A NEW FRANCO-GERMAN WAR OF MOTOR-TOURIST ROAD BUILDING
SHALL France or Germany capture the bulk of the American and English automobile traffic that sweeps southward each year for those tourist paradises, Switzerland and Italy? That question became a vital one when the French awoke recently to the significance of Germany’s newly hatched plans for great motor highways from her seaports of Hamburg and Stettin, running down through Central Europe, roughly parallel and almost due south, to Switzerland and the Italian frontier. In consequence of which, as we learn from the Paris Times:
France is alarmed. Such routes, if followed by American and English motorists bound for Italy and the Riviera, would deprive France of a large volume of tourist trade.
The plans for the Hamburg-Milan and Stettin-Milan routes became a. certainty at the Highway Congress in Milan, held recently. Immediately, French travel agencies and hotel associations asked their government what it was going to do about the situation. When these German highways should be finished, the launching of an international campaign of publicity for the routes would be a certainty. Germany, and also Italy, would claim in flaring posters and pamphlets and full-page newspaper advertisements, disseminated throughout the world, that these were the only practical routes to Italy and the Riviera. Many might take these statements for granted, and as a result France might lose a considerable revenue. What would the Government do about it?
The Automobile Club de l’Ouest, with headquarters at Le Mans, evolved a plan, and its representatives have conferred with M. Andre Tardieu, Minister of Public Works, and M. Magnier, Director of Highways. The Club pointed out that the natural advantage is with France, but that the advantage must be capitalized at once. Existing national highways must be linked and improved, and so provided with direction sign-boards that an American or English motorist could follow the highway from Cherbourg to Nice or Turin without having occasion once to ask his way.
If undertaken at once, the work could be finished in a year, and would not cost more than a few million francs. Thus, France would be in a position to advertise a France-Italy motor highway before the German route could be completed. The Automobile Club provided plans, which would link Italy with the French seaports of Cherbourg, Havre, and Saint-Nazaire. All three routes would meet at Tours, and continue along the great highway, swerving at Lyons for Grenoble, Marseilles and Nice, or continuing to Chambery for Turin and for Nice by a second route.
Germany has been very active in recent years in efforts to attract American and English tourists, having recourse to such inducements as abolishing visa fees and granting reductions of one-third of the railway fare, with stop-over privileges, to travelers en route to other countries by, way of Germany.
French tourist agencies, however feel that they have a natural advantage, provided that the matter of the highway is attended to. For American and English travelers, it is a shorter sea voyage to France than to Germany. Then, too, the longest of the three French highways to Nice would be 400 kilometers shorter than the German route. However, it is felt that very few tourists would like to make the trip to the Riviera and Italy without several stops, and the natural attractions of France, the chateaux of the Loire, the Alps of Savoy, the famous churches and scenic beauties, are counted upon to attract the tourists.
The Cherbourg-Tours-Lyons-Grenoble-Nice road would be 1,221 kilometers in length. The route of Havre-Rouen-Tours-Lyons-Chambery-Turin would be 1,129 kilometers long. The Saint Nazaire-Tours-Chambery-Turin highway would measure 1,028 kilometers. The Hamburg-Nice route is placed at 1,607 kilometers.
Source: The Literary Digest for July 2, 1927