The German Question, Part Sixty-Nine

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

"The Match Touches The Powder Keg" (Part One)

On our long march through German history during this series, we have seen numerous wars. Most of those wars (and in other parts of the world, too) were not fought so much about the ethnicity (real or perceived) of the people of one region or another, but rather about religion, or more especially about nobles or rulers squabbling over territory and lands with certain natural resources of some kind, or about which particular noble would take the throne of some particular entity. Especially by the 1800s, things began to change, as various groups of people considered their ethnic identity as more important. These groups, including many Germans, often wanted to be ruled by people like themselves; that is, people of the same ethnic background. This created many a "flash point" throughout Europe, as the national maps up to that point had seldom been drawn with ethnic identities in mind. Even when the "new" German Empire was formed, while overwhelmingly German in ethnicity, it was NOT exclusively German, as I pointed out a few articles ago, but rather contained some fairly large minority groups, especially Poles. Now we have entered into the Twentieth Century and the tensions have escalated, as aging empires with many different ethnic groups as subjects felt the strain of nationalism among those ethnic subjects. Serbia, not an overly large country back then, sought to join other Serbians, then under Austro-Hungarian rule, to their nation, as well as to establish a sort of new empire, containing mainly people of close ethnic relation to the Serbs, but who saw themselves as distinct, for any number of reasons, including religion. Serbian desire for a "Greater Serbia" made many an official in the Austro-Hungarian Empire feel that the existing Serb state would have to be reduced or completely smashed. So that's where we are. Like them, not like them; love them, hate them; nationalism and ethnic identity were and are facts.

In June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, along with his wife, Sophie, visited the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina and its capital at Sarajevo. The planned visit was full of tension, as the province had many Serbians or other separatists. The Archduke had previously made it clear that, when he ascended the throne, the various minority groups of the Austro-Hungarian Empire would be given more local independence. As the Archduke's plan might quell Serbian and South Slav nationalism, separatists felt he had to be eliminated. During a motorcade through the city, a bomb was thrown at the Archduke's car, but it ended up rolling under the car next in the motorcade where it exploded, injuring several people, including a couple of officials, who were taken to the hospital. The Archduke, his wife, and the other officials continued the motorcade which ended at City Hall, where a ceremony took place. After the ceremony, the Archduke changed plans and decided to go to the hospital to see those injured by the bomb. Another assassin stood waiting for the return of the motorcade along the originally planned route. The driver of the Archduke's car made a wrong turn onto the street where this man, Gavrilo Princip, was standing. One of the officials shouted for the driver to stop and back up to take the street to the hospital. Princip saw his chance and fired shots at the Archduke and his wife; both died.

Even after all of these years, there is uncertainty about all those involved in some way in this assassination. Basically, the Black Hand had agents, supported in spirit, if not directly (bombs, guns, ammunition, and money) by officials in the Serbian government, who went over the border into Bosnia-Herzegovina and participated in some way in the attack, with some later making their way back into Serbia. Whatever the truth, perception is reality, and Austria-Hungary saw the assassinations as a chance to seriously damage Serbia and to smash the Black Hand.* Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany offered his support to Kaiser Franz Josef and his government to decimate the Black Hand and to go after Serbia, if it was felt to be necessary. Although undoubtedly not seen as such at the time, this open-ended support now put Germany's fate into the hands of Austria-Hungary. With Germany now publicly supporting Austria-Hungary, within weeks the Austro-Hungarian government demanded that the plotters be turned over to them by Serbia, something Serbia refused to do, citing its own sovereignty. This brought an ultimatum from the Austro-Hungarian government; an ultimatