IN 1869 a distinguished Frenchman, an ex-prime minister, began long history of his nation with these words, "France inhabits country, long ago civilized and Christianized, where despite much imperfection and much social misery, thirty-eight millions of men live in security and peace, under laws equal for all and efficiently upheld." This statement was all the more true on the eve of the Great War in 1914. To understand the history of any country, however, it is absolutely necessary to understand something of its geography, and geographical factors have influenced the history of France certainly as much as that of any great nation of the Old World save possibly in the case of England.
Of the larger or more famous countries of Europe, Russia, the Scandinavian lands, Germany, Holland, and Belgium assuredly belong to the North, with its severe winters and the changes in civilization inevitable in a severe climate. Great Britain and Ireland are also Northern lands, but with their national life profoundly modified through encirclement by the sea. Greece, Italy, and Spain look out upon the blue Mediterranean. They are Southern lands – of the olive, the vine, and the luxurious forests. They receive the hot winds of Africa, and they have enjoyed direct contact with the older civilizations of the East. There is one land, however, that is both Southern and Northern, both of Southern wine and Northern corn; and whose southern shores have been trodden by the old Greeks and Phoenicians, while from her northern headlands can be seen the cliffs of southern England. That country is France, "the mediating land" (as has been well said) between ancient and modern civilization, and between southern and northern Europe.
France thus lies most decidedly in the cross-roads of world events. It is better to study her annals than those of any other one country in Europe, if the reader would get a general view of universal history. France has been a participant in, or interested spectator of, nearly every great war or diplomatic contest for over a thousand years; and a very great proportion of all the religious, intellectual, social, and economic movements which have affected the world either began in France or were speedily caught up and acted upon by Frenchmen soon after they had commenced their working elsewhere.
Nevertheless, geographically France is a highly separate and an economically independent nation. In 1914 she was probably less dependent on imported commodities and foreign commerce for her prosperous life than any other country in western Europe. She came far nearer to feeding herself than either England or Germany. Better than any other great power, saving the United States, she could have endured complete isolation and blockade provided she could have held intact her boundaries. France is decidedly separated from her neighbors by great natural barriers. Her coast-line is longer than her land frontiers: there being 395 miles of water along the Mediterranean shores, 572 on the North Sea and the British Channel, and 584 on the open Atlantic and the stormy Bay of Biscay. To the south, the lofty Pyrenees form a barrier against Spain, which permitted France to feel very secure even in the days when Spain was formidable. Towards Italy and Switzerland, the Alps and their cousins the Jura are a still more reliable bulwark. Before 1870 the Rhine was a protection against Germany and, after the loss of Alsace- Lorraine, the Vosges Mountains were still a difficult problem for armies. Only towards the northwest, the Belgian boundary ran across fields arbitrarily marked off without natural limits, and here alone neither mountains nor rivers could come to the aid of French generals defending their homeland. It is not surprising, therefore, that it was across Belgium that in 1914 Prussian militarism attempted to "hack its way" to Paris, discarding neutral rights and plighted word.
As Old-World countries go, France has a large territory. Only Russia is essentially larger. As the crow flies it is 606 miles from north to south, 675 miles from northwest to southwest (the longest diagonal), and 556 miles from west to east. The total area in 1914 (before the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine) was about 200,700 square miles, now restored by the victory over Germany to about 206,300. Corsica, which is Italian in location though completely French in loyalty, added about $3375 more. France is thus somewhat smaller than Texas, the largest American federal state. She is much larger than California, the second in size. Her boundaries are ample to contain great diversities in customs, products, and scenery.
Although France does not possess the deeply indented coast of Britain, Greece, and Norway, she is provided with ample outlets for a great commerce and easy intercourse with distant nations. On the Mediterranean lie Marseilles, the most active harbor upon that "Great Sea," and Toulon, the chief French naval post. On Biscay are Bordeaux, La Rochelle, and Saint-Nazaire, the harbor-town for Nantes. On the Breton and Channel Coasts are Brest, Cherbourg, and especially Le Havre (which is peculiarly the port of Paris), and also Boulogne, Calais, and Dunkirk – the last three mainly important for their communications with England.
