Rhine Sentence Examples
The upper Rhine and upper Danube are easily crossed.
The first advance came about 74, when what is now Baden was invaded and in part annexed and a road carried from the Roman base on the upper Rhine, Strassburg, to the Danube just above Ulm.
We do not, however, know its date, save that, if not Domitian's work, it was carried out soon after his death, and the whole frontier thus constituted was reorganized, probably by Hadrian, with a continuous wooden palisade reaching from Rhine to Danube.
But we know that the pressure of the barbarians began to be felt seriously in the later part of the 2nd century, and after long struggles the whole or almost the whole district east of Rhine and north of Danube was lost - seemingly all within one short period - about A.D.
He actively promoted the incorporation of the left bank of the Rhine with France and in 1793 went to Paris to carry on the negotiations.
The Lohengrin legend is localized on the Lower Rhine, and its incidents take place at Antwerp, Nijmwegen, Cologne and Mainz.
By the treaty of Pavia in this year, Louis granted the Palatinate of the Rhine and the upper Palatinate of Bavaria to his brother's sons, Rudolph II.
Rupert, who from 1353 to 1390 was sole ruler, gained the electoral dignity for the Palatinate of the Rhine in 1356 by a grant of some lands in upper Bavaria to the emperor Charles IV.
He was afterwards appointed the prince's envoy at Paris, where he remained till the decree of Napoleon, forbidding all persons born on the left side of the Rhine to serve any other state than France, compelled him to resign his office (IS'I).
For the Rhine provinces not incorporated in Prussia, with the special object of regulating episcopal elections; concerned Wurttemberg, Baden, Hesse, Saxony, Nassau, Frankfort, the Hanseatic towns, Oldenburg and Waldeck.
AdvertisementThe French held Cleves from 1757 to 1762 and in 1 795 the part of the duchy on the left bank of the Rhine was ceded to France; the remaining portion suffered a similar fate in 1805.
Mannheim is connected by a handsome bridge with Ludwigshafen, a rapidly growing bornmercial and manufacturing town on the left bank of the Rhine, in Bavarian territory.
Nearly the whole of the south-west side of the town is occupied by the palace (1720-1759), formerly the residence of the elector palatine of the Rhine.
Mannheim is the chief commercial town on the upper Rhine, and yields in importance to Cologne alone among the lower Rhenish towns.
It stands at the head of the effective navigation on the Rhine, and is not only the largest port on the upper course of that stream, but is the principal emporium for south Germany for such commodities as cereals, coal, petroleum, timber, sugar and tobacco, with a large trade in hops, wine and other south German produce.
AdvertisementThe name of Mannheim was connected with its present site in the 8th century, when a small village belonging to the abbey of Lorsch lay in the marshy district between the Neckar and the Rhine.
To the south of this village, on the Rhine, was the castle of Eicholzheim, which acquired some celebrity as the place of confinement assigned to Pope John XXIII.
Her elder son resigned his title and estates, and became a Jesuit under the name of the Abbe d'Orleans, while the younger, after leading a debauched life, was killed leading the attack in the passage of the Rhine in 1673.
Eberian influence in the south-west, Ligurian on the shores of the Mediterranean, Germanic immigrations from east of the Rhine and Scandinavian immigrations in the north-west have tended to produce ethnographical diversities which ease of intercommunication and other modern conditions have failed to obliterate.
The canal and river system attains its greatest utility in the north, northeast and north-centre of the country; traffic is thickest along the Seine below Paris; along the rivers and small canals of the rich departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais and along the Oise and the canal of St Quentin whereby they communicate with Paris; along the canal from the Marne to the Rhine and the succession of waterways which unite it with the Oise; along the Canal de lEst (departments of Meuse and Ardennes); and along the waterways uniting Paris with the Sane at Chalon (Seine, Canal du Loing, Canal de Briare, Lateral canal of the Loire and Canal du Centre) and along the Sane between Chalon and Lyons.
AdvertisementIn 16, when governor of Gaul, he was defeated by the Sigambri (Sygambri), Usipetes and Tencteri, German tribes who had crossed the Rhine.
The chief streams are the Werra, which traverses the south and east of the duchy, and various tributaries of the Main and the Saale, so that Saxe-Meiningen belongs to the basins of the three great rivers Weser, Rhine and Elbe.
Saxe-Meiningen had entered the confederation of the Rhine in 1807, but had joined the allies in 1813 and became a member of the German confederation in 1815.
He found the country peopled partly by tribes of Gallo-Celtic, partly by tribes of Germanic stock, the river Rhine forming roughly the line of demarcation between the races.
To the north of the Meuse, and more especially in the low-lying ground enclosed between the Waal and the Rhine (insula Batavorum) lived the Batavi, a clan of the great Germanic tribe, the Chatti.
AdvertisementBeyond these were found the Frisians, a people of German origin, who gave their name to the territory between the Rhine and the Ems. Of the other tribes the best known are the Caninefates, Chauci, Usipetes, Sicambri, Eburones, Menapii, Morini and Aduatici.
Rhine, was strongly held by a series of fortified camps.
With regard to the region north of the Rhine we first obtain information from the accounts of the campaigns of Nero, Claudius, Drusus and Tiberius.
Their land became a recruiting ground for the Roman armies, and a base for expeditions across the Rhine.
Of this period scarcely any record remains, but when at the end of the 3rd century the Franks began to swarm over the Rhine into the Roman lands, the names of the old tribes had disappeared.
In 880 the invaders took Nijmwegen, erected a permanent camp at Elsloo and pushed on to the Rhine.
On the 9th of July William crossed the Rhine, and captured Malines, Termonde and Oudenarde, and was advancing southwards when the news reached him of the massacre of St Bartholomew, which deprived him of the promised aid of Coligny and his army of 12,000 men.
At the close of 367, however, they suddenly crossed the Rhine, attacked Moguntiacum (Mainz) and plundered the city.
The next three years he spent at Trier, which he chiefly made his headquarters, organizing the defence of the Rhine frontier, and personally superintending the construction of numerous forts.
There are small detached portions in Waldeck, Thuringia, &c.; on the other hand the province enclaves the province of Oberhessen belonging to the grand-duchy of Hesse, and the circle of Wetzlar belonging to the Rhine Province.
The Main forms part of the southern boundary, and the Rhine the south-western; the western part of the province lies mostly in the basin of the Lahn, a tributary of the Rhine.
It extends along the right bank of the Rhine from Basel to Kehl, and includes the principal peaks of the southern Black Forest and the Freiburg valley.
He punished the Frisii who refused to pay the tribute, and was on the point of advancing against the Chauci, but was recalled by the emperor and ordered to withdraw behind the Rhine.
In order to provide employment for his soldiers, Corbulo made them cut a canal from the Mosa (Meuse) to the northern branch of the Rhine, which still forms one of the chief drains between Leiden and Sluys, and before the introduction of railways was the ordinary traffic road between Leiden and Rotterdam.
By the peace of Luneville in 1801 France annexed all the territories of Trier on the left bank of the Rhine, and in 1802 the elector abdicated.
