The Transhelvetic Canal, also called the Transhelvetica or the Canal d’Entreroches, would have connected the Rhine to the Rhône through Switzerland, opening a route for inland navigation between Rotterdam and Marseille. A line of water cutting Europe in half.
The canal is infinitely more sensitive to meteorological phenomena than to political events. A hailstorm that destroys the crops of La Cote is more unfortunate for it than a border war or even an invasion.1
This quote, from a seventeenth century memoir of the canal, predicted the tense negotiation between technology, politics, and nature that would play out around the project for over four hundred years.
The plan failed. The canal was never completed; it became a ruin. However, the project has haunted European geopolitics for centuries. The dream of the canal and its potential benefits have lingered in public discourse, progressively becoming part of more local, transnational rhetoric. At the same time, the ghostly footprint of the canal, which can be seen in policies protecting lands through which it was supposed to pass, has resisted erasure, even today.
Like a sea serpent, the Transhelvetic Canal has traversed time, shape-shifting and absorbing technological and social developments as they unfold. It reflects key moments in the transformation of the European project, from the emergence of overseas colonies and advancements in water control technologies to the establishment of transportation infrastructures, Swiss concerns about post-Second World War isolation, the rise of ecological awareness, and the refinement of tools for landscape representation and territorial planning.
The Canal d´Entreroches. Source: Wikipedia.
1. Imagine a Line Crossing Europe
Transhelvetica began to take shape in the early seventeenth century thanks to a man named Elie Gouret (Elias Gouret de la Primaye), a French nobleman and procurator of the House of Orange-Nassau in the Netherlands. During a trip to Geneva, Gouret envisioned a path from the North Sea to the Mediterranean that would eliminate the need to navigate around the Iberian Peninsula, a hostile territory at the time, and to confront pirates lurking at sea. The Netherlands was engaged at the time in the Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648), which led to the independence of the United Provinces from the sovereignty of Philip II of Spain.
Transhelvetic canal route, in the context of the war between the Netherlands and Spain, enmity with the English, and the pirates of the Mediterranean. Source: Paul-Lous Pelet, Le Canal d’Entreroches: Histoire d’une idée.
Gouret proposed connecting the Leman and Neuchatel lakes with a navigable canal by utilizing the course of the nearby Thielle River and the geological fault line of Entreroches.2 The allure of this technical fantasy is not difficult to imagine. Drainage and canalization operations were particularly prominent at that time in the Netherlands, inland navigation was trending, and technology had been developed to reclaim land from water, channeling and controlling it to foster a commercial network that would eventually span the globe.3
Indeed, Dutch independence from Spain was fought and secured through the mastery of navigation and water control technologies. For instance, during the siege of Leiden in 1574, the Dutch deliberately caused floods to deter Spanish armies. After the war, water was institutionalized as a weapon through the Hollandse Waterlinie, a string of potentially floodable lands protected by fortresses.
The northern provinces of the Netherlands declared independence from Spain in 1581 and became a breeding ground for the acceleration of proto-capitalism. Public administrations were dominated by merchants and investors in new colonial ventures, city councils favored conditions to attract businesses, and the Dutch republic’s decentralized structure was united by a common spirit of “freedom”—in contrast to the tight control of the Habsburg Empire’s feudal structures, which continued to dominate the south after independence.4
Simultaneously, the Netherlands was experiencing the dawn of its vast colonial empire. Out of the companies that flourished after the initial forays into Asia in 1595, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was founded in 1602. In light of the Eighty Years’ War, the VOC had a military purpose, too: challenge the Portuguese and Spanish monopoly on routes to Asia. Controlling these routes was as crucial as the act of extraction.5 Colonial ventures were not just about establishing unequal exploitation and exchange for the extraction of goods, but were also a means of ensuring control over routes where goods could circulate under their own terms. Within this context, the project of the Transhelvetic canal, and its uninterrupted route for the flow of goods, was just another strategy to delineate and control trade.
The initial proposal for the Canal d’Entreroches was presented by Gouret to the Swiss canton of Bern in 1635. Its main selling points included reducing transportation costs and making supply easier and safer. Additionally, the nearby Orbe plain suffered frequent floods, and the canal would divert water away, solving two problems at once. In 1636, Bern gave the green light and, in 1637, land concessions were made. Construction began in 1638. The project was financed by a mix of Dutch, French, and Swiss capital. The workforce was local, while lock and boat builders came in from the Netherlands.
