Saarbrücken

“ The middle part of its valley is an important industrial district, with coal-mines and a variety of manufactures; the Saar wines are also well known. The principal towns on the Saar are Saargemünd, Saarbrücken and St Johann (which face each other across the river) , Saarlouis and Saarburg. The river is navigable up to Saargemünd, a distance of 75 m. From here there is connexion with the Rhine-Marne canal by way of the Saar canal, built in 1862, and 40 m. in length, following the Saar valley upwards for about half that distance. ”

“ The final advance towards the frontier was not to be undertaken until the Divisions and Corps were all collected, and provided with the all-necessary baggage train; and then proceed in a state of readiness to confront the enemy at any moment.
The assembling of the First Army appeared to be less threatened, as its route lay through neutral territory, and was protected by the garrisons of Trèves, Saarlouis, and Saarbrücken, the German outposts on the Saar. ”

“ Little Minna Vogt had for her Bräutigam a young Feldwebel of the second battalion of the Hohenzollerns, a native of Saarlouis. The battalion quartered there was under orders to join its first battalion at Saarbrücken, and young Eckenstein had written to his betrothed to come and meet him there, that the marriage-knot might be tied before he should go on a campaign from which he might not return. The arrangement was certainly a charming one; we should have a wedding in the Hagen! ”

“ The Saar has been a solid German block for centuries. The district is strongly German in feeling and sentiment. A less encouraging centre for an experiment in alien government could not well have been found. With a mixed population the dubious game of playing off one element against another can at least be attempted. Even that consolation is lacking in the Saar. Out of a population of over 600,000, the French element is practically nil. ”

“ We went on farther, and at last found the country like that in the neighbourhood of Saarbrück. Between wild and savage mountains are a few villages: one here gets rid of the habit of looking about for corn. We mounted up, by the side of the Hornbach, to Bitsch, which lies on the important spot where the waters divide, and fall, a part into the Saar, a part into the Rhine. The latter were soon to draw us after them. Yet we could not refuse our attention to the little city of Bitsch, which very picturesquely winds around the mountain ”

“ The valley of the Saar, where we first reached Bockenheim, a small place, and saw opposite to it Neusaarwerden, which is well built, with a pleasure-castle, is bordered on both sides by mountains which might be called melancholy, if at their foot an endless succession of meadows and fields, called the Huhnau, did not extend as far as Saaralbe, and beyond it, farther than the eye can reach. Great buildings, belonging to the former stables of the Duke of Lorraine, here attract the eye: they are at present used as a dairy, for which purpose, indeed, they are very well situated. ”

“ Riding rapidly without hindrance or molestation for twenty-two miles, I passed Dieuze between the banks of the Seille and another river, and then past Sarrebourg, a quaint old town which was quietly ceded to France by the Lorrainers in 1666. It is situated on the right bank of the Sarre, which flows from the wooded Vosges to the Lower Rhine, and is only fifteen miles westward of Elsace-Zaberne. I halted here at an hostelry named L'Image de Notre Dame, the sign-board of which had been riddled by the bullets of Saxe-Weimar's Swedish Protestants. ”

“ The effort to create a Saar state, definitely separated from Germany for a term of years, cannot be justified by any of our own professions during the war. We have yet to reap the full fruits of the mistake. The new conditions have mobilised, of course, the passionate resentment of the inhabitants, and friction exists at every turn. The [133] Germans lose no opportunity of giving all the trouble they can. Whatever grit they can throw into the machine they throw with a will. His words frequently pass between the Governing Commission and the German Government in Berlin. ”

“ It was fixed that, early in spring, ninety thousand men should be assembled in the country between the Moselle and the Saar, and, after establishing their magazines and base of operations at Treves and Traerbach, they should penetrate, in two columns into Lorraine; that the column under Marlborough in person should advance along the course of Moselle, and the other, under the Margrave of Baden, by the valley of the Saar, and that Saar-Louis should be invested before the French army had time to take the field. ”

