The German Question, Part Thirty-Four

"The End of the Old German Empire" Part Two

There was a series of wars from the 1790s into the early 1800s between various German states and France, along with changing numbers of allies for both sides. Each of these wars is a subject in its own right, and the wars are far too complicated to deal with here. Initially in the early 1790s, the French were under the Revolutionary Government, and then, from 1799, under Napoleon. Austria tended to be the main German state to take the lead against the French, at times with the support of Prussia. The French Revolution stirred strong emotions in differing segments of the German population (and other European populations), with some Germans seeing the French as potential "liberators" from their own princes, who were hereditary rulers. The upper classes and the nobility naturally opposed the French Revolution, and indeed they were terrified of any chance that it might spread to their own territories. Interestingly, Bavaria, after being occupied by Austria, which created resentment, decided to cast its lot with France, although this was not during the revolutionary period, but when Napoleon ruled. So not all German states always joined the alliances against France during this time period.

By 1803, Napoleon had inflicted major defeats upon his German opponents (mainly Austria), and France not only controlled, but annexed all German territory west of the Rhine River. Napoleon essentially forced the Reichstag; that is, the parliament of the German Empire (Holy Roman Empire), along with the support of the Habsburgs, to redraw the boundaries of the many German states, abolishing some, thus enlarging others. Whether intended or not, this helped move the Germans toward true unification as a modern nation, since an expeditious consolidation of the many hundreds of individual states had been something Germans themselves had not been able to do, although the number of states had dropped since the mid 1600s.*

In 1805, Napoleon defeated the Austrians once again, occupied Vienna, took the German territory of Tirol (a Habsburg possession), and forced the German emperor, Franz II (a Habsburg),** to dissolve the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in the summer of 1806. Thus ended one thousand years of this historic empire, but the seeds of German revival and unification were now sown. (A Word History is below the notes)

* If you have been following this series, remember, the actual "empire" was not a particularly strong entity, especially after the Thirty Years' War, and German states were thereafter pretty much like independent countries under the umbrella of the "empire," which was led by the Habsburg family of Austria. The empire had no permanent professional army of its own (also known as a standing army). The rulers of the multitude of German states would provide military assistance in answer to an appeal by the emperor, something that often was contingent upon how persuasive any given emperor was, especially later. As centuries passed and as the emperor's clout declined, the individual rulers of the German states became less inclined to send troops, unless they were in some way motivated by a given issue at any given time. Because a Habsburg was always elected emperor, the Habsburg's own troops came to form the most reliable element to support the Old German Empire. 

** To confuse things, German Emperor Franz II had declared Austria as the "Austrian Empire" in 1804, two years before he dissolved the German Empire. As Austrian Emperor (Kaiser von Österreich, in German) he was therefore known as Franz I. Austria had long been an Archduchy. 

WORD HISTORY:
Reich-This word traces back to Indo European "reg" (I "believe" pronounced more like our word "reek," or perhaps as "reeg") which meant "to move in a straight line," and then also, "to direct straight away, to lead, to rule." It is closely related to "rich" and "reach," and indeed German uses "reich" (in this case with a small "r") as its word for both of those words. Linguists are a bit divided, but some believe Germanic acquired a form of "reich" from Celtic, which, like Germanic, is a branch of Indo European, although it might be just as possible that Celtic acquired their word from Germanic. Whatever the case, Old Germanic had "rikja/rikjan," meaning "rule, authority," which then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "rice," not pronounced like the grain, but similar to "rike-eh." This meant "realm, power of a ruler, particularly a king;" thus, "kingdom." It later became "rike" and "riche," in English. The Old High German (the direct ancestor of modern German) form was "richi/rihhi," eventually developing into modern "reich" and "Reich." The capitalized form (all German nouns are capitalized) means "empire, realm" in German, and the "empire" meaning did not truly develop in the English word, although the similar idea of "kingdom" did, and English borrowed the "empire" meaning from Old High German, which then was replaced when "empire" was borrowed. The spelling "Reich" also came from German later.

The State Of The Unions

With Labor Day approaching, here are some thoughts about American labor:

American labor and health care: For years this country has relied upon "employer provided" health insurance. As such, the insurance has been far from universal; that is, it has never come close to covering every American. When I was a kid, and contrary to some, that was not just after the Civil War (it was during the Spanish-American War, so there! "Remember the Maine!"), there were not all that many Americans covered by employer insurance. The number and percentage has certainly grown over the decades, but that didn't help those NOT covered during that same time period; many of whom I'm sure, now departed, suffered some very terrible illnesses or injuries, often leading to their deaths. Please folks, THINK! If you have insurance, what would you do if you DID NOT have it? If you lost your job (or your business) and the insurance that goes with it, what would you and your family do?

When President Bush (George W.) was in office, business people were complaining about having to compete against foreign companies where health care was government provided, not employer based. I guess I was wrong, but I thought business people wanted to move away from employer provided insurance. When this whole plan keeping employer provided insurance developed in Congress last year, I have to admit, I was stunned. The plan that eventually became law is far from perfect, but it is a start, "if," and that's a big "IF," additions and changes are made. When politicians get themselves into a position where "we just need to pass a damn bill" takes over, this is not the way to do major (if any) legislation.

I have tremendous respect for unions. I didn't say I always agree with unions on every issue, after all, this is America, and you don't have to agree with unions all of the time either to be generally supportive, but I've heard so much anti-union talk in recent years, it is scary. Many of the unions of this country put aside their own beliefs about health care and supported the congressional plan that became law. It was not the plan they really wanted, and I very much agree with them, but they worked their hearts out and spent lots of money that could have been used elsewhere to get this legislation. If you have been struggling to stay afloat and you've been complaining about your pay or benefits over the years, just stop and think where you would be if we didn't have unions. They set the standards many years ago, even for non-union employees. Part of the reason for the country's decline is that unions have also been in decline, and this has put the squeeze on the middle class. Unions didn't come about because a bunch of workers were just sitting around wondering what to do with their spare time. They didn't just suddenly come up with an idea to bedevil business people. They formed unions to try to make their lives better, and to make things fairer, after suffering some terrible working conditions for little pay. Forming unions didn't come cheaply either, as it cost lives, blood, and broken bones. American labor, and labor EVERYWHERE, deserve our salute!

WORD HISTORY:
Labor-This is the American spelling, but in Britain it is "labour." This is a fairly common word, but at present, I cannot find a link to an Indo European root, and for one reason, that's because the original Latin source is uncertain. Latin had "labor," possibly (this is the uncertain part) from the Latin verb "labere," which meant "to slip, to totter, to stagger." The idea for labor would then be "totter/stagger under a burden or work." Old French, a Latin-based language, continued with "labour," meaning "exertion, work, " and in conjunction, "plowing," and English then seems to have borrowed the word by 1300, also continuing with the French spelling. The verb form came to English at about the same time from French "labourer," which was from Latin "laborare." The verb form in some of the Latin-based languages (French, Portuguese, Spanish) kept the meaning "to plow," rather than the more general meaning "work." The "plowing" meaning was not taken on in English. "Labor," the noun form used for "working class," comes from usage during the 1830s. Its use as a part in childbirth is from the late 1500s. "Labor Day" is from New York City usage in 1882.

Paying The Piper-Part Four-B-Does Obama Get It?

