Author: Maarten Koning

The Rhine is both a river of borders and a river of connections simultaneously. The significance of the Rhine for politics, trade, culture, language, religion and conflicts is complex.

The Rhine patiently flowed from its source at the Gotthard Massif to the North Sea for millennia. The people and countries on both banks of the Rhine were the complicating factors.

For the Romans, the Rhine was not only part of their waterways and infrastructure but also their border. It was also a deity, Rhenus. Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) designated the Rhine as the military and natural barrier between Gallia and Germania.

Emperor Augustus (62 BC – 14 AD) crossed the Rhine after conquering the area of present-day Switzerland (15-13 BC). The Romans withdrew after 9 AD, following their disastrous loss of three legions in the Varus Battle, named after the Roman general who led these legions. The Romans retreated to the left bank of the Rhine.

However, they occupied large territories on the right bank of the Rhine a few decades later. They installed the Rhine fleets and founded cities on both banks of the Rhine. Business and trade flourished, and the free movement of (Romanised) Celts and German tribes increased during this period.

The decline after the Roman Empire’s fall continued until the Carolingian kings and emperors (8th-9th centuries). They founded monasteries, churches, and cathedrals in the Upper Rhine and the Low Countries. The abbeys at St. Gallen (719) and Reichenau (742) are only a few important monasteries from this period.

The ten sovereign states along the Rhine, 17th century.  Image: Dreiländermuseum Lörrach

They also created a new infrastructure for trade, cities and long-distance exchange. Dorestad, Nijmegen, Nimwegen, and towns and settlements in the Netherlands also flourished.

The Holy Roman Empire (from the 10th century onwards) continued to develop the Rhine region. Cologne became one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in the Christian world and an important trading centre.

Cathedrals, churches, and abbeys in, among others, Chur, Basel, Constance, Strasbourg, Speyer, Worms, Cologne, and Nijmegen (formerly Nimwegen) adorned the river with a band of churches that Emperor Maximilian (1459-1519) called the “Pfaffengasse”.

The cities along the Rhine grew faster and faster from the 16th to the 19th century (despite many wars and epidemics), culminating in the development of Basel in Switzerland, the Ruhr in Germany and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

At the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), the riparian countries (France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Prussia) agreed to establish regulations for navigation on the Rhine. They also founded the International Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine. 

 These countries intervened to change the Rhine’s course, prevent floods, and make the river navigable. The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed the development of numerous new techniques and machines that facilitated the construction of locks, dykes, and drainage canals.

The Rhine remains a vital waterway for transporting and shipping goods between Northern and Southern Europe. For the first time in history, the river lost its strategic and military function after 1945.

Much has been written (since the Greeks and Romans) and said (since the first inhabitants) about the Rhine, but this conclusion seems to be an appropriate summary:

Hier kreuzen sich die bedeutendsten europäischen Kulturströme, frühe mediterrane Einflüße, westliche Regionalismen, östliche Neigung zum Okkulten, nördliche Mythologie, preußisch-kategorischer Imperativ, Ideale der französischen Revolution und noch manches andere. (Max Ernst, 1953).

 (Source: Marie-Louise von Plessen (ed.), Der Rhein, Eine europäische Flussbiografie, Bonn, 2016).

Lake Constance (Bodensee) has been a vital trade route connecting east to west and south to north for centuries. The Celtic inhabitants left several settlements of pile dwellings as a testament to their heritage. Several museums and replicas of these villages can be visited around the lake.

The Romans created the foundation for this region’s economic, religious and urban development from 13. BC onwards. The local inhabitants, including Celtic and Germanic tribes, became Roman citizens. Cities and other settlements,  trade, shipping and viticulture flourished in the Pax Romana.

After the Roman era (after the fifth century), Romanised Celts, Alemanni and Franks continued to shape language and culture for centuries. The Frankish kingdoms of the Merovingians and Carolingians, the Duchy of the Alemanni, the Empire of Charlemagne (800-843), the Holy Roman Empire, local rulers and Christianity (from the fourth century onwards) were decisive.

In the fourth century, Christianity emerged within the Roman Empire’s structures in this region. The Abbey of St Gallen, the Kartause of Ittingen, the episcopal city of Constance and the monastic island of Reichenau depict the close cooperation and contacts from the early Middle Ages onwards.

