Norwich bulletin., 1917-01-10
THE WAR PRIMER By National Geographic Society

"Coinnar, the German capital o1 Upper Alsace, whose aviation grounds are reported to have been bonn barded ] by French airmen recently, is a place 1 of sentimental interest for Americans as it was here that F. A. Bartho1di the famous French sculptor of the Statue of Liberty in New York har bor, was born," says bulletin of the National Geographic Society issued in its war geography series.
 Built on both sides of the Lauch, a tributary of the Rhine, which flows about 10 miles to the east, Colmar is a thriving commercial and manufac- turing city of more than 10000 in habitants. It is only about twelve miles east of the French border and is Al miles by rail south of Strass burg on the main line to Basel, Swift zerland.
 "The textile manufacturies consti- ute the chief industrial activity of the city. Silk, cotton and woolen sewing thread are of prime import ance, while the vineyards and pro ductive fruit orchards of the sur rounding country are a profitable ad junct to the industrial life of the com munity.
 While much of the city is modern, with fine buildings and straight streets, the inner town is particularly picturesque with some of it's build ings dating back to the time when the Emperor Frederick II declared this an imperial free city in the first half of the 18th century. Its rise to prom thence at that time was due largely to the ambition and capacity of one of F'rederick's subjects, Wolfelin who surrounded the town with walls but who in the accumulation of vast wealth did not fortify himseH against the envy of his sovereign The lat ter confscated much of Wolfelin's horded store of gold, and tradition says that the despoiled subject was murdered by his wife who was no less avaricious than he and feared share of her husbands holdings, un- less she 'disassociated herself from him.
 The civic rights granted to the served as a model for many other cities throughout the empire. The town prospered notably and two cen turies later had attained position of such power that it bade defiance to Charles the Bold.
 During the disastrous Thirty Years War, which laid so many ci- ties of Germany low, Colmar was at one time in the hands of the Swedes and at another a French possession. pied the town and proceeded to rage the Notifications. Eight years later Louis XIV annexed it to France by formal decree, and it remained in
 
 ital of the Haut-Rhin department un- til 1871 when, with the other cities of A!sace and Lorraine, it was added by conquest to the German empire.
 Tn addition to Bartholdi, in whose honor a monument has been erected in the city, Colmar boasts of the foremost German painter of the 18th century, Martin Schongauer, as a native son. The finest example of this artists work is to be found here in the thirteenth century Church of St. Martin. The canvas is called the Madonna of the Rosehedge.' Schon- gauer founded a famous school of en- graving in Colmar, from which sprung the little masters and an inn pcrtant group of Nuremberg artists. The famous Dominican nunnery of founded in 1232, has been converted into a Schongauer Museum, which contains many early German paintings and a room set aside for he plaster casts and models of Gartholdi, who died in 1904.
 Colmar probably occupies the site 1 f the Roman settlement of Columbia -iuna, but the first mention of the 'lace in F'rankish history occurs in 323 as a royal villa of Louis I, the | hird son of the emperor Constan- l inc. who was surnamed the Pious' | Then he banished his sisters from | 1urt because of their mortal lives. | ? the same century Charles the Fat, -soman. emperor. held a diet here"