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INNSBRUCK, ITS HISTORY, PEOPLE AND TREASURES

The approach to Innsbruck, whether one come to it by railway or by road from the west, north, east or south, is picturesque and even wonderfully beautiful. Most English and American travellers, however, we imagine, come to the old-time capital of Tyrol via Zurich and the Arlberg railway, with its marvellous tunnel all but six and a half miles in length, above which tower snow-clad peaks and glaciers. This route provides a wonder-world of delight, a succession of deep gorges lying at the foot of towering mountains covered on their summits with a mantle of spotless and eternal snow. At one moment the train traverses a steep gradient climbing slowly along the hillside as though the line were laid upon a shelf of rock from which nothing but a miracle can keep it from tumbling into the foaming torrent below; the next plunging into the darkness of one of the many tunnels, to emerge a moment or two later into a blaze of light and vistas of still greater beauty. The Arlberg railway is not alone an engineering triumph; it is also an artistic one. Few lines in Europe present greater charm or variety of scenery in so comparatively short a distance. To enter Tyrol by it is to see the country as it is, largely unaltered from the days when Napoleon's armies entered it also from the Swiss frontier with the same objective, Innsbruck.

Soon after leaving Feldkirch the valley commences to contract as the line climbs upwards from Bludenz and passes through the beautiful Kloster Thal; and at Langen one suddenly comes into the region of Alpine pastures, and from the valley below one can hear the musical tinkle of cow-bells, and discover on the hill-slopes picturesque groups of peasants minding their flocks. Then comes the ascent through the famous Arlberg tunnel, which is 26 feet in width and 23 feet in height, with its six and a half miles of gloom succeeded by magnificent scenery as St. Anton is passed, and the line proceeds through the narrow Stanzer valley, between towering mountains, many of whose peaks are snow-covered. Soon it crosses the wonderful Trisanna Viaduct which, in one arch of nearly 150 yards in length, spans the gorge of the Patznaum valley, at the bottom of which, nearly 200 feet below the line, rushes the glacial stream, and thence past the ancient Castle of Wiesberg onwards to Landeck, which is set in a wide valley with its commanding castle.

From Landeck by taking a carriage one can reach Innsbruck in a leisurely way along the Finstermunz high-road via Sulden and Trafoi, and thence along the Stilfserjoch, the highest carriage road in Europe, which climbs to the height of 9055 feet above sea level. This was constructed between the years 1820–25 by the Austrian Government, and traverses a wonderful variety of exquisite scenery, from the region of the eternal snow on the Ortler and Monte Cristallo to the vine-clad slopes of the Val Tellina. The most impressive scenery is, however, found on the Tyrol side of the pass.

From Landeck the line passes many another picturesque village; castles, whose history would fill volumes, seem to stand stark and stern almost on every mountain spur, some now mere ruins, others wonderful survivals of a past age, sometimes environed by pine-clad slopes, at others half-encircled by rushing torrents washing the bases of the rocky promontories upon which they stand, whilst above one towers on either hand the illimitable glaciers and snow slopes of the Eastern Alps. Thus through ever interesting and beautiful scenery one at last approaches Innsbruck.

THE TRISANNA VIADUCT AND CASTLE WIESBERG

A PEEP OF THE ZILLERTHAL

INNSBRUCK

Innsbruck is not only the capital of Tyrol, a town of upwards of 50,000 inhabitants, renowned historically and climaterically, but it is also the junction of two important lines of railway by means of which one can get eastward to Vienna and the East, and southward into Italy.

It has been said that of all Tyrolese towns Innsbruck is the least national. Such a statement, although tinctured with truth, needs some qualification. In the season it certainly puts on a cosmopolitan air, and one meets numbers of English, Austrians, Germans, French, Americans, Italians, and Anglo-Indians in its streets; and games and entertainments make up a social round of considerable gaiety. But the town nevertheless retains its native charm, bred of historic memories, ancient buildings, and the hospitality of its people.