The Treveran territories on the right bank of the Rhine were secularized and given to Nassau-Weilburg in 1803, and in 1814 nearly the whole of the former electoral dominions were given to Prussia.
For practical studies see official reports on the Mississippi, Rhine, Seine, Elbe and other great rivers.
In 851, and again in 882, the place was ravaged by the Northmen in their raids up the Rhine.
In the, 4th century Aix, now a free city of the Holy Roman Empire, played a conspicuous part, especially in the league which, between 1351 and 1387, kept the peace between the Meuse and the Rhine.
This line became extinct on the death of Count Eberhard (1393), who in 1385 had sold half his territory to the count palatine of the Rhine, and held the other half as his feudatory.
The first of these extended from the Pyrenees to the Garumna (Garonne); the second, from that river to the Sequana (Seine) and its chief tributary the Matrona (Marne), reaching eastward presumably as far as the Rhenus (Rhine); and the third, from this bounding Iline to the mouth of the last-named river, thus bordering on the Germans.
The Gallic Wars (58-51) of Caesar (q.v.) added all the rest of Gaul, north-west of the Cevennes, to the Rhine and the Ocean, and in 49 also annexed Massilia.
Here also it was found possible to dispense with garrisons, not because the provinces were as peaceful as Narbonensis, but because the Rhine army was close at hand.
Instead, his successor Tiberius organized the Rhine frontier in two military districts.
The contagion spread very rapidly, extending as far as the Rhine provinces, and, across Germany, into Bohemia.
Many towns shut their gates upon them; but, in spite of discouragement, they spread from Poland to the Rhine, and penetrated as far as Holland and Flanders.
The sovereigns of Sardinia, Naples, Portugal and Spain were dethroned, the pope was driven from Rome, the Rhine Confederation was extended till France obtained a footing on the Baltic, the grand-duchy of Warsaw was reorganized and strengthened, the promised evacuation of Prussia was indefinitely postponed, an armistice between Russia and Turkey was negotiated by French diplomacy in such a way that the Russian troops should evacuate the Danubian principalities, which Alexander intended to annex to his empire, and the scheme for breaking up the Ottoman empire and ruining England by the conquest of India, which had been one of the most attractive baits in the Tilsit negotiations, but which had not been formulated in the treaty, was no longer spoken of.
Having passed into the possession of the elector palatine of the Rhine, the building suffered much damage during a war in 1462, the Thirty Years' War, and the French invasion in 1689.
It is a left-bank tributary of the Rhine, into which it falls at Sinzig, rising in the Eifel mountains, and having a total length of 55 m.
On the east and north their boundary was the lower Rhine, on the west the ocean.
In any case, only the eastern districts would have been affected by invaders from over the Rhine, the chief seat of the Belgae proper being in the west, the country occupied by the Bellovaci, Ambiani and Atrebates, to which it is probable (although the reading is uncertain) that Caesar gives the distinctive name Belgium (corresponding to the old provinces of Picardy and Artois).
Ridgeway (Early Age of Greece, 1901) considers that the Belgic tribes were Cimbri, "who had moved directly across the Rhine into north-eastern Gaul."
Augustus, however, finding it too unwieldy, again divided it into three provinces, one of which was Belgica, bounded on the west by the Seine and the Arar (Saone); on the north by the North Sea; on the east by the Rhine from its mouth to the Lacus Brigantinus (Lake Constance).
The lay societies of the Beghards and the Beguines (for men and women respectively) date from the end of the 12th century, and soon became extremely popular both in the Low Countries and on the Rhine.
Above the village are the ruins of the castle of Rheingrafenstein (12th century), formerly a seat of the count palatine of the Rhine, which was destroyed by the French in 1689, and those of the castle of Ebernburg, the ancestral seat of the lords of Sickingen, and the birthplace of Franz von Sickingen, the famous landsknecht captain and protector of Ulrich von Hutten, to whom a monument was erected on the slope near the ruins in 1889.
The only river of importance is the Ill, which falls into the Rhine after a course of more than 100 m., and is navigable below Colmar.
Although this war was terminated in 1678 by the treaty of Nijmwegen, the French monarch was desirous of incorporating a still larger amount of Rhine territory; and accordingly in 1680 he laid claim to a number of territories, belonging to princes of the Empire, which he alleged had been dismembered from Alsace.
Protestantism was professed by a large number of the inhabitants; and in many respects their characteristics identified them rather with the race to the east than that to the west of the Rhine.
In 180r the bailiwicks to the west of the Rhine were absorbed by France; in 1809 the Order was entirely suppressed, and its lands went to the secular principalities in which they lay.
Extensive woods of this fir exist on the southern Alps, where the tree grows up to nearly 4000 ft.; in the Rhine countries it forms great part of the extensive forest of the Hochwald, and occurs in the Black Forest and in the Vosges; it is plentiful likewise on the Pyrenees and Apennines.
The young duc d'Enghien was then residing at Ettenheim in Baden near the bank of the Rhine.
But it was on the banks of the Rhine that the Napoleonic system received its most signal developments.
He now grouped together the princes of south and central Germany in the Confederation of the Rhine, of which he was the protector and practically the ruler in all important affairs.
Austria now proposed the terms named above with the addition that the Confederation of the Rhine must be dissolved, and that Prussia should be placed in a position as good as that which she held in 1805, that is, before the campaign of Jena.
Metternich persuaded the tsar and the king of Prussia to make a declaration that the allies would leave to Napoleon the "natural boundaries" of France - the Rhine, Alps, Pyrenees and Ocean.
So often had he declared that the Rhine and Holland were necessary to France that every one looked on his present assertions as a mere device to gain time.
Far from being ambitious or scheming, he was lazy and selfindulgent, fond of eating and drinking, and owed his elevation to the throne to Caecina and Valens, commanders of two legions on the Rhine.
In 1803, having formally surrendered the part of Hesse on the left bank of the Rhine which had been taken from him in the early days of the Revolution, Louis received in return a much larger district which had formerly belonged to the duchy of Westphalia, the electorate of Mainz and the bishopric of Worms. In 1806, being a member of the confederation of the Rhine, he took the title of Louis I., grandduke of Hesse; he supported Napoleon with troops from 1805 to 1813, but after the battle of Leipzig he joined the allies.
Louis secured again a district on the left bank of the Rhine, including the cities of Mainz and Worms, but he made cessions of territory to Prussia and to Bavaria and he recognized the independence of HesseHomburg, which had recently been incorporated with his lands.
However, his title of grand-duke was confirmed, and as grandduke of Hesse and of the Rhine he entered the Germanic confederation.
In 385 he was appointed master of the soldiery (magister militum) in Thrace, and shortly afterwards directed energetic campaigns in Britain against Picts, Scots and Saxons, and along the Rhine against other barbarians.
Consequently in 395, after a successful campaign against the Germans on the Rhine, Stilicho marched to the east, nominally to expel the Goths and Huns from Thrace, but really with the design of displacing Rufinus, and by connivance with these same barbarians he procured the assassination of Rufinus at the close of the year, and thereby became virtual master of the empire.
