San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-09-30
DAS VATERLAND.
A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW.
With Reference TO the Periods
Represented In the German
Day Street Pageant.

If there is a race or nation of people
who love to recall the deeds of their
forefathers, not only love to recall,
but relish to glory in the goodness
and greatness thereof, it is the Ger
man race. ...- 81. /
They love to sit in true Teutonic
ease when the cares of daily toll,
winged with the smoke that
curls from their great long
pipes, have flown away, and tell
their growing children the same
old historic tales that they I'D heard
in days long past. They love to re-
call how, in ancient times, the leu.
tonic tribes had roamed over the
great rough wilds and woods of
Europe, in search of homes. How in
later times they crushed the Roman
legions and finally Slapped the very
heart of he once world cOnquering
Rome. They love to tell of times still
later, how divided and united they
fell or held their own, before the
French; how two NapOllans fell be.
fore their ay;how twice proud Paris
fell, and how today old Vaterland
united stands. or these things
they love to tell. Verify Hope is life
itself, but Recollection, its only
nourishment. Hence to him, who of
great deeds can tell, life without the
gift of recollection must be the height
of misery. $3.50 $500
The ancient Germans were, accord.
ing to the most authentic accounts, a
tall, rough and muscularly strong
race of people, with long light hair
and blue eyes, tilling the soil, and de-
lighting in wild out door sports. They
were plain, honest and upright, a
marked contrast in these respects, to
the corrupt Romans. On the other
hand, they often went to great ex-
cesses in drinks and gambling.
The first time that we find the Ger
mans figuring in the worlds history,
is in the second century b.
c., when the Teutons and the
Cimbri, some Germanic tribes, cross
ed the Alps, defeated a Roman consul
and in series of years the Roman
armies that were sent against them,
until they in turn were defeated by
the great consul, Marius, in the years
103 and 101 B. G.
This period in the history of the
race will be made the subject of the
first wagon of the German Day pro-
cession, 1.-The Cimbri and Teutons
before Rome"
The Romans then pressed forward
into the regions of the Germans, sub
jugating them and planting Roman
colonies and forts all along their path.
At last some kind of unity was effec-
ted among the loose tribes, who,
under the leadership of Armin or
Hermann, chief of the Cherusci, com.
pletely annihilated three le-
gions of Roman soldiery in
the Teutoburger forest, thus practi-
cally gaining the independence of his
country. This event, which took
place in the year 8, A. D., is to be
honored by the second wagon in the
pageant, which will be a representa-
ton of the monument erected to Her
mann, in the Teutoburger forest.
The old Roman empire rapidly went
to decay and the bar barians 1.-THE Ger
manic races in the north) pressed
closer upon the Romans until with all
the corruption within and the
strength of the baTbarians without,
the Roman empire was captured by
the great Visigoth chief, Alario, and
Rome itself was sacked in the year
40 A. D.
This great city, the very heart of
the country that had conquered the
then known world, this great city
that had subdued and proudly beheld
the burning of her greatest rival city,
Carthage, fell on the night of August
"a, 40 A. d.
This important event in the history
of the world, wrought by Teutonic
troops, will be the subject of the
third wagon. which represents dep
utation of Roman senators, priests
and citizens appearing before Aiaric,
begging him to spare the city.
Several hundred years after this
remarkable event, the Germapic
tribes had separated and found
ed numerous little monar-
chies which kept up more or less of
petty warfare among them selves I'M
til finally one great ruler, Charlie
magne, or Charles the Great, gobbled
up the malcontents and made him
self ruler of all the then known
Europe. This monarch was a most
jealous Christian and kept up q long,
bloody and cruel war of SO years with
the heather Saxon tribes under Wit
tikind, in order to force them to &C
cept the Christian religion.
The fourth wagon in the procession
will be realistic representation of
the baptism of Wittikind, the power
full Saxon chief.
After the death of Charlemagne,
his son Louis the Pious, inherited the