“ SAARBURG, a town of Germany, in the imperial province of Alsace-Lorraine, on the Saar, 44 m. N.W. from Strassburg by rail. Pop. (1905) 9818. Its chief industries are the manufacture of watch springs, gloves, lace, beer and machinery, and it has a trade in grain. ”

“ At last, as night drew near, the thought that we were approaching Strasbourg rallied my spirits, suggesting an escape from all pursuit, as well as the welcome prospect of getting rid of my present torturer, who, whenever I awoke from a doze, reverted to our singular meeting with a pertinacity that absolutely seemed like malice.
“As I am aware that this is your first visit to Strasbourg,” said the courier, “perhaps I can be of service to you in recommending a hotel. Put up, I advise you, at the ‘Bear’—a capital hotel, and not ten minutes’ distance from the theatre.” ”

“ Presently our carriage stopped before a tremendous mass of masonry pierced by an iron, arched gate, through which double files of farm-wagons were rolling, escorted by customs guards and marines.
“No room! no room!” shouted the soldiers. “This is the Porte de Pierre. Go to the Porte de Saverne!”
So we passed on beneath the bastions, skirting the ramparts to the Porte de Saverne, where, after a harangue, the gate guards admitted us, and we entered Strasbourg in the midst of a crush of vehicles. At the railroad station hundreds of cars choked the tracks ”

“ There was no French population at all in the Saar, and the territory in question could not even be claimed for military reasons but only for its economic resources. Reasons of history could not count, for they were all in Germany's favour. Nevertheless the request was put forward as a matter of sentiment. Had not the Saar belonged in other days entirely or in part to France? Politics and economics are not everything, said Clemenceau; history also has great value. For the United States a hundred and twenty years are a long time; for France they count little. ”

“ Still another consideration had weight in drawing the frontiers of 1871, namely the iron deposits of Lorraine. Apart from the potash of Upper Alsace, it so happens that the great natural resources of Alsace-Lorraine lay on its outer edges, in the coal of the Saar valley and the iron of the Lorraine border. The problems of the Saar will be discussed in the next chapter in relation to the frontier of 1814; those of the Lorraine frontier are particularly instructive in connection with our present subject. ”

“ Another matter affecting the Left Bank came into prominence at the conference, namely the valley of the Saar. From one point of view this was a phase of the question of Alsace-Lorraine, for a portion of the Saar basin had once been a part of Lorraine and the recovery of the lost provinces revived the question of their historic boundaries. It was also part of the problem of the Left Bank, for the territory belonged to Prussia and Bavaria and was inhabited by a population of predominantly German affinities, and any annexation here was subject to the same objections as elsewhere on German soil. ”

“ The most prominent of all buildings in Salzburg, and the one which has for most visitors the greatest attraction, is the fine old fortress of Hohen-Salzburg set high above the older town upon a tree-enshrouded and rocky spur of the Mönchsberg. ”

“ By this time, the Third Army, except the 6th Corps, and the Baden Division which had been directed upon Strasburg, had made its way through the defiles of the Vosges, had emerged into the valley of the Upper Saar, and was, therefore, in direct communication with the Second Army; so that the German host occupied a wide region extending from Sarrebourg to villages in front of Metz; yet at the vital points the Corps stood near enough to support each other should it be necessary to assemble on a field of battle. ”

“ Around the city, the Sarre wound between woods of chestnut, and over it, on a lofty rock, stood a castle of the Bishops of Strasbourg, in the deep arched windows of which, red lights that twinkled, showed where Cardinal de Lavalette still held revel with some of his officers; for that old fortress was his head-quarters.
While leaving the city by its only avenue, a steep and narrow path, hewn through the solid rock in the olden time, the French cavalry trumpets—sharp, shrill, and warlike—rang in the clear atmosphere, as they played a stirring march ”

