Portrait of Louis Wyrsch, also known as Borneo Louis, a Swiss politician and a military commander of the 19th century contributed to the Swiss Constitution in 1848. Paint by Georg Kaiser

Louis Wyrsch (2 March 1793 – 21 April 1858), also known as Borneo Louis, was a Swiss politician and a military commander of the 19th century.

He was a mercenary for the Netherlands early in his life, partaking in the Napoleonic Wars and Dutch colonial wars. He later became an influential figure in Swiss politics.^[1]

Early life

Franz Alois Wyrsch^[2] from Buochs Nidwalden was born on 2 March 1793, in Bellinzona. He was the son of Franz Alois, bailiff of the Riviera, commissioner in Bellinzona and captain in the service of Spain, and Marie Konstantia von Flüe. He was the grandson of Benedikt Niklaus von Flüe and the Nephew of Michael von Flüe.

He was educated at the Royal Seminary of San Pablo in Valencia and his father's regiment in Spain. After his father's death in 1807, he returned to Nidwalden and finished his education at the Rheinau conventual school in 1812. Wyrsch then went to do an apprenticeship in Belfort.

In 1824 Wyrsch married Johanna van den Berg (who went by Silla in Malay), a woman of Malaysia of Java.^[2][1] She stayed in the Dutch Indies while he returned to Nidwalden, Switzerland in 1832 with two of the eldest children from that relationship.^[3][1] Two years later, in 1834 Wyrsch married Theresia Stockmann, the daughter of Felix Josef Stockmann.^[2]

Career

Wyrsch joined the Royal Netherlands Army as a soldier in 1814 and took part in the Battle of Waterloo.^[2]

He joined the Dutch colonial troops in Java, Bali and Borneo in 1815.^[2][1] He was a military and civil commander on the southern and eastern coasts of Borneo (1829-1832).^[4]

In 1832 he returned to Nidwalden where he was a bailiff between 1834 and 1840 and a major of Nidwalden's army between 1834 and 1847.

Wyrsch was first elected Nidwalden's head of state (landammann) on 25 April 1841. He was reelected in 1845, 1848, 1849, 1851, 1853, 1855 and 1857.^[5] He was commander of the Nidwalden battalion during the Sonderbund war in 1847,^[2][1] a member of commission which drafted the Swiss constitution in 1849 and president of the municipality of Ennetbürgen between 1850 and 1857.

His rapid rise in the Dutch colonial army was distinguished by his laying the foundations for Borneo's infrastructure.^[6]

In Nidwalden, he bought the Au mill in Ennetbürgen in 1839 and earned his living as a miller.^[2]

His moderate liberal and military experience made him politically widely accepted.

Let us take the example of Nidwalden's Landammann, Louis Wyrsch (1793-1858). The contemporaries called this liberal Catholic patrician "Borneo Louis". Wyrsch had earned his spurs not in Switzerland but in the service of the Dutch in the conquest of Southborne in the 1820s. In bloody wars, the young Nidwald officer distinguished himself several times and climbed the career ladder. As a military and civilian commander, Borneo Louis ruled over a seventy thousand souls, mostly colonized by Bataken, for several years, thus defending European trade interests in Southeast Asia. He was dependent on the cooperation of numerous local nobles and Chinese intermediate traders, from whom he learned not only fluent Malay, but also some other things. When he returned to Nidwalden with a troublesome war and an order of the Dutch king in 1832, he was immediately appointed to Landmann of his only 11,000 inhabitants, and finally, the commander of the Nidwald's troops in the short Swiss Civil War. Until his death in 1858 he ruled not only Nidwald, but also represented his canton in the National Council. Then his son Alois inherited the high offices. This is worth mentioning when he was born in Borneo. His mother was a Javanese Malay, and Alois Wyrsch was therefore the first countryman and Swiss parliamentarians "of color", as one would say today.^[7]

Death

Wyrsch died on 21 April 1858 in Ennetbürgen.

References