The armies of Fulcher and Gottschalk were destroyed by the Hungarians in just revenge for their excesses (June); the third, after joining in a wild Judenhetze in the towns of the valley of the Rhine, during which some io,000 Jews perished as the first-fruits of crusading zeal, was scattered to the winds in Hungary (August).
The great route was that which led from Venice over the Brenner and up the Rhine to Bruges; and this route became the long red line of municipal development, along which - in Lombardy, Germany and Flanders - the great towns of the middle ages sprang to life.
The most prominent building in the city is the cathedral or Munster, built of deep red sandstone, on a terrace high above the Rhine.
After long swaying between the neighbouring Rhine cities and the Swiss Confederation, it was admitted into the latter in 1501.
Here Blucher crossed the Rhine with the Prussian and Russian armies, on New Year's night 1813-1814, in pursuit of the French.
Of the laws of the Alamanni, who dwelt between the Rhine and the Lech, and spread over Alsace and what is now Switzerland to the south of Lake Constance, we possess two different texts.
The place has an active trade, especially in grain and in the timber floated down from the Black Forest by the Rhine and the Ysel; the industries include tanning, weaving, and oil and paper manufactures.
The waters of the Rhine change into black mists which grow grey and thin, while the now sinister theme becomes softer and smoother.
Oberhessen is hilly; though of no great elevation it extends over the water-parting between the basins of the Rhine and the Weser, and in the Vogelsberg it has as its culminating point the Taufstein (2533 ft.).
Starkenburg occupies the angle between the Main and the Rhine, and in its south-eastern part includes some of the ranges of the Odenwald, the highest part being the Seidenbucher Hohe (1965 ft.).
Rheinhessen is separated from Starkenburg by the Rhine, and has that river as its northern as well as its eastern frontier, though it extends across it at the north-east corner, where the Rhine, on receiving the Main, changes its course abruptly from south to west.
The emperor was returning from suppressing a revolt on the part of his son Louis, provoked by this disposition, when he died on the 20th of June 840 on an island in the Rhine near Ingelheim.
Till 1859 Lassalle resided mostly in the Rhine country, prosecuting the suit of the countess, finishing the work on Heraclitus, which was not published till 1858, taking little part in political agitation, but ever a helpful friend of the working men.
Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfort and the industrial centres on the Rhine were the chief scenes of his activity.
His greatest success was on the Rhine, where in the summers of 1863 and 1864 his travels as missionary of the new gospel resembled a triumphal procession.
On that date his army had crossed the Rhine and was entering the defiles of the Black Forest.
After the peace of Tilsit the Grand Army was gradually withdrawn behind the Rhine, leaving only three commands, totalling 63,000 men, under Davout in Prussia, Oudinot in west central Germany, and Lefebvre in Bavaria, to assist the princes of the Confederation of the Rhine in the maintenance of order and the enforcement of the French law of conscription, which was rigorously insisted on in all the States comprised in this new federation.
The moment news of their activity reached him, whilst still in pursuit of Sir John Moore, he despatched letters to all the members of the Confederation warning them that their contingents might soon be required, and at the same time issued a series of decrees to General Clarke, his war minister, authorizing him to call up the contingent of 1810 in advance, and directing him in detail to proceed with the formation of 4th and 5th battalions for all the regiments across the Rhine.
To disavow the acts and desires of the army and of the secret societies for defence with which all north Germany was honeycombed would be to imperil the very existence of the monarchy, whilst an attack on the wreck of the Grand Army meant the certainty of a terrible retribution from the new armies now rapidly forming on the Rhine.
Levies were also made with rigorous severity in the states of the Rhine Confederation, and even Italy was called on for fresh sacrifices.
When the last of the French troops had crossed to the western bank of the Rhine, divided counsels made their appearance at the headquarters of the allies.
Hence a prolonged halt arose, utilized by the troops in renewing their equipment and so forth, but ultimately the Young German party, led by Blucher and the principal fighting men of the army, triumphed, and on the 1st of January 1814 the Silesian army (50,000) began its passage of the Rhine at Kaub.
On the Tabula Peutingeriana appear the "Chamavi qui et Pranci," which should doubtless read " qui et Franci "; these Chamavi apparently dwelt between the Yssel and the Ems. Later, we find them a little farther south, on the banks of the Rhine, in the district called Hamalant, and it is their customs which were brought together in the 9th century in the document known as the Lex Francorum Chamavorum.
The Salians inhabited the sea-coast, whereas the Ripuarians dwelt on the banks of the river Rhine.
At the end of the 4th century and at the beginning of the 5th, when the Roman legions withdrew from the banks of the Rhine, the Salians installed themselves in the district as an independent people.
They settled in the 5th century in compact masses on the left bank of the Rhine, but their progress was slow.
Thus the Salian Franks united under their rule all the Franks on the left bank of the Rhine.
In his thirty-third year (c. 690) he started with twelve companions for the mouth of the Rhine.
Ultimately, however, the minister, strong in the support of Elizabeth, prevailed, and his faultless diplomacy, backed by the despatch of an auxiliary Russian corps of 30,000 men to the Rhine, greatly accelerated the peace negotiations which led to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (October 18, 1748).
Hence there is water communication with the Neckar, and so to the Rhine and into the interior of France.
At the time of Charlemagne, the word Austrasia underwent a change of meaning and became synonymous with Francia orientalis, and was applied to the Frankish dominions beyond the Rhine (Franconia).
There is trade in agricultural produce, wine, metals, &c. The canal from the Rhone to the Rhine passes under the citadel by way of a tunnel, and the port of Besancon has considerable trade in coal, sand, &c.
Already, in 926, they had crossed the Rhine and ravaged Lotharingia.
Leopold, intent on the doings of his perennial rival Louis XIV., was 10th to engage in an eastern war even for the liberation of Hungary, which he regarded as of far less importance than a strip or two of German territory on the Rhine.
He fought with success against the German tribes, but soon left the defence of the Upper Rhine to his legates and returned to Rome, where he abandoned himself to all kinds of debauchery and excess.
It is limited towards the north-east by the canal from the Marne to the Rhine, on the south-west by a small arm of the Ornain, called the Canal des Usines, on the left bank of which the upper town (Ville Haute) is situated.
On the dissolution of the Empire in 1806 he formally resigned the office of arch-chancellor in a letter to the emperor Francis, and was appointed by Napoleon prince primate of the Confederation of the Rhine.
The rivers in this fertile tract of country are the Rhine, Lauter, Queich, Speirbach, Glan and Blies.
The Vosges, and their continuation the Hardt, run through the land from south to north and divide it into the fertile and mild plain of the Rhine, together with the slope of the Hardt range, on the east, and the rather inclement district on the west, which, running between the Saarbriick carboniferous mountains and the northern spurs of the Hardt range, ends in a porphyrous cluster of hills, the highest point of which is the Donnersberg (2254 ft.).
