Although countless books have been written on the military history of World War II, there is astonishingly little information on the one country that stared the Nazis down and refused to become an accomplice to the horrors of the Third Reich. This is the first book in English to provide an objective, year-by-year account of Switzerland's military role in WWII, including the Swiss policy of resistance, Nazi plans for invasion and Switzerland's secret links to the Allies.

Stephen Halbrook begins by describing the course of Swiss military history which led to the policy of armed neutrality so successfully adopted in WWII. With the strong reputation of the Swiss as valiant fighters and freedom-loving people in the spirit of William Tell, for centuries the powers of Europe knew better than to contest Swiss citizens in their own mountainous terrain.

In a country where marksmanship is the national sport, the Swiss could call on more trained soldiers as a percentage of population than any other nation in Europe, all fully prepared to use the Alpine terrain to best advantage.

This is the story of one small nation's heroic resistance to Nazism -- a story which leads the reader to wonder how history might have been different if other nations had been equally well armed and equally determined to resist Nazi terror.