To the northward, sheltering it from the cold winds from off the Bavarian plains, stands the bulwark of the eternal heights which literally wall in Tyrol. There rise the magnificent groups of limestone mountains towering above the fertile Inn Valley, the Frauhitt and Martinswand with their romantic traditions and memories, the Seegrubenspitzen, and Rumerjoch and Brandjoch. In fine weather they appear but a stone's throw from the bottom of the Maria-Theresien-Strasse, or from the Ferdinands Allée which runs along the south bank of the Inn, with its maples and poplars graceful and shady.

Situated amid so much beauty of scenery, favoured by an equable climate and much sunshine, it is little wonder that the town has become a popular resort, more especially during the winter months. The valley is at its broadest where the city stands, allowing a wide prospect and charming views from the slopes of St. Nicolaus and Mariahilf across the river to the Berg Isel, and the wooded sides of the Mittelgebirge, with here and there a tiny village with outstanding spire perched high on the mountain side, or set amid the plain. The valley lies east and west of Innsbruck with the river flowing eastward like a silver ribbon, amid cultivated fields of fertile alluvial soil, threading its way through the gradually narrowing valley to Kufstein and thence through Bavaria to the Danube.

This Alpine city, pregnant with so many historical memories, deeds of blood and chivalry, engirdled by the everlasting hills, is, with the possible exception of Salzburg, the most picturesque and interesting of all German Alpine towns.

The character of Innsbruck of to-day differs very materially in some respects from what it was two decades ago. The modern element, which always comes to such places with greater notoriety and prosperity brought by travellers and tourists, has become developed, but happily as yet not greatly to the detriment of the old-time air which still permeates its narrow, ancient streets, and by-ways, courts, and buildings. In some of the former, the Maria-Theresien-Strasse at the south end of which stands the Triumphal Arch and Gate, and the Herzog-Friedrich-Strasse, for example, the old and the new are strangely mingled. It is not a little owing to this distinguishing feature as well as to its beautiful environment that Innsbruck owes its charm. With much of the convenience, it possesses less of the vexing artificiality of ancient places vulgarized by the exigencies of modern travel than do many similar towns. In some parts one might almost imagine one's self in one of the larger mountain villages, in another at Pontresina, or St. Moritz, minus, however, some of the more artificial gaiety of these resorts.

INNSBRUCK TYPES

During the season—more especially the summer—there are numbers of German tourists as well as Austrian to be seen in the streets, and in their almost boisterous enjoyment of their sight-seeing and holiday amusements they form a very marked contrast to the quieter and perhaps somewhat restrained English and American visitors, who as a general rule set about exploring the place and its treasures with a much more preoccupied and business-like air.

From the higher and more distant valleys, too, many mountaineers and peasants come down to enjoy a few hours' marketing or the pleasures of the town. They form not the least interesting feature of the summer crowd which throngs the new as well as the old streets of Innsbruck. The women, many of them, wear picturesque costumes, consisting of velvet bodices, skirts of often beautiful shades of green and brown; aprons elaborately worked, or of lace; and sailor-shaped hats of black or green felt, often ornamented by gold embroidery under the brims and with two long ribbons (frequently also of velvet) hanging down or fluttering in the wind at the back. These hats are singularly like those of the Breton peasants, only they are worn more by the women than the men, whilst in Brittany women seldom wear them.

The fact that Innsbruck is a garrison town accounts for the presence of a large number of soldiers about the streets; green plays a prominent part in many of the uniforms—more especially of Tyrolese regiments—whilst the officers of several wear a particularly smart shade of blue-grey, or "pastel" blue cloth with trimmings of cerise, scarlet, or green, which seldom fail to arouse the admiration of the ladies. The countryfolk, too, crowd the streets on market days with feathers in their hats which are often of beautifully "weathered" golden green or bright green felt.

The history of Innsbruck from the tenth century onwards is indeed largely that of Tyrol itself. The name as a town appears first to have occurred in a document of the year 1027 which was a grant to the chapel of St. James' in the Field (St. Jacob in der Au), which most probably occupied the site on which the stately church of the same name erected in 1717 now stands. Long before this date, however, a settlement of people—small at first—had taken place at this crossing or ford of the Inn, brought into existence by the growing and profitable commerce between Germany and Italy by way of the Brenner. Both the travelling merchants and the Tyrolese themselves soon found the place a convenient depôt for the heavier goods and articles of merchandise, such as skins, wines, cloths, and metal ware; and as the years went by it gradually grew to be more than a convenient halting-place for the merchants and their pack trains on their journeys. Houses fit to accommodate the well-to-do were erected, and Innsbruck as a flourishing town came into being. Towards the end of the twelfth century certain rights over the town were acquired by a von Andechs, Berthold II., from the monks of Wilten to whom it belonged; and in consequence of these rights, Otto I., his successor, encircled it with walls, fortifications, and watch-towers, and also built himself a palace.

