THE WACHAU TO DÉVÉNY
“There where the Danube broadly sweeps,
’Mid islands willow grown,
The City of St. Stephen stands,
An Empire’s lovely throne;
While o’er the river, on the plain,
Far battle echoes roll.”
_From the German_
At Krems, already the valley of the Danube has again widened out very
considerably, especially on the north; and for the greater part of the
journey thence to Vienna the river flows through a broad flat tract
of country, only approaching the hills closely at one point, where it
washes the northern end of the Wiener Wald, which is soon seen rising
darkly ahead of us, many miles away. A number of small branches of the
river cut the low, willow-grown land into many islands again here,
and these islands cut off the view on either side for some distance.
When the solitary church of Wetterkreutz, on a hill, and the small
town of Hollenburg are passed, the right bank, too, becomes scenically
uninteresting. The ruined castle of Bertholdstein above Hollenburg,
is said to have been the stronghold of a couple more of the fifteenth
century river robbers--a pair of worthies named Frohnauer and Wettau.
These two seem at last to have aroused their neighbours to retaliation,
for when the robbers were engaged in seeking to stop a barge that they
might secure what they wished of its cargo, their castle was set
on fire. The story is a little reminiscent of one of those told of
Aggstein:
“A barge floats down the Danube’s flood,
With costly merchandise--
‘Now up and arm, my comrades good,
That barge shall be our prize!’
So spake the robber Hollenburg,
And, girding on his glaive,
Swift through the glen, with his harnessed men,
He rushed to the Danube’s wave.
‘To the shore! to the shore! thou skipper knave!
For thy life and prize are mine!’
‘Not so, proud knight! for we bear this freight
To the Lord of Greiffenstein.
Look back!’--And looking back he saw
His towers in a ruddy blaze
Where flashing aloof, through the crackling roof,
The fiery vengeance plays.
‘Now yield thee! yield thee!’ the skipper calls--
For thy men we’ve a gallows-tree,
We have loyal hearts to fill thy halls--
But an axe and block for thee!’”
Shortly beyond Hollenburg, also on the right, the river Traisen flows
in, and not far from its mouth, but invisible as we pass down the
Danube, stands the ancient town of Traisenmauer, the home of Helka
the first queen of Etzel, and the last stopping place of Kriemhilda
on her journey from the Rhine to her marriage with Etzel and to her
long-nursed revenge. We have remarked the splendid cavalcade as it
touched points of the river, and may here recall the stanzas describing
its arrival at this penultimate stage of the long journey:--
“Unto the Traisen river the guests they soon did bring;
And Rudeger’s retainers served them unwearying,
Until the Hun-folk riding across the country came.
Then was there mickle honour done to the royal dame.
The King of the Huns’ country did near the Traisen own
A very noble stronghold to everyone well known.
Its name was Traisen mauer where Helka lived of yore,
And practised such great virtues, scarce met with any more.”
From Traisen the cavalcade went on to Tulln, where the King of the
Huns awaited his new bride, and whence he bore her to Vienna for the
marriage, according to the legendary lay. As the Danube winds through
the close-grown willow banks, the hills of the Wiener Wald are seen
ahead and to the right, but while we are yet some miles from the
northern spur of them we reach, on the same bank, one of the oldest of
the Danube towns, the Tulln which has just been mentioned.
The flat plain in which it is situated--the Tullner Feld--has been the
gathering place of great armies, and the town itself has seen much of
battle. Though the legend of the “Nibelungen Lied” makes it the meeting
place of Kriemhilda with Etzel or Attila, history associates it with
one of the King of the Huns’ most disastrous battles, when he is said
not only to have been defeated, but to have had forty thousand of his
warriors slain. This, too, may be legend, but certain it is that, as
Comagenæ, the town was an important Roman station, and that at the
beginning of the ninth century Charlemagne presented it to Passau,
whose bishops once owned territory of royal extent.
When, in 1683, Vienna was closely invested by the Turks, it was in the
Tullner Feld that the armies of John Sobieski, King of Poland, and
the Duke of Lorraine united and marched to the relief of the Austrian
capital. Vienna was in imminent danger when the Emperor Leopold
implored Sobieski to hasten to his assistance, even without an army:
“My troops are now assembling. The bridge over the Danube is already
constructed at Tulln, to afford you a passage. Place yourself at their
head, however inferior in numbers, your name alone, so terrible to the
enemy, will ensure a victory!” Sobieski could not resist this flattery
and “at the head of thirty one thousand horse, traversed Silesia and
Moravia with the rapidity of a Tartar horde, but on his arrival at
Tulln, found the bridge unfinished, and no troops except a corps under
the Duke of Lorraine. “Does the Emperor consider me as an adventurer,”
exclaimed the disappointed monarch. “I quitted my army to command his.