First a little disclaimer: Since "it's the economy, stupid," I'll say this, many people have compared the last couple of years to the Great Depression and have compared Obama to Franklin Roosevelt or to Herbert Hoover.* While we came close to a new depression in late 2008, and we aren't totally out of the woods yet, the devil is in the details. The circumstances which faced Hoover, and then Roosevelt, were different from today. When the Great Depression started, America still had a substantial, although dwindling, agriculture component as a percentage of the economy, and the country had become a major industrial powerhouse in previous years. With American agriculture having been depressed throughout much of the 1920s; that is, prior to the onset of the actual Great Depression, many small farmers and laborers had headed into cities and towns to seek jobs in America's bustling factories or associated businesses. When the economy went belly-up, and they lost their jobs, they couldn't just decide to go back to the farm, because agriculture was in terrible shape, even worse than in the 1920s; thus unemployment in many cities was extremely high. Back in those times though, most businesses in this country were owned by Americans, were headquartered in America, had plants in America (with some scant exceptions), and relied upon the American economy and the American consumer to make those businesses successful. Increasingly in more recent times, many companies located in America are foreign-owned or have large interests (plants and outlets) in foreign countries, with workers provided by those countries, or in some cases, like BP, for instance, are foreign-owned and located overseas (the actual headquarters), but have plants or outlets here. In just casually watching some business news on television in recent years, I've heard it said that many "American companies" are more dependent on markets in foreign countries for the biggest share of their profits, than right here in this country. Now, I'm NOT slamming foreign countries, or American companies with large foreign interests, but there's no question that all of this has an effect on OUR economy and OUR country. The question is, is that effect good or bad? I'm not sure we know the answer to that question, as we've never seen a situation like this before, and the answer will always depend upon who is giving that answer. If you are in the importing business, you will probably say the effect is "good." Will things get to be every business for itself and who cares what happens to the country? Maybe, but eventually what happens here helps or hurts most of the world. To those who wonder why "history" is important, this is why. We look to the past for answers about the present and the future. So this situation is one major difference facing Obama that neither Hoover or FDR confronted.

Next, we have so much, what I'll call, "political information" available to us, it is absolutely mind boggling. Notice I didn't say it was necessarily truthful information. We've always had some of this, but now maybe it's tied to our "legalistic society," where lawyers toss accusations and theories around to defend clients, and that is part of our system. While I'm not a lawyer, I do believe a judge has to allow such theories to be used based upon some realistic foundation.** Further, unlike in the not too distant past, there are all sorts of ways to get these accusations and conspiracy theories out to the public. Claims can now be made on the blogosphere, talk radio, cable TV, or by mass emails. They then get picked up by the more traditional media, and off they go. It happened to George W. Bush and it has certainly happened even more, in my opinion, to Barack Obama. All of this hurts the presidency. I'm not for squashing debate or free speech, but so often there is a lack of reason. What is perhaps more troubling is that these folks have fairly large audiences and followings. What has gotten into America's drinking water? Polls show a disturbing percentage of Americans believe Obama, not Bush, started the bailouts of banks and auto companies (he didn't, Bush did, but Obama continued those policies) and that Obama is a Muslim (he's not, he's a Christian). This is not the sign of an informed American public, nor is it the way America will be able to compete in the modern world.

Then we have the political parties. These are not the same parties of a few decades ago, and in some officeholders' cases, not even the same as fairly recent (witness Charlie Crist of Florida changing from Republican to independent, and a couple of southern Democratic congressmen changing to the Republican Party). The Democratic Party has always been pretty raucous, some times VERY raucous. Why? Undoubtedly a lot of reasons, but perhaps the most important is about regional philosophy. Some of the most conservative elements of this country were, until fairly recently, Democrats, not Republicans. The South came to be known as the "solid South," in political terms, because in the post-Civil War era, the states of the old Confederacy (and even many so called "border states") voted Democratic.*** In fact, there weren't many Southerners who even dared identify themselves as Republicans, because, unlike in recent times, Republicans were the party of the Federal Government, and Lincoln was far from a revered figure in the South. These conservative elements often clashed with the more moderate or progressive Democrats in other parts of the country. On the other hand, some of the most progressive/liberal elements of the country were in the Republican Party a number of decades ago, and this too brought about some major philosophical clashes among Republicans. Ever so gradually conservatives, mainly "fiscal" conservatives at first, began to take control of the Republican Party. The 1970s and 1980s brought the much more socially conservative elements into the party until it truly became the conservative party of the country, leaving little room for liberals/progressives, or even in some cases, moderates. At this very moment, there is still a battle going on within the party over who is conservative enough.

So, for quite some time, both parties had a big mixture of conservatives, moderates, and progressives/liberals. With such a mixture of these philosophies being represented in both parties in Congress, members frequently reached across to members of the other party to work together on legislation for the country, something that is sorely missing so often today. Today's Republican Party is pretty much limited to people who identify themselves as conservatives, some even espousing such so called conservatism that Ronald Reagan, the man who initially brought conservatism to power, and made it acceptable to many Americans, would not qualify as a Republican. Democrats have many progressives/liberals, but also many moderate to moderately conservative supporters, especially in southern and border states, while many Americans have chosen to declare themselves as independents.

With the two parties so philosophically aligned now, the venom has poisoned the political atmosphere. Politics has never been much of a profession for the faint-hearted, but now it has truly become a "knock 'em down, kick 'em, and drag 'em by the hair" donnybrook. In this case, Obama is much more like Herbert Hoover, at least so far. Like Hoover, his basic temperament is less combative. His opponents have done just about everything they can to dirty his name and image. The question is, can he bounce back? Bill Clinton was pummeled too, and some of his wounds were self inflicted, but Clinton, no matter what you may think of him, was a fighter, as is Hillary.

To be continued in Part 4 C.... (A Word History is below the notes)

* For those interested, this link will take you to "The Great Depression-Part One," a multi-part series which I did a few years ago. You can then get to the rest of the series by clicking on either "Herbert Hoover" or "the Great Depression" in the "labels" listed at the bottom of Part One.

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2007/08/great-depression-part-one.html


** What I'm getting at is, if you are on trial for murder, saying "I'm on the government death panel," isn't necessarily going to fly with a judge, unless that judge is Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin.

*** Political philosophies aren't subject to state borders, and while border states didn't attempt to leave the Union, many people in those states had strong sympathies for the Confederacy, and like the states of the Old South, these feelings didn't die with the end of the Civil War.

WORD HISTORY:
Five-This numerical word goes back to Indo European "penkwe/pengke," which meant "five." This gave the Old Germanic offshoot "fimfe/fenfe" (I found both forms). This in turn gave Anglo-Saxon (Old English) "fif," which later became "five." There are many relatives to our word throughout the Indo European languages, sometimes a bit "disguised," but our other Germanic relatives are: German "fünf," Dutch "vijf," Frisian "fiif" (that is double "i"), Low Saxon "fief," Danish, Norwegian and Swedish "fem," and Icelandic "fimm."

Paying The Piper-Part Four A-Does Obama Get It?

First, I hope the more partisan readers of whatever persuasion will read the ENTIRE article before getting too worked up. There will be two parts to this topic, this one is Four A, and since I'm a little slow, I've been having trouble coming up with a title for the second part, but I'm leaning to Four B. That's catchy.

Barack Obama came to the presidency with lots of good will from the American public. Race has been an ever present issue in this country from its very beginning, and many Americans seemed to believe, while many others hoped, that with Obama's entering the highest office in the land, this divisive issue would finally be put to rest and the country would move forward truly as "The UNITED States." Further, he was young, energetic, intelligent, charismatic, and could give a hell of a speech. He seemed to want to get along with the opposition party, among other high-minded ideals. With the country in economic peril the likes of which hadn't been seen since the Great Depression, with terrorists hatching endless plots to kill Americans and other "Westerners," with two ongoing wars that were never paid for, and with countries which previously looked favorably upon America seemingly frowning upon many of our policies, we needed a real stand-up leader to right the listing ship. Did we get that leader?

