Chaussee is an historic term used in German-speaking countries for early, metalled, rural highways, designed by road engineers, as opposed to the hitherto, traditional, unpaved country roads. The term is no longer used in modern road construction in Western Europe, but survives in road names and is used by historians. In Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet states it remains a generic term for a common paved highway outside of built-up areas, but they may transition into prospekts within towns and cities.
Origin of the word and usage
The German word was borrowed from the French by the German construction industry in the 18th century. The French word, in turn, went back to the Gallo-Romanic and meant a road surfaced with firmly compacted crushed rock bound with lime. Contemporary German translations of the word were ('road embankment') and ('high way') and even the roughly similar English word, highway. Around 1790, Adelung complained that "several new authors have proposed German names" but these expressions "do not capture the concept either, and may be used for every other type of artificial way []". The word ('artificial road') then established itself but, in the main, the French word entered the German language as a loanword.
Today many road names end in . Hamburg has retained the term in its street names (, etc.), Berlin likewise (, ), whilst in Bremen in 1914, the were renamed, following a decision by its citizens, as (literally 'military roads'). In Aachen and Münster the term ('stone way') is used instead. This also occurs in Flemish as .
Definition
Chaussees or Kunststraßen were extra-urban roads that were constructed with a solid pavement; they were designed by engineers and were therefore much straighter. They differed from ordinary country roads in that, in addition to the pavement, the embankment and subgrade, or road bed, were also artificially constructed. Adelung explained the term as
Technology
The concept of chaussees was developed in the Netherlands in the 18th century using brick to reinforce the man-made road embankments. It was followed later in England – as "macadamised causeways" (German: Chausseen mit Makadam) by road builder, John Loudon McAdam (born 1756) using gravel paving - was further developed in France, and from there arrived in the German-speaking region as a result of the French occupation of Prussia under Napoleon I (1807-1813). During the establishment of the Military Frontier in the Banat region of Austria-Hungary, where there was a lack of rock, the Dutch brick road method was used. The building of chaussees in North Germany resulted in a significant reduction in the number of fieldstone erratics on and alongside the fields.
In addition to its paved surface, the chaussee was characterised by a fully developed drainage system. The porous base course and gentle camber of the road surface assisted drainage, for which associated ditches (Chausseegraben) were dug alongside the road.
Often the chaussee comprised a stone carriageway (Steinbahn) and a so-called summer track (Sommerweg). The stone carriageway was the paved section with a base course of gravel or broken rock as a subgrade and a covering of sand and loam. The summer track was for unshod animals. It ran next to the stone track and was unmetalled or only lightly metalled and not usable in winter.
By planting regular rows of trees, the benefits of an avenue could be realised: protection from sun and wind as well as better orientation. Additional aids sometimes included a continuous row of milestones.
The routing of chaussees was also increasingly demanding. For example, they had to follow "the shortest possible distance between two given points" as well as "gradients that were not too inclined from the horizontal (three to five per cent), in order to keep the demands on animal-drawn vehicles and brakes low; they should have lay bys (24 - 30 feet wide, i.e. eight to ten metres), and also be secure from flooding, i.e. built on a raised embankment, where they run through lowland.
In introducing the chaussee concept in the 18th/19th centuries, Europeans once again reached a technological standard for long distance highways that had not been seen since Roman roads were built.
Role of the chaussee in the road network
The first roads of the chaussee type were built in Western Europe in the early 18th century, coming from Holland at the end of the baroque period. For example, in Swabia, the first road was built in the chaussee design between Öttingen and Nördlingen in 1753.