The Spell of Switzerland Part 26

"'The boots of both officers and men were for the most part worn out.

Their biscuit-bags were empty. Nothing was left to sustain their strength.

"'But, in spite of extreme suffering, the half-shod, starving troops of Russia kept up their spirits. In the hour of trial the presence of the son of their Emperor, sharing their fatigues and dangers, encouraged them. During the entire march the Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovitch marched with Bagration's advance-guard.'

"The sufferings of those Russians were incredible! The main body of the troops spent the bitter cold night in the mountains, with little to eat, no fire and no shelter. Many perished from exposure.

"In the morning Suvorof learned that Korsakof had been defeated at Zurich, that Glarus was in the hands of the French; that Hotze was defeated and killed in the battle on the Linth; that the Austrians who should have been his support on the right had retreated. Ma.s.sena was approaching Schwyz to meet him there; Molitor held Glarus; Le Courbe was at Altorf.

"He was caught in a trap. On the 29th he summoned a council of war.

"When the council was a.s.sembled he broke into a furious invective against the Austrians and put the question fair and square:--

"'We are surrounded in the midst of the mountains by an enemy superior in strength. What are we to do? To retreat is dishonor. I have never retreated. To advance to Schwyz is impossible. Ma.s.sena has sixty thousand men; we have not twenty thousand. Besides, we are dest.i.tute of provisions, cartridges and artillery. We can look to no one for aid. We are on the brink of ruin.'

"The council voted to march on Glarus and force a pa.s.sage past the Wallensee.

"Suvorof ended with these brave words:--

"'All one can do is to trust in Almighty G.o.d and in the courage and devotion of our troops. We are Russians. G.o.d is with us.'

"Then the old marshal fell at the feet of the Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovitch. The Grand Duke raised him and kissed him.

"'Save the honor of Russia and her Tsar! Save our Emperor's son! _Da!_ We are Russians. With the help of G.o.d we will conquer!'

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE URNER LOCH.]

"Bagration pushed the French back into the narrow gorge between the mountains and the Klontalersee; but having then a solid position they resisted further attack. Ma.s.sena, advancing from Schwyz, was attacking Rosenberg in the rear in the Muotta valley, but met by Rehbinder's brigade and attacked from above by Cossacks fighting on foot, they were driven back through the defile, a terrible slaughter of the fugitives taking place at the bridge, now known as Suvorof's, which spanned the Muotta.

"Again the Russians had to sleep out-of-doors, cold and starving and exposed to a bitter sleet. The grand duke and Suvorof found shelter in a cow-shed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE KINZIG Pa.s.s.]

"On the morning of October 1, Ma.s.sena with fifteen thousand men again attacked Rosenberg whose troops followed up 'a staggering volley' with the famous Suvorof bayonet charge and drove them miles down the valley, inflicting on them a loss of more than two thousand, not counting perhaps as many more drowned in the Muotta, while some hundreds fell or threw themselves over precipices.

"Bagration was having equal success against Molitor in the defile by the Klontalersee driving him back to Mollis, but when he was reinforced, retiring to Nettstal, in good order. Suvorof himself had captured Glarus and a large supply of provisions; while Rosenberg by a master-stroke of strategy succeeded in rejoining Suvorof in spite of a heavy snow-storm, and the sufferings of his men, who in their turn had to bivouac on the pa.s.s without food or fire.

"The army, however, was still hemmed in and was short of provisions, and still worse, short of ammunition. Their only hope was to escape by the Panixer pa.s.s, but at this time of the year the deep snow already fallen had obliterated the path; they were surrounded by dense clouds; they had no guides; the superst.i.tious Russians were greatly alarmed by seeing the lightning and hearing peals of thunder below them--a phenomenon which seemed to them supernatural. Occasionally a man, or even an officer, mounted, would vanish entirely, swallowed up in some deep creva.s.se hidden by snow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE KLoNTALERSEE.]

"They had to spend the night again on the mountain; it grew bitter cold; the snow became dangerously slippery. A bombardment of rocks from the heights above killed many.

"But the remainder with incredible courage pushed on the next day to Ilanz, where it was found that at least five thousand were missing.

"On the 8th of October they reached Coire, where, at last, the starved wretches had something to eat.

"And all this loss and suffering might have been largely obviated had Suvorof known enough to follow the Splugen pa.s.s and the Grisons, or having reached Altorf, joined Lipken by the Schachental.

"In honour of the heroic management of the Swiss campaign the Emperor made him generalissimo of the Russian army, calling him 'the most renowned commander of this or any other age.'"

"That is certainly a great story," said I. "Isn't there a statue or a memorial to Suvorof?"

"Oh, yes. At the Devil's Bridge, on the side of the chasm, there is a tall granite cross, about ten meters high, put up in 1899, and with an inscription in Russian to the memory of him and his brave comrades.

The bridge itself is generally called after him."

"It brings these great events very vividly before one to be at the very spot where they took place, does it not?"

"Yes, just think what centuries of history this Zurich of ours has seen! While I was in England a few years ago I picked up at a second-hand bookshop a queer old copy of Thomas Coryat's 'Crudities.'