When one turns away from the seacoast, the whole bulk of French territory roughly distributes itself into three great sections – the Highlands, the Great Plateau, and the River Systems.
The Highlands are, of course, in the south and southeast only, where the national boundaries run up to the summits of the Pyrenees and the Alps. These districts are picturesque and interesting, but not large enough to contribute much to the general life of the nation.
The Great Central Plateau covers nearly half of the southern section of France, but it is cut off from the Alps by the broad, deep valley of the Rhone. Many parts of this plateau are comparatively level and without striking scenery: but nearly one seventh of the entire area of France is embraced in the great "Massif Central" radiating around Auvergne, which rises sometimes to a height of 3300 to 4000 feet, throwing up sharp mountains to over 6000 feet high. The upper parts of this plateau are rather barren, and raise only scanty crops for a correspondingly sparse population. On the southern side of the Plateau, cutting off warm Languedoc and the plains of the lower Rhone from the more barren plains of Rouergue, the Cévennes rise, as very respectable mountains, to over 5000 feet. Other parts of the Great Plateau are Limousin and Marche, where heights of 3300 feet are reached. On the northeast towards Germany, the Ardennes (between the Meuse and the Moselle) form another plateau 1600 to 2400 feet high in places, covered with forests, and broken by many marshy depressions, ravines, and fertile valleys. Since the Ardennes lie very directly on the route of armies passing between France and Germany, their position has served to determine the lines of march and location of many famous campaigns and battles.
But more Frenchmen by far live in the long river valleys than on the Great Central Plateau. There are over 4300 miles of navigable rivers in the country, besides nearly 200 miles more that have been converted into canals. The country also has adapted itself easily to the building of ordinary canals, of which there are more than 2000 miles. The rivers and the canals combined make inland navigation far more important in France than in almost any other European nation. Long before the days of railroads, the canal and river systems rendered it relatively easy to move heavy freight from one end to the other of the country, giving a great impetus toward national unity not enjoyed by lands more dependent for communications on carts and packhorses: and even now in the days of railroads the river barge has been a serious competitor to the freight train.
Making the circuit of the French coasts one finds a succession of important rivers, and along the banks of each thereof lie numerous famous cities and millions of prosperous people. Without the men of the river valleys there would be no France.
Beginning in the southwest there is the Garonne. It really begins in the Spanish Pyrenees, but it receives many affluents from the Massif Central. Its 346 miles of current drain an area of 22,080 square miles before it is joined by the slightly weaker Dordogne (305 miles) which rises in the height of land in Auvergne. The Dordogne digs its course into the plateau and wanders through a beautiful vineyard country, which is continued when this river (blending with the Garonne) continues as the more famous Gironde. This last is really a maritime estuary: fifteen miles from its mouth lies Bordeaux, one of the great ports of France, and its banks are lined with some of the most famous wine-lands in the world, producing the renowned vintage of Médoc.
From the mouth of the Gironde northward for some distance no stream of importance enters the Bay of Biscay; then is discovered the capital river of the nation, the Loire, undoubtedly the chief artery of France: 670 miles long, it winds from the mountains well over to the eastern side of the country. It drains 46,750 square miles and in this large area live 7,000,000 Frenchmen. It starts in the uplands a little to the west of the lower course of its chief rival, the Rhone. It swings northward and comes within 70 miles of Paris, then takes a great bend westward near Orléans. Whereupon, rapid and strong, fed by dozens of rich affluents, it sets out unwearyingly for the Atlantic. Along its banks lie the regions which are the real heart of France: the Orléannais, Touraine, Anjou, and in confines of its wider valley Berri, Maine, and Poitou – names graven upon French annals. In its wide valley lies a bright, thriving corn and wine country dotted with famous châteaux – Blois, Amboise, Chinon, Loches, to name only a very few: and among the equally famous cities touched by its swift current it is enough to name Orléans, Tours, Saumur, Angers, and Nantes.
