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.