The rise of Innsbruck was from the middle of the thirteenth century a steady one. At that period it was made the sole depôt for the storage of goods between the Zillerthal and the Melach; and as the years went by other privileges were granted to the steadily growing town, which not only served to maintain but also to increase its importance.

In 1279, Bruno, Bishop of Brixen, consecrated another church in the Ottoburg, which was called the Moritzkapelle. The town's lords, spiritual as well as temporal, appear to have done what they could to foster and encourage its growth, and there are records of festivities and princely entertainments on a lavish scale within the precincts of the Ottoburg in those far-off times. It was not, however, until after the cession of Tyrol to Austria by the Duchess Margaret, known as "Pocket-mouthed Meg," that the admirable situation of Innsbruck was fully realized. Ultimately, the convenience of its water communication by the Inn and Danube with other distant and flourishing towns of the Empire seems largely to have brought about its adoption as the seat of government for Tyrol.

INNSBRUCK'S RULERS

Innsbruck throughout the centuries, so far as its rulers are concerned, appears to have been "fortune's child." Many privileges were granted to it from time to time, and the staunch fidelity of the citizens to Duke Rudolph IV. of Habsburg at the time of one of the periodic Bavarian invasions resulted in further concessions being granted which served to place Innsbruck in the unassailable position of being both the capital and the most prosperous town in the Tyrol.

Duke Frederick of the Empty Pocket (Mit der leeren Tasche) made Innsbruck his home and base of operations whilst endeavouring to put down the Rottenburgers and other of the powerful nobles, who were attempting to set him at defiance and continue the oppression of the countryfolk which they had commenced and carried on during the unstable and weak government of Frederick's immediate predecessors.

The Innsbruckers gave him loyal and very material support in his endeavours, and reaped a substantial reward in the favours and privileges which Frederick afterwards granted to them.

It was this prince who gained, by contact with his people when a fugitive amongst the mountains and valleys of Tyrol, a knowledge of them (and thereby earned their affection) that made it possible for him ultimately to call the peasantry to arms, and to defy the power of the Emperor Sigismund, Ernest the Iron Duke of Styria, and his other enemies.

The circumstances of Frederick's call of the people to arms was romantic in the extreme. Indeed, his doings in the early years of his outlawry by the Church and State read like pages of the most stirring romance. Perhaps some of the deeds recorded are more or less legendary, but enough remains to fill to overflowing with stirring incidents the pages of any historical romance. Briefly the story of the event is as follows. Assured during his many wanderings of the people's devotion to him, for when pursued they had sheltered him, and when discovered they had boldly refused to surrender his person to his enemies, Frederick devised a plan by which he should appear as the principal actor in an heroic peasant comedy at the great fair at Landeck. This play set forth in stirring scenes the fortunes or rather misfortunes of an exiled prince driven from his throne by his enemies, compelled to wander destitute, and with a price upon his head amongst his people, whom he eventually calls to arms and leads to victory and thus recovers his inheritance.

He must have played his part remarkably well if one may judge by the results. The people, who had come to the fair from all parts of the country roundabout were stirred to the very depths by his acting, and by his pourtrayal of the imaginary prince's misfortunes. We are told the audience were many of them moved to tears and that when Frederick came to sing of the people following their ruler's call to arms the enthusiasm became uncontrollable.

Then, so the tale goes, Frederick threw off all disguise, and made a direct appeal to them. The vast audience vowed to support his cause, and the enthusiasm which swayed the Landeckers was not long spreading through the whole country with the result that shortly afterwards the Emperor Sigismund and Frederick's brother concluded a truce with him and he was allowed to become ruler.