There are many old-world bits about the town, which appears to combine picturesque age with modern prosperity, while tragedy and romance are both revealed when we inquire into the story of Krems. One of the earliest mentions made of it is in connexion with one of those fanatical outbursts which ever and again stain the page of history. We saw at Deggendorf how a wild story of sacrilege led to a horrible slaughter of the Jews in that place, and in 1347 there was a similar outbreak here, when it is said the streets ran with blood. It may be surmised that the wealth the Jews had acquired moved the cupidity of their fellow-townsfolk. The pretext chosen was, however, that the Jews had poisoned the town wells, but that the other motive was regarded as the real one by the persecuted, may be gathered from the fact that many of the Hebrews “made their despair minister to their vengeance, and barring up themselves, their family and their riches together, set fire to the building and perished exultingly in the flames that anticipated the spoiler.”
In the following century the town was twice besieged by the Hungarian king, Matthias Corvinus, and that brave prince only succeeded in the second attempt. The people of Krems seem to have become inured to warfare, for when the town was attacked in 1619, on the Bohemian Protestants invading Austria, even the women won martial glory. It is recorded that the garrison having sallied forth to give battle to the foe, they were cut off, and the Bohemians, who had got in their rear, at once sought to scale the seemingly undefended walls, “but the women, with one consent, seizing the first weapons they could find, rushed to the ramparts, and fought with such steady bravery that the enemy were at length obliged to abandon the attempt.”
Krems is the easterly termination of the Wachau—the beautiful extent of the scenic Danube most readily reached by rail or boat from Vienna. Though when I was there in September and October there were not many holiday-making folk about the villages or the quiet river-side roads, it is evidently much frequented in the summer time, judging by the advertisements of “trips” to be seen in Vienna. The “discoverer” of the attractions of this lovely bit of country was, during my stay in Dürrenstein, honoured by the unveiling (9 October, 1910) of a memorial in that village. The memorial takes the form of a large, square, brass medallion portrait let into the river-side face of the rock on which the church stands. The simple inscription runs:—
“Augustin Weigl
Die Dankbare Wachau
1910”
FOOTNOTES:
[10] This presumably as a salutation to the workmen employed at a large ultramarine factory in the neighbourhood.
CHAPTER VII
THE WACHAU TO DÉVÉNY
“There where the Danube broadly sweeps,
’Mid islands willow grown,
The City of St. Stephen stands,