While he has only been in office less than two years, my gut feeling is, no. The President has seldom seemed to be "in charge" of getting the policies he seems to advocate. The "stimulus" plan, which was seen by many people as a means of halting the sliding economy, as well as bolstering confidence that would then turn the economy around and add jobs, was handed over to Congress to hammer out. While the President advocated the plan, he seemed detached. The bill that passed had spending strung out over a couple of years, lessening, in my opinion, its impact. In spite of figures touted by the White House on jobs created or "saved," it is nearly impossible, again in my opinion, to come up with accurate numbers for such, although I'm sure it has had an effect.

Then came the health care...ah...debate? Is that the right word? Maybe "ugly" would be better. Again though, the President announced he was "for" health care legislation that would insure more Americans, but he left it to Congress to come up with the details. That is pretty much leaving a lit match in charge of dynamite. And it blew up! My sense was, the President and his advisers never anticipated the reaction they got, even from Republicans. They were thrown back on their heels by what happened to members of Congress last summer in their home states or districts,* and while they finally got a bill passed, they really never recovered, even to this day. Further, the longer the "debate" dragged on, it sure looked like they would have accepted ANY legislation, just to say they got it, and that the terrible battle shown in the news every day would end. The public wanted the economy to be "priority number ONE," and while the President said that health care legislation was important to the economy, he was never able to convey just how it would do so. The legislation for such an undertaking was huge and complex, something he and other supporters could not fully explain to an at times "detached" and increasingly skeptical American public, let alone put into slogans or catch phrases to garner support. Opponents had no such problem; they called it "socialism," "fascism," "communism," "big government," and some things I can't print here. When they ran out of names to call it, they invented something to use against it, "death panels."** After about a year of what many Americans thought was time wasted, as the economy still needed tending, the bill passed, but at a terrible cost to the President and many members of Congress, especially Democrats. The President touted the new law, but it may yet prove to be a problem that could blow up, perhaps even on him (if he runs and wins a second term) or on a future president, as there are not many cost saving measures in this law, in my opinion. I hope I'm wrong. I could go on about some other things that have transpired, but you get the overall point. So now, what about Obama's performance? (A Word History is below the notes)

* Even some Republican members of Congress had difficulty, with Mike Castle of Delaware coming to mind. The overall situation in many of these meetings was NOT one of America's shining examples to the world, as speakers were shouted down, and even members of the audience were taunted, including a handicapped woman in a wheel chair. Hmm, let's see, I did question if "debate" was the right word.

** For those who have been living some place other than "Mother Earth," put simply, the alleged government "death panels" were supposed to decide who lived and who died among elderly Americans in need of expensive treatments in order to hold down health care costs. No matter that the President had recently lost his elderly grandmother, polls showed an alarming number of Americans believed it, although I do believe those numbers dropped somewhat a bit later, but still remained awfully high for a public that had loads of information to the contrary available to it. In just the last few months, a Republican congressman, I believe from North Carolina, whose name escapes me just now, publicly acknowledged that the "death panel" charge was phony, and that most Republican members of Congress knew it was phony.

WORD HISTORY:
Four-This numerical word apparently traces back to Indo European "kwetwor/kwetwer," which meant "four." I say "apparently," because the Old Germanic offshoot, "fetwor/petwor," is assumed to have been derived from the Indo European root. The Germanic form gave Anglo-Saxon (Old English) "feower," which then became "fower" (seemingly pronounced "foe-er") later on, before evolving to the modern form. The other Germanic languages have similar forms: German and Dutch have "vier" (pronounced similarly to our word "fear"), Norwegian and Danish have "fire" (not, I believe, pronounced like our word "fire," but rather like "fear-eh"), Swedish has "fyra," Icelandic has "fjórir."

The German Question, Part Thirty-three

"The End Of The Old German Empire" Part One

The rickety old Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, not really much of an empire since the end of Thirty Years' War, was still dominated by the Habsburgs, when a little man from the island of Corsica* became the leader of France in the aftermath of the French Revolution. That man was Napoleon Bonaparte.

Prior to Napoleon, the empire had given both the Netherlands and Switzerland their independence, costing the empire huge chunks of territory and population, as we already learned in an earlier segment.** Over a period of more than a century, beginning in the mid 1500s, the French began to chip away at the territories of Alsace and Lorraine (Elsass and Lothringen, in German), taking control of more and more of these lands of the German Empire. Alsace was very heavily German in background, including its language, with a fairly small portion being French in character, but Lorraine was a bit more evenly split, with a large area being truly French in character and language.*** By 1700, the French essentially controlled both of these provinces.

The German emperor was greatly weakened after the Thirty Years' War, since the individual German states became much more like separate nations in the war's aftermath, and these states remained purely under a loose umbrella type of association with the empire, which truly lacked a central government organization. (A Word History is below the notes)

* Corsica is an island located some 100+ miles southeast of the French coast (at its nearest point), about 60 miles west of the mainland northwestern Italian coast and about 7 or so miles north of the Italian island of Sardinia. It was under the control of Genoa (before Italy was united as a modern nation) for a few hundred years before a brief period of independence, followed by a takeover by France in the 1760s. The ethnic composition of the island was varied in those times, as many peoples traipsed across the island at one time or another, but "likely" the population was more tilted to Italian than any other one group, and Italian and a Corsican dialect/language (closely related to Italian) prevailed as the languages on the island until French was strongly pushed by France, whereupon it became the dominant language during the mid 1800s, as it remains to this day.    

** I just want to note that the southern area of the "old" Netherlands (prior to the independence of the northern area) was not granted freedom by the ruling (and owning) Habsburgs, and was called "The Austrian Netherlands." The area was approximately 60% Flemish speaking (a Germanic language, closely akin to Dutch and some Low German dialects; and in fact, some linguists classify it as a dialect of Dutch and others classify it simply as Dutch) and 40% French speaking. This general area, which is not so much a part of our story, eventually became modern Belgium.

*** The German dialects in Alsace trace back to the Alemanns, a Germanic tribe. Interestingly, the French use their forms for the Alemanns as their words for Germany, "Allemagne," and for German, "Allemand." The German dialects of the German speaking part of Lorraine trace back to the Franks, another Germanic tribe, and the words "France" and "French" both come from the Franks.

WORD HISTORY:
Tribe-This seems to go back to the Indo European roots "trei" and "bhu." The first is the root of "three," and indeed linguists seem to believe that it was used to signify the division of Rome into "three" parts. The second root, "bhu," is the root of "be." This compound gave Latin "tribus," which denoted the "divisions of the people into groups," which then gave Old French "tribu." It was borrowed into English from French in the 1200s, often initially with reference to the biblical "twelve tribes of Israel."

Simply Saturday

SATURDAY is simply named after the Roman god "Saturn," although some linguists seem to believe it actually took its name from the planet "Saturn," which nonetheless was named after the god. The name "Saturn" may go back to Etruscan, a language of uncertain origin spoken in what is now modern central Italy. Some linguists classify it as "Tyrrhenian," a language family not all linguists agree upon. The derivation from "Saturn" is not used in all of the Germanic languages, however, besides English, Dutch has "Zaterdag" and some of the Low German dialects, and some Frisian dialects have "Satertag." In Anglo-Saxon (Old English) it was both "Saeterdaeg" ("Saturn day") and "Saeternesdaeg" ("Saturn's day"), before eventually becoming our modern form. Standard German has TWO forms for Saturday, although by far the more common is "Samstag" ("Sabbath" day) which traces back to Greek, then from Greek to Hebrew, and "Sonnabend," which is literally "sun evening;" that is, evening before "Sunday," which is "Sonntag," in German. "Samstag" is used in all German speaking lands, and "Sonnabend" is used more in northern and eastern Germany. The North Germanic languages all use forms that literally mean "bath day," something that certainly carried over to earlier times in America, since Saturdays were commonly seen as the day of the week for a bath, whether you needed it or not.