Spires (Speyer) is the seat of government, and the chief industrial centres are Ludwigshafen on the Rhine, which is the principal river port, Landau, and Neustadt, the seat of the wine trade.
The count palatine of the Rhine was a royal official who is first mentioned in the 10th century.
The break-up of the duchy of Franconia had increased the influence of the count palatine of the Rhine, and the importance of his position among the princes of the empire is shown by Roger of Hoveden, who, writing of the election to the German throne in 1198, singles out four princes as chief electors, among whom is the count palatine of the Rhine.
When the possessions of the house of Wittelsbach were divided in 1255 and the branches of Bavaria and the Palatinate were founded, a dispute arose over the exercise of the electoral vote, and the question was not settled until in 1356 the Golden Bull bestowed the privilege upon the count palatine of the Rhine, who exercised it until 1623.
In 1802 the elector was obliged to cede the portion of the Palatinate lying on the left bank of the Rhine to France, and other portions to Baden and to Hesse-Darmstadt.
In 1799 he was sent by the Directory to organize the defence of the four departments on the left bank of the Rhine threatened by invasion.
A gigantic project has also been put forward for providing water communication between the Rhine and the Elbe, and so with the Oder, through the heart of Germany.
The remainder of the Hesse-Cassel troops, which had retired southward before Beyer's advance on Cassel, went to the Rhine valley about Mainz.
Leopold's brother Henry (surnamed Jasomirgott from his favourite oath, "So help me God!") was made count palatine of the Rhine in 1140, and became margrave of Austria on Leopold's death in 1141.
The name Rhine, which is apparently of Celtic origin, is of uncertain etymology, the most favoured derivations being either from der Rinnende (the flowing), or from Rein (the clear), the latter being now the more generally accepted.
The Rhine rises in the mountains of the Swiss canton of the Grisons, and flows for 233 m.
On issuing from the Lake of Constance at Constance, the Rhine flows nearly due west to Basel, where it leaves Swiss territory, the south bank during this portion of the river being entirely Swiss, save the town of Constance, but the north shore belongs to Baden, save in the case of the Swiss town of Stein-am-Rhein and the Swiss canton of Schaffhausen.
After Basel, when the Rhine turns to the north and enters Germany, its breadth is between 550 and 600 ft., while its surface now lies not more than Boo ft.
From Basel to Mainz the Rhine flows through a wide and shallow valley, bordered on the east and west by the parallel ranges of the Black Forest and the Vosges.
Farther on the country traversed by the Rhine is perfectly level, and the current becomes more and more sluggish.
The smaller branch to the right retains the name of Rhine and sends off another arm, called the Yssel, to the Zuider Zee.
The Rhine now pursues a westerly course almost parallel with that of the Waal.
In Roman times the Rhine at this part of its course seems to have been a full and flowing river, but by the 9th century it had lost itself in the sands of Katwijk, and it was not until the beginning of the 19th century that its way to the sea was re-opened.
The Rhine is said to receive, directly or indirectly, the waters of upwards of 12,000 tributaries of all sizes.
Before joining the Rhine the Ill runs almost parallel with it and at no great distance for upwards of 50 m.
In the narrow part of the valley, between Bingen and Cologne, the Rhine receives the waters of the Lahn and the Sieg on the right, and those of the Mosel, bringing with it the Saar, and the Ahr on the left.
The numerous arms into which the Rhine branches in Holland have already been noticed.
The Rhine connects the highest Alps with the mud banks of Holland, and touches in its course the most varied geological periods; but the river valley itself is, geologically speaking, of comparatively recent formation.
Rising amid the ancient gneiss rocks of the St Gotthard, the Rhine finds its way down to the Lake of Constance between layers of Triassic and Jurassic formation; and between that lake and Basel it penetrates the chalk barrier of the Jura.
In this district, too, as has already been remarked, is the finest scenery of the Rhine, a fact due in great part to the grotesque shapes of the quartzose rocks, left denuded of the less durable slate and sandstone.
All the strata intersected by the Rhine between Bingen and Bonn contain fossils of the same classes.
The Rhine has been one of the chief waterways of Europe from the earliest times; and, as its channel is not exposed to the danger of silting up like those of the Elbe and the Oder, it has always been comparatively easy to keep it open.
The Romans exerted themselves to improve the lower navigation of the river, and appointed prefects of the Rhine to superintend the shipping and to exact the moderate dues imposed to keep the channel in repair.
Many of the riparian potentates derived the bulk of their revenue from this source, and it is calculated that in the 18th century the Rhine yielded a total revenue of X200,000, in spite of the comparatively insignificant amount of the shipping.
The first proposal for a free Rhine was mooted by the French at the congress of Rastatt (1797-1799), but Holland, commanding the mouth of the river, placed every obstacle in the way of the suggestion.
The introduction of steam has greatly increased the shipping on the Rhine; and small steamers ply also on the Main, the Neckar, the Maas and the Mosel.
The first Rhine steamer was launched in 1817; and now the river is regularly traversed by upwards of a hundred, from the small tug up to the passenger saloon-steamer.
London, Hamburg, Bremen and the chief Baltic ports as far as Riga and St Petersburg participate in the traffic on the Rhine.
At present the Rhine in Holland has a depth of about 9 ft.
Altogether a sum approaching 2,500,000 was spent in Holland within the latter part of the 19th century on the improvement of the Rhine and its principal arteries.
One of the most interesting features of the Rhine navigation is afforded by the huge rafts of timber that are floated down the river.
Single tree trunks sent down to the Rhine by the various tributaries are united into small rafts as they reach the main stream; and these again are fastened together to form one large raft about Andernach.
Before the introduction of railways there were no permanent bridges across the Rhine below Basel; but now trains cross it at about a dozen different points in Germany and Holland.
Politically the Rhine has always played a great part.
Probably the Teutonic pressure began as early as the 4th century before Christ, and the history of the next few hundred years may be summed up as the gradual substitution of a Germanic for a Celtic population along the banks of the Rhine.
Augustus and his successors took good care to fortify the Rhine carefully, and a large proportion of the Roman legions were constantly in garrison here.
For two hundred years the Rhine formed the boundary between the Roman empire and the Teutonic hordes; and during that period the left or Roman bank made prodigious strides in civilization and culture.
The wonderful Roman remains at Trier and elsewhere, the Roman roads, bridges and aqueducts, are convincing proofs of what the Rhine gained from Roman domination.
Under Charlemagne, whose principal residence was in Aix-la-Chapelle, the culture of the Rhine valley again began to flourish, its results being still to be traced in the important architectural remains of this period.
During the early middle ages the bank of the Rhine formed the most cultured part of Germany, basing its civilization on its Roman past.
The Thirty Years' War exercised a most prejudicial effect upon the district of the Rhine; and the peace of Westphalia gave France a footing on the left bank of the hitherto exclusively German river by the acquisition of Alsace.
The violent seizure of Strassburg by France in 1681 was ratified by the peace of Ryswick in 1697, which recognized the Rhine as the boundary between Germany and France from Basel to about Germersheim.