2. A River Climbs a Mountain
The visionary plan to link the two rivers into one soon began to crack. On paper, the canal that would connect the North Sea to the Mediterranean through two Swiss lakes formed a continuous line. On the ground, however, the canal would have to climb a mountain, the 605-meter-high Mormont, to take advantage of the geological fault of Entreroches. A theoretical cross-section of the project would transition from the 434-meter-high Lake Neuchâtel to an altitude of 452 meters—through a trench dug in the Mormont—in Entreroches, then descend again to the 375-meter-high Lake Geneva.6 The project would require creating a “water staircase” through wooden locks with a winch, which, when opened, would propel enough water to move the boats forward.
The canal in the area of the Mormont Hill (solid line, right side). Source: Pelet, Le Canal d’Entreroches.
The first phase was carried out without too many setbacks. Construction began from north to south, starting from Lake Neuchâtel and utilizing the Thielle River to supply enough water for navigation. The first stage, which followed the course of the existing waterway, was completed in 1640. After a short pause, in 1642, work resumed.
This next phase required digging into a hill, the Mormont. This was made difficult by the rocky nature of the surrounding area, and works were often paralyzed by rain, flood, and structural failures. As a result, the canal gained its more formal name: Canal d’Entreroches, or “canal between rocks.” In order to complete this section, five-to-six-meter-thick retaining walls needed to be built, as well as seven diversion channels and five locks, two of which were double.
In 1648, after numerous delays and budget overruns, it was finally possible to navigate the Canal d’Entreroches for twenty-five kilometers and travel from Cossonay to Yverdon. The initial plan was to link Lake Neuchâtel via the port of Yverdon to Lake Geneva through the port of Morges. But the canal was halted midway, in Cossonay, a few kilometers past the Mormont, due to inflated costs and significant delays.
See where we stand, ever since an honest man, with whom we had dealings, deceived us by deceiving himself. It is poor De la Primaye who has needlessly ruined himself until others interested were obliged to take matters into their own hands, and now they tyrannize over us regarding this repayment, which we cannot determine if it is owed or not until it is proven through legitimate and verified accounts.7
These misfortunes began to erode investor confidence in the project. In an effort to mitigate this, the promoters proposed exploiting the section of the canal already built to recoup costs. Later, once the investment had been recouped, work could resume to extend the canal to Lake Geneva. In 1664, investors sought to abandon the extension of the canal to Lake Geneva, and to focus instead on making the already constructed section profitable.
The part of the canal that had been constructed (solid line, from Yverdon to Cossonay) and the projected section (dashed line, from Cossonay to Morges). Source: Pelet, The Canal d’Entreroches.
The canal held local value for a couple of hundred years, mainly transporting wine, salt, and grain from north to south. Navigating meant lock-hopping: moving from lock to lock, opening one gate after another. The water, however, refused to be canalized. Droughts hindered navigation, while successive freezes, floods, and maintenance issues progressively obstructed the canal. In 1730, road transport began to compete with the canal. Investors attempted to sell their shares. Finally, in 1797, bankruptcy was declared. In 1829, the Talent River, one of the canal’s main water sources, flooded, demolishing an important viaduct and blocking the passage. This was the final blow. The canal was abandoned.
The era of navigation by water anyway gave way to the era of rail infrastructure. The first railway opened in Switzerland in 1847. By 1855, the Yverdon-Morges railway line was inaugurated, directly competing with the abandoned canal’s route.
3. Neutrality and Europe’s Forgotten Backwater
On all sides, railway tracks are approaching Switzerland more and more. The question of how they should be connected is already being actively discussed. Plans are emerging, according to which the railways are to be led around Switzerland. Thus, Switzerland faces the danger of being completely bypassed, and as a result, in the future, it may have to present the sad image of Europe’s forgotten backwater.8
Switzerland holds a strategic position as a transit route. The year 1815 marked the official recognition of Swiss neutrality, which would later raise concerns regarding the potential isolation of the country from its neighbors. As a result, arguments for Transhelvetica resurfaced and the project again began to progressively unfold over the following centuries. If Switzerland wanted to safeguard its independence and neutrality, the argument went, it must avoid isolation and make its territory available as a toll-free passageway for neighboring countries.