The German Question, Part Thirty-Two

"The Dismantling Of Poland," Part Three, "Poland Disappears"

In 1794, the year after the Second Partition of Poland, there was a serious uprising by the Poles led by Tadeusz Kościuszko against Russian forces stationed on Polish territory. Prussian forces eventually entered Polish territory to aid the Russians. The Poles had some military successes, but the overall forces against them were too great, and the uprising was defeated later in the year after some bloody fighting. This brought about the Third Partition of Poland, which erased Poland from the map as an independent nation. The Polish unrest convinced the three powers with lands in Poland (Russia, Prussia, and Austria), that an independent Poland could never be completely controlled.

The Russians took essentially what was left of Lithuania, the western part of what is now Belarus, and the northwestern part of Ukraine. The two German states, Prussia and Austria, each got considerable land, with Austria getting a substantial part of what had been left of southern Poland, which had a VERY definite Polish majority. Prussia got lands bordering south of East Prussia, including Warsaw, as well as a small part of Polish Silesia. Again, most the these newly acquired territories were populated heavily, and in some cases exclusively populated, by Poles. Poland will be a part of our story a couple of times, including in the not too distant future, but by that time as a result of the end of the German Empire.

WORD HISTORY:
Chin-This goes back to Indo European "genu/genw," which meant "jawbone, chin." This gave its  Old Germanic offspring "kennu," with the meaning "chin," which later moved up the face a bit to mean "cheek" in some dialects. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "cin/cinn," meaning "chin," which a bit later became the actual spelling, where it has remained for hundreds of years. The other Germanic languages have: German and Low German "Kinn," Dutch and West Frisian "kin," Danish "kind" (meaning, "cheek"), Norwegian "kinn" (cheek), Icelandic "kinn" (cheek), Swedish "kind" (cheek).

The German Question, Part Thirty-One

"The Dismantling Of Poland" Part Two

Frederick the Great died in 1786 leaving no direct heir, as he was childless. His successor was Friedrich Wilhelm II (Frederick William II), the son of one of Frederick the Great's brothers. Meanwhile, in Russia, Catherine the Great was still in control (known as Empress or Tsarina). This information is important only because they were the rulers who participated in the Second Partition of Poland, during 1793.

What brought about this partitioning was simply this; the remainder of Poland after partition #1 was still a very troubled land, and much dependent upon Russia. The Poles decided to enter into an alliance with Prussia, hoping that it would give them some balance against Russia intervening in their affairs. Polish attempts to keep Russia out of their reforms only angered Catherine the Great, and she eventually sent in troops, who, along with Poles of pro-Russian sentiments, essentially took over Poland. Prussia chose not to intervene against the Russian military advance, in spite of its treaty with Poland. For this reason, and for Prussia's stand against the revolutionary government in France,* Friedrich Wilhelm demanded compensation of Polish territory from Catherine, and she agreed; thus the Second Partition of Poland.

Russia took a large part of what is known today as "Belarus," plus the area of Kiev, in the Ukraine (today just "Ukraine," with no preceding "the"), and part of Lithuania. Prussia received the very important city of Danzig (Gdansk, in Polish), some lands to the south of Prussia with a mixed German-Polish population (but mainly Polish), plus a large section of Polish populated territory. Many of the new lands were formed into the new province of "South Prussia" (Südpreussen, in German), with the provincial capital, for a time, at Posen (Poznań, in Polish). Poland still remained as an entity, but with only about a third of its former population (compared to what it had prior to the first partition). Worse was to come.

* Naturally, all absolute monarchies in Europe were worried that the ideas of the French Revolution would spread to their own lands, and Russia was certainly one of those lands.

WORD HISTORY:
Partition-This goes back to Indo European "per," which seemingly had variants, but the basic notion was "distributing;" and thus the idea of "dividing" and "portioning" comes out. This gave Latin the offshoot verb "partire," which meant "to divide up, portion off, split up." The verb's participle form "partitus," then gave Latin the noun form "partitio," which then was passed onto Old French (a Latin-based language) as "particion." English acquired it from French in about the 1430s, and one source notes that at first it was spelled "particioun" under the influence of the French of that time (modern French spells it as the English version), and with the meaning "division into shares," but within just a few decades, it had taken on the more modern extended meaning of "separation." The verb form seems to have come along in the 1700s.

Paying The Piper-Part Three-Drowning In Debt

It's obvious the economy is not growing fast enough to bring down unemployment significantly. In this modern age where we expect things to happen in seconds, if not fractions of a second, by the click of our "mouse," the slowly recovering economy has us exasperated. For regular readers, remember, I told you, we didn't get into this mess quickly and we won't get out of it quickly. No question about it, the federal deficit would improve a great deal if more people were working, but we now face a situation predicted to some extent by the "true" conservatives of times past, as opposed to the "phony" conservatives of more recent decades, who used one side of their mouths to spout conservative slogans to get votes, and the other side of their mouths to vote "YES," or at least to offer support, for a lot of spending with no way to pay for it. Saying "read my lips...no new taxes" may sound good in an election campaign, but it is irresponsible to govern that way, and the man who uttered those famous words, George Bush, Senior, had the courage to abandon nonsense when he heard it, even though he was the man who said them.* The courage of his convictions (he raised taxes) cost him a second term, but he deserves credit for his policy and it helped the country during the 1990s, by eventually helping to balance the federal budget (along with Clinton policy and the Republican Congress).**

Anyway, have we learned anything from our near death experience of the last few years? (I'd better be careful saying that, since we've come out of the coma, but we're still in intensive care.) Do we want to hit the "RESET" button and try to build an economy based on real production and things that really create national wealth, or do we want to keep trying to make the fast buck, live for today, and say "the hell with tomorrow?" If we hit the button, it won't be easy, and it certainly won't be painless, but at present, I don't see how we can continue as we have for decades.

The politicians of both political parties helped create this mess, and I'm sure they really didn't mean for things to turn out this way, and I really do mean that, even for the ones I disagree with so much. Not only did they use the national credit card to run up government debt (and keep themselves in office, and for you "conservatives," that includes Reagan!), they often encouraged us to pull out our own plastic and buy anything and everything our little hearts wanted; after all, this was America, and we could have the things people in other lands couldn't afford. It turns out, we couldn't afford many of them either. We came to believe that we needed every new little gadget that came out or every new cable channel for our home entertainment. While we partied on and splurged on such things, the rest of the world wasn't standing still, or sitting still watching cable TV (ah, excuse me while I change channels....okay, I'm back). The very heart of the country, our industrial base, was eroding, and with the help of the "free marketers" and "free traders," who knows how many jobs went overseas? And they weren't only manufacturing jobs that went elsewhere, but even service jobs. Have you tried calling your internet service provider for help with a problem? If so, chances are you reached a customer service person overseas, not in America.

As to our collective (all of us put together) private debts (mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, etc), not government debt, which is a separate issue, in the post World War Two era we owed about 25% of our total annual income (again, collectively, that is). The last figures I saw, which were for 2007, showed that we now collectively owe nearly 150% of our annual income. Put simply, that means, on a personal basis, if you make a hundred bucks, you owe a hundred and fifty bucks in debt. Now, no question, many loans are spread out over many years, but it just shows how much we've put on the cuff. Credit has gotten into our national psyche and it's not good. Just credit card debt alone is staggering, with ( 2007 numbers) almost every household owing between $10,500 and $11,000 (total credit card debt divided by total households).

There seems to be a good sign, however, as Americans have lessened credit card use in the last couple of years (although I'm sure some of that is also due to the state of the economy) and Americans are paying down debt, and actually trying to save some money.** This will undoubtedly keep the economy on the slow side, and like drug addicts, we are going to have to be weaned off of private credit to pump up the economy, as that's what's been keeping us going for several decades now, CREDIT, both private and government.**** (A Word History is below the notes)

*During the fight for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, George Bush called Ronald Reagan's economic proposals "voodoo economics," saying further that if Reagan were elected and his plans put into effect, that we'd be in "deep voodoo!"

