The Most Famous

MILITARY PERSONNELS from Switzerland

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This page contains a list of the greatest Swiss Military Personnels. The pantheon dataset contains 2,058 Military Personnels, 4 of which were born in Switzerland. This makes Switzerland the birth place of the 49th most number of Military Personnels behind Slovenia, and Mexico.

Top 6

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Swiss Military Personnels of all time. This list of famous Swiss Military Personnels is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Henri Guisan

1. Henri Guisan (1874 - 1960)

With an HPI of 61.73, Henri Guisan is the most famous Swiss Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 29 different languages on wikipedia.

Henri Guisan (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʁi ɡizɑ̃]; 21 October 1874 – 7 April 1960) was a Swiss military officer who held the office of General of the Swiss Armed Forces during the Second World War. He was the fourth and the most recent person to be appointed to the rarely used Swiss rank of general, and was possibly Switzerland's most famous soldier. He is best remembered for effectively mobilizing the Swiss military and population in order to prepare resistance against a possible invasion by Nazi Germany in 1940. Guisan was voted the fourth-greatest Swiss figure of all time in 2010.

Photo of François Le Fort

2. François Le Fort (1656 - 1699)

With an HPI of 51.90, François Le Fort is the 2nd most famous Swiss Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

François Jacques Le Fort also spelled Lefort (Russian: Франц Яковлевич Лефорт, tr. Frants Yakovlevich Lefort; January 2(12), 1656 – March 2(12), 1699) was a Genevan-born Russian military figure of Huguenot origin, general admiral (1695), and close associate of Tsar Peter the Great. François Le Fort, born in Geneva, came from a merchant family. He began his military career in the Dutch army. In 1675 Le Fort arrived in Archangelsk in the company of the Prussian Colonel Jacob van Frosten in order to find employment with the Russian army. In February 1676 he came to Moscow, but military officials turned him down. The Posolsky Prikaz listed him as a visiting foreigner. Le Fort settled in the so-called Nemetskaya sloboda in Moscow, where he would gain respect among other distinguished foreigners. In July 1678 he once again applied for service in the tsarist army. Accepted with the rank of captain, Le Fort then went to one of the fronts during the Russo-Turkish War of 1676–1681. In early 1679 he was ordered to join the Kiev garrison under the command of Prince Vasily Golitsyn and General Patrick Gordon. Upon his return to Moscow from a short trip to Geneva in 1683, Le Fort carried out various diplomatic assignments until the fall of 1685. Le Fort's house gradually turned into a main attraction of the Nemetskaya sloboda, attended not only by locals, but by Russian noblemen, such as the Golitsyns. It appears that Le Fort utilized his connections with the latter and received rapid promotion. In 1687 and 1689 he took part in two unsuccessful Crimean campaigns. Peter the Great became a frequent guest in Le Fort's house from 1690. Le Fort was one of the principal organizers and participators in Peter's military games, which would pave the way for his career advancement. In 1690 Le Fort was promoted to the rank of major general. He then became lieutenant general (1691) and general (1693). In 1692 Peter I funded the construction of a large reception hall for 1,500 people, which formed an extension to Le Fort's house. This hall hosted administrative meetings and Peter's parties. Le Fort's partying soon became infamous, with noble guests such as Peter I of Russia in usual attendance. They together would form one of the first mock religions, The All-Joking, All-Drunken Synod of Fools and Jesters, which earned notable criticism from both the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the Roman Catholic Church for its routine mockery of their proceedings.In 1691 Le Fort was put in charge of a regiment and assigned a training ground on the left bank of the Yauza River. Peter ordered the construction of a sloboda for this purpose, which would later be called Lefortovskaya sloboda (the Lefort quarter, present-day Lefortovo in Moscow's South-Eastern Administrative Okrug). In 1693–1694 Lefort accompanied Peter on his trip to Arkhangelsk. In 1694 he participated in Peter's "play" Kozhukhov campaign (a military game in the village of Kozhukhovo, between Moscow and Kolomenskoye). During the Azov campaigns of 1695–1696 Le Fort was in charge of the Imperial Russian Navy. His return from the war was marked with a solemn parade through Moscow to his "native" Nemetskaya sloboda and subsequent festivities. Lefort was awarded a title of governor (наместник, or namestnik) of Novgorod and estates in two uyezds. In 1696 Le Fort together with Fedor Golovin and Prokopy Voznitsyn took official charge of Peter's Grand Embassy, a Russian diplomatic mission to Western Europe. Upon his return to Moscow in 1698 he took part in the trial of the Streltsy rebels. That same year he moved to a custom-built palace, later known as the Lefortovsky Palace, on the Yauza River. The palace would soon become a center of Russian political and royal life in 1698–1699. Peter the Great used to hold all his important meetings and numerous celebrations in Le Fort's palace. François Le Fort died in Moscow in early March 1699. Upon hearing the news of his death, Tsar Peter lamented "Now I am alone without one trusty man. He alone was faithful to me. Whom can I confide in now?" On March 21 Peter held Lefort's state funeral, a ceremony second only to the funerals of Tsars or Patriarchs. Le Fort lies buried in the Vvedenskoye Cemetery in Lefortovo. The Russian 84-gun ship-of-the-line Lefort (launched 1835, shipwrecked 1857) was named in honor of Lefort, as was Lefortovo Prison and Lefortovo District.