It was an easy inference for the French mind that the Rhine should be the boundary throughout and the Gaul of Caesar restored.
This ideal was realized in 1801, when the whole of the left hank of the Rhine was formally ceded to France.
The congress of Vienna (1815) restored the lower part of the Rhenish valley to Germany, but it was not till the war of 1870-71 that the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine made the Rhine once more "Germany's river, not Germany's frontier."
In the military history of all these centuries constant allusion is made to the Rhine, its passages and its fortresses.
Every general who has fought in its neighbourhood has at one time or another had to provide for a crossing of the Rhine, from Julius Caesar, who crossed it twice, down to our own time.
The Rhine has always exercised a peculiar sort of fascination over the German mind, in a measure and in a manner not easily paralleled by the case of any other river.
The Rhine was the classic river of the middle ages; and probably the Tiber alone is of equal historical interest among European rivers.
But of late years the beauties of the Rhine have become sadly marred; the banks in places, especially between Coblenz and Bonn, disfigured by quarrying, the air made dense with the smoke of cement factories and steam-tugs, commanding spots falling a prey to the speculative builder and villages growing into towns.
The Lex Ripuaria was the law of the Ripuarian Franks, who dwelt between the Meuse and the Rhine, and whose centre was Cologne.
This is only a tradition, but the institution of such schools originated undoubtedly in the upper Rhine district.
This was first done on a large scale in 1803, when by a recess of the imperial diet many of the smaller fiefs were mediatized, in order to compensate those German princes who had been forced to cede their territories on the left bank of the Rhine to France.
In 1806 the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine involved an extension of this mediatizing process, though the abolition of the empire itself deprived the word "mediatization" of its essential meaning.
It now takes a tortuous westerly course, and the scenery on its banks becomes more romantic. Winding down by Neckarsteinach and Neckargemund between lofty wooded heights, it sweeps beneath the Kanigsstuhl (1900 ft.), washes the walls of Heidelberg, and now quitting the valley enters the plain of the Rhine and falls into that river from the right at Mannheim.
Not far from these ancient monuments is the new Raetian Museum, which contains a great collection of objects relating to Raetia (including the geological collections of the Benedictine monk of Disentis, Placidus a Spescha (1752-1833), who explored the high snowy regions around the sources of the Rhine).
Along the centre lies the watershed between the basins of the Main and the Saale, belonging to the systems of the Rhine and Elbe respectively.
He supported Rupert III., elector palatine of the Rhine, in his struggle with King Wenceslaus for the German throne, probably because Wenceslaus refused to fulfil a promise to give him his sister Anna in marriage.
Pop. (1905), 91,124 (including a garrison of 7 500 men), of whom two-thirds are Roman Catholic. The Rhine, which here attains the greatest breadth of its upper course, is crossed by a magnificent bridge of five arches, leading to the opposite town of Castel and by two railway bridges.
Alongside the quay are the landing-places of the steamboats navigating the Rhine.
The archbishopric was secularized in 1803, two years after the lands on the left bank of the Rhine had been seized by France.
Otto therefore crossed the Rhine and deprived his brother of authority.
Parts of these doors are covered with bronze reliefs of scenes from the Bible, which are of still earlier date, and were probably brought to Verona from the Rhine provinces.
From 1806 to 1810 it was the residence of Karl von Dalberg, princeprimate of the Confederation of the Rhine, with whose dominions Frankfort had been incorporated by Napoleon.
The river Main has been dredged so as to afford heavy barge traffic with the towns of the upper Main and with the Rhine, and cargo boats load and unload alongside its busy quays.
Lying between the Rhine and the Dreisam is the Kaiserstuhl, an independent volcanic group, nearly 10 m.
The greater part of Baden belongs to the basin of the Rhine, which receives upwards of twenty tributaries from the highlands; the north-eastern portion of the territory is also watered by the Main and the Neckar.
The Rhine valley is the warmest district in Germany, but the higher elevations of the Black Forest record the greatest degrees of cold experienced in the south.
A line runs the whole length of the land, for the most part parallel with the Rhine, while branches cross obliquely from east to west.
Mannheim is the great emporium for the export of goods down the Rhine and has a large river traffic. It is also the chief manu facturing town of the duchy and the seat of administrative government for the northern portion of the country.
The Roman Catholic archbishop of Freiburg is metropolitan of the Upper Rhine.
During the 15th century a war with the count palatine of the Rhine deprived Margrave Charles I.
When war broke out between France and Austria in 1792 the Badenese fought for Austria; consequently their country was devastated and in 1796 the margrave was compelled to pay an indemnity, and to cede his territories on the left bank of the Rhine to France.
The great strategic importance of Dijon as a centre of railways and roads, and its position with reference to an invasion of France from the Rhine, have led to the creation of a fortress forming part of the Langres group. There is no enceinte, but on the east side detached forts, 3 to 4 m.
From 1330 to 1622, when it was conquered by Austria, the town formed part of the Palatinate of the Rhine.
Loyal at first to King Wenceslaus, the king's neglect of Germany drove Frederick to take part in his deposition in 1400, and in the election of Rupert III., count palatine of the Rhine, whom he accompanied to Italy in the following year.
Viersen is one of the chief seats in the lower Rhine country for the manufacture of velvets, silks (especially umbrella covers) and plush.
The French evacuated Dutch territory early in 1674, but continued to hold places on the Rhine and in Flanders.
At the age of fifteen he proceeded with the 12th Foot (now Suffolk Regiment) to the Rhine Campaign, and at Dettingen he distinguished himself so much as acting adjutant that he was made lieutenant.
Beginning about the 5th century, the Roman empire was overthrown by German tribes from the north of the river Danube and east of the river Rhine.
Besides the great railway line over the Brenner, there are other lines from Botzen past Meran to Mals, from Franzensfeste up the Pusterthal to Lienz in the Drave valley, and from Innsbruck, by a tunnel beneath the Arlberg Pass to the Vorarlberg and the Rhine valley.
In the electorate of Cologne they were in friendly country, and the main army soon moved down the Rhine from Dusseldorf, the corps of Turenne on the left bank, that of Conde on the right.
The Rhine fortresses offered but little resistance to the advance of Turenne and Conde.
William of Orange with a weak field army tried to defend the Yssel-Rhine line, but the French rapidly forced the passage of the Rhine at Tollhuis (June 12th) and passed into the Betuwe (between the Leck and the Waal).
A war of manoeuvre on the middle Rhine ended in favour of the French, and the allies then turned against the territories of Cologne and Munster, while William, disappointed in his hopes of joining forces with his friends, made a bold, but in the end unsuccessful, raid on Charleroi (September-December 1672).
Conde in Holland was to renew his efforts against the Amsterdam defences; during the winter the demands of the war on the Rhine had reduced the French forces in the provinces to the size of a mere army of occupation.'
The French retreat to the Rhine was painful and costly, and Montecucculi then passed that river at Mainz and made for Trier.
Turenne's Rhine campaign began with an invasion of Germany, undertaken to prevent interference with Louis in Franche-Comte.
