Swiss in 18th Century British army

[Blarni]

Very dry thread this one, but anyway:

When you read accounts of the 18th, early 19th century British army there seems to be quite a few officers of Swiss origin or parentage. Major Andre, the officer executed as a spy by the American rebels, would be the most famous.

Any idea why that would be? The two countries have never really had much connection.

[Yorkshireman]

Possibly they were immigrants to the American colonies then enlisted ?

A little known fact perhaps is that the British army recruited a 'Swiss Legion' during the Crimean War.

At the outbreak of the Crimean War Britain had difficulty expanding the army because of the policy of voluntary enlistment. As a result, foreign mercenary troops were recruited for service in the Crimea, forming the British German legion, British Swiss Legion and British Italian Legion. This move was unpopular at home and abroad, so the British government was anxious to disband the legions as soon as possible after the Crimean campaign.

http://yourarchives.nationalarchives...Italian_Legion

[My Favorite Martian]

Regiment DeMeuron:

http://ccv.northwestcompany.com/demeuron.html

[Nik]

Major André was the son of an swiss immigrant in geneva, so wasn't hired as "swiss", but rather bought his commission the regular way.
Examples of swiss officers serving for the english would be the de Meuron branch from neuchatel (i.e. see the link above), Haldimann and Bouqin in the 7 years war, or Augustin Prevost in the indepence war, in generall, swiss units served in practically all bigger european nations from one time or the other, with the French having the biggest share, followed by the dutch and spanish.
Though it should be kept in mind that nationality wasn't yet the strong concept it is today (or even in the later half of the 19th century), many officers served other nations when they felt their carreers to have a better chance there. Germans served the russian Czar, italians and swiss for the french king, savoyans and italians the austrian-hungarian monarchy etc.
Jomini is a swiss example that served in three countries; Switzerland, France and Russia. Steuben as a german officer left his princes service and joined the american cause.

[My Favorite Martian]

The Irish and the Scot were probably the most ubiquitary community in the business of foreign services in those days but that is just a guess.

[Nik]

Not so sure about that (if you dont count the service of the irish and scottish regiments for the british crown).
Both the irish and scottish maintained large formations for the french while in exile (garde ecossais and the wild geese to name two of the most famous), but otherwise they did not seem to have sold their services as widespread, apart from some scattered soldiers of fortune here and there. AFAIK that title would go to the germans, starting with the landsknechts of the italian wars, ranging over the 30years war until the napoleonian era, where the smaller principalities and fiefdoms made trading away mercenary units a stapple of their economies (the Hessians of the independence war for example).

[cenkiss]

Swiss where everywhere.

[hellheaven1987]

Not surprised, consider Napolean's Guard had large amount of Swiss and the early French Foreign Legion (1830s) had one Swiss regiement (composed the Swiss soldiers hired by France) and another Belgian regiement.