The famous design (around 810) for the Abbey of St Gallen, for example, comes from the monastery of Reichenau. Monasteries and later secular rulers also had estates on both sides of the present-day borders of Austria, Switzerland, and Germany.

From the 13th and 14th centuries onwards, Swabia (Schwaben), Habsburg, and the (slow) development of the Swiss Confederation played an essential role in this process.

Today, the cantons of Thurgau, St Gallen, and Schaffhausen are the central administrative units on the Swiss side of the lake. In Germany, this region is part of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. To the east, the lake borders Austria.

The border between Germany and Switzerland, or between the EU and Switzerland, is an (imaginary) line running right through the lake (and the Rhine). This border has never effectively hindered (trade and people) traffic, apart from the first half of the 20th century, because of the political situation and the two world wars.

In the latter days of World War II, in May 1945, after the German surrender, some German ships on Lake Constance sought refuge in Switzerland, an unobstructed waterway of a few kilometres. In vain, as the (French) occupying forces of Baden-Württemberg successfully requisitioned the ships.

It is regrettable that one of the heroes of the German resistance in World War II, George Elser (1903-1945), was arrested in Konstanz of all places after his failed attempt on the Führer on 8 November 1939 in Munich.

The movement of people, goods, ideas and culture has almost always been unimpeded. For George Elser, however, it was a fatal border. Lake Constance, with Meersburg, Bregenz, Lindau, and Friedrichshafen on the German and Austrian sides, and Kreuzlingen, Romanshorn, Rorschach, and Arbon on the Swiss side, remains the hub of borderless culture, trade, shipping, and passenger traffic.

Political developments and national borders have not impacted this lake. This richly illustrated edition guides readers through the region’s many cultural and historical treasures, towns, and places.

(Bron: P. Brauns, 101 Orte zum Verweilen und Entdecken, Darmstadt, 2015)

From the mid-fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, soldiers of the Eidgenossenschaft were the most sought-after export product.

The prestige of these mercenaries’ fighting spirit, courage, and armament rose to unprecedented heights after the defeats they inflicted on the most powerful armies: the Habsburg in 1315, 1386, 1415, 1460, and 1499, and the mighty Duchy of Burgundy in 1474-1477.

Without the Eidgenossen, the kingdom of Burgundy might have come into being, and the then powerless kingdom of France might have been a short episode in history. An estimated one and a half million (!) Swiss soldiers served kings, emperors, dukes, popes, republics and other rulers in this period.

The Swiss Guard is a relic of this era. The Lion of Lucerne (the Löwendenkmal) commemorates the Swiss Guard of King Louis XVI of France. Most of them did not survive the attack on the royal palace of the Tuilereëien in 1792.

The system was simple and effective. Prominent families maintained contact with their European patrons and received generous remuneration, often for generations.
The simple soldier, often from a peasant background, received his (meagre) pay and, with luck, returned to his village with some booty. Few became rich in this dangerous profession. Many remained in the countries of their patrons or did not survive.

The Constitution of 1848 banned this lucrative trade, for it had become what it was. Not so much for the ordinary soldier, but especially for the families that recruited them.

Moreover, after 1848, Switzerland underwent rapid development, transitioning from an emigration country to an immigration country. Additionally, the rural cantons in the country’s middle and east, which were the mercenaries’ purveyors, became less interested due to the rise of industry, tourism, trade, and the New World, specifically America.

The canton of Nidwalden in central Switzerland supplied many mercenaries for centuries. The fate of most of them is unknown.
However, there are individuals from well-known families. Louis Wyrsch, Borneo Louis, is one of the most famous. He served as an officer in the Dutch colonial army, making a name and fortune.

The mercenary sector has also been controversial in Switzerland. It was even an essential point of interest during the Reformation, among others, for the Zurich reformer Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531).

As early as 1530, he advocated for a ban due to moral and religious motives. Swiss mercenaries often fought against each other. It was regarded as immoral and a waste of human capital.

The Nidwalden Historical Museum in Stans presents a well-documented exhibition on the moral, economic, organisational and personal facets of Nidwalders’ foreign military service.

The exhibition also gives a good impression of this phenomenon in other cantons.
(Source: Historisches Museum Nidwalden, nidwaldner-museum.ch).