North of the Loire flows the second river peculiarly dear to Frenchmen. The Seine is undoubtedly the smaller stream. It is only 485 miles long, draining 30,030 square miles. But it has been favored like the Tiber, the Thames, and the Hudson by the fame and historical greatness of the cities upon its banks. On its affluent, the Marne (its own name stamped upon history), lies Châlons where the hordes of Attila were turned away: and upon the Vesle lies Reims of immortal and melancholy memory. The Seine flows directly across Normandy and there on its banks stands Rouen, the stately Norman capital: while at its mouth is Le Havre, the thriving seaport: but of course the chief distinction of the Seine is that it is the river of Paris, where so often has seemed to throb the life of France.
In the extreme north of the country, the land tapers off towards Flanders and is very little above the level of the sea. The rivers are unimportant, sluggish, and frequently are made over into canals. This land of Picardy, Artois, and French Flanders is fertile, if somewhat monotonous, and contains the most important coal-fields in the nation, while Lille and Amiens are important and enterprising cities; but there is little distinctive in this region which belongs neither to the Great Plateau nor the Great Valleys.
There is still another mighty river in France, although it has played a less part in the national history than the Seine, the Loire, or even the Garonne-Gironde. The Rhone is 507 miles long and drains 38,180 square miles, but one tenth of this area is in Switzerland. It rises really in the St. Gothard Alps and issues from Lake Geneva. At Lyons (the second city of France) it is joined by the long and powerful Saone coming down from the north; then the united current advances southward through another rich vineyard-lined valley until, after a long course, at Avignon its banks suddenly become far less fertile and attractive, and the end of a stream, that has rushed down from the clear Alpine glaciers, is a muddy, sandy delta beside the Mediterranean.
The climate of the large country served by these great rivers obviously is extremely varied. On the whole it is one of the best climates in the world, "not so continental as Central Europe, and not so maritime as that of England." The coldest region is naturally the Great Central Plateau where the winters are frequently severe, although followed (American fashion) by decidedly hot summers. The northeast parts of the Plateau, Champagne, Lorraine, and the Vosges region, have a "continental" climate much like that of Germany and Austria. The frosts average 85 days per winter, although there is seldom much snow lingering upon the plains. The river valleys are milder. In Paris the frosts average only 56 days per year. The rains indeed average no less than 154 days per year, but the rainy spells are seldom extremely long, and the total rainfall is only 20 inches per annum. Brittany, a great buttress thrown out into the tumbling Atlantic, has a moist maritime climate very like that of the southwest of England. The Biscay-Garonne region is decidedly warm and dry. As for the southeastern region south of the mountains, Languedoc-Provence, this would have a really torrid climate except for the terrible and frequent mistral, a powerful wind which, rushing down from the Cévennes, purifies the air and throws back the moisture upon the sea, leaving these provinces so dry that Marseilles has only 55 rainy days per year.
Such a country is bound to have an abundant natural flora and fauna with corresponding cultivated products. Southern France is the land of the olive, the vine, and the mulberry. Northern France raises corn, and orchard and garden products like England and Germany. There are wide stretches of the open country which, except for the architecture of the farms and villages, look decidedly familiar to citizens of the Eastern States of America. There is still (considering the length of human habitation in the region) a surprising amount of forest land, carefully tended, but of unspoiled natural beauty. On the eve of the Great War, the state of the local communes owned over 10,000 square miles of forest land, and wide stretches beyond this were private property. These forests not merely added to the public wealth, but served to keep France an unartificialized nation, with verdant nature not too severely thrust into the background by "civilization."
To conclude this glance at the physical home of the ancient Gaul and the modern Frenchman – France is a region which, by geographical location and size, by the majesty of her rivers, and by the diversity of her scenery and mountains, is admirably fitted to be the home of a mighty nation.