It is not for myself, but for him, that I fight.” Pacified, however, by
the representations of the Duke of Lorraine, he awaited the arrival of
his own army, which reached the Danube on the 5th September, and the
junction of the German succours was completed on the 7th. The bridge
was ready--presumably a bridge of boats--and Sobieski at length set
forth at the head of an army of between sixty and seventy thousand men,
and on the morning of the 12th the hard-pressed garrison and citizens
of Vienna, “descried with rapture the Christian standards floating on
the summit of the Kahlenberg.”
An old castle in Tulln was at one time the haunt of a couple of
ghosts. The one that of a fair but frail lady who had been killed
by her husband on discovering her faithlessness, the other that of
her attendant maid. This ghostly couple, ran the tradition, only
made their appearance on Mondays at midnight--presumably it was on a
Monday that the tragedy happened; but a “barefooted monk” succeeded in
exorcising the ghost of the maid, though the mistress refused to be
amenable to the ghost-laying ritual. According to Planché, quoting an
unnamed “prudent antiquary,” “the whole history” is to be found in
the archives of a certain noble house; but as it would redound to the
prejudice of the descendants, should the name be made known, it has
been passed over in silence. Some time ago an attempt was made to pull
down the building, but the indignant phantom raised such a racket that
the workmen beat a retreat, and the project was abandoned!
A little beyond Tulln we pass the villages of Ober and Unter Aigen, or
the village Langenlebarn, for straggling along the river bank, the two
places seem sometimes to be given one name. This point is interesting
as being that of old gold-seeking attempts. The sands of the Danube
have yielded gold, and those hereabouts seemingly most successfully.
The local quidnuncs accounted for this by saying that when in the
year 926 a certain Bishop Draculf was drowned near this spot, he was
carrying secured in his girdle about forty pounds’ weight of gold,
which he had smuggled out of a monastery that he had been visiting! The
legend is one that might well have inspired Ingoldsby. Another small
village further along on the same side of the river is Zeiselmauer, the
old Roman Cetium, and birthplace of that St. Florian of whom we learned
something a little below Linz.
After leaving Tulln, as we near the northernmost “bergs” of the
Wiener Wald, the scenery becomes once more beautiful; on the left are
still the low lands through which a number of small branches of the
river find their way, but on the right, the wooded hillsides that we
are approaching lend a fresh variety to the landscape. Soon is seen
ahead of us on a rocky knoll the square tower of the ruined castle of
Greifenstein sometimes described as having been the prison in which
Duke Leopold kept Richard Cœur de Lion captive in an iron cage. The
claims of Dürrenstein, and Trifels are more strongly upheld, and are
accepted by the historians; in the case of Greifenstein the matter
rests on nothing firmer than the “they say” of tradition.
This castle is also said to owe its name--“Greif-an-den-Stein”--to the
_fact_ that the hill on which it stands was at one time the haunt of
a griffin, the marks of the talons of which can still be found in the
rocks by those who regard seeing as necessary to believing. But the
griffin is not the only tradition of this beautifully situated place,
for it has the great distinction of being doubly haunted--by an “old
white woman” and by one of the first of the lords of Greifenstein who,
early in the eleventh century, “sware a dreadful oath.” The story of
the first of these ghosts haunting the castle is told by Planché, who
says that it arose owing to the fact that a châtelaine of the place,
the Lady Bountiful of the neighbourhood, was given to devoting herself
to the cure of the sick, and was so generally successful that the very
people whom she had benefited at length suspected her of possessing an
unholy supernatural power, and so on her death, having received all the
good they could at her hands, the peasants accused her posthumously
of witchcraft, and declared that her ghost haunted the place of
demoniacally inspired benefactions!
The second ghost story about this castle on the edge of the Wiener Wald
is a long one, but deserves remembering for its romantic elements, and
may best be given here in the words of Planché:
“As early as the eleventh century the lords of Greifenstein were famed
and feared throughout Germany. One of the first knights who bore that
name, lost his lady soon after she had presented him with a daughter,
who received the name of Etelina. The dying mother painfully aware
how little attention would be paid to the education of a female by
a rude and reckless father, half knight, half freebooter, however
fond he might be of his child, had recommended her infant, with her
last breath, to the care of a kind and pious monk, the chaplain of
the castle; and under his affectionate guidance, the pretty playful
girl gradually ripened into the beautiful and accomplished woman. Sir
Reinhard of Greifenstein, though stern, turbulent, and unlettered
himself, was, nevertheless, sensible to the charms and intelligence of
his daughter; and often as he parted her fair hair and kissed her ivory
forehead, before he mounted the steed or entered the bark, that waited
to bear him to the hunt or the battle, a feeling of which he was both
proud and ashamed would moisten his eye and subdue a voice naturally
harsh and grating, into a tone almost of tenderness. On his return,
weary and sullen, from a fruitless chase or a baffled enterprise,
the song of Etelina could banish the frown from his brow, when even
the wine-cup had been thrust untasted away, and the favourite hound
beaten for a mistimed gambol. So fair a flower, even in the solitary
castle of Greifenstein, was not likely to bloom unknown or unsought.
