Re: [FH] Mercenaries (long)

>At 21:58 17/05/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
>>Swiss mercenaries are illegal for anyone except the Vatican, according
to (I
>>believe) the Peace of Utrecht, ca 1714.
>>
>It doesn't appear to have stopped anyone for long, though!
>

There's not much stopping individual Swiss citizens from becoming
mercenaries (don't know about laws re serving as a merc in Switzerland
itself though) ie there are Swiss members of the Foreign Legion. 

The Peace of Utrecht (or whichever agreement it was that banned them
internationally) was aimed at stopping the recruitment of whole units of
Swiss soldiers to serve in foreign armies.  The Swiss mercenary Pikemen
regiments were the scourge of Europe at one point - they beat everybody
-
and were banned because of it.	In the modern context, I imagine the
agreement would be taken to mean that you can't hire regiments of the
Swiss
army...