** I don't want to laud any of these people too much (Bush, Sr., Clinton or Republicans), because they turned around and did a lot of economic damage to the country in other ways. (See other articles in this series, "Paying The Piper")

*** Statistics can be deceiving at times, and while we're told that Americans are saving more, I have a suspicion that much of that number is from the wealthiest Americans, not Elmer and Louise down the street, although I'm sure some average Americans are saving too, but so many are just getting by, if that.

**** We're undoubtedly going to have to run government deficits for quite some time, and again, both parties are essentially advocating this, but in different ways. The Democrats have wanted to stimulate the economy by a mixture of tax cuts and "spending" on various projects (too spread out in time, in my opinion), and Republicans want tax cuts. Republicans have bashed the current Dems for deficits, as if tax cuts don't cause deficits; they do, and conveniently forgetting their own budgetary irresponsibility prior to Obama's election.

WORD HISTORY:
Debt-This word goes back to the Indo European root "ghabh/ghebh," which meant "give or receive." One of Old Latin's offshoots (after a fairly complicated process that I won't get into) was the noun "debitum," which meant "that which is owed," which then was passed on to Old French (a Latin-based language) as "dete," and later "dette." English got the word from French as "dette" in the 1200s, but under the influence of the Latin spelling, with a "b," of related words, such as "debit," gradually changed the spelling, although the "b" is silent.

The German Question, Part Thirty

"The Dismantling of Poland" Part One

While this is about German history, you might wonder why a segment about Poland is included. Well, two of the German states, Prussia and Austria, were involved in what is known to history as "The Partitions of Poland," and both added Polish territory to their realms. The overall politics of these partitions (there were three partitions over about a 23 year period) is far more complicated than I want to deal with here, but I'll leave it as a basic effort to maintain a certain balance of power between Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Just a little background: Poland and Lithuania had been joined in a commonwealth in the 1500s.* Initially it was very powerful, both militarily and economically, but over time its power and political stability declined. There were many reasons for this decline, but one reason was the vast diversity of its people, both ethnically and by religion. While Poles were the largest group in the commonwealth, there were substantial numbers of Lithuanians, Jews, Ukrainians, Ruthenians and Germans.** Roman Catholicism was the largest single religion, but there were significant numbers of Eastern Orthodox, Protestants (mainly Lutherans), Eastern Catholics (some referred to as Uniate members), and Jews. A decline in trade, uprisings by some Ukrainians, and out and out civil war conditions helped weaken the commonwealth, and eventually Russia became its protector.

The first partition, known by the unique name....ah..."The First Partition of Poland," was mainly engineered by Frederick the Great in 1772, even though he got the smallest amount of territory. Prussia took much of the northern parts of Polish territory, which included tacking on lands to northeastern Prussia, aka "East Prussia" (Ostpreussen, in German). It also obtained the lands along the Baltic coast and inland, thus depriving Poland of seaports (this issue would come back in the future, and I will cover it when we get to the aftermath of World War One). Much of this new land was called "West Prussia" (Westpreussen, in German). This new territory then linked East Prussia with the rest of Brandenburg/Prussia. Austria received a huge portion of what was known as "Galicia" (in southern and sw Poland) and a further part of southeastern Poland, including the town of Oświęcim, later to become infamous during World War Two, and better known by its German name...Auschwitz. Russia received large territories to the east and northeast. Russia at that time was ruled by Catherine II, better known as "Catherine the Great," who was a German by birth. Only a small rump of Poland remained at that time outside the borders of her neighbors.

The two German states together added more than three million people to their populations, although Prussia gained many people of German or mixed German-Polish background, and Austria gained many non-Germans. The fact that Austria had so many non-German populated territories was an issue that would gradually begin to disqualify Austria, more specifically the Habsburgs, from leading Germany in the eyes of some Germans.

One little humorous note, if there is anything humorous about carving up a country: While Maria Theresa's son and co-ruler of the Habsburg lands (and German Emperor), Joseph, had actually helped plan the partition of Poland, Maria Theresa initially opposed the plans as detrimental to Poland. Frederick the Great later noted something to the effect that (Maria Theresa) cried (in sympathy for the Poles) when she took their land, but the more she cried, the more land she took!

* As I've cautioned previously in this series, national and geographic terms, like in this case, Poland from those times, do not always correspond to our more modern concepts of these territories, as borders changed, sometimes, substantially so.

** The percentage of the population of these various groups changed as the borders periodically changed during the time the commonwealth lasted.

WORD HISTORY:
Court-This goes back to the Indo European root "gher," which meant "enclose/fence or wall in." This gave the Latin offshoot "cohors/cors," which meant "an enclosed area surrounding a house or building." From this, Old French, a Latin-based language, got "cort/curt," which took on the the more specific meaning of "king's or noble's enclosed yard around his residence." This came to English in the latter part of the 1100s from Anglo-Norman, but is more commonly rendered in modern English as the compound "courtyard" ("yard" is from the Germanic roots of English). This basic notion, perhaps associated then with the similar Latin word "curia," which meant "sovereign's assembly/personnel," gave us this further meaning, perhaps seen as "king's personnel assembled in the court(yard)." Further still, association with "curia," which meant "council," gave the term the more legalistic sense that we still use, as in "court of law," as originally, a king/ruler literally sat at the head of a council (or by himself) to decide legal matters of the citizenry. It seems some linguists believe that the verbal meaning "pay court to someone," came from the Italian form "corteggiare" (pay honor to someone) of the above Old Latin word. Others seem to feel it just came from the same path as "court" itself, simply meaning "to behave in a proper manner in court, or to behave as if in court." The verb seems to have come into English usage in the 1500s.

The German Question, Part Twenty-Nine

"An Empress & Queen Of The Germans" Part Two of Two

When Frederick the Great first invaded Silesia, he offered a deal to Maria Theresa, that if she would give up most of the province to him, he would then side with her to defend her rights as a female ruler. Maria Theresa was advised to accept the offer, even initially by her husband, but she declined, preferring to fight for her territory. Her husband then went along steadfastly with her decision. While she did not succeed in recovering Silesia from Prussia, her determination showed that she was a force to be reckoned with, and that she would not just let her lands be taken over without a fight because she was a woman. She attempted, without success, to regain her lost Silesian territory even after the war ended (see Part 26 for a brief sketch of the "Seven Years' War," which included Maria Theresa's unsuccessful attempt to regain control over Silesia. Here is the link to Part 26: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2010/07/german-question-part-twenty-six.html ).

If you think enduring war showed Maria Theresa's character, she had SIXTEEN children (three died in infancy, far from uncommon in those times), which meant that during most of the crises of more than the first half of her rule, she was in some stage of pregnancy. Two of her sons, Joseph and Leopold, became German emperors, her daughter Maria Carolina became what was then called Queen of Naples and Sicily, and her most famous offspring, daughter Marie Antoinette, became Queen of France, a position which cost her life, as she was taken prisoner and then beheaded as a consequence of the French Revolution (as was her husband, King Louis XVI).

