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 Briken (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'Ecot, 6713 ft. (Savoy), and St Veran, 6726 ft. (Dauphine),
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).
br]
The above article is a portion of the article "Alps," from the 1911 edition of an
encyclopedia, which is out of copyright here in the U.S. It is in the
public domain and you may copy, download, print and distribute this work
as you see fit.
Every effort has been made to present this text accurately and
cleanly, but no guarantees are made against errors. Neither Melissa
Snell nor About may be held liable for any problems you experience with
the text version or with any electronic form of this document.
