The German Question, Part Sixty-Eight

"Kaiser Wilhelm & World War I" Part One/C "Europe Moves Toward War"

"The Match Moves Closer To The Powder Keg"

The main question in this entire series is, "Who is a German?" By process of elimination for a variety of reasons, we have found that a number of Germanic-based groups, some originally referred to as "Germans," came to be viewed otherwise over time. We found that in 1871, Austria, the leading German state for centuries, was not included in a newly unified German nation.* Even though the German part of Austria remained outside the borders of Germany, the ties between the two countries remained strong, and the overall issue of the "German-ness" of Austria still was not totally solved, although it may have seemed to have been. The alliance between the two nations (and alliances between other European nations) would now help to ignite a war like none ever witnessed up to that time.

The Ottoman Turks had ruled a sizable portion of the Balkans for centuries, including an area known as "Bosnia-Herzegovina," where a large element of the Slavic-based population had converted to Islam. Eventually, restlessness by the population, out and out rebellion, and continued decline of the Ottoman Empire, brought about a deal where Austria-Hungary would occupy and administer the region (1878), and in the same agreement, Serbia, another (South) Slav region,** and Eastern Orthodox in religion, which had earlier gained independence from Ottoman rule, was recognized as an independent nation (as a "kingdom"). Serbia lay on the eastern border of Bosnia-Herzegovina. A few years later, Germany and Russia agreed that Bosnia-Herzegovina could eventually be formally annexed to Austria-Hungary. However, with the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and with Austria-Hungary's restless South Slav minorities, the Serbs more and more wanted to form an independent "South Slav" nation, a nation where they would be the dominant entity. By the late 1890s, the Serbian Eastern Orthodox religion and Slavic identity brought them many supporters in the Russian Empire, where Tsar Nicholas II pulled back from the earlier Russian consent for Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.*** Ethnic and religious unrest, along with various rebellions and military actions, over time, had kept the Balkans region extremely unstable; always with the possibility of bringing clashes between some of the major powers. This question about Bosnia-Herzegovina simply continued this "distinction." In 1908, with turmoil and revolt within the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary took the opportunity to annex Bosnia-Herzegovina, with Russian consent.**** The international reaction was very negative, but in the end, the annexation stood, and Bosnia-Herzegovina became a formal province of Austria-Hungary.

Serbia's dream of leading a unified nation of South Slavs was dealt a major setback, and the Serbian leaders, without support from Russia, had no choice but to accept the annexation, at least in public. With the more extremist Serbian nationalist elements inflamed by the annexation, matters became more clandestine, with anti Austro-Hungarian literature distributed within South Slav areas of the aging empire, in an effort to stir the local populations to revolution. The most famous of the pro-Serbian nationalist groups was the Black Hand, which, in the public mind, has tended to be associated with any of the Serbian groups. The actual Black Hand seems to have led several, although connected, lives. The organization was so secretive, details on all of its activities and editions, including its founding date, are still subject to question to this day.

The Austro-Hungarian Emperor, Franz Josef, lost his only son and heir, Rudolf, to suicide in 1889, making his nephew, Franz Ferdinand, the new heir to the throne. He was the son of one of Franz Joseph's brothers, Archduke Karl Ludwig, who renounced his right to succession, thus making his son the presumptive heir. The new heir was far more liberal in his thinking than his more staid and conservative uncle. He had sympathies for the non German and non Hungarian groups in the multi-ethnic empire, and he made it clear that if he became emperor, he favored regional self governance for these groups within the empire. Conservative Kaiser Franz Josef was not impressed, and the two men were never close.

Next...."The Match Touches The Powder Keg" (A Word History is below the notes)

*Just the constant reminder that the Austrian Empire by that time was called "Austria-Hungary," or the "Austro-Hungarian Empire," as the former empire had been divided between an Austrian (German) part, and a Hungarian part, both with large numbers of people who were neither German nor Hungarian, but with a common Habsburg ruler and a common foreign policy.

** The term "South Slavs" was used to distinguish between the Slavic people in the Balkans (like Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, etc) and those in other parts of Europe (like Czechs, Slovaks, Russians, etc).

*** The Russian Empire was the largest Slavic entity in the world, although it contained large numbers of non-Slavic people, and indeed, non-Russian Slavs (like Ukrainians, for example). Likewise, while many religions were part of the Russian Empire, Russian (Eastern) Orthodox was the dominant and official state  religion.

**** In exchange for Russian consent, Austria-Hungary agreed to provide support for Russian naval access into the eastern Mediterranean Sea; something desired by Russia for quite some time, but opposed by others, including Great Britain. The uproar over the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the possibility of outright war, however, caused the Russians to shelve the idea of their naval entry into the Mediterranean, thus forcing the Russians to accept the annexation, without any benefit for themselves. Remember, all of the major European powers were seeking to maintain some sort of "balance of power" in Europe, although this did not exclude the individual powers from attempting to gain certain advantages for themselves. The threat of a war, which could potentially draw in all of the European powers, brought the parties involved in these maneuvers to step back and take a deep breath; at least up to this point.

WORD HISTORY:
Strudel-Now this is my kind of word! Unfortunately, there is not much information about how German either acquired the word from another language, or developed it from some form of Old Germanic. English borrowed the word from German in the late 1800s, and it goes back to Middle High German "Strudel," which meant "whirlpool, eddy," which it still means in modern German, alongside the name for the pastry. This seems to have gone back to Old High German "stredan," a verb form which meant "to swirl, whirl, boil" (modern German still has the little used verb "strudeln," with the same meaning). I could find no word in Old English that would have been an English form of this word. The pastry name was applied in Vienna, and is thus south German, and it seems to come from the "swirling layers of thin dough" looking like a "whirlpool" when the dough is rolled up. Regardless of the word's lack of better history, I'm sure glad we have it! While it originated in Vienna, it is common throughout Germany, although more so in the south, in Bavaria, where in Bavarian dialect it is pronounced more like "shhdroo-ool." Give me some, regardless of how it is pronounced!