“ The Saar wines are included among the Mosel, and the difference is not very perceptible.
The last glance we take at the beauties of this neighborhood is from the mouth of the torrent-river Eltz as it dashes into the Eifel, washing the rock on which stands the castle of Eltz. The building and the family are an exception in the history of these lands: both exist to this day, and are prosperous and undaunted, notwithstanding all the efforts of enemies, time and circumstances to the contrary. ”

“ The wish of the people of Karlsruhe to get rid of their neighbors from the Palatinate, was so great that our troops were not even given sufficient opportunity to prove to those timid souls what honest and peace-loving beings were concealed under those wild beards, those red plumes, and those belts stocked full of daggers and dirks. On the same day a camp was assigned to us outside of the city, and on the 20th of June we marched northward to the aid of the revolutionary army of Baden, which in the meantime had got into a critical situation. ”

“ Soon after sunrise we were on our feet again and inquired of some peasants, who seemed to be going to their work, the road to Bern—for I had heard in Strasburg that Anneke and the other friends whom I wished to join were in that city. The road led us first through fertile valleys. The fields teemed with men and women busy gathering their crops. ”

“ The railway takes one through beautiful scenery in about an hour to the summit of the mountain, which is so favourite an 180 excursion with the well-to-do Salzburgers, and from which such a beautiful prospect is spread out at one's feet. To the north one can catch glimpses of the undulating foreground of the Alps and shining lakes; whilst Salzburg now more than 4000 feet below looks almost insignificant, and like a toy town set in the midst of a green plain through which winds a thin, silver line, the Salzach. ”

“ Standing here, on the insignificant little bridge that now spans the shrunken Wantsum which in times gone by spread where the grass now grows and the cows graze, it is difficult to realise those mediæval days when Sarre was a favourite port of embarkation for France. ”

“ I did not repent my Stay at Strasbourg; for tho' I had been at it before, yet I never was there long enough to make any Observation upon the Remarkables of the Place. Strasbourg [57] is one of the best Cities in Europe. 'Tis the Capital of Alsace, and was conquer'd by Lewis XIV. in 1682, without any Expence but of Menaces and Money. That Monarch fortify'd it considerably, and caus'd a Citadel and Arsenal to be built there, which are Monuments worthy318 of a Great King. The Cathedral Church has not its equal for its Bulk and Grandeur. ”

“ The wider streets—such as the Kant Strasse, running downhill from the royal castle to the river, and the Kneiphof'sche Langgasse, leading southward to the Brandenburg gate and the great world—must needs make use of the Kramer Brucke. Here, it may be said, every man in the town must sooner or later pass in the execution of his daily business, whether he go about it on foot or in a sleigh with a pair of horses. ”

“ We left Paris the following morning, and, partly by diligence, partly on foot, reached Strasbourg in a few days; thence we proceeded by Kehl to Freyburg, and, crossing the Lake of Constance at Rorschach, we entered the Bregenzerwald on the twelfth morning of our journey. I suppose that most men preserve fresher memory of the stirring and turbulent scenes of their lives than of the more peaceful and tranquil ones, and I shall not be deemed singular when I say that some years passed over me in this quiet spot, and seemed as but a few weeks. ”

“ Canton Zürich is, after Berne, the most populous, and beyond comparison the most wealthy of the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland; and the city of Zürich, one of its most beautiful and most flourishing cities. Since the walls of its fortifications have been removed by order of the Grand Council, it has extended and developed itself daily in every direction, like a vigorous tree in the spring. Science, industry, benevolent institutions increase, as if in emulation of each other; and gardens and plantations encircle the increasing city with beauty. ”

“ Strasburg is the capital city of Alsace, and is considered the central point in the defence of the Rhine frontier. It has a glorious cathedral, and a library unsurpassed in its collection of historical documents of antiquity. It is an arch-bishopric, and had always been defended by a large garrison. With Paris, Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Rouen, it had stood foremost among French cities. It contained, when invested, twenty thousand fighting men, and it was besieged at first by a corps of about sixty thousand. Its investment was one of the first acts of the Germans on entering France. ”