Maria Theresa pushed for reform of the army and of the government itself, instituting a substantial standing army that showed she was ready for war with any would-be invader, and imposing taxes on the rich and the nobility, which although not entirely successful, showed that she was not afraid of society's rich and powerful. The additional revenues more than helped balance her treasury, and the surplus further helped discourage other rulers from aggressive acts, as she had cash to support her army. She brought learned and experienced people into government to advise her on all sorts of matters, demonstrating that she was not so insecure in her position that she feared such advice. She survived an attack of smallpox in the 1760s, making her determined to try to prevent large outbreaks of this serious disease which often had a mortality rate of 25%-30%, in its most virulent form. This was before Jenner's vaccine, but there was a form of inoculation (using powdered scabs blown up the nose) used to literally give people a mild form of the disease (usually a slight rash), thus preventing further, more serious, or even fatal, infection.* She had her own children inoculated and pressed others to do the same, and her example helped propel the number of inoculated children in her territories, mainly in what is now modern Austria. Maria Theresa also tried to make it mandatory for children to attend school, but the very nature of the geography (mountains, valleys, and many isolated areas), made it virtually impossible to enforce, although she wanted parents arrested and punished for non-compliance. She also tried to force her many non-German speaking subjects to learn German to "Germanize" all of her lands. Not only did this not succeed, it had the opposite effect with many non-Germans, bringing about a certain "nationalism" or "ethnic pride," especially among the Czechs.

While obviously "enlightened" in some matters, Maria Theresa was a very devout Roman Catholic, and she was not tolerant of other religious beliefs, except Eastern Orthodox believers. She openly believed that her lands should be uniform in Roman Catholicism, and even tried harsh measures to convert non-Catholics, but interestingly, at the same time, she reserved the right of appointment of all Catholic authorities in her lands for herself, and not for the Church. She had a substantial number of Austrian Protestants relocated to Transylvania, then a part of her Kingdom of Hungary. A blot on her legacy was her commitment to extreme measures against Jews living in her territories, especially during the first half of her rule. She issued exorbitant taxes on Jews, had Jewish children forcibly converted to Catholicism, and had many Jews expelled from various parts of her lands. Later, under the influence of her son Joseph, who was far more tolerant of differing religions, she began to ease her anti-Jewish measures, even eventually offering Jews some protections, and abandoning the practice of forcible conversion of Jewish children.

Upon the death of her husband, German Emperor Franz I, in the summer of 1765, Maria Theresa lost her title as "German Empress and Queen of the Germans." Their son Joseph (Josef, in German) was then elected German Emperor as Joseph II. Maria Theresa also made Joseph her co-ruler in the Habsburg lands; he thus replaced his late father. Joseph was more "enlightened" than his mother, and the two did not see eye-to-eye on many matters, but while he had an influence on some of her ideas, she prevailed in overall matters, often even regarding policies of the German Empire, although HE was the emperor! Maria Theresa died in 1780, leaving Joseph in full control of both the German Empire and the Habsburg lands. Frederick the Great, Maria Theresa's frequent military opponent, commented that Maria Theresa's achievements were as great as many men, which was quite a compliment to a woman in those days.

*This was obviously a bit risky, as some people came down with more serious infections, but from what I've read, it seems such cases were relatively rare, and the risk of death from an outbreak of the more serious form of smallpox was eventually seen as far greater (as was the risk of severe scarring for those who survived).

WORD HISTORY:
Mesh-This word seems to go back to Indo European "mezg," with the idea of "knitted or twisted." This gave the Old Germanic offshoot "masko/mesko," which in turn gave Anglo-Saxon (Old English) "masc/max," which meant "net," plus Old English had the word "maescre," seemingly derived from the same source, which seems to have actually meant "mesh." All of these forms seem to have "meshed" together (I couldn't resist that!), later giving English "mesche," before moving on to the modern spelling. Relatives in the other Germanic languages include German "Masche," Low German "Masch," Dutch "maas," Icelandic "möskvi," Norwegian and Danish "maske," Swedish "maska." Notice that the North Germanic languages of Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish all use the harder "k" sound, as compared to the West Germanic languages of English, German, Low German and Dutch using the softer sounding "sh/sch/s." I could not find a modern form in Frisian. 

The German Question, Part Twenty-Eight

"An Empress and Queen Of The Germans" Part One of Two

If you've noticed there haven't been any female German rulers, it's because women could not hold the throne of the German Empire.* They were designated as "Queen of the Germans" and "Empress,"** but it was not a ruling title, and it was given only as their title due to marriage to the Emperor and King of the Germans. The Habsburg family likewise only allowed males to assume the ruling titles of their various possessions. Kaiser Karl VI (Emperor Charles VI, in English) was of the Habsburg family, and he had only two daughters (as did his older brother). Without a male heir, the control of his lands (not the imperial throne, which was an elected position) would go to other members of his family, and not to his eldest daughter.*** To get around the Habsburg succession law of that time, Karl issued an edict, called the "Pragmatic Sanction of 1713," which permitted the Habsburg ruler to be a woman. In an effort to make the law effective if it were put into practice, Karl obtained the signatures of many of the other rulers of Europe, who agreed to recognize the law. These signatories included many of the rulers of the more powerful German states, as well as the German Imperial council, and the king of Great Britain, whose king was a German, and indeed, he held German lands in and around Hanover.

The problem was, with such vast holdings of the Habsburgs at stake, when Karl died in 1740 and his daughter, Maria Theresa (Maria Theresia, in German), took control of the House of Habsburg,**** the temptations for others were too great, and a number of signatories to the edict broke their word. This led to the "War of the Austrian Succession," as these rulers tried to grab whatever lands they could from the new "Queen of Hungary and Bohemia and Archduchess of Austria." The war became a major European war, and even had an adjunct in North America, known as "King George's War." On one side was Prussia, France, Spain, Bavaria, Saxony and some others, and on the other side was the Habsburg Monarchy, Great Britain and its allied Hanover, the Dutch Republic,***** Russia (at times), and the Kingdom of Sardinia.^ Saxony later changed sides.

In late 1740, Prussia, under Frederick the Great, invaded the Habsburg territory of Silesia (Schlesien, in German), a very important region due to its abundant coal and copper.^^ The Prussians were victorious, and they occupied the region. The French and the Bavarians took Prague in 1741, and the Bavarian ruler, Karl, soon to be elected German Emperor Karl VII, was named King of Bohemia.^^^ The Austrian forces moved into Bavaria, as it had been left sparsely defended. The war swayed back and forth, and a treaty with the Bavarians in 1745 ("Peace of Füssen") took them out of the alliance against Maria Theresa, and in the end, in 1748, Maria Theresa regained all of her lost territories, except the Silesian lands, which she lost to Frederick the Great of Prussia.

Now for intrigue, some of which coincided with the above war. Maria Theresa could not become a ruling German empress due to her gender, so she strove to get her husband, Franz Stephan, selected as emperor. In order to get him a vote as an elector, she made him co-ruler of the Austrian and Bohemian lands, and the Hungarians approved his co-ruler status about a year later. In truth, Maria Theresa kept the actual power. As part of the "Peace of Füssen," mentioned above, not only did the Bavarian elector drop any claim to become German emperor, he agreed to support Maria Theresa's husband for the position, and to secure the votes of family members (the Wittelsbach family) of two other German electors. When Karl VII died, Franz Stephan was elected German emperor, as Franz I, and this formed the House of Habsburg-Lorraine (Habsburg-Lothringen, in German). As with the Habsburg lands, Maria Theresa was the real power. She remained German Empress and Queen of the Germans until her husband's death in 1765.
To be continued ...

(A Word History is below the notes)

* Allowing only males to occupy noble ruling positions was quite common among the German nobles of the various states in those times, as well as in many other European countries.  

** In German, queen=Königin (all German nouns are capitalized) and empress=Kaiserin.

*** The Habsburg ruler carried a number of titles, but I would say the main titles were "King of Hungary, Archduke of Austria, and King of Bohemia."

**** Karl VI was succeeded by Karl VII, as German emperor. This is mainly noteworthy as Karl VII was not a Habsburg, but rather from the Wittelsbach family and Prince-Elector of Bavaria, although he was married to a Habsburg. He was the first non-Habsburg German emperor in three hundred years!

***** Remember, the Dutch had been given total independence from the German Empire in 1648, but the southern districts of the former Low Countries, essentially the future Belgium, remained a part of the Habsburg possessions, and were thus ruled by Maria Theresa.