An army of South Germans in the Breisgau, after an unsuccessful attempt to invade Alsace, moved northward to the Neckar valley with the intention of uniting with Bournonville, who was moving up the Rhine to meet them.
He crossed the Rhine at Philipsburg early in June, and on the 16th fell upon the inferior forces of Caprara in their entrenched position of Sinsheim.
Turenne then laid waste the Palatinate, in order that it should no longer support an army, and fell back over the Rhine, ignoring the reproaches of the elector palatine, who vainly challenged him to a duel.
After a slight attempt to invade Lorraine, which Turenne easily stopped, the Imperialists suddenly recrossed the Rhine and marched rapidly into the neighbourhood of the Strassburg bridge.
His army now went into winter quarters about Strassburg, and drew supplies from the German bank of the Rhine and even from the Neckar valley (January 1675).
On the Rhine was fought the last campaign of Turenne and Montecucculi.
Montecucculi's skill failed completely to shake his position, and in the end the prince compelled him to retire over the Rhine.
The French now laid waste the land between the Meuse and Moselle for the same reason which brought about the devastation of the Palatinate in 1674, and the year closed with a war of manoeuvre on the upper Rhine between the Imperialists under the duke of Lorraine and the French under Luxemburg.
He began by driving back the duke of Lorraine to the Rhine.
Another attempt by the Lorraine family to reconquer their duchy was thus foiled, and at the same time a second imperial army under the duke of Saxe-Eisenach, which had crossed the Rhine by Philipsburg, was shut up in an island of the Rhine and forced to make terms with the French.
On the Rhine, Crequi began by winning the battle of Rheinfelden (July 6th), after which he inflicted upon the Imperialists another defeat at Gengenbach (July 23rd) and took Kehl.
Trajan was ordered in hot haste from Further Spain to the Rhine.
He made a thorough inspection of the great lines of defence between the Danube and the Rhine, and framed and partly carried out a vast scheme for strengthening and securing them.
It is probable that the northernmost part of the great limes Germaniae, from the Rhine at Rheinbrohl, nearly midway between Coblenz and Bonn, to a point on the Main east of Frankfort, where that river suddenly changes its course from north to west, was begun by Domitian.
After his careful survey of the Rhine end of the frontier defences, Trajan proceeded to strengthen them in the direction of the Danube.
Yet the breach made in Trajan's felicitas by the failure in the East was no greater than that made in the felicitas of Augustus by his retirement from the right bank of the Rhine.
The second plan was largely adopted in Switzerland and on the Rhine, where measures resembling those taken with cattle suspected of anthrax were applied to all diseased vineyards.
He erected a stone bridge with wooden piers across the Rhine at Mainz, and began a canal between the Altmiihl and the Rednitz to connect the Rhine and the Danube, but this work was not finished.
A fine bridge leads north over the Rhine to one suburb, Petershausen, while to the south the town gradually merges into the Swiss suburb of Kreuzlingen.
The principal field is that of the lower Rhine and Westphalia, which centres in the industrial region of the basin of the Ruhr, a right-bank tributary of the Rhine.
The streams mostly join the Moselle, which forms the boundary between Luxemburg and the Rhine province for about 20 m.
When the flames had done their office, the ashes that were left and even the soil on which they lay were carefully removed and thrown into the Rhine.
In Germany the indemnification of the princes who lost all their lands west of the Rhine was found by secularizing and absorbing the ecclesiastical states of the empire.
In 1807 Waldeck joined the confederation of the Rhine, and in 1815 entered the German confederation.
He returned to Germany, where he restored order in Bavaria, and made an expedition against some rebels in the regions of the lower Rhine.
By this Lothair received Italy and the imperial title, together with a stretch of land between the North and Mediterranean Seas lying along the valleys of the Rhine and the Rhone.
He also began to purchase sea-going vessels as well as river steamers and barges, the latter, especially on the Rhine, on a constantly increasing scale.
The Rhine frontier was threatened by Schwarzenberg's Austrians (210,000); Barclay de Tolly's Russians (150,000) were slowly coming up; and another Austrian force menaced the S.E.
It was accordingly arranged that Wellington and Blucher should await in Belgium the arrival of the Austrian and Russian masses on the Rhine, about July 1, before the general invasion of France was begun.
Once Wellington and Blucher were destroyed he would move southwards and meet the other allies on the Rhine.
Early in 1800 he became minister of war, and he accompanied Moreau in the early part of the Rhine campaign.
Aargau is an industrious and prosperous canton, straw-plaiting, tobacco-growing, silk-ribbon weaving, and salmon-fishing in the Rhine being among the chief industries.
For the history of German thought it was of the greatest importance that a Liberal from the Rhine, by a systematic history of the Revolution, attempted to overthrow the influence which the revolutionary legend, as expounded by French writers, had acquired over the German mind; and the book was an essential part of the influences which led to the formation of a National Liberal school of thought.
Two years later he put down a rising of the Aquitanians in Gaul, and crossed the Rhine to punish the aggressions of the Germans.
When the FrancoGerman War broke out in 1870, de Cissey was given a divisional command in the Army of the Rhine, and he was included in the surrender of Bazaine's army at Metz.
Between this mountain chain and its spurs, which fall steeply to the E., and the Rhine, stretches a fertile plain forming the eastern half of Alsace.
The drainage of the Vosges valleys and of the Rhine valley is collected and carried into the Rhine about 10 m.
With the exception of a few streams which run to the Rhone, all the waters of Alsace flow into the Rhine.
The Rhine valley is in great part fertile, yielding good crops of potatoes, cereals (including maize), sugar beet, hops, tobacco, flax, hemp and products of oleaginous plants.
The territory has always been the centre of an active commerce, owing to its situation on the confines of Germany, France and Switzerland, and alongside the great highway of the Rhine.
The earlier Saxony was the district lying between the Elbe and the Saale on the east, the Eider on the north and the Rhine on the west, with a fluctuating boundary on the south.
The valley of the Rhine from Coblenz to Deutz was ravaged, and the advance of winter prevented Charles from sending more than a flying column to drive back the Saxons.
At the peace of Posen (11th December 1806) Frederick assumed the title of king of Saxony, and entered the Confederation 'of the Rhine as an independent sovereign, promising a contingent of 20,000 men to Napoleon.
Ulpius Trajanus, a distinguished soldier, at the time in command of the legions on the Rhine.
He was brought up in his father's camp on the Rhine among the soldiers, and received the name Caligula from the caligae, or foot-soldiers' boots, which he used to wear.
Ambiorix is said to have found safety across the Rhine.
Klytia (1883) was a 16th-century story, Jetta (1884) a tale of the great immigrations, and Elfriede " a romance of the Rhine."
It consisted of two parts, the district of Homburg on the right side of the Rhine, and the district of Meisenheim, which was added in 1815, on the left side of the same river.
Homburg now forms part of the Prussian province of HesseNassau, and Meisenheim of the province of the Rhine.
Strabo gave it still greater extent, treating it as covering the whole region from the Rhine to the North Sea.