The fame of Etelina’s beauty spread throughout the land. Many a noble
knight shouted her name as his bright sword flashed from the scabbard,
and many a gentle squire fought less for his gilt spurs, than for the
smile of Etelina. The minstrel who sang her praises had aye the richest
largess, and the little footpage who could tell where she might be met
with in the summer’s twilight, clinging to the arm of the silver-haired
chaplain, might reckon on a link of his master’s chain of gold for
every word he uttered. But the powerful and the wealthy sighed at
her feet in vain--she did not scorn them, for so harsh a feeling was
unknown to the gentle Etelina. Nay, she even wept over the blighted
hopes of some, whose fervent passion deserved a better fate; but her
heart was no longer hers to give. She had fixed her affections upon the
poor but noble Rudolph and the lovers awaited impatiently some turn of
fortune which would enable them to proclaim their attachment without
fear of the anger and opposition of Sir Reinhard, who was considerably
annoyed by Etelina’s rejection of many of the richest Counts and Barons
of Germany.
“Business of importance summoned the old Knight to the Court of the
Emperor. His absence, prolonged from month to month, afforded frequent
opportunities of meeting to the lovers; and the venerable monk, on whom
the entire charge of the castle and its inhabitants had devolved at
Sir Reinhard’s departure, was one evening struck dumb with terror, by
the confession which circumstances at length extorted from the lips of
Etelina! Recovered from the first shock, however, his affection for his
darling pupil seemed only increased, by the peril into which passion
had plunged her. In the chapel of the castle, he secretly bestowed
the nuptial benediction upon the imprudent pair, and counselled
their immediate flight, and concealment, till his prayers and tears
should wring forgiveness and consent from Sir Reinhard, who was now
on his return home, accompanied by a wealthy nobleman, on whom he had
determined to bestow the hand of his daughter. Scarcely had Rudolph and
Etelina reached the cavern in the neighbouring wilderness, selected
for their retreat by the devoted old man, who had furnished them with
provisions, a lamp and some oil, promising to supply them from time
to time with the means of existence, as occasions should present
themselves, when the rocks of the Danube rang with the well known blast
of Sir Reinhard’s trumpet, and a broad banner lazily unfolding itself
to the morning breeze, displayed to the sight of the wakeful warden the
two red griffins rampant in a field vert, the blazon of the far feared
Lords of Greifenstein. In a few moments the old Knight was galloping
over the drawbridge, followed by his intended son-in-law.
“The clatter of their horses’ hoofs struck upon the heart of the
conscious chaplain, as though the animals themselves were trampling
on his bosom; but he summoned up his resolution, and relying on his
sacred character, met his master with a firm step and a calm eye, in
the hall of the castle. Evading a direct answer to the first enquiry
for Etelina, he gradually and cautiously informed Sir Reinhard of her
love, her marriage, and her flight. Astonishment for a short space held
the old warrior spell-bound, but when his gathered fury at last found
vent, the wrath of the whirlwind was less terrible. He seized the poor
old monk by the throat, and upon his firm refusal to reveal the retreat
of the culprits, dashed him to the earth, had him bound hand and foot,
and flung into a pit beneath an iron grating in the floor of the donjon
or keep of the castle. Tearing, like an infuriated Pasha, ‘his very
beard for ire,’ he called down curses on Etelina and her husband, and
prayed that, if ever he forgave them, a dreadful and sudden death
might overtake him on the spot where he should revoke the malediction
he now uttered! Upwards of a year had elapsed when, one winter day,
the Knight of Greifenstein, pursuing the chase, lost his way in the
mazes of a wilderness on the banks of the Danube. A savage-looking
being, half clothed in skins, conducted him to a cavern, in which a
woman similarly attired was seated on the ground, with an infant on
her knees, and greedily gnawing the bones of a wolf--Sir Reinhard
recognised in the squalid form before him his once beautiful Etelina.