^ The Kingdom of Sardinia would eventually lead the movement to unite Italy into a modern nation, but that was not until the mid 1800s.

^^ Silesia in those times was undoubtedly heavily German, but with a substantial Polish minority and a smaller Czech minority, both of which, however, formed majorities in certain locales.

^^^ Karl VII died during the war, in 1745, and this brought about a new election for German emperor.

WORD HISTORY:
Arch-I'd say the noun form, meaning "curved, bowed," as in "arch"way, is not the same word as the adjective, meaning "main, superior, chief, principal" as in "arch"enemy (chief, main enemy), "arch"duke (main, superior duke). The adjective goes back to Greek "arkos," which had the meaning "superior."  "Supposedly" this goes back to Indo European "arkhein," with a notion of "rule, command," which, if true, would certainly tie into the idea of "main, principal, superior." How English got the word is puzzling, but German has the related "Erz," which is used in the same way English uses "arch;" for example, "Erz"feind="arch"enemy, and both may well have gotten the term from Greek or from Church use, such as "arch bishop." The ultimate origin of the noun form is uncertain, but Latin had "arcus," which meant "curve, bow," and it is also the source of "arc." This gave Old French (a Latin-based language) "arche," and this was then borrowed by English from French in the 1300s.

Paying The Piper-Part Two-Dominican Republic-Central America-US Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act

This agreement was approved and passed the US House of Representatives on July 28, 2005. The vote was:
217 YES (202 Republicans-15 Democrats) vs. 215 NO (187 Democrats-27 Republicans-1 Independent)-2 Not Voting (both Republicans).

The vote in the US Senate, also on July 28, 2005:
55 YES (43 Republicans-11 Democrats-1 Independent) vs. 45 NO (34 Democrats-11 Republicans).

Signed into law by President George W. Bush on August 2, 2005.

WORD HISTORY:
Yes-This goes back to Old English "gese," which is assumed by many linguists to be a compound of "gea," the ancestor of "Yea," and "se/si," which was the third person subjunctive or imperative (I found differing info), which was a form of "be" in Old English; thus giving us the idea of "yea, may it be so," or "yea, so be it." "Yea" goes back to Indo European "ye," which then gave Old Germanic "ja." "Yea" and "yes" are closely related to the affirmative words in other Germanic languages: German has "ja" (pronounced "ya," with the "j" pronounced as "y," and the "a" as the "a" in father), Icelandic has "já," Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish all have "ja."

The German Question, Part Twenty-Seven

"In English It's Vienna, But In German It's Wien"

The area of Vienna was originally settled by Celtic tribes, who apparently named the area "Vedunia," which meant "stream," or "forest stream." When the Romans came, they called their own encampment there "Vindobona," which some linguists feel was taken from the Celtic name, while others disagree. Whatever the case, Germanic peoples came to the area in force, including none other than Karl der Grosse (English/French, Charlemagne), considered by Germans to be their first emperor, who established the "Avar March" (German:"Awarenmark") in eastern Bavaria to guard his territory against the Avars, a nomadic group of people from central Asia, "seemingly" related to the Turks. The main Germanic people who settled the area then abandoned by the Romans were the Bavarians, and at some point the city became known as "Wenia," again supposedly taken from the Celtic or Roman terminology. This later became "Wien," in German (pronounced as if Veen), and Vienna, in English. Much of the Avar March later came to be called the "Ostmark" or "Eastern March;" a "march" being a fortified border area. It comprised much of what is modern Austria.

The German "Babenberg" family ruled the area and lived in Vienna for a couple of centuries prior to the rise of the Habsburg family, who then later also made Vienna their home. When the various Habsburgs rose to almost always be chosen as the German emperors, Vienna became the capital of the German Empire (Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation) until the end of the empire.

In 1529, the Ottoman Turks besieged the city, then surrounded by walls, as were many cities of those times. The city held out under the command of Graf von Salm (Graf=count, in English) and defeated the Turks, who retreated in serious disorder. This halted Turkish expansion in Europe at the time. The Turks returned, but not until July 1683. At that time an Ottoman army of between 100-200,000 men (sources vary on the number) surrounded the city. The initial German forces had been led by the emperor himself, Leopold von Habsburg (Leopold I), but they withdrew, and Leopold tried to organize forces for a relief attack. The remaining forces were seriously under strength, numbering less than 20,000, and that included several thousand civilian volunteers. The Turks demanded surrender, but the city, under the command of Graf Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, refused. The walls of the city were strong and endured bombardment by the Turkish cannons, so the Turks decided to literally tunnel beneath the walls, plant explosive charges, and demolish the walls so they could then send troops into the city. Believe it or not, to counter this, the city commander had tunnels dug to intercept the Turks digging towards the walls!

The city garrison gradually began to look like they would lose the battle, but German forces under Karl (Charles), Duke of Lorraine,* arrived near the city and inflicted a serious defeat on some Hungarian forces allied with the Turks. Then major relief forces arrived outside the city in early September under the command of the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski, known as Jan III (he had an alliance with Leopold), who had several thousand excellent Polish cavalry. Various German forces (usually called "Imperials," since they were sent due to the appeal of the German emperor) from parts of the empire (Saxony, Bavaria and Franken, to name a few) also were part of this force, which by then saw this as a religious battle, too; Christian versus Muslim. As the Turks prepared a huge explosive charge to bring down a large section of the city walls, one of the counter-tunnels dug by the defenders came upon the Turkish explosives and disarmed them. Nearby, the assembled forces of both armies clashed, and the cavalry of both German and Polish forces carried the day against the Turks, who withdrew.

The Imperial and Polish forces captured large amounts of Turkish supplies, including a beverage that would become famous in Vienna, and all of Europe (and eventually America and the world), coffee! To this day, Vienna is known for its coffeehouses, which began springing up in the aftermath of this battle. Further, the city's bakers baked crescent-shaped rolls to commemorate the victory over the Muslim Turks (their flag had a crescent design on it), and this supposedly gave us the first "croissants," at least that's what the Viennese claim.

Like the Berliners, the Viennese have their own dialect. It is based upon High German, more particularly what is termed Oberdeutsch, "upper German," and it is part of the general "Bavarian" dialect of most, but not all, south German speakers.** In standard German it is called "Wienerisch," but in Bavarian it is called "Weanarisch." Like "Berlinerisch," it is basically spoken in the city and immediate suburban area, but begins to decline the further from the city limits one goes. Also, like with "Berlinerisch," people in the countryside may have great difficulty understanding it, even though in the case of "Wienerisch," it is based upon the same southern dialect of "Bavarian," whereas in Berlin, the dialect is quite different, as it is based upon standard German, with Low German influences, and in the countryside around Berlin, the dialect is based upon Low German. Again like "Berlinerisch," "Wienerisch" has been influenced by a number of non-German languages, in Vienna's case like Hungarian, Czech, and Italian, and the Yiddish influence on the dialect has also been noticeable.

