Switzerland serves as a prospective neutral meeting ground in Georges Picquart’s intelligence work: a place where an arranged contact might be approached without the risks of German territory. Basel, in particular, offers both a practical location and a convincing public explanation for the visitors’ presence, making the country part of the operation’s method of concealment as well as its setting.

A safer meeting ground

The choice follows an explicit concern about where the meeting can take place. When Colonel Foucault asks whether it can be held on German soil, the answer is no: the risk is too great. Foucault proposes Switzerland instead, and Basel is judged safe enough. Its abundance of visitors at that time of year would let the intended contact appear to be on a walking holiday rather than taking part in an intelligence rendezvous.

The Swiss plan belongs to a wider atmosphere of caution around German intelligence activity. General Gonse worries that establishing an operation on the Germans’ doorstep could provoke a diplomatic uproar. Picquart argues that the inquiry could reveal whether Schwartzkoppen is running other agents and might produce further evidence concerning Alfred Dreyfus, but Gonse questions whether the risks are worth taking. Switzerland offers a different possibility: contact beyond German jurisdiction, without abandoning the inquiry.

The Basel cover story

The proposed meeting is turned into a carefully staged journey. The party assembles in its lobby at five o’clock the following afternoon, dressed as four friends setting out on a hiking holiday in the Baselbiet. Their stout boots, high socks, sports jackets, and knapsacks give the cover a recognizable outdoor uniform. Major Henry’s broad-check jacket and feathered felt hat make his disguise conspicuous enough to draw teasing rather than suspicion; Picquart compares him to a Tyrolean innkeeper, and the others join in while Henry remains sullen.

The disguise is only one part of the plan. Picquart tells Captain Lauth to send a telegram from Basel reporting how the meeting goes and when the party will return, with the message put into coded terms. The destination, the assumed holiday, the clothing, and the coded update work together to make a sensitive journey resemble ordinary travel. Switzerland is thus presented not simply as a safe place on the map but as a setting in which a credible explanation for the visitors’ presence can be constructed.

Narrative significance

The Basel plan gives physical form to the constraints of clandestine investigation. The meeting cannot openly occur where the target’s government might control the ground or where the approach could trigger a confrontation; it must be arranged elsewhere and disguised as leisure. The contrast between Picquart’s operational seriousness and the party’s comic appearance—especially Henry’s costume—makes secrecy visible as practical performance, not merely as a matter of sealed files.

The account establishes the expedition’s cover and preparations, but does not, in these passages, confirm what the meeting in Basel ultimately achieves. Switzerland’s significance here is therefore specific and provisional: it is the carefully chosen setting for a planned encounter, whose safety depends on distance from German soil, the anonymity of passing visitors, and the discipline of coded communication.