Abstract
This hopeful remark, written in 1920 by the German social critic Alfons Paquet, suggests that a ‘common spirit in Europe’ could ‘take the offensive’ in realizing waterways over both of Europe’s continental divides. As a German, Paquet conceived of these as extensions of the Rhine — via watershed-spanning canals into the basins of the Rhone and of the Danube. In this chapter I want to take a closer look at this ‘common spirit,’ particularly at whether it was merely an ideological pose to cloak what were essentially local or national projects in transcontinental European grandeur, or whether it was in fact a material force in promoting visions of such waterways and the projects to realize them. I will address this question by considering two visions of a waterway spanning the continental divide between the Rhine and Rhone basins. The first is the actually accomplished French Canal du Rhône au Rhin connecting the Rhine via the so-called ‘Burgundian Gate’ to the Rhone basin. The second is the envisioned, but never built, German–French–Swiss ‘transhelvetique’ over the Hochrhein via the River Aare and Geneva and on to the Haut Rhône. Both projects penetrate the ’European’ watershed dividing the Rhine and the Rhone, which can be held to ‘connect’ the North and Mediterranean Seas via a trans-European waterway, and thus provide an interesting comparison (See Figure 9.1). One was accomplished as an explicitly national project (though with European overtones) while the other was steeped in transnational imaginings from the first; one was a more or less routine challenge in hydraulic and political engineering while the other was dauntingly innovative in both respects.
Nowadays, by the terms of the peace that has been made, the biggest European rivers have been internationalized, have been withdrawn from exclusive rule by single nations and been opened to ships of all flags. … The Rhine too is one of these rivers. It is the major artery connecting inner Europe to the North Sea. But by virtue of its upper reaches it also belongs to the chain of canals that might connect inner Europe to the Mediterranean and Black Seas. That is telling if we believe in a common spirit in Europe which is only waiting to take the offensive in actually realizing these possibilities, which today exist only as projects.1
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Notes
Alfons Paquet, Der Rhein als Schicksal, oder das Problem der Völker (Bonn: Verlag von Friedrich Cohen 1920), p. 17.
Erik van der Vleuten and Arne Kaijser (eds), Networking Europe: Transnational Infrastructures and the Shaping of Europe, 1850–2000 (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publishers 2006).
Bruno Latour, Ces réseaux que la raison ignore (Paris: l’Harmattan 1992), introduction. (Translation and emphasis CD)
Michèle Merger (ed), Les Réseaux Européens Transnationaux XIXe — XXe Siecles. Quels Enjeux? (Bordeaux: Ouest Éditions 2005).
B.M. Frischmann, ‘An Economic Theory of Infrastructure and Commons Management’, Minnesota Law Review 89 (2005), pp. 917–1031.
See Frank Schipper, Driving Europe: Building Europe on roads in the twentieth century (Amsterdam: Aksant 2008), p. 104ff.
Willem van Looveren, ‘Een en ander over grenzen en waterscheidingen in en om het stroomgebied van de Rijn, die reeds overwonnen en nog te overwinnen zijn’ in T. Ligthart (ed.) Physisch- en Economisch-Geografische Beschouwingen over de Rijn als Europese rivier (Rotterdam: Van Kouteren’s Uitgeversbedrijf 1948), p. 186.
Cornelis Disco, ‘Taming the Rhine. Economic Connection and Urban Competition’ in M. Hård and T.J. Misa (eds) Urban Machinery. Inside Modern European Cities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2008), pp. 23–48.
R.G. Geiger, Planning the French Canals: Bureaucracy, Politics, and Enterprise under the Restoration, (Newark, Del. and Cranbury, N.J.: University of Delaware Press 1994).
M. Cioc, The Rhine: An Eco-Biography, 1815–2000 (Seattle: University of Washington Press 2002).
K. Spiess, ‘Ausbau des Rheines vom Bodensee bis zum Main’ in Wasser- und Schiffahrtsdirektion Duisburg (ed.) Der Rhein. Ausbau, Verkehr, Verwaltung (Duisburg: Rhein Verlagsgesellschaft mbH 1951), pp. 127–8.
R. Gelpke, Free Access to the Sea for Switzerland and The Rhine a Highway of British Trade (London: s.n. 1919).
A. Giandou, La Compagnie nationale du Rhône (1933–1998). Histoire d’un partenaire régionale de l’Etat (Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble 1999)
Michèle Merger, ‘La liaison Rhin-Rhone ou l’histoire d’un serpent de mer (1834–1991)’ in M. Merger et al. (eds) Les Réseaux Européens Transnationaux, XIXe — XXe Siècles. Quels Enjeux? (Bordeaux: Ouest Éditions 1999), pp. 185–212
Sarah Pritchard, ‘Reconstructing the Rhone: The Cultural Politics of Nature and Nation in Contemporary France, 1945–1997’, French Historical Studies 27(4) (2004), pp. 765–99.
The Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine, established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, ensured enforcement of the various Rhine Treaties pertaining tofree navigation on the river — culminating in the Act of Mannheim (1867). All projects for modifications to the river bed that affected navigation had to be submitted to the commission for its approval. All riparian states had seats on the commission, but after the First World War, by virtue of stipulations in the Treaty of Versailles, England, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland were added and France stacked the Central Commission in its favour by claiming more than its fair share of representatives and monopolizing the chairmanship. Despite this ‘political’ imbalance, indications are that the requirement of unanimous voting (i.e. de facto vetofor all members), the importance of technical subcommittees in framing decisions, and of course the danger of delegitimizing itself as a constructive member of the international community, restrained France’s hand and maintained the Central Commission’s equanimity; J.P. Chamberlain, The Regime of the International Rivers: Danube and Rhine (Washington: Columbia University 1923)
W.J.M.v. Eysinga, La Commission Centrale pour la Navigation du Rhin (Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff 1935).
C. Béliard, Le Grand Canal d’Alsace. Voie Navigable. Source d’Énergie (Paris: Berger-Levrault 1926).
É.É.d. Rhin, L’usine hydroélectrique de Kembs: premier échelon du Grand Canal d’Alsace (Mulhouse-Dornach: Braun & Cie 1932).
Jean Comte, Pour une politique maritime et fluviale: La Suisse, la Méditerranée, le Rhône (Luzern: J. Stocker 1947), p. 154.
R. Gelpke, A Water-way from London to Basle (Basel: Frobenius Ltd 1919).
J.-L. Piveteau, ‘Le Transhelvétique: Vitalité d’un Vieux Projet’, Geocarrefour 40(2) (1965), pp. 175–85.
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Disco, C. (2010). From Sea to Shining Sea. Making Ends Meet on the Rhine and the Rhone. In: Badenoch, A., Fickers, A. (eds) Materializing Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230292314_16
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