INTRODUCTION TO VOLUMES V AND VI

Germany, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland



The tourist's direct route to Germany is by ships that go to the two
great German ports--Bremen and Hamburg, whence fast steamer trains
proceed to Berlin and other interior cities. One may also land at
Antwerp or Rotterdam, and proceed thence by fast train into Germany.
Either of these routes continued takes one to Austria. Ships by the
Mediterranean route landing at Genoa or Trieste, provide another way for
reaching either country. In order to reach Switzerland, the tourist has
many well-worn routes available.

As with England and France, so with Germany--our earliest information
comes from a Roman writer, Julius Caesar; but in the case of Germany,
this information has been greatly amplified by a later and noble
treatise from the pen of Tacitus. Tacitus paints a splendid picture of
the domestic virtues and personal valor of these tribes, holding them
up as examples that might well be useful to his countrymen. Caesar found
many Teutonic tribes, not only in the Rhine Valley, but well established
in lands further west and already Gallic.

By the third century, German tribes had formed themselves into
federations--the Franks, Alemanni, Frisians and Saxons. The Rhine
Valley, after long subjection to the Romans, had acquired houses,
temples, fortresses and roads such as the Romans always built. Caesar
had found many evidences of an advanced state of society. Antiquarians
of our day, exploring German graves, discover signs of it in splendid