As middlemen they already possessed a large interest in the spice trade, for the Portuguese, having no direct access to the principal European markets, had made a practice of sending cargo to the Netherlands for distribution by way of the Scheldt and Rhine.
He subsequently held various commands in Holland, on the Rhine and in Italy, where up to January 17 99 he commanded in chief.
The white wines of Baden or the Rhine did not suit him; he could only drink those of Burgundy or Franche-Comte.
For, in view of the facts above stated, it was of small significance that in Britain Christianity was driven back into the western portion of the island still held by the Britons, and that in the countries of the Rhine and!Danube a few bishoprics disappeared.
Not only were the bishoprics in the towns of the Rhine country re-established, but as the Franks colonized the country on both sides of the Main, they carried the Christian faith into the very heart of Germany.
He had represented the Convention in the armies of Brest and of the Eastern Pyrenees in 1793, and in 1 795 he was sent to the armies of the Moselle and the Rhine.
In June 842 the three brothers met on an island in the Saone to negotiate a peace, and each appointed forty representatives to arrange the boundaries of their respective kingdoms. This developed into the treaty of Verdun concluded in August 843, by which Louis received the bulk of the lands of the Carolingian empire lying east of the Rhine, together with a district around Spires, Worms and Mainz, on the left bank of the river.
He saw active service on the Rhine in 1794 and in Italy in 1795, and in the campaign of 1796-97 was employed in engineer duties with the Army of Italy.
On July 31, in a reply to the German Chancellor Michaelis, he admitted that in 1917 an agreement had been made with the Tsar to erect the German territories on the left bank of the Rhine into an autonomous state, but denied that there had been any question of their annexation to France.
The greater states gained largely, especially Prussia, who was given large accessions of territory on the Rhine, partly as a compensation for her disappointment in the matter of Saxony, partly that she might act as a bulwark against France.
In 1806 he was admitted as grand duke of Wiirzburg to the confederation of the Rhine.
In 1845 began the marked influx of Germans, which lasted in large degree up to 1860; they first limited themselves to the district "Over the Rhine" (the Rhine being the Miami & Erie Canal), in the angle north-east of the junction of Canal and Sycamore streets, but gradually spread throughout the city, although this "Over the Rhine" is still most typically German.
In 1859 he became a member of the presidial council (Oberprdsidialrat) at Coblenz, capital of the Prussian Rhine province, and from 1860 to 1866 was Landrat at Demmin in Pomerania.
Military successes on the Seale Rhine and in Italy secured the favourable terms of the treaty of Vienna (1735-1738).
In all these points the lead was first taken by south Germany, and by the towns along the Rhine down to the Netherlands.
At the battle of Theiningen, 1796, he contributed, more than any one else, to the successful retreat of the French army over the Rhine after its defeat by the archduke Charles.
In 1797 he brought reinforcements from the Rhine to Bonaparte's army in Italy, distinguishing himself greatly at the passage of the Tagliamento, and in 1798 was sent as ambassador to Vienna, but was compelled to quit his post owing to the disturbances caused by his hoisting the tricolor over the embassy.
The place is mainly celebrated for the beautiful Schloss which crowns a hill overlooking the Rhine valley, and is surrounded by vineyards yielding the famous Johannisberger wine.
Charles received a portion of the kingdom of Lothair afterwards called Lorraine, extending from the mouths of the Rhine to Toul, together with the town of Besancon, the Lyonnais, the Viennais, the Vivarais, and the Uzege, i.e.
The two branches of the Rhine which enter Leiden on the east unite in the centre of the town, which is further intersected by numerous small and sombre canals, with tree-bordered quays and old houses.
At the junction of the two arms of the Rhine stands the old castle (De Burcht), a circular tower built on an earthen mound.
The mutual jealousies of the Gallic tribes had enabled German invaders first to gain a foothold on the left bank of the Rhine, and then to obtain a predominant position in Central Gaul.
He at once demanded a conference, which Ariovistus refused, and on hearing that fresh swarms were crossing the Rhine, marched with all haste to Vesontio (Besancon) and thence by way of Belfort into the plain of Alsace, where he gained a decisive victory over the Germans, of whom only a few (including Ariovistus) reached the right bank of the Rhine in safety.
In 55 B.C. certain German tribes, the Usipetes and Tencteri, crossed the lower Rhine, and invaded the modern Flanders.
Caesar meanwhile constructed his famous bridge over the Rhine in ten days, and made a demonstration of force on the right bank.
C. was marked by a second crossing of the Rhine and by the destruction of the Eburones, whose leader Ambiorix, however, escaped.
Boppard is a favourite tourist centre, and being less pent in by hills than many other places in this part of the picturesque gorge of the Rhine, has in modern times become a residential town.
Tyndale and his assistant, William Roye, managed, however, to escape higher up the Rhine to Worms, and they succeeded in carrying with them some or all of the sheets which had been printed.
He was one of that band of young scholars, among whom were also Ernest Lavisse, Gabriel Monod and Gaston Paris, whose enthusiasm was aroused by the principles and organization of scientific study as applied beyond the Rhine, and who were ready to devote themselves to their cherished plan of remodelling higher education in France.
The Rotlagergebirge, Eggegebirge and Teutoburger Wald form with some intermediate ranges the watershed between the basin of the Weser and those of the Rhine and Ems. In the N.E.
By Maximilian's administrative organization of the empire in 1500 the duchy of Westphalia was included as an appanage of Cologne in the scattered circle of the Lower Rhine.
But any further development of Otho's policy was checked by the news which reached Rome shortly after his accession, that the army in Germany had declared for Vitellius, the commander of the legions on the lower Rhine, and was already advancing upon Italy.
In 1807 Schwarzburg-Sondershausen entered the Confederation of the Rhine and became a sovereign state.
Bounded on the south and west by the valley of the Rhine, to which its declivities abruptly descend, and running parallel to, and forming the counterpart of the Vosges beyond, it slopes more gently down to the valley of the Neckar in the north and to that of the Nagold (a tributary of the Neckar) on the north-east.
The Black Forest produces excellent timber, which is partly sawn in the valleys and partly exported down the Rhine in logs.
In addition to the main lines in the valleys of the Rhine and Neckar, which are connected with the towns lying on its fringe, the district is intersected by the Schwarzwaldbahn from Offenburg to Singen, from which various small local lines ramify.
The sapphire occurs also in Europe, being found in the Iserweise of Bohemia and in the basalt of the Rhine valley and of Le-Puy-en-Velay in France, but the European stones have no interest as gems.
Before the arrival of Caesar in Gaul, the Sequani had taken the part of the Arverni against their rivals the Aedui and hired the Germans under Ariovistus to cross the Rhine and help them (71 B.e.).
He had inherited his desire for the humiliation of the house of Austria in both its branches, his desire to push the French frontier to the Rhine and maintain a counterpoise of German states against Austria, his alliances with the Netherlands and with Sweden, and his four theatres of war - on the Rhine, in Flanders, in Italy and in Catalonia.
