GERMANY'S WATERWAY ACROSS EUROPE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23097, 23 July 1938, Page 3 (Supplement)

GERMANY'S WATERWAY ACROSS EUROPE

irlen! of tlu> Hohenstauffen era. As l,udwig pointed out, it was essentially fitting that such a world-shaking project, as he termed the canal, should start from a home of German chivalry. Jll the old clays, when eastern Kurope was still the home of savages, German horseman rode to bring civilisation; now, from their starting point, a new waterway would spread to hring (Jerman dominance in still another direction. Direct To Vienna The river Main, of course, flows into the Hhitie at Mainz, so that gave the necessary connection with tho route that led to the North Sea. "Ludwig's Canal" ran from Bamberg across to Nuremberg, and thence to Kelheim on the Danube. Here, not far from an old Roman fort and a picturesque medieval castle, Ludwig built a splendid whitedomed Hull of Liberation, whicll he dedicated to "tho German Champions of Liberty." ♦ In effect, this historic town was just as fitting a terminus to the canal as Bamberg was a beginning. Terminus, : did 1 write? No; Kelheim was only a \ beginning—a changing-station on the path that led direct to Vienna, Budapest, and the great plains of Rumania. "Ludwig's Canal" is still there, running through that beautiful forest country. Great was tho wrath of a green-clad rural policeman when 1 polluted its waters by washing in them the rags with which I was cleaning my car one day outside Kelheim. It is kept as spick and span as a Dutch villagestreet, and the Bavarians are intensely i proud of it. It is not very impressive. ! however, for it is wide and deep enough only to take ships of a hundred and twenty tons burthen. When Hitler Took Over But it showed the practicability of I linking the Rhine and Danube, and Germany has never lost sight of its possibilities. After Ludwig's deposition it suffered from the competition of the new railways, but the exjierienees of the last war, when its narrow passage was crowded by vessels running food and supplies up from Austria and Rumania, convinced the General Staff that it had to bo modernised and enlarged, if only because of military needs. Accordingly work has been going on since 1921, although in a very desultory fashion. Neither the central nor tho local governments had much money to spare in those trying years, and the private company which was formed in IVJimieh to do tho work, frequently had

JUST over a hundred years ago a somewhat unbalanced King of Bavaria turned the first sod in the construction of a canal that may veil change the fate of Europe today. Ludwig 1., a godchild of Marie !Antoinctte, a soldier of Napoleon, and later his enemy, belonged to the family of "the mad Wittelsbachs." Every member of this family had Rrandiose ideas. Ludwig himself was & passionate lover of Italy, and in rebuilding his capital of Munich gave to it those classical buildings which entitle it to be called "The German Rome." He was a strange person. Simple, democratic, unassuming, he loved to pose as (ho father of his people. He was so mean that he made his children eat black bread, and he ould never allow onions to be used ln the Uesidency because they were too expensive ; but he spent millions °f pounds on public works. His loyal subjects thought that this was better than lavishing money on his long chain of mistresses, of whom the notorious Lola Montez was the last, a nd he was encouraged to embark on even wider schemes. One day; when riding in the low hills c t\veon Nuremberg and Bamberg (incitally not' in his own territory), ho conceived the stupendous idea of link--s"g the J thine with tho Danube. Most Ceoplo forjjet that the JDanuba flows

through southern Germany on its way past Vienna to tho Black Sea, but Ludwig knew ver3' well that tho two great rivers were separated by only a hundred miles. He had already made an insignificant Electoral town tho proudest provincial city in Germany; now ho proposed to seat himself astride the strategic crossways of Europe by means of his new canal. "Goering's Canal" "Ludwig's Folly," they called it at first, but as the construction went on in the twelve years after 18.'56 tho name was changed to "Ludwig's Canal," and "Ludwig's Canal" it has remained ever since (until now a new race of selfmade rulers are going to change it to "Goering's Canal"). Every visitor to Nuremberg must remember the canal that flows through the town, with picturesque overhanging houses on either side. This is part of tho canal built by old King Ludwig in the last days of his reign, before a bitter populace, enraged by the antics of "the Spanish dancer" (Lola Montez, later of Bendigo goldfields fame —or should one say infamy?) forced him oil" the throne in tho stormy days of '4B. The canal started at Bamberg, a lovely town whose many towers riso from tho plain of the Main and constitute one of the most striking medioval remains in the whole of Germany. Its most famous monument is tho celebrated "Bamberg Horseman," a lifesized statue that expresses the knightly I

Economic Dominance Sought by Completing Great Work

CANAL LINKING NORTH AND BLACK SEAS

By PROFESSOR S. H. ROBERTS, Challis Professor of Modern History, the Sydney University (Copyright) Any consideration of Europe involves the Rhine and the Danube, and the new German plan is of magnificent if menacing proportions. The Canal discussed by Professor Roberts when linked with the river Main opens the way to the North Sea; in the other direction it links with the Danube and opens the way to the Black Sea. It means a waterway across Europe.

