Even though Conspiracy Suisse is not historical fiction as such, it includes in many parts the retelling of historical events: most factual, some fictionalized, and a few invented entirely. These span a timeframe of nearly 10 centuries, from the 12th until the 21st, and concern the history of the Knights Templar, the history of Switzerland, the history of banking, and the history of a particular bank. In other parts of the website, I’ve included brief summaries of how these have been factually retold in common history books. But there always are events in history that cannot be accounted for in a scientifically rigorous manner, be it due to lack of written documents, contradictions in historical evidence, or even willfully altered restating of events. That’s where historical conspiracies come in, which are what-if scenarios that aim to provide intriguing twists within some logical framework to fill in gaps, explain conflicting information, and do away with subjective viewpoints of the powers that be. In following, I will briefly touch upon the four topics mentioned, where in the novel I left it up to the reader to discern what is fact and what is fiction.
History of the Knights Templar
The Knights Templar are novelists’ most favorite secret order, as they are mine. One reason can be accounted for by the legacy they left behind: Nine poor monks become knights and travel to Jerusalem after the city was captured by the First Crusade for a noble cause: to protect the pilgrims. Known for their bravery and proficiency in battle they in no time acquire such wealth that they dominate Europe during the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries. This period in their history reads like a chivalric fairy tale where one victory follows the other and each accomplishment surpasses the previous. They create a network of almost a thousand commanderies and fortresses throughout Europe and the Holy Land, introduce novel financial processes that were an early kind of banking, and form the world’s first multinational corporation.
Other reasons can be found around themes that relate to the secret initiation rituals of the brotherhood, their close ties to esoteric or Islamic institutions of their day, such as the Assassins, or the fact that they left obvious marks on contemporary fraternities such as the Freemasons, who are themselves quite mysterious and therefore invite speculations.
But the main motivation behind the many theories that surfaced about the Knights Templar throughout history has rather to do with their sudden, dramatic demise and disappearance from historical records. An organization rumored to have accumulated the largest sum of possessions in history was wiped out by a conspiratorial king, their biggest debtor, in a fortnite, with all their alleged treasures disappearing never to resurface again. Attempts by earlier historians to explain the vanishing of all these assets and the majority of the knights themselves, who were not arrested, by their escaping to Portugal or Scotland, or joining their rivals, the Knights Hospitaller, have always been considered inadequate.
The story in my book adopts unofficial historical accounts that have always existed in Swiss folk tales and which have recently become mainstream to explain – hopefully in a compelling manner – how the Knights Templar may have founded a nation of their own to use their resources and know-how to flourish throughout the centuries following their apparent fading from history. The novel thus posits that the Knights Templar survived as an organization and postulates ties of this historical society to modern-day events, with their fictional leader Grand Master Grimavi acting as my main protagonist.
History of Switzerland
Swiss people have a long history having played an important role in one of the traditionally most significant geographical regions of Europe, controlling the Alpine passes. While rightly emphasizing this fact, Swiss historians nevertheless have a difficult time explaining events surrounding the formation and especially the expansion of the Old Swiss Confederacy, which coincides with the historically documented attempts of the Knights Templar to start a nation of their own. The geographical proximity of the Templar strongholds to the territory in question as well as the sudden transformation of Swiss peasants to a supreme military power lend credibility to the theory in my book that they were helped by the most battle-hardened force of their day, the Knights Templar. If one gives credence to this apparent historical conspiracy many events of the later Middle Ages become easily explicable.
In the novel, Grand Master Grimavi gives a – hopefully compelling – account of why and how these events played out in detail, from the motivations of the Knights Templar to the timing of incidents between the fall of Acre until the Oath of the Ruetli, from the assistance they provided to the locals in the wars against the mighty Habsburg army, to how the renowned Swiss mercenary forces were established, leading up to Switzerland becoming a neutral state, which is the most significant advantage its people enjoyed on their way to becoming one of the wealthiest nations on the planet.
Banking History
As the main subject of the novel is the attempted hostile takeover of a fictional Swiss bank by a fictional British bank, banking and its history lie at the very heart of it. There is therefore a thread that runs from the beginning to the end of the story that elucidates how struggles between financial organizations and their methods seeking dominance – expanding first to regional then to national conflicts – affected society at large. This is the tale of confrontations that started within the Knights Templar themselves, who were the progenitors of banking, and continue to this day.
Lombard Banking established by pawn shops in Northern Italy and then transferred to London to be adopted by goldsmiths in the City to then evolve into our current fractional reserve monetary system overseen by central banks is one part of the banking narrative. The establishment of offshore jurisdictions in British dependencies by the elite of the City to undermine the successes that Swiss secrecy laws bestowed upon Swiss bankers is the other. The question that follows the reader throughout the novel is how a large Swiss bank could be weakened by a conspiracy to make it the prey of a hostile takeover attempt.
History of Credit Suisse
Even though my novel is a work of fiction and not based on a true story, there is no denying that parts of the narrative have been inspired by the history of and events that are publicly known to have taken place at Credit Suisse. The fact of the matter is, the start, as well as the end of the story of this bank, is so interesting, so satiated with intrigue and secrecy, that I couldn’t help myself but loosely adopt parts of them. However, since the book is not concerned with the retelling of the real story, I wrapped it all in a Conspiracy Suisse.
In any case, the founding of the fictional Swiss bank SWB of the novel takes place mid-19th century under circumstances that are no longer well-known. Indeed, it remains an enigma to this day how Alfred Escher, the founder of Credit Suisse (or ‘Schweizerische Kreditanstalt’ as it was at first named) managed to raise 221 million francs in just three days within Switzerland which at the time was behind all major powers in Europe as capital accumulation was concerned. After around 50 years, the headquarters of the fictional SWB was moved from Baden to Zurich. Well, that was actually inspired by UBS not Credit Suisse (which was established in Zurich) having been started up in Wintherthur in 1862 and moved to Zurich, Paradeplatz, in 1917. Almost all other references in the novel are consistent; this just fitted my story better.
The plotline about the bearer shares is also true (except for a slight shift in transition date). In fact, most share certificates of the last century were bearer shares. The Swiss government decreed that as of 30 April 2021, existing bearer shares had to be converted into registered shares. After 1 May 2021 bearer share certificates were cancelled if not recovered.
While there is no direct resemblance of any of the characters in the book with people who may have been involved in the events surrounding the acquisition of Credit Suisse or otherwise (please refer to: Legal for the specific disclaimer), there are certain similarities between the fictional story of the book and the real history of the bank. Bizarre as this may sound, some things appear to have happened at Credit Suisse in its final years that its history actually reads like a Conspiracy Suisse.
