Swedish army soldiers fought alongside the Germans during the Second World War.
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