Photo of Jean Reynier

3. Jean Reynier (1771 - 1814)

With an HPI of 50.21, Jean Reynier is the 3rd most famous Swiss Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Jean Louis Ebénézer Reynier (14 January 1771 – 27 February 1814) was a Swiss-French military officer who served in the French Army under the First Republic and the First Empire. He rose in rank to become a general during the French Revolutionary Wars and led a division under Napoleon Bonaparte in the French campaign in Egypt and Syria. During the Napoleonic Wars, he continued to hold important combat commands, eventually leading an army corps during the Peninsular War in 1810–1811 and during the War of the Sixth Coalition in 1812–1813.

Photo of Lionel Dunsterville

4. Lionel Dunsterville (1865 - 1946)

With an HPI of 48.82, Lionel Dunsterville is the 4th most famous Swiss Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Major General Lionel Charles Dunsterville, (9 November 1865 – 18 March 1946) was a British Army officer, who led Dunsterforce across present-day Iraq and Iran towards the Caucasus and Baku during the First World War.

Photo of Franz von Werra

5. Franz von Werra (1914 - 1941)

With an HPI of 47.82, Franz von Werra is the 5th most famous Swiss Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Franz Xaver Freiherr von Werra (13 July 1914 – 25 October 1941) was a German World War II fighter pilot and flying ace who was shot down over Britain and captured. He was the only Axis prisoner of war to escape from Canadian custody and return to Germany apart from a U-boat seaman, Walter Kurt Reich, said to have jumped from a Polish troopship into the St. Lawrence River in July 1940. Werra managed to return to Germany via the US, Mexico, South America and Spain, finally reaching Germany on 18 April 1941.Oberleutnant von Werra was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 14 December 1940. His story was told in the book The One That Got Away by Kendall Burt and James Leasor, which was made into a film of the same name, starring Hardy Krüger.

Photo of Henry Wirz

6. Henry Wirz (1823 - 1865)

With an HPI of 45.16, Henry Wirz is the 6th most famous Swiss Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Henry Wirz (born Hartmann Heinrich Wirz; November 25, 1823 – November 10, 1865) was a Swiss-born American military officer and convicted war criminal who served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.He was the commandant of Andersonville Prison, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp near Andersonville, Georgia, where nearly 13,000 Union Army prisoners of war died as result of inhumane conditions. After the war, Wirz was tried and executed for conspiracy and murder relating to his command of the camp. Since his execution, Wirz has become a controversial figure due to debate about his guilt and reputation, including criticism over his personal responsibility for Andersonville Prison's conditions and the quality of his post-war trial.

People

Pantheon has 6 people classified as Swiss military personnels born between 1656 and 1914. Of these 6, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased Swiss military personnels include Henri Guisan, François Le Fort, and Jean Reynier. As of April 2024, 2 new Swiss military personnels have been added to Pantheon including Franz von Werra, and Henry Wirz.

Deceased Swiss Military Personnels

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Newly Added Swiss Military Personnels (2024)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Military Personnels were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 4 most globally memorable Military Personnels since 1700.