Shocked to the soul at the sight of the misery to which his severity
had reduced her, he silently motioned to the huntsmen, who came
straggling in upon his track to remove the wretched pair and their poor
little offspring to the castle. Moved by the smiles of his innocent
and unconscious grandchild he clasped his repentant daughter to his
bosom, as she recrossed the threshold, bore her up into the banquet
hall, and consigning her to the arms of her faithful Rudolph, hastened
down again to release with his own hands the true-hearted monk, who
still languished in captivity. In descending the steep staircase his
foot slipped, and he was precipitated to the bottom--his fall was
unseen--his cry was unheard--dying, he dragged himself a few paces
along the pavement, and expired upon the very spot where he had just
embraced and forgiven his daughter. Rudolph, now Lord of Greifenstein,
restored the chaplain to liberty, and lived long and happily with his
beloved Etelina; but the spirit of Sir Reinhard to this day wanders
about the ruins of his ancestral castle, and will continue so to do
till the stone whereon he expired shall be worn in twain. ‘Alas! poor
ghost!’ the very slight hollow which is at present perceivable in it,
affords you little hope of its division by fair means previously to the
general ‘_crack_ of doom.’”
Such is the romantic story attaching to this square-towered old ruin
picturesquely set on the summit of a tree-grown hill. The view from the
storied place is a peculiarly beautiful one--over the extensive Tullner
Feld, up the broad Danube, and across the archipelago of islands formed
by the branching of the river. But a short journey from Vienna, it is
small wonder that this is a popular point for holiday makers to seek.
Beyond Greifenstein the river sweeps in a southerly curve round the
hills, and inland on the left, on a hill, but hidden by trees is the
interesting castle of Kreuzenstein--a place which was destroyed during
the Thirty Years’ War, but which has been fully restored by a modern
owner, and filled with old furniture and weapons, so that it appears
handsomely suggestive of what the many castle ruins we see in a journey
down the river must have looked like in the days of their prosperity.
Crenellated and machicolated this renewed old castle, with its towers
and its great walls shows to us how great must have been the strength
of such places, well provisioned, in days when bows and pikes were the
principal weapons of warfare.
Beyond, almost opposite each other, we reach Korneuburg and
Klosterneuburg. Korneuburg on the left, with a handsome old fifteenth
century tower, is near the foot of the Bisamberg--the hills here
nearing the river on this bank, too, for a brief time. The name of the
vine-grown hill is accounted for thus: “Am Bisamberg floss in allers
Zeiten de Donau Vorbei, daher sei der Name--_Bis am Berg_.”
Korneuburg, like Krems and Deggendorf, was the scene of a massacre of
the Jews in the fourteenth century, and like so many of the towns we
glance at as we come down the Danube, saw much of siege and battle in
the good old days; being twice besieged by the conquering Matthias
Corvinus, and in the Thirty Years’ War being captured and garrisoned
by the Swedes. Here, in 1462, the Emperor Frederick the Fourth met his
rescuer, the great Bohemian King George Podiebrad, after the latter
monarch had brought an army to his assistance. And that that help came
only just in time may be gathered from the fact that the Emperor was
closely besieged in the citadel of Vienna with only two hundred men.
Klosterneuburg, on the right bank backed by the Kahlenberg, owes its
name to the great Augustine monastery, rebuilt in the seventeenth
century, the oldest and wealthiest of the monasteries belonging to
this Order in Austria. This Kloster is standing evidence in stone
of the truth that great events from small occasions spring, for its
establishment on this spot is said to have been the result of a mere
puff of wind. In the chronicles of the monks themselves the story of
the origin of the place is thus presented: The Margrave, Leopold the
Fourth--or Leopold the Holy--having erected a new family fortress, on
the summit of Mons Cetius (now the Leopoldsberg), was sitting one
evening at the window of his hall, musing on the passing events of
his time--on the fate of the old emperor whom he had abandoned--and
visited, perhaps, with compunctious feelings as he bethought him
of his own sinful course. At his side sat his beloved spouse, the
Margravine Agnes; and while they were talking over the religious topics
of the day--the endowment of monasteries, the purchase of masses, and
the powerful efficacy of good works in quieting the upbraidings of
conscience, Leopold expressed an earnest desire to promote the glory of
God by raising a sumptuous altar, and surrounding it by holy men, who
should there serve Him night and day. But among the number of inviting
spots which there met the eye, he could not decide which was the most
eligible for the building in contemplation. Thus perplexed in his
choice, he appealed to his wife; and just as she leant forward to take
a more minute survey of the adjacent country, a gentle breeze, suddenly
rising, fluttered for an instant amidst her flowing ringlets, and then,
lifting her veil, carried it away--no one knew whither. For some days
subsequent to this incident, strict search was made for the veil, but
without effect. It could neither be recovered by threats of punishment
nor promises of reward.