I to suspend operations for lack of capi- ! tal. Hitler changed all this. A Southerner < himself, he was carried away by tho i dream of a waterway that would cleave Kurope in twain. Moreover, (lie Fuehrer was spurred on (not to say annoyed), by the system | ol dams and canals the French were j constructing in Alsace-Lorraine. He saw no reason why the Danube should not. carry as much traffic as the Rhine, although in thinking thus ho overlooked the fact that the Rhine runs through : an essentially industrial region, whereas ; the countries watered by the Danube I arc mainly agricultural. Cheap Electricity j Nevertheless, he issued orders that tho Main and the Danube were to be deepened wherever necessary, and the work proceeded with such vigour that a year or so ago it was very hard to find an inn on the Main that was not made noisy by the sounds of blasting and dredging. But that was only a beginning. The ultimate aim was to reconstruct the "Ludwig Canal" so that it would take ships of twelve hundred tons. It was relatively easy to build locks and dams on the Main and Danube, but rebuilding the old canal from Bamberg to Kelheim was a stupendous task, so much

so that oven Goering, incurable optimist as he is, does not foresee its completion before 19-15. Profiting by the French example near Strassburg, Goering plans to use the dams to provide cheap electric power for all of southern Germany, even the country districts. Occupation of Austria Goering is in no hurry over this project. No preliminary has been neglected, tor he says that he is building for a thousand years. Thus, he is making the Rhine itself navigable from Lake Cons- ! tance to the North Sea, and he is altering the course of old "Ludwig's Canal." in particular beginning it much farther up the Main, toward Frankfurt. He has announced that the section to be finished this year will extend only to Wurzburg, and he is building great structures to avoid any possibility of flooding now that the river's waters are being harnessed. The occupation of Austria gave an impetus to the canal scheme, and before the German troops had been a week in Austria Goering announced a great plan of works on the Danube itself. Among other things he planned to make Vienna the greatest inland port in the whole world —in effect, the future economic capital of Kurope. By this time political considerations had become much more evident. Three years ago, when Dr. Sehacht, then in control of (Jerman economics, set out on the first of those reconnaissance air-

flights which aimed at establishing German economic dominance in central and southern Eurojio, not many people took his wilder dreams seriously. But now that Austria has been so easily absorbed the portals of central Europe are flung wide open for German enterprise, and in the eyes of the Nazi stalwart, Dr. Funk, who succeeded Sehacht as the financial wizard of Nazidom, there are no limits to German expansionist policy. Political Aspect It is the political aspect of this Rhine-Main-Danube canal that concerns the outside world. Now that Yugoslavia and Hungary are coming within Germany's orbit, it is clearly seen that Austria was only a beginning. If tho connecting-link of "Ludwig's Canal" can be developed (and there is no practical reason why it cannot). Germany will bo able to exert such economic pressure on the central European States that sho may achieve her aims without war.

Czechoslovakia, now almost surrounded, is already feeling the pinch, because she has 110 outlet to the sea except through German railways and German rivers. Yugoslavia is already making pacts with Germany and handing over concessions to German companies, and the Government is even going much further in this direction than most of the people. Before the War we all spoke about the German push eastwards—the Drang nach Osten—but none of us dreamt that Ludwig's neglected canal would ever coine to be a vital link in securing that scheme. In the last two years, however, the outlook has entirely changed, and a Germanic Danubian federation is now not only conceivable, but a great challenge to the rest of the world. That Britain realises this is seen in her recent overtures to the more southerly States. After five months of tortuous and difficult negotiations she has come to an agreement with Turkey, in

return for a credit of twelve million pounds. Last month she Concluded a new economic agreement with Rumania, and there is little doubt that she has co-operated with France in winning Rumania back to the Little Entente after the disastrous desertion of the ill-fated M. Goga, the poet who strayed into politics. At the moment, Britain is making great efforts to win over the Greek dictator, although this is proving a difficult task. In short, "Ludwig's Canal," henceforth to assume the more pugilistic title of "Goering's Canal," has already aroused a diplomatic struggle waging over the whole of central and southern Europe. Old Ludwig would have been amazed could he have but known that his waterway would arouse more attention than all of his pseudo-classical buildings put together, but even he had perceived the canal's importance in linking the Black Sea with the North Sea. Four-year Plan What he could not have foreseen, in those days when Germany consisted of scores of petty little States, was that a now Germany of seventy-four miiliou people would have been tlio propelling force behind his scheme. Nearly twelve hundred years ago Charlemagne tho Great, ruler of much of Europe, envisaged just such a conception as Goering is now enforcing. Indeed, Charlemagne even started work 011 a canal to link tho Rhine with tho Danube, but he was too busy putting down the German barbarians to proceed with it. It is one of the strangest ironies in history that the idea of the Christian Charlemagne, transmitted through the I warped mind of a Bavarian Ludwig, I should to-day bo in course of realisa- | tion by an ex-Austrian peasant and a Bavarian soldier of fortune. Hitler and Goering are putting into practical execution the dream of a thoiisand years, but tho dream lias changed its form. Charlemagne wanted it to link European peoples; Goering wants it to bring to a beleaguered Germany the oil. tho minerals, and tho foodstu southern Europe. . „ m e in "Ludwig's Canal" has become, fact, one of the orn 'T~ t j, a t is to Four-Year Plan, the P - t ijj n .,i.wori«l f mako Germany a vor J o " r]cj-agnin.st-tho-and, in eut.ee, , world. b Sydney .Mall. By arrangement witn