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 back the house of Savoy across the Alps, thus forcing it to become a purely Italian power. One turning-point in the rivalry was the treaty of Utrecht (1713), by which France gave up to Savoy the districts (all forming part of the Dauphiné, and lying on the Italian slope of the Alps) of Exilles, Bardonnèche, Oulx, Fénestrelles, and Château Dauphin, while Savoy handed over to France the valley of Barcelonnette, situated on the western slope of the Alps and forming part of the county of Nice. The final act in the long-continued struggle took place in 1860, when France obtained by cession the rest of the county of Nice and also Savoy, thus remaining sole mistress on the western slope of the Alps.

In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1815 of the Swiss Confederation, at least so far as regards the mountain Cantons, and with especial reference to the independent confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815 respectively. The attraction of the south was too strong for both the Forest Cantons and the Grisons, so that both tried to secure, and actually did secure, various bits of the Milanese. The former, in the 15th century, won the Val Leventina (down which the St Gotthard train now thunders) as well as Bellinzona and the Val Blenio (though the Ossola Valley was held for a time only), while the latter added to the Val Bregaglia (which had been given to the bishop of Coire in 960 by the emperor Otto I.) the valleys of Mesocco and of Poschiavo. Further, in 1512, the Swiss Confederation as a whole won the valleys of Locarno with Lugano, which, combined with the 15th century conquests by the Forest Cantons, were formed in 1803 into the new Canton of Ticino or Tessin. On the other hand, the Grisons won in 1512 the Valtellina, with Bormio and Chiavenna, but in 1797 these regions were finally lost to it as well as to the Swiss Confederation, though the Grisons retained the valleys of Mesocco, Bregaglia and Poschiavo, while in 1762 it had bought the upper bit of the valley of Munster that lies on the southern slope of the Alps.

In the Eastern Alps the political history is almost monotonous, for it relates simply to the advance or retreat of the house of Habsburg, which still holds all but the whole of the northern portion (the exception is the small bit in the north-west that belongs to Bavaria) of that region. The Habsburgers, whose original home was in the lower valley of the Aar, where still stand the ruins of their ancestral castle, lost that district to the Swiss in 1415, as they had previously lost various other bits of what is now Switzerland. But they received a rich compensation in the Eastern Alps (not to speak of the imperial crown), for they there gathered in the harvest that numerous minor dynasties had prepared for them, albeit unconsciously. Thus they won the duchy of Austria with Styria in 1282, Carinthia and Carniola in 1335, Tirol in 1363, and the Vorarlberg in bits from 1375 to 1523, not to speak of minor “rectifications” of frontiers on the northern slope of the Alps. But on the other slope their progress was slower, and finally less successful. It is true that they early won Primiero (1373), as well as (1517) the Ampezzo Valley and several towns to the south of Trent. In 1797 they obtained Venetia proper, in 1803 the secularized bishoprics of Trent and Brixen (as well as that of Salzburg, more to the north), besides the Valtellina region, and in 1815 the Bergamasque valleys, while the Milanese had belonged to them since 1535. But, as is well known, in 1859 they lost to the house of Savoy both the Milanese and the Bergamasca, and in 1866 Venetia proper also, so that the Trentino is now their chief possession on the southern slope of the Alps. The gain of the Milanese in 1859 by the future king of Italy (1861) meant that Italy then won the valley of Livigno (between the Upper Engadine and Bormio), which is the only important bit it holds on the non-Italian slope of the Alps, besides the county of Tenda (obtained in 1575, and not lost in 1860), with the heads of certain glens in the Maritime Alps, reserved in 1860 for reasons connected with hunting. Thus the Alpine states (Italy, Switzerland and Austria), other than France and Bavaria, hold bits of territory on the slope of the Alps where one would not expect to find them Roughly speaking, in each of these five lands the Alpine population speaks the tongue of the country, though in Italy there are a few French-speaking districts (the Waldensian valleys as well as the Aosta and Oulx valleys) as well as some German-speaking and Ladin-speaking settlements. In Switzerland there are Italian-speaking regions, as well as some spots (in the Grisons) where the old Romance dialect of Romansch or Ladin survives; while in Austria, besides German, Italian and Ladin, we have a Slavonic-speaking population in the South-Eastern Alps. The highest permanently inhabited village in the Alps is Juf, 6998 ft. (Grisons); while in the French Alps, L’Écot, 6713 ft. (Savoy), and St Véran, 6726 ft. (Dauphiné), are rivals; the Italian Alps boast of Trepalle, 6788 ft. (between Livigno and Bormio), and the Tirolese Alps of Ober Gurgl, 6322 ft., and Fend, 6211 ft. (both in the Oetzthal).