During the three months ensuing, affairs of state diverted the mind
of Leopold from his pious purpose. But one day, while engaged in his
favourite pastime of boar hunting, he entered a thicket of alder trees
on the verge of the river, and there, to his astonishment, his steed
would not take one step further, but, defying both whip and spur,
dropped upon his haunches, and lastly falling upon his knees, brought
his noble rider to the ground. Starting to his feet in a princely
passion, and winding the small horn that hung at his belt, Leopold
would have dealt very summarily with the obstinate quadruped; but,
turning round to address his retainers, who now rushed forward to their
chief, he suddenly observed the identical veil of his wife, which had
been so mysteriously carried off three months before! Leopold had
always been a very piously given prince--but now that the finger of
Providence was so clearly manifested his devotion became intense; and
the same day it was determined that the tree on which the veil had been
deposited by angelic hands, should be enclosed in a magnificent temple.
Faithful to his vow, a spacious area was soon cleared, and in the
course of three years, the monastery and monks of Klosterneuburg became
the admiration of architects, and the theme of pious exaltation among
all the faithful. The alder tree which had preserved the mysterious
veil, was cased in gold and consigned to precious immortality; and in
their religious processions branches of that sacred tree were usually
carried in triumph, or woven into trophies and suspended over the
altar. The fair Margravine, not to be outdone even by her husband in
acts of piety, founded a nunnery at a commodious distance from the
monastery, so that, by occasional intercourse, these holy friars and
maidens might, without scandal or inconvenience, promote each other’s
spiritual welfare, and leave a bright example of mortification and
self-denial--“under the veil.”[11]
The founder of this monastery became the tutelary saint of
Austria--despite the sinfulness of his course more than hinted at in
the monkish legend--and it was in the chapel of St. Leopold here that
his body was laid; while the princely state of the saint was duly shown
by the placing of a huge ducal hat of bronze or iron on the summit of
one of the monastery’s domes while another of the domes is surmounted
by the Imperial crown. Within the monastery is kept the actual ducal
hat, which is used at the ceremony of swearing allegiance to a new
ruler.
In the chapel of St. Leopold is a famous altar, known as the Altar of
Verdun from the name of its maker, Nicholas of Verdun. This was at one
time regarded as the earliest example of “niello” work, and Nicholas
of Verdun was credited with being the inventor of that art; but now
niello is traced back to the Roman craftsmen. The niello work on this
altar consists of a series of nearly sixty plaques of gilded bronze
representing Biblical scenes. As in the other big monasteries still
occupied, the library is here an important feature; in it are more than
forty thousand volumes and about thirteen thousand MSS.
Opposite the church is a richly carved Gothic pillar--“The Everlasting
Light”--which was erected in 1381 to commemorate the fact that a
terrible plague visitation had come to an end. The name it has is in
consequence of a votive lamp “which was kept burning before it many
ages.” Near the church too, is a house in which is kept a gigantic cask
which holds 18,000 gallons and is regarded as a rival of the “great tun
of Heidelberg.” On 15 November--Leopold’s Day--Viennese holiday makers
come in large numbers to drink the wine and to join in the traditional
custom of “Fasselrutchen,” or sliding on the great barrel, mention of
which may well call to mind that on the slopes of the Kablenberg are
cultivated some vineyards celebrated for the quality of their wines,
and that among the wines that of Klosterneuburg is specially notable.
Immediately opposite Klosterneuburg is the village of Lang-Enzersdorf,
at the foot of the vine-grown Bisamberg, and as we pass below
Leopoldsberg towards Vienna we see yet more vineyards on the slopes of
this hill. At Nussdorf--the port of Vienna, as it has been termed--we
are near the capital, the towers and roofs of which are to be seen
away to the right across the level land; for turning the corner, so to
speak, as the Danube rounds the end of the Kahlenberg, we find that
the river goes on through a wide valley. Bridges barring the way down
the stream indicate that we are in the neighbourhood of a big city,
though the Danube approach to Vienna may well seem disappointing. The
grand buildings, the bright streets which we associate with the name
must be sought at a distance from the main stream, the buildings along
which are mainly wharves and offices connected with the river trade,
dominating them being the great warehouses and passenger hall of the
Donau Dampfschiffahrts Gesellschaft, whence the fine steamers set out
up-stream to Passau and down to Budapest, Belgrade, and the Black Sea.
Near Nussdorf a branch of the river to the right--the Danube
Canal--goes off to the city and rejoins the main stream some distance
below it. But before following its course and getting a glimpse of
Vienna we may go up the winding stony paths, among varied shrubbery by
which the summit of the Leopoldsberg is to be attained. As we rise we
get ever wider views, until from the summit, about the ruins of the
old castle or from the low wall by the church we are given a splendid
view across the valley. Wooded slopes and a smiling valley forming a
pleasant foreground to Vienna, with the beautiful tall spire of St.