He made one fatal mistake - he dreamt of the French frontier being the Rhine and the Scheldt, and that a Spanish princess might bring the Spanish Netherlands as dowry to Louis XIV.
In Germany he, through Hugues de Lionne, formed the league of the Rhine, by which the states along the Rhine bound themselves under the headship of France to be on their guard against the house of Austria.
At fourteen he was taken through Flanders, along the Rhine, and through the Black Forest to Switzerland, where he first imbibed his dominant passion for the Alps.
Situated on the ancient road which runs by the Hollenpass between the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine, Freiburg early acquired commercial importance, and it is still the principal centre of the trade of the Black Forest.
In May 1644 he opened the campaign by recrossing the Rhine and raiding the enemy's posts as far as Uberlingen on the lake of Constance and Donaueschingen on the Danube.
This, which was carried out by the united armies and by reinforcements from France, while Turenne's cavalry screened them by bold demonstrations on the Tauber, led to nothing less than the conquest of the Rhine Valley from Basel to Coblenz, a task which was achieved so rapidly that the Army of France and its victorious young leader were free to return to France in two months from the time of their appearance in Turenne's quarters at Breisach.
They left no issue, and the Act of Settlement passed in 1701, excluding Roman Catholics from the throne, secured the succession to Anne, second daughter of James II., and on her death without issue to the Protestant house of Hanover, descended from the princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I., wife of Frederick V., count palatine of the Rhine.
Later it passed from the emperor to the elector palatine of the Rhine.
As minister-plenipotentiary at Cassel, between the years 1804 and 1806, he took a prominent share in the formation of the confederation of the Rhine; and after the battle of Jena he returned to Prussia as administrator of the public domains and finances.
Crowning the vine-clad hills behind it lie the ruins of the castle, a picturesque ivy-covered arch, whence a fine view is obtained of the Siebengebirge and the Rhine valley as far as Bonn.
It is said to have been first applied to certain Belgic tribes in the basin of the Meuse, who may formerly have come from beyond the Rhine.
At the beginning of our era the Teutonic peoples stretched from the Rhine to the Vistula.
Thus during the 1st century we hear of about a dozen different tribes in and around the lower part of the basin of the Rhine.
Further, there is satisfactory evidence that the basin of the Rhine, perhaps also a considerable area beyond, had been conquered from Celtic peoples not very long before - from which it is probable that western Germany was still in a more or less unsettled condition.
In all such cases the tribes subject to the Romans, in the neighbourhood of the Rhine, were probably the chief channel by which Roman influence made its way, though account must also be taken of the fact that considerable numbers of warriors from remoter districts were attracted to serve in the Roman armies.
There are six Roman Catholic and two Protestant churches, the most important of which is the Munster (minster), an imposing edifice of grey stone, in the Romanesque and Transition styles, surmounted by five towers, of which the central, rising to a height of 315 ft., is a landmark in the Rhine valley.
The Roman Catholic archiepiscopal theological college, beautifully situated on an eminence overlooking the Rhine, dates from 1892.
In the centuries that followed the break-up of the Roman empire it again suffered much from barbarian attacks, and was finally devastated in 889 by bands of Norse raiders who had sailed up the Rhine.
In short, the workings of all the Western episcopates, from Africa to the ocean, the Rhine and the Danube, lay outside the ordinary influence of the Roman see.
The peace of Luneville (1801) established the French boundary at the Rhine; and the German princes who thereby lost lands west of the river were indemnified by the secularization of ecclesiastical territories to the east.
Raising an army he entered the service of Frederick V., elector palatine of the Rhine, just after that prince had been driven from Bohemia; glorying in his chivalrous devotion to Frederick's wife Elizabeth, he attacked the lands of the elector of Mainz and the bishoprics of Westphalia.
They can hardly have fetched it themselves from the Baltic or the North Sea; it came to them by two wellmarked routes, one from the Baltic to the Adriatic, the other up the Rhine and down the Rhone.
The death of his wife in August 1212 had weakened his hold on the southern duchies, and he was soon confined to the district of the lower Rhine, although supported by money from his uncle King John of England.
Leaving the hills above Opladen, it debouches on to the plain and enters the Rhine at Rheindorf between Cologne and Dusseldorf, after a course of 63 m.
For the loss in 1801 of his possessions on the left bank of the Rhine he was in 1803 compensated by some of the former French territory round Mainz, and at the same time was raised to the dignity of Elector (Kurfilrst) as William I.
This was a direct challenge to Prussia, which under conventions with the elector had the right to the use of the military roads through Hesse that were her sole means of communication with her Rhine provinces.
From the latter it proceeds due north to Aschaffenburg, whence passing Frankfort it pours its yellow waters into the green waters of the Rhine just above Mainz.
Lying close to the Harkort iron and sulphur mines, and within the populous and rich mineral district on the lower Rhine, it carries on iron-founding, wire-drawing and the manufacture of machinery of various kinds, besides an active trade in iron, steel and brass goods.
Early in the 5th century the Alamanni appear to have crossed the Rhine and conquered and settled Alsace and a large part of Switzerland.
His reign is marked by the dismemberment of the Western Empire; the conquest of the province of Africa by the Vandals in 439; the final abandonment of Britain in 446; the loss of great portions of Spain and Gaul, in which the barbarians had established themselves; and the ravaging of Sicily and of the western coasts of the Mediterranean by the fleets of Genseric. As a set-off against these calamities there was the great victory of Aetius over Attila in 451 near Chalons, and his* successful campaigns against the Visigoths in southern Gaul (426, 4 2 9, 436), and against various invaders on the Rhine and Danube (428-31).
On the northern side the Alps (in whichever sense we take this term) are definitely bounded by the course of the Rhine from Basel to the Lake of Constance, the plain of Bavaria, and the low region of foot-hills that extend from Salzburg to the neighbourhood of Vienna.
One result of this limit, marked out by Nature herself, is that the waters which flow down the northern slope of the Alps find their way either into the North Sea through the Rhine, or into the Black Sea by means of the Danube, not a drop reaching the Baltic Sea.
From the St Gotthard to the Maloja the watershed between the basins of the Rhine and Po runs in an easterly direction as a whole, though making two great dips towards the south, first to near the Vogelberg (10,565 ft.) and again to near the Pizzo Gallegione (10,201 ft.), so that it presents a broken and irregular appearance.
In the former class are the Isere, the Rhone, the Aar, the Ticino, the Tosa, the Hinter (or main) Rhine and the Linth; while in the latter class we have the Durance, the Po, the Reuss, the Vorder and middle branches of the Rhine, the Inn, the Adda, the Oglio and the Adige.
Carrying out his share of the bargain by occupying Silesia and Lusatia, where he displayed much clemency, the Saxon elector had thus some part in driving Frederick V., elector palatine of the Rhine, from Bohemia and in crushing Protestantism in that country, the crown of which he himself had previously refused.
It consists of two distinct and unequal portions, Bavaria proper, and the Palatinate of the Rhine, which lie from 25 to 40 m.