From the Neolithic era to the Mère RoyaumeThe first traces of settlement appeared on the lake shores around 3,000 B.C. At the crossroads between the Mediterranean and northern Europe, Geneva soon aroused the greed of neighbours: Julius Caesar came to defend Geneva against the Helvetians. If Geneva was to remain of secondary importance from then until the end of the Middle Ages, the great commercial fairs of the 15th century were to stamp it with an international vocation.  The independence of Geneva was nonetheless threatened on numerous occasions by the Counts of Savoy. During the night of the 11th to the 12th of December 1602, Savoy soldiers tried to scale the ramparts of the city. The city people fought back and it was then that the legendary (or historical) figure, la Mère Royaume, emptied a potful of boiling soup onto the head of one of the soldiers. Since then, Geneva has continued to reaffirm its status as an independent republic and each year the city celebrates its “escalade” fete.
Geneva, a Protestant RomeIn addition to being a great centre of commercial exchange, Geneva played a central role during the Reformation. Jean Calvin raised the city to the rank of “Protestant Rome”. The Italian and French protestant refugees, fleeing their countries, benefited Geneva by bringing to it a network of contacts in business communities abroad. Printing, book publishing and silk weaving flourished in the 16th century just like Protestant banking in the 18th. In the excitement of the times, Geneva became a capital for clock and watch making and gold working. Not only a base for many men of science, Geneva was home to Rousseau and welcomed Voltaire, philosophers of the Romantic period that inspired the French Revolution. In 1798, Geneva became French and the capital of the Léman “département”. The city took on the mantle of a centre for liberal European thought. From their chateau in Coppet, Jacques Necker, the banker of Louis XVI and especially his daughter, Germaine de Stael, made known their opposition to Napoleon. How Geneva became the capital of international organisationsIn 1815, following the defeat of Napoleon, the restored republic of Geneva realised that it could not survive as an independent state and asked to join the Swiss Confederation. In so doing, Geneva did not lay aside its international and humanitarian vocation. During this romantic period, the Alps saw their first visitors and Geneva became a compulsory stop for this form of tourism. In 1863, Henry Dunant and a number of personalities from Geneva created the Red Cross. The first Geneva Convention, which founded international human rights, was signed in 1864. Geneva was attributed the seat of the League of Nations at the Paris Conference in 1919 and became the European seat of the United Nations in 1947 at the end of the Second World War. |
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