Huningue, Swiss Neutrality, Alemannic Poets and the Bridge over the Rhine

1 April 2025

Huningue is known for the Dreiländerbrücke/la Passerelle des Trois Pays, which has connected Switzerland, Germany (Weil am Rhein), and France since 2007, or more precisely Baden, Alsace, and the canton of Basel-Stadt. This further delineation is interesting because of the history of this small town on the Rhine.

The first mention of Huningue was in a document from 828 under the name ‘Villa Huninga’. This document was a donation deed to the monastery of St. Gall, and the signature was at Villa Huninga. The name Villa and the signing of a deed already indicate some relevance in the largely illiterate Middle Ages.

After the eleventh century, the prince-bishopric of Basel was the owner (Dinghof) of Huningue for centuries.  Culturally, there was also a strong connection, and Alemannic was the spoken language. Moreover, Basel is just a few kilometres away.

In the 12th or 13th century, however, the Habsburgs acquired this place. Due to a (chronic) lack of money, Habsburg pawned it again to Basel in 1310. Sometime later, the Habsburgs again ruled over the town, but Basel regained control after the conclusion of a new pawn.

Huningue also became embroiled in the rivalry between the Habsburgs (with their other properties in Alsace and parts of Baden), Basler noble loyalists (chaplains or Domherren), and the city of Basel. In 1509, the inhabitants of Huningue chose the side of Basel in a conflict (the so-called Türkenpfennig) and wanted to belong to Basel.

Many Citizens of Huningue served in the militia of Basel. Musée historique et militaire de Huningue

As a result, during the Basel Reformation in 1529, Huningue also converted to Protestantism, making it the only municipality in Habsburg and Catholic Sundgau (a southern region of Alsace). Under the care and protection of Basel, the situation remained stable until 1623, when the pawn expired and the Habsburgs regained full ownership. The city of Basel tried in vain to acquire Huningue.

As a result, in 1648, at the Peace of Westphalia, the Habsburg area in Sundgau became part of France. Louis XIV (1638-1715), the Sun King, visited Huningue in 1681 after the conquest of the whole of Alsace, including Strasbourg (and temporarily Breisgau and Freiburg). On October 20, 1681, he arrived in Huninque after a journey with 400 carriages via Sainte-Marie-aux Mines, Sélestat, Breisach, Freiburg, and Ensisheim.

In Ensisheim (the old capital of Outer-Austria/Vorderösterreich), the 13 cantons of the Confederation and their ally (zugewandter Ort) Mulhouse (until 1798 (!) still Mühlhausen) and associated member of the Confederation) honoured the Sun King.

Model of the Fort in Huningue. Musée historique et militaire de Huningue

Since 1516 and 1521, France and the Confederation had the ‘Eternal Peace’ (der ewige Friede, la Paix éternelle). However, the first thing the Sun King did in Huningue was visit the new fort by Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633-1707), his fort builder (see, among others, the (disappeared) forts in Neuf-Brisach, Breisach, and Belfort). During this visit, his majesty declared:

“that the Swiss nation should not worry about the erection of the fortress; that the city of Basel had nothing to fear, that its commerce could only benefit under this protection, covering the inviolability of its borders; that the fort of Huningue had been raised to oppose invasions and to respect Swiss neutrality”.

The right bank of the Rhine shows Fort Vauban’s enlargement into the territory of Basel and partly Baden. The village on the other side of the Rhine is Kleinhuningen, located near the Wiese, part of the Canton of Basel; the island is the Schusterinsel. Picture: after a drawing by Emanuel Büchel (1705-1775), Ville de Huningue.

More than a century later, in 1796, Huningue was a front city in the First Coalition War  (1792-1797). Austrian troops had reached the Rhine. France had already occupied the Schusterinsel (also known as Kälberinsel) in the Rhine directly at and across the border of Basel. The garrison counted more than 3000 officers and men under General Jean Charles Abbatucci (1770-1796).

Huningue, Place d’Abbatucci

L’église St. Louis (1700). The church of the garrison of Vauban’s fort. Only these buildings of the fort were not destroyed in 1815. Model: Musée historique et militaire de Huningue. Model: Musée historique et militaire de Huningue

The Confederation’s neutrality was at stake because Basel did not oppose this breach of its neutrality. The situation was further complicated by Austria’s advance through Basel’s territory without resistance and even in cooperation with other prominent citizens and opponents of revolutionary France, including  Johann Rudolf Burckhardt (1750-1813), the father of Sheik Ibrahim ibn Abdallah.

Another prominent Basel resident, Peter Ochs (1752-1821), who later played a prominent role in the Helvetic Republic (1798-1803), primarily denounced Austria’s violation of neutrality. Ochs supported the ideas of the French Revolution and wanted to change the old Confederation and its ancien régime. ‘

Neutrality was already a source of discussion and disagreement at that time. Ochs wrote extensively about this neutrality in his Geschichte der Stadt und Landschaft Basel/Histoire de Bâle (1786-1821). This subject remains relevant.

Capitulation of French troops to the Austrians. Musée historique et militaire de Huningue

Napoleon ignored the Sun King’s words and conquered the old Confederation and Basel in 1798. Vauban’s fort was demolished after the French capitulation in 1815.

The remains of the fort

Three wars (1870-1871, 1914-1918, and 1939-1945) and the neutrality of the Confederation further, the Dreiländerbrücke/Passerelle des Trois Pays connects Alsace, Baden, and Basel. However, the linguistic separation seems definitive with French, High German, and Baseldütsch.

The crossing of the Rhine, April 1945

However, the educational, cultural, political, economic, and social contacts, projects and exchanges are intense and successful. Of the 6,000 inhabitants of Huningue, around 1,500 work in Basel, and the Three Countries’ Poets’ Trail (Sentier des poètes des trois pays/DreylandDichterweg) along the Rhine has more than symbolic value. Once upon a time, they spoke and wrote in Alemanic.

(Source et plus d’informations: (Le Bulletin 2023, Societe d’Histoire Huningue, Village-Neuf et de la Région frontalière; Ville de Huningue)

Musée historique et militaire de Huningue

Dreiländerbrücke/la Passerelle des Trois Pays seen from Place d’Abbatucci

The canal of Huningue and the Parc des Eaux Vives

The protestant church