In the United States, one goes to a bar (neighborhood type), in England one goes to a pub, in standard German one goes to a Kneipe (pronounced knipe-eh, with the "kn" sound pronounced, as we once did in English), but in "Wienerisch" one goes to a "Beisl" (the "ei" is pronounced as a long "i"). In standard German one might drink a "Bier" (pronounced pretty close to the English word), but in "Wienerisch" it is "Bia," as if bee-ah. We have "that" and standard German has "das," which comes out "des" in "Wienerisch," just as we say "have," which is "haben" (short "a" like in father) in standard German, but which comes out "ham" (not like English meat from a pig, but with the same short "a" in father). Many, but not all, participle forms of verbs in standard German begin with the prefix "ge," and English once did similar with either "ge" or "ga" prefixes, but in Bavarian generally, and certainly in "Wienerisch," the "ge" often becomes just a barely detectable "g," with no "e" sound, so that we have "gesehen" (ge-zay-en, which means "seen") in standard German, but gsehn (no "e" sound after the "g" or before the "n" either) in "Wienerisch" and much of Bavarian. Much like in English, standard German "mein" (pronounced like our word "mine," but meaning "my") becomes simply "mei" in Bavarian, pronounced like English "my." Where English has the now archaic "thine," standard German has "dein" (like "dine"), but in Bavarian it is reduced to "dei" (like English "die"). In the north, the use of the regular past tense is common. Since I used "gesehen," above, I'll stick with the base word "sehen," =to see. In the regular past tense, English speakers would say "I saw," and in standard German it is the very similar "Ich sah" (zah), but in the south, even in standard German, they tend to use the participle form for past tense, except for the much used words for "be" and "have" ("sein" and "haben" are the infinitive forms), so it would be "Ich habe gesehen" (which can be translated a variety of ways: "I saw," "I did see," "I have seen," this last being the literal word-for-word translation).

A Word History" is below the notes....

* Charles was known as "Duke (Herzog, in German) of Lorraine (Lothringen, in German)," but in fact, Lorraine at that time was under French occupation, so he had no territory.

** In more recent times, many linguists call "Bavarian" the hyphenated "Austro-Bavarian." I'll be more traditional and retain the term "Bavarian." While the overwhelming number of Austrians and Bavarians speak this general dialect, there are exceptions, as in far western Austria and northwestern Bavaria, the dialect is Alemannic; that is, the general dialect of Swabia, Alsace and Switzerland, while around Nuremberg, the dialect is Frankish (historically the regional name of the area is "Franken;" rendered in English as "Franconia"). 

WORD HISTORY:
Tread-This word is closely related to "trade." This word's ultimate origin is hazy, perhaps going back to an expanded form of Indo European "der/dr," which meant "to walk, to step." It appears that the basic word is only present in the Germanic languages, which goes back to the Old Germanic verb form "tredan(an)," which meant "to step (on), to walk (on.)." This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "tredan," which later became "treden," before becoming modern "tread." The noun form was derived from the verb in the early 1200s, and the idea of repeated "treading" on an area creating a path, developed the sense of "tire tread," from the "groove" created by such repeated treading. Related forms in the other Germanic languages: German has "treten," Low German has "treden," Dutch has "treden," West Frisian "tree," Danish has "træde," Swedish has "träda," Norwegian has "trø" and Icelandic has "troða/trotha."

Paying The Piper, Part One-"NAFTA"

I'm going to be doing a number of articles relevant to the middle class in America. For those who may have missed it, this is a VERY important article, and it will give you a basis to see what's been happening to this country:

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2010/07/down-goes-middle-class.html

First, as the statistics in the linked article relate, our middle class is in serious trouble. Folks, voting is important, VERY IMPORTANT! The politicians who have caused so much damage didn't do it out of any conspiracy, and I'm sure they meant no harm. On the contrary, they meant well, and if you voted for any of them, it doesn't make you a bad person, BUT seeing the mistakes that have been made, you do need to reassess your voting patterns, in my opinion, or then you DO become part of the problem. Again, this isn't a conspiracy, unless perceived self-interest is a conspiracy. The businesses and high income people who pushed for the kinds of things I'm going to be writing about didn't conspire, I'm pretty certain, to divert the attention of Americans, but they benefit when Americans' minds are elsewhere. Wars, abortion, race, you name it, when we focus on these things, they benefit, because we aren't focused on what THEY'RE doing. I'm certain, if a decade ago, you had asked Americans how important they thought Wall Street was to the overall American economy, a solid majority would have answered that it was not that big of a deal, although their own retirement money may have been invested in stocks and bonds (often in a 401 K). Well, we didn't pay attention to all of the shenanigans, and now do you see where we are?

I know I beat up on Republicans a lot, and that's because they deserve it, but I also have problems with Democrats, and I have stated such many times here, and on occasion, I agree with the Republicans. The problem I have with Republicans is, their basic philosophy took over the country three decades ago. They became the majority party, in sentiment, if not always in numbers. They can't now step back and act as if they didn't have anything to do with America's decline, or with the overall terrible economic mess we're in, not to mention the endless wars which have cost us so many of our brave military people, and also billions and billions of bucks. Democrats aren't blameless, but they have somewhat less blame, although NOT ALWAYS! When I see these congressional votes in the last year and a half, so often with NO Republicans supporting Democratic-sponsored legislation, this tells me that the rightwing fanaticism that has taken over the Republican Party will do anything to bring down this president, including leaving the country go to hell. It is especially troubling to hear Republicans say they want something put into a bill, and then it is inserted, and still they vote "NO." Something wrong here folks! Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told the Republican senators from the very start that he wanted them to vote "NO" on just about everything. Folks, this isn't a party trying to help govern the country. We have a basic two-party system, and I don't expect, nor do I want, everybody in both parties to always support the same things, but this situation is just not good. If you're a Republican, take back your party!!! As it stands now, Ronald Reagan was too liberal for some of these nutcases.

The North American Free Trade Agreement, better known to most Americans as "NAFTA," created essentially a free trade bloc between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. I'm not quite sure how important NAFTA really is now, compared to the first decade or so of its being in effect, as China and even India, as well as other countries, pose a far greater threat to the U.S. now (and to Mexico, too), and I'll be dealing with that in a future article. I'm not anti-Mexican, in fact, far from it, but the whole problem with the agreement centered around Mexico's involvement. Why? Well, Canada and the United States have similar societies, and I don't mean ethnically or linguistically, which is totally unimportant to me, and I hope is unimportant to you, too. What I mean is, both countries had government regulations to protect workers and their wages and their benefits, and to protect the public from from potentially dangerous products. Mexico has been a relatively poor country, without many of these same regulations, and certainly with much, much lower wages and worker benefits. This wasn't a tough one folks. If you're a business person who could open a plant in Mexico for far, far less money, where would you go? For Americans, in my opinion, this began to put the hurt on many workers without more developed skills. We all can't be Einsteins, or rocket scientists, or search for a cure for cancer. Many American workers who had joined the middle class, or who had been born into the middle class because of their parents working in manufacturing, became vulnerable. During the build-up to the vote, all living former presidents expressed public support for NAFTA; they were: Nixon (Republican), Ford (Republican), Carter (Democrat), Reagan (Republican), Bush, Sr. (Republican). Here is the vote on implementing "NAFTA":

November 17, 1993, House of Representatives: 234 YES (102 Democrats-132 Republicans)
200 NO (156 Democrats-43 Republicans-1 Independent)

November 20, 1993, U.S. Senate: 61 YES (27 Democrats-34 Republicans) 38 NO (28 Democrats-10 Republicans-1 Democrat not voting)

Signed by President Bill Clinton, Democrat, December 8, 1993.

WORD HISTORY:
Trade-I was unable to establish a link to an Indo European root, although that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't one, but sources mention that forms of the word are only found in the Germanic languages. "Trade" started as a noun, and it goes back to the Old Germanic base "tred/trad," which had the idea of "path, course, track, way" (it is closely related to "tread," and its past form, "trod," by the way). In times of old, getting around wasn't as easy as today. "The well-trod path" worn by people exchanging goods came to give Low German the noun "trade," which meant just that, "a well-trod, or trodden, path, or track." This suggests that the word is of West Germanic origin (English is West Germanic, as are German, Dutch and Frisian). The term came to English in the 1300s, undoubtedly due to...ah...trade with the Germans of northwestern Europe. Further, since a person who worked at a particular profession followed their same or regular path for work, it came to be associated with "trade," usually in the sense of skilled workers (in the 1800s, English developed the term "trade unions" from this idea), and then also even in business, as those who exchanged goods or goods for money, was their "trade."