Here is the book: in his dedication he calls himself 'Thy benevolent itinerating friend T. C., the Odcombian Legge-Stretcher.' He travelled through all this region, using his 'ten toes for a nagge.' Here he refers to Zurich: he says that while here he met Rodolphus Hospinia.n.u.s, Gaspar Waserus and Henricus Bultigerus. Gaspar Waserus was the 'ornamet of the town, speaking eight languages' but Hospinian--that 'glittering lamp of learning'--told him that their city was founded in the time of Abraham. He derives the names from the fact that it belonged to two kingdoms--_zweier Reich_--'one, on the farther bank of the Limacus,' he says, 'belonged to Turgouia, that on the hither bank Ergouia.' The Latin name, according to him, was _Turegum, quasi, duorum regum civitas_."

"An amusing case of imaginary etymology," I should say. "But Zurich is a very ancient city, I believe."

"Oh, yes. In 1853 and the following year there was a remarkable diminution of the waters in the lake and wide surfaces were laid bare.

Near Obermeilen, above half-way up the lake, some labourers were embanking some new land and they discovered piles, bits of charcoal and other relics. Ferdinand Keller began making investigations and he discovered that these piles were in parallel rows and were evidently the remains of habitations. After that any number of similar discoveries were made. At Concise, near Neuchatel, from one single aquatic village twenty-five thousand different objects were recovered.

And they now know exactly how these villages looked with their floors of fire-hardened clay, their circular walls, their conical roofs made of wattled reeds and straw or bark. If you have been into any of the Swiss museums you have seen their weapons and stag-horns, bulls'

skulls, flint arrowheads, serpentine hatchets, slings, horn-awls, rings, and clay vessels, toys, quoits, ornamented often with rude but not inartistic etchings,--there is no end to the things preserved,--and even their canoes hollowed out of one trunk, just such as Hannibal used for crossing the Rhone. Each village had probably two or three hundred huts connected with the sh.o.r.e by a bridge. One investigator discovered a storehouse containing a hundred measures of barley and wheat. They evidently had their farms; they raised apples, pears and plums. They had a trade with other tribes, for coral and amber articles were found. Yes, Zurich is built on a settlement that existed probably fifteen hundred years before Christ--not so very far from the time of Abraham."

"Who were they?"

"Some think they were of the same race as the Etruscans. It is probable that they were attacked by the Kelts, who burnt their villages."

"I suppose it was Kelts who attacked Hannibal."

"Probably; they were Allobrogi. The Kelts were always freedom-loving."

"I remember what Kant says about the people of mountains loving freedom: 'The peoples that dwell around and on the mountains are very strong and bold and in all ways seek to a.s.sert their freedom--_ihre Freiheit zu behaupten_. But this probably comes from the fact that in such regions it is very easy for a few to defend themselves against great armies, and, moreover, the mountain-peaks are uninhabited and uninhabitable; in the valleys also little wealth is to be found and no one is especially tempted to dwell in such regions.' He also claims that the peoples that do live there and are vegetarians are the freest."

"I am not so certain about the valleys not tempting to invasion. Do you know one of the most interesting episodes in Swiss history is the coming of the Saracens? Yet they left surprisingly few remains--a few medals without dates--a few names embedded in other names--like Pontresina, which is Pons Sarecenorum."

"I know it is, because one of my favourite novels is Viktor von Scheffel's 'Ekkehard.'"

"Do you know that?"

"Indeed I do, and, above all things, I want to go to the Lake of Constance--your Bodensee--and make a pilgrimage to the Hohentwil, where Ekkehard taught the d.u.c.h.ess Latin and she taught him love."

"We will go there together; that will be an excellent excursion."

This plan also, I will say here, we carried out, visiting at the same time Constance and two or three other towns on the lake, and also the Falls of the Rhine. Really, to know Switzerland, one would have to live here years. Everywhere I go the charm and variety of it grows on me. Mountains, mountains everywhere! I can say with old Coryat:--

"Such is the height of many of these mountains that I saw at the least two hundred of them that were 'farre aboue' some of the clouds!"

I was glad that Constance, which controls the mouth of its lake, has also its Reformer--John Huss--to compare with Geneva's Calvin and Zurich's Zwingli; they prize him all the more because they put him to death!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FALLS OF THE RHINE.]

The Professor and I talked of all manner of things,--antiquities, Swiss history, which, except in spots, and its final results, is not very inspiring; strikes and labour-troubles, woman-suffrage, the growth of commercialism, the Swiss railways and the advantage of having them owned by the state, and education. We forgot that it rained. But the following morning the storm showed symptoms of dissolution, and the Professor and I sallied forth to see the city.

Every city is worthy of a hundred books; for every city is full of human beings, or else of history, or both. Zurich has nearly two hundred thousand inhabitants and also has its history. I had seen lying on the library table a beautifully printed and well ill.u.s.trated pamphlet describing the restoration of the Fraumunster, which was completed in 1912. That venerable building settles Zurich's historic solidity. There were found in it, or rather under it, traces of the little church which was torn down in the Ninth Century to make room for the Carolingian minster, which has been so successfully repaired.

We went around it and into it and the Professor pointed out to me the relics of its most ancient carvings, more or less mutilated inscriptions, grave-stones--one of them to the Ritter Berngerus von Wile, dated 1284.