Stephen’s church standing boldly out above the many spires and domes
of the wide-spreading city, merging as we see it from this point into
the beautiful country and backed by the semicircle of the hills of the
Wiener Wald. To the left the broad Danube sweeps in a great curve, with
beyond it the extensive flatness of the Marchfeld, scene of momentous
fighting, and the lake-like expanse of the Alte Donau. From the western
side of the Leopoldsberg the view up-stream is even more beautiful,
with the Klosterneuburg almost immediately below and the islanded river
backed by the vine-grown hills that we have recently passed.
This lovely spot is also a favourite place of excursion with the
Viennese on Sundays and holidays, sharing at once its charms and its
popularity with the neighbouring height of the Kahlenberg. The old-time
castle from which Leopold the Holy saw his wife’s veil disappear
westwards has long since gone, and the château which followed on the
same site is now a place of refreshment for visitors--the group of
buildings and the small church being nearly surrounded by walls. On
a Sunday afternoon the dark restaurant room with its many animated
visitors forms a remarkable “interior.”
By a beautiful woodland path we may pass in a quiet walk of less than
half an hour to the Kahlenberg, from the summit of which, 1404 feet
above sea-level or about twenty feet higher than the Leopoldsberg, are
to be had further extensive views. From the Stefanie tower a clear day
affords a view eastwards across the valley of Vienna to the Lesser
Carpathians and southwards to the Styrian Alps. There is quite a small
village about the church and hotel on this hill, standing above a mass
of oak and other trees, which has been made more easily accessible from
Vienna by means of a mountain railway which comes from the city through
vineyards and woods to the hill-top. It is, however, but a little more
than a three miles’ walk from the city along the Beethoven Path--so
named from having been a favourite resort of the composer.
Of Vienna itself it is not necessary here to say much beyond the
recognition of the fact that socially, historically, and geographically
it may be regarded as the centre of the Danube. The city, historically
or descriptively, would call for a volume to itself. Here it has to
be treated as but an incident in a necessarily hurried summary of the
story and scenery of the whole river; and again for ten English people
who know any large stretch of the Danube there are probably a hundred
who know the Austrian capital.
[Illustration: VIENNA FROM LEOPOLDSBERG]
Approaching Vienna from the river may be, as has been suggested, a
little disappointing but then it might be said that few beautiful
towns have approaches worthy of their reputation; and Vienna is in
this regard not an exception. From the river we go through a variety
of streets, along a broad thoroughfare--the People’s Prater, a large
part of which seems given over to “side shows”--and it is only when we
have crossed one or other of the bridges that span the Danube Canal,
and reached St. Stephen’s cathedral, and then journeyed to the great
theatres, galleries, museums, and palaces, that we begin to realize at
once the beauty and fascination of the place. Disappointment soon gives
way to appreciation, and appreciation to enthusiasm.
Though Tulln is said to have been a town before Vienna was so much as
a village, it is probable that there is something of exaggeration in
the saying, for excavations not infrequently reveal Roman relics in
the capital, though the many sieges it has undergone during a somewhat
stormy history seem to have robbed it of any lasting evidences of
its age. It is, indeed, as a handsome modern city that it appeals
to the eye, with its broad “Ring” roads, its grand blocks of stone
buildings, its many fine statues, its evidences of culture, and its
animated crowds. Beyond the life of its streets, the beauty of its many
buildings, one of the most insistent memories of Vienna is the noise of
the traffic on its stone-paved streets. This is not, however, the place
for a detailed account of the city, we can but glance at it, as it
were in passing. Despite the many tragic episodes in its long history,
the place is famous as a centre of art and music, pleasure and social
life, and even a short sojourn serves to show what an endless variety
of beautiful spots, on rivers, in valleys, on hills and mountains the
Viennese have ever within their reach.
Though it has now spread far about the valley, and towards the foot of
the vineyard hills, it is not so very long since Vienna was a walled
city recalling the days when Emperors were closely besieged in their
citadel, or the later times when the triumphing Napoleon made it one
of the centres of his conquest. Already, however, before the walls had
disappeared the town had so far expanded beyond them that, as a visitor
in the early part of last century said, Vienna was “the least part of
itself.” The same thing might be said of London if we were to regard
the City as London.
The magnificent St. Stephen’s cathedral--the most prominent object
in any survey of the city from the neighbouring heights--is one of
the sights that remain most vividly in memory after we have left
Vienna. This grand edifice, which has survived the many sieges before
which so much of the ancient town has disappeared, was erected in the
twelfth century, and forms one of the most beautiful of all temples
for Christian worship. Its delicate crocketed spire, rising from a
massive but rich tower is one of the great beauties of architecture,
and the lofty interior--despite some obtrusive modernities--is grandly
impressive.
The Palace at Schönbrunn is also a memorably beautiful place with
its splendidly planned grounds and beautiful view of the city from
its gloriette, but it is not possible to mention the many points of
interest, nor to refer to the historical or legendary lore of a city
that is rich in both.