The evolution of Swiss infrastructures of transportation mediated the relationship between Swiss neutrality and the country’s involvement in the European economy. Within this context, however, the narrative of Transhelvetica took on a regional-nationalistic character and appealed to the notion of a European common good, infused with Swiss values. Invoking general interest, trade, and the prosperity of Europe as a whole, the flow of water came to signify transnational collaboration.9
After several failed initiatives to revive the canal project in the nineteenth century, the project finally gained momentum again in the early twentieth century, and with that momentum came the initial ambition of connecting Rotterdam with Marseille. In 1908, the Romande Association for Inland Navigation was established, eventually evolving into the Swiss Association for the Navigation of the Rhine to the Rhone (ASRR) in 1910, which dedicated its contribution to the 1913 Bern National Exhibition to the Transhelvetic Canal. Following this exhibition, cantonal associations in support of the canal were created in Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel, Solothurn, Argou, and Valais.
World War I marked a period of shortages in Switzerland, making the specter of isolation and the need for connectivity with neighboring countries even more pronounced. After the war, there was a renewed enthusiasm in Switzerland for river navigation as part of wider reconstruction efforts in Europe. Presidents of the ASRR were parliamentarians, enabling them to exert pressure, and the Swiss Confederation became actively engaged in the project. Around the same time, a new idea and technology became increasingly common: hydroelectric power. The locks on the Transhelvetic Canal, which, in the seventeenth century, had been necessary to overcome the rocky territory, thus became a new way to balance the books, and even to generate profit.
Project for the port and lock of Cossonay, 1913. Source: Bulletin technique de la Suisse romande.
Following World War I, Transhelvetica began to take shape again. The Syndicate for the Study of the Navigable Route from the Rhône to the Rhine, founded in 1909, conducted a series of thorough economic and technical studies, which were then submitted to the ASRR. Until his death in 1922, the engineer George Autran led technical studies and advocated for the virtues of the project in Swiss and French newspapers.
On July 15, 1941, the Mouvement de la jeunesse vaudoise pour le Canal du Rhone et Rhin (Movement of Vaud Youth for the Rhone and Rhine Canal) dug a sixty-meter section of the new Transhelvetic Canal with their own hands as a symbolic act in support of the project.10 From 1941 to 1948, a study for a revival of the Rhône-Rhine connection project was conducted, which suggested overcoming the rocky obstacles that gave the Canal de Entreroches its name by incorporating a tunnel and twenty-five locks.
During World War II, Switzerland rejected refugees and maintained economic relations with Germany, particularly through use of its railways. At the end of the war, Switzerland found itself under what has been called “resentful international suspicion.”11 The potential for further isolation and shortages further strengthened the argument to construct the canal.
Revived enthusiasm for the canal after World War II gave rise to a new project, funded by Swiss federal authorities from 1948 to 1952 and propelled by an ASRR study. This initiative led to the establishment of the private company, Transhelvetica S.A., in 1963 with 2 million swiss francs in funding, primarily provided by public entities, cantons, and municipalities. Transhelvética S.A. initiated advertising campaigns promoting the construction of the canal. Further, in 1950, the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (CEMT) laid out a network of European inland waterways to be realized as soon as possible, which included the Transhelvetic Canal.
This new momentum was met by an opposing force advocating for the protection of natural resources and affected landscapes. In 1964, the Association for the Protection of the Aar (ASA) was founded, aiming to prevent the construction of the canal and similar projects at all costs. In 1970, thirty-three organizations came together to establish Aqua Viva, a national organization for the conservation of rivers and lakes. In 1989, the Swiss National Council confirmed the government’s refusal to implement the Transhelvetica project by a vote of seventy-five against forty-one. In 1990, the Venoge River and its tributaries were declared protected, specifically in the area that was intended to supply water to the canal. And, in 1991, the Federal Act on the Protection of Waters was passed, prohibiting leakage between geological layers (such as the phreatic zone), which poses challenges for excavation, a crucial instrument of canalization.
4. A Hauntology of Transhelvetica
Since then, the narrative of Transhelvetica has taken on a more modest tone. The plan changed from re-envisioning a connection between Rotterdam and Marseille to creating a navigation route within Switzerland. The protection of the Venoge gave rise to the need to explore a new route for the inland Transhelvetic Canal. As a result, in 1997, the ASRR introduced a new proposal featuring larger tunnels, bigger locks, and larger ships, aimed at shortening the route and improving efficiency.
