Switzerland, during the earlier period of the Middle Ages, formed a part of the German duchy of Swabia and belonged to the Holy Roman Empire.1 About two-thirds of the population of Switzerland remain German in speech and feeling, though now the country includes districts Switzerland in which French or Italian are spoken. All Swiss laws are still proclaimed in the three languages. and Austria Swiss history is closely bound up with that of Austria. The little mountain communities of Schwyz,2 Uri, and Unterwalden, on the shores of beautiful Lake Lucerne, were Switzerland possessions of the counts of Hapsburg. In 1291 A.D., the year when Rudolf of Hapsburg died, these three "Forest Cantons" formed a confederation for resistance to their Hapsburg overlords. Additional cantons joined the league, which now entered upon a long struggle, dear to all lovers of liberty, against Austrian rule. Nowhere did the old methods of feudal 1 See the map facing page 462. 2 From Schwyz comes the name Switzerland. warfare break down more conspicuously than in the battles gained by Swiss pikemen over the haughty knights of Austria. The struggle closed in 1499 A.D., when Switzerland became practically a free state.1 Switzerland has two heroes of her war for independence. William Tell is a wholly mythical character, for the story of a William Tell and skillful marksman who succeeds in striking off some small object placed on a child's head is found in England, Norway, Denmark, and other countries. The Swiss have localized it in Uri. Another popular hero has a better claim to historical existence. It is said that at a critical moment in the battle of Sempach, when the Swiss with their short weapons failed to break the Austrian ranks, Arnold von Winkelried, a man of Unterwalden, came to the rescue. Rushing single-handed upon the enemy, he seized all the spears within reach and turned them into his own body. He thus opened a gap in the line, through which the Swiss pressed on to victory. Winkelried's deed might 1 The independence of the country was not formally recognized till 1648 A.D. well have been performed, though the evidence for it is very scanty. tion Little Switzerland, lying in the heart of the Alps and surrounded by powerful neighbors, is one of the most interesting states in Europe. The twenty-two communities, The Swiss or cantons, which make up the Swiss Confedera- Confederation, differ among themselves in language, religion (Roman Catholic or Protestant), and customs, according to their nearness to Germany, France, or Italy. Nevertheless the Swiss form a patriotic and united nation. It is remarkable that a people whose chief bond of union was common hostility to the Austrian Hapsburgs, should have established a federal government so strong and enduring. 191. Expansion of Germany Lines of expansion An examination of the map shows how deficient Germany is in good natural boundaries. The valley of the Danube affords an easy road to the southeast, a road which the early rulers of Austria followed as far as Vienna German and the Hungarian frontier. Eastward along the Baltic no break occurs in the great plain stretching from the North Sea to the Ural Mountains. It was in this direction that German conquests and colonization during the Middle Ages laid the foundation of modern Prussia. The Germans, in descending upon the Roman Empire, had abandoned much of their former territories to the Slavs. In the reign of Charlemagne all the region between The German the Elbe and the Vistula belonged to Slavic tribes. and the Slav To win it back for Germany required several centuries of hard fighting. The Slavs were heathen and barbarous, so that warfare with them seemed to be a kind of crusade. In the main, however, German expansion eastward was a business venture, due to the need for free land. It was the same need which in the nineteenth century carried the frontiers of the United States from the Alleghanies to the Pacific. German expansion began early in the tenth century, when Henry the Fowler annexed Brandenburg between the Elbe Brandenburg and Pomerania and the Oder.1 Subsequently much of the territory between the Oder and the Vistula, including Pomerania on the southern coast of the Baltic, came under German control. The Slavic inhabitants were exterminated or reduced to slavery. Their place was taken by thousands of German colonists, who introduced Christianity, built churches and monasteries, cleared the woods, drained the marshes, and founded many cities destined to become centers of German trade and culture. Prussia Between the Vistula and the Niemen lay the lands of the Prussians, a non-Teutonic people closely related to the Slavs. The Prussian language and religion have disappeared, the Prussians themselves have been completely absorbed by the Germans who settled in their country, but the Prussian name is borne to-day by one of the great states of modern Europe. Order The conquest and conversion of the Prussians was accomplished by the famous order of Teutonic Knights. It had been The Teutonic founded in Palestine as a military-religious order, at the time of the Third Crusade. The decline of the crusading movement left the knights with no duties to perform, and so they transferred their activities to the Prussian frontier, where there was still a chance to engage in a holy war. Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Teutonic Order flourished, until its grand master ruled over the entire Baltic coast from the Vistula to the gulf of Finland. The knights later had to relinquish much of this region to the Slavs, but they sowed there the seeds of civilization. Russia's Baltic provinces are to-day the richest and most advanced in the empire. 3 Germany at the close of the Middle Ages was not a united, intensely national state, such as had been established in England, France, and Spain. It had split into hundreds of principalities, none large, some extremely small, and all practically independent of the feeble German kings.* Political Germany 1 See page 315. 2 See page 473. Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia. See pages 319, 462. This weakness of the central power condemned Germany to a minor part in the affairs of Europe, as late as the nineteenth century. Yet Germany found some compensation for political backwardness in the splendid city life which it developed during the later Middle Ages. The German cities, together with those of Italy and other European lands, now call for our attention. |