One legend that may be given is that connected with the Spinnerinn am
Kreuz, a beautiful Gothic cross on the Wienerberg to the south of the
city, from the neighbourhood of which a lovely panorama of Vienna can
be studied and admired. This was erected in 1382, replacing a simple
crucifix, according to one version of the legend, which says that a
lady whose husband had joined the Crusades was wont to sit day after
day at the foot of the crucifix spinning and praying. When at length
the husband returned safely the thankful wife erected this cross with
the proceeds of her spinning. The other version of the story tells us
that a young Crusader here bade farewell to his lady love, and at the
moment of separation she presented him with a rose and sang--
“Take the flower! Let the heart’s first bequeathing
Be the pledge of true faith on thy plume;
When its perfume no longer is breathing--
Remember the rose in its bloom!
For beauty will fade, like its blossom,
Should the blight of false love interpose;
When the canker creeps into the bosom,
Then farewell the heart and the rose.
Of the heart and the hopes of the giver,
Fit emblem this rose-bud shall be--
Henceforth they are blighted for ever--
Or blossom till gathered by thee!”
After the youth had departed the lady and her attendants were wont to
take their spinning to the spot at which the lovers had parted, and
there it was that she suddenly realized that her young Crusader had
been killed, and she herself expired with the shock. It will be seen
that those who visit the cross on the Wienerberg can take a legend with
a tragic or a happy ending in accordance with their mood.
Returning to the Danube we find that the Danube canal rejoins the river
some miles below the city. Some of the steamers for Budapest leave the
quay by the palatial offices of the Danube Steamship Company on the
banks of the canal instead of the landing place on the main stream, and
pass along part of the tree-grown Prater. Canal and river join again
opposite the large island of Lobau on the left--one of the largest of
the many islands formed by the branching river. Beyond this island lie
some way inland little villages that have given their names to battles
on which for a time the fate of Napoleon--and therefore, in a sense of
Europe--depended. These villages are Aspern and Wagram, one the name
of the place where Napoleon’s credit as a victorious general received
a rude shock, and the other that of a place where six weeks later he
retrieved his fortunes in a splendid fashion.
It was in 1809 that the Emperor, having seized upon Vienna, found a
great Austrian army upon the Marchfeld on the left bank of the Danube
and knew that no peace was possible until it had been attacked and
beaten. He selected the island of Lobau as a starting point for his
operations where the narrow northern branch of the river could be
rapidly bridged. On 20 May, forty thousand French troops were allowed
to make an unopposed crossing to the left bank. They occupied the
villages of Aspern and Essling, and on the following day were attacked
by the Austrians, the army of whom under the Archduke Charles numbered
eighty thousand. For two days the battle raged, a further forty
thousand Frenchmen crossing the river and making the forces equal.
During the struggle the village of Aspern was five times lost and
won, but at length Napoleon was forced to order a retreat on to the
island of Lobau. The bridges were carried away, and the great army was
encamped for two days without food and without ammunition, cut off from
Vienna.
Had the Archduke pressed his advantage, Napoleon’s force might have
been entirely destroyed; but he did not do so. Communication over the
main stream was restored, Napoleon matured his plans, and on 5 and
6 July, there was fought “between the two largest armies that had
ever been brought face to face in Europe,” the indecisive Battle of
Wagram--a victory for Napoleon, but a victory that did no more than
drive the enemy from their vantage ground on and about the Wagram
plateau, “so regularly shaped as to seem as if constructed by art.” Mr.
Thomas Hardy in one of the “dumb show” scenes of his great epic-drama,
“The Dynasts” vividly sums up the event at the moment when Napoleon
began his great coup:
“The first change under the cloak of night is that the tightly packed
regiments on the island are got under arms. The soldiery are like a
thicket of reeds in which every reed should be a man....
“At two o’clock in the morning the thousands of cooped soldiers begin
to cross the bridges, producing a scene which, on such a scale, was
never before witnessed in the history of war. A great discharge from
the batteries accompanies this manœuvre, arousing the Austrians to a
like cannonade.
“The night has been obscure for summer-time, and there is no moon.
The storm now breaks in a tempestuous downpour, with lightning and
thunder. The tumult of nature mingles so fantastically with the tumult
of projectiles that flaming bombs and forked flashes cut the air in
company, and the noise from the mortars alternates with the noise from
the clouds.
“From bridge to bridge and back again a gloomy-eyed figure stalks, as
it has stalked the whole night long, with the restlessness of a wild
animal. Plastered with mud, and dribbling with rain-water, it bears no
resemblance to anything dignified or official. The figure is that of
Napoleon, urging his multitudes over.