8. Exploration of the High Alps.—The higher region of the Alps were long left to the exclusive attention of the men of the adjoining valleys, even when Alpine travellers (as distinguished from Alpine climbers) began to visit these valleys. It is reckoned that about 20 glacier passes were certainly known before 1600. about 25 more before 1700, and yet another score before 1800; but though the attempt of P. A. Arnod (an official of the duchy of Aosta) in 1689 to “re-open” the Col du Géant may be counted as made by a non-native, we do not come upon another case of the kind till the last quarter of the 18th century. Nor did it fare much better with the high peaks, though the two earliest recorded ascents were due to non-natives, that of the Rochemelon in 1358 having been undertaken in fulfilment of a vow, and that of the Mont Aiguille in 1492 by order of Charles VIII. of France, in order to destroy its immense reputation for inaccessibility—in 1555 Conrad Gesner did not climb Pilatus proper, but only the grassy mound of the Gnepfstein, the lowest and the most westerly of the seven summits. The two first men who really systematically explored the regions of ice and snow were H. B. de Saussure (1740–1799), as regards the Pennine Alps, and the Benedictine monk of Disentis, Placidus à Spescha (1752–1833, most of whose ascents were made before 1806), in the valleys at the sources of the Rhine. In the early 19th century the Meyer family of Aarau conquered in person the Jungfrau (1811) and by deputy the Finsteraarhorn (1812), besides opening several glacier passes, their energy being entirely confined to the Bernese Oberland. Their pioneer work was continued in that district, as well as others, by a number of Swiss, pre-eminent among whom were Gottlieb Studer (1804–1890) of Bern, and Edouard Desor (1811–1882) of Neuchâtel. The first-known English climber in the Alps was Colonel Mark Beaufoy (1764–1827), who in 1787 made an ascent (the fourth) of Mont Blanc, a mountain to which his fellow-countrymen long exclusively devoted themselves, with a few noteworthy exceptions, such as Principal J. D. Forbes (1809–1868), A. T. Malkin (1803–1888), John Ball (1818–1889), and Sir Alfred Wills (b. 1828). Around Monte Rosa the Vincent family, Josef Zumstein (1783–1861), and Giovanni Gnifetti (1801–1867) did good work during the half century between 1778 and 1842, while in the Eastern Alps the Archduke John (1782–1850), Prince F. J. C. von Schwarzenberg, archbishop of Salzburg (1809–1885), Valentine Stanig (1774–1847), Adolf Schaubach (1800–1850), above all, P. J. Thurwieser (1789–1865), deserve to be recalled as pioneers in the first half of the 19th century. In the early fifties of the 19th century the taste for mountaineering rapidly developed for several very different reasons. A great stimulus was given to it by the foundation of the various Alpine clubs, each of which drew together the climbers who dwelt in the same country. The first was the English Alpine Club (founded in the winter of 1857–1858), followed in 1862 by the Austrian Alpine Club (which in 1873 was fused, under the name of the German and Austrian Alpine Club, with the German Alpine Club, founded in 1869), in 1863 by the Italian and Swiss Alpine Clubs, and in 1874 by the French Alpine Club, not to mention numerous minor societies of more local character. It was by the members of these clubs (and a few others) that the minute exploration (now all but complete)