The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

♦Change in the geography and nomenclature of Germany.♦

In tracing out, for our present purpose, the geographical revolutions of Germany, it will be enough to look at them, as far as may be, mainly in their European aspect. Owing to the gradual way in which the various members of the Empire grew into practical sovereignty—owing to the constant division of principalities among many members of the same family—no country has undergone so many internal geographical changes as Germany has. In few countries also has the nomenclature shifted in a more singular way. ♦Ancient and modern Saxony and Bavaria.♦ To take two obvious examples, the modern kingdom of Saxony has nothing but its name in common with the Saxony which was brought under the Frankish dominion by Charles the Great. The modern kingdom of Bavaria has a considerable territory in common with the ancient Bavaria; but it has gained so much at one end and lost so much at the other that the two cannot be said to be in any practical sense the same country. ♦Uses of the name Austria.♦ The name of Austria has shifted from the eastern part of the old Francia to the German mark against the Magyar, and it has lately wandered altogether beyond the modern German frontier. ♦Burgundy.♦ The name of Burgundy has borne endless meanings, both within the Empire and beyond it. ♦Prussia.♦ Lastly, the ruling state of modern Germany, a state stretching across the whole land from east to west, strangely bears the name of the conquered and extinct Prussian race. Many of these changes affect the history of Europe as well as the history of Germany; but many of the endless changes among the smaller members of the Empire are matters of purely local interest, which belong to the historical geography of Germany only, and which claim no place in the historical geography of Europe. I shall endeavour therefore in the present section, first to trace carefully the shiftings of the German frontier as regards other powers, and then to bring out such, and such only, of the internal changes as have a bearing on the general history of Europe.

♦Extent of the Kingdom.♦

The extent of the German kingdom as it stood after the division of 887 has been roughly traced already. ♦Boundaries under the Ottos, 936-1002.♦ It will now be well to go over its frontiers somewhat more minutely, as they stood at the time of final separation between the Empire and the West-Frankish kingdom, the time of final union between the Empire and the East-Frankish kingdom. This marks the great age of the Saxon Ottos. ♦Boundary towards the West.♦ The frontier towards the Western kingdom was now fairly ascertained, and it was subject to dispute only at a few points. ♦Lotharingia.♦ It is hardly needful to insist again on the fact that all Lotharingia, in the sense of those days, taking in all the southern Netherlands except the French fief of Flanders, was now Imperial. ♦Encroachments of France.♦ It is along this line that the German border has in later times most largely fallen back. The advance of France has touched Burgundy more than Germany; but it has, first swallowed up, and afterwards partly restored, a considerable part of the German kingdom. ♦The Netherlands.♦ The Netherlands had been practically so cut off from Germany before the annexations of France in that quarter began, that they will be better spoken of in another section. ♦Lorraine and Elsass.♦ The other points at which the frontier has fluctuated on a great scale have been the border land of Lorraine—as distinguished from the Lower Lotharingia which has more to do with the history of the Netherlands—and the Swabian land of Elsass. ♦Fluctuations of Bar.♦ The Duchy of Bar, the borderland of the borderland, fluctuated more than once. ♦1473.♦ After its union with the Duchy of Lorraine, it followed the fortunes of that state. ♦The Three Bishoprics, 1552.♦ In the next century came the annexation of the three Lotharingian bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, which gave France three outlying possessions within the geographical borders of the Lotharingian duchy. ♦Loss of Austrian Elsass, 1648.♦ In the next century, as the result of the Thirty Years’ War, France obtained by the Peace of Westfalia the formal cession of these conquests, and also the great advance of her frontier by the dismemberment of Elsass. The cession now made did not take in the whole of Elsass, but only the possessions and rights of the House of Austria in that country. This cession still left both Strassburg and various smaller towns and districts to the Empire; but it naturally opened the way to further French advances in a land where the frontier was so complicated and where difficulties were so easily raised as to treaty-rights. ♦Gradual annexation of Elsass, 1679-1789.♦ A series of annexations, réunions as they were called, gradually united nearly all Elsass to France. ♦Seizure of Strassburg, 1681.♦ Strassburg, as all the world knows, was seized by Lewis the Fourteenth in time of peace. ♦Seizure of Lorraine, 1678-1697.♦ During the wars with the same prince, the duchy of Lorraine was seized and restored. ♦Its final annexation. 1766.♦ In the next century it was separated from the Empire to become the life-possession of the Polish king Stanislaus, and on his death it was finally added to France just before a far greater series of French annexations began. ♦Loss of the left bank of the Rhine, 1801.♦ The wars of the French Revolution, confirmed by the Peace of Luneville, tore away from Germany and the Empire all that lay on the left bank of the Rhine. In other words, the Western Francia, the duchy of the lords of Paris, advanced itself to the utmost limits of the Gaul of Cæsar. This was the last annexation of France at the expense of the old German kingdom. ♦Dissolution of the Kingdom and Empire, 1806.♦ It was indeed the main cause of the formal dissolution of the kingdom which happened a few years later. The utter transformation of Germany within and without which now followed must be spoken of at a later stage.

♦Frontier of Germany and Burgundy.♦

The frontier of Germany and Burgundy, while they still remained distinct kingdoms, fluctuated a good deal, especially in the lands which now form Switzerland. ♦Union of Burgundy with the Empire, 1033.♦ But this frontier ceased to be of any practical importance when the Burgundian kingdom was united with the Empire. The later history of Burgundy, consisting of the gradual incorporation by France of the greater part of the kingdom, and the growth of the remnant into the western cantons of the Swiss Confederation, will be told elsewhere.

♦Frontier of Germany and Italy.♦

Towards Italy again the frontier was sometimes doubtful. Chiavenna, for instance, sometimes appears in the tenth and eleventh centuries as German; so do the greater districts of Trent, Aquileia, Istria, and even Verona. ♦The Marchland.♦ All these formed a marchland, part of which in the end became definitely attached to Germany and part to Italy. ♦Union of the Crowns, 961-1530.
961-1250.♦ But here again, as long as the German and Italian crowns were united, and as long as their common king kept any real authority in either kingdom, the frontier was of no great practical importance. So in later times, both before and after the dissolution of the German Kingdom, the question has practically been a question between Italy and the House of Austria rather than between Italy and Germany as such. These changes also will better come in another section.

♦Eastern and Northern frontiers.♦

The case is quite different with regard to the eastern and northern frontiers, on which the really greatest changes took place, and where Germany, as Germany, made its greatest advances. ♦Advance of the Empire.♦ Along this line the Roman Empire and the German Kingdom meant the same thing. On this side the frontier had to be marked, so far as it could be marked, against nations which had had nothing to do with the elder Empire. Here then for many ages the Roman Terminus advanced and fell back according to the accidents of a long warfare.