“By daylight the great mass of the men is across the water. At six the
rain ceases, the mist uncovers the face of the sun, which bristles on
the bayonets and helmets of the French. A hum of amazement rises from
the Austrian hosts, who turn staring faces southward and perceive what
has happened, and the columns of their enemies standing to arms on the
same side of the stream with themselves, and preparing to turn their
left wing.”
Thus graphically does Mr. Hardy bring before us the scene of a hundred
years ago. An earlier poet had also sung the battle, but in a widely
different vein, for Byron among the memorable battle scenes in “Childe
Harold” describes Napoleon’s army emerging from the island of Lobau as--
“A human Hydra issuing from its fen
To breathe destruction on its winding way....
The night was dark, and the thick mist allowed
Nought to be seen save the artillery’s flame,
Which arched the horizon like a fiery cloud,
And in the Danube’s waters shone the same--
A mirrored Hell! The volleying roar, and loud
Long booming of each peal on peal, o’ercame
The ear far more than thunder, for Heaven’s flashes
Spare or smite rarely--Man’s make millions ashes!”
Now, instead of a thicket of reeds, and every reed a man, the steamer
slips along the shrub-grown banks of the island. When ashore,
crossing the great plain of the Marchfeld, we find wide-spreading
rich agricultural land, with small villages and groups of houses or
farm buildings, and occasional factories about the country that but
a century ago was the scene of a titanic but inconclusive struggle.
Inland from one of the heights--as at Wolkersdorf, from which the poet
shows the Austrian Emperor watching the struggle--we may get a view of
the whole field with the plateau of Wagram, about which the contest
was most severe. The Marchfeld is associated, too, with an even more
momentous struggle, for here, in 1278, Rudolph of Habsburg defeated
King Ottokar of Bohemia and won the duchy of Austria and the crown of
the Empire, so that on this plain may be said to have been founded the
fortunes of the Habsburg dynasty, which still rules the Austrian Empire.
The greater part of the journey along the river from Vienna until
we approach the Hungarian frontier is between green, wooded islands
or banks, without any points of special interest after we leave the
island of Lobau. The bends of the river make it occasionally appear
to the eye as though closed in at either end, so that with its shrub
and tree-fringed borders it reminds the traveller of some of the lakes
of Eastern Canada. Occasionally we pass along sandy or stony banks
and islets, unless the water be very high, with many rooks, daws, and
gulls flying about or settling on the exposed ground in search of food.
Gulls, it should be said, are common objects of a journey down the
Danube. I cannot recall the point at which I first observed them, but
certainly before reaching Vienna.
The principal places of note before we reach Hungary are on the right
bank. Near Petronell--about twenty miles below Vienna--is a massive
bit of Roman ruin in the form of an archway, known as the Heidentor,
and shortly beyond we reach Deutsch-Altenburg, the ancient Carnuntum
of the Romans, celebrated for its sulphur springs, its handsome old
church, and its “Hütelberg” or Hat Hill, a mound which is said to have
been formed by the inhabitants bringing the earth in hatfuls to raise a
simple memorial of the expulsion of the Turks.
Though, according to Gibbon, Petronell on the one side and Hainburg
on the other, disputed with Altenburg the honour of being Carnuntum,
excavations in the neighbourhood of the last-named place established
its claim, despite the fact that each of the others has Roman relics
to show. An amphitheatre and other buildings have been revealed, which
are made the more interesting from the fact that it was at Carnuntum
that Severus Septimus was proclaimed Emperor, and that it was at
Carnuntum that the Emperor Marcus Aurelius spent three years, while
the Germanic tribes of the Quadi and the Marcomanni were threatening,
and from Carnuntum that the philosopher-emperor dated the second of
those “Meditations,” that have given him a fame more enduring than his
conquests. Here the Fourteenth Legion was stationed, and near here was
the harbourage of the Roman Danube flotilla.
In the museum, opened in 1904, are preserved many of the recovered
links of the place with its Roman past. It was at Carnuntum, too, that
Theodoric the Ostrogoth was born, it is said, two days after the death
of Attila. The next town, Hainburg, backed by the high, flattened,
conical Schlossberg, is another very old place, now first noticeable
for its extensive Government tobacco factory. Its old walls and towers
afford many picturesque bits. A sculptured figure on one of the gates
is said to represent King Etzel, thus serving to keep alive the
tradition that the ruins of the castle on the conical berg, are the
remains of the one in which King Etzel and Kriemhilda rested on their
journey from Vienna to the Hunnish King’s capital.
After the earlier flat country through which the river has brought
us from Vienna, the scenery has now become more picturesque with the
rising ground on the right, and soon we see ahead of us the rocky
frontier of the kingdom of Hungary, and the broad extent of the
frontier boundary river, the March, flowing in on the left around it.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] “The Danube,” by William Beattie, M.D., 1844.
III
THE HUNGARIAN DANUBE