In the 1997 project, the tunnels became increasingly straight and the route had fewer locks, emphasizing the importance of tunnels and utilizing the elevation changes to generate energy. By 1999, ASRR evolved into the Swiss Association for Inland Navigation (ASNI), which, in 2004, proposed to lengthen the tunnels even further and level them with Lake Neuchatel for water pumping. In this latest iteration, the tunnel would also function as drainage for the Swiss Plateau in order to mitigate flood risks.
In 2006, the canton of Vaud definitively abandoned the prohibitions it had placed on developing the land designated for the canal’s potential route. During a debate surrounding the measure, arguments in favor of river transport portrayed the canal as an “ecologically friendly alternative” for transportation, juxtaposed with an understanding of the water landscape “as a collection of natural resources essential for inter-species coexistence.”12
In recent interviews with enthusiasts, the economic dimension of the project has been downplayed while its original values remain.13 Transhelvetica still responds to the need to improve Switzerland’s competitiveness in a global market. Further, inland navigation offers a low-pollution and low-cost transportation alternative, and hydropower is another opportunity to balance the books.
The canal remains in the Swiss collective memory through language. The expression sur soleure means “being drunk” in local parlance, in memory of the transporters who would drink the wine they transported from Soleure along the Canal d’Entreroches back in the seventeenth century.
The ruins of the walls recall the original quest of digging the canal into the Mormont and remain a strange wound in the landscape, overtaken by wild plants in summer and filled with water in winter. A few kilometers away, the invisible footprint of Transhelvetica lingers under the Viaduct Autoroutier of Yverdon, a road that passed along the potential route and was built on pillars to allow water to run underneath.
Viaduct Autoroutier of Yverdon, built to leave passage for the possible construction of the canal. Source: DIC Ingenieurs, dic-ing.ch.
The mark of a ghostly Transhelvetica points to how ideas from a distant past, permeated by supposedly outdated frameworks, become present, infiltrating rhetoric, territorial planning and decision making, and, ultimately, the shape of the present.
Paul-Louis Pelet, Le Canal d’Entreroches: Histoire d’une idée (F. Rouge, 1946).
An extensive study of the history of the Canal d’Entreroches was compiled by Paul-Louis Pelet in Le Canal d’Entreroches: Histoire d’une idée (F. Rouge, 1946). The latest developments are extensively described in Pierre-André Vuitel, La fabuleuse aventure du canal d’Entreroches (Association Développement 21, 2014), and Pierre-André Vuitel, Le grand rêve du projet suisse de canal du Rhône au Rhin (Association Développement 21, 2011).
Erik van der Vleuten and Cornelis Disco, “Water wizards: reshaping wet nature and society,” History and Technology 20, no. 3 (2004): 291-309.
Maarten Praak, Pioneers of Capitalism. The Netherlands 1000-1800 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022).
Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1999).
These figures were not entirely accurate, given the limits of elevation measurement tools available at the time.
Letter from C. Huygens, one of the main investors, regarding the state of the canal. Constantijn Huygens (The Hague) to Abraham Van Wickevoort (Paris), February 12, 1653, cited in Rudolf Rasch, “Duizend brieven over muziek van, aan en rond Constantijn Huygens,” ➝.
Speech of civil servant Alftred Escher, President of the National Council, delivered at its reunion on November 12, 1849,” Bundesblatt no. 60, 161, ➝. Escher was a Swiss politician who promoted the construction of Switzerland´s vast railroads by private funding. He was also behind Credit Suisse, which funded the Swiss railway system and financed the Swiss electrical grid.
J.-L. Piveteau, “Le Transhelvétique: Vitalité d’un Vieux Projet,” Geocarrefour 40, no. 2 (1965), 175–85.
Raymond Gaffner, “La force de la jeunesse,” RTS Archives, July 4, 1942, ➝.
Clive H. Church and Randolph C. Head, A Concise History of Switzerland (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
“Séance du mardi après-midi, 26 septembre 2006,” Bulletin des séances du Grand Conseil du Canton de Vaud no 30.
Vuitel, “Le grand rêve du projet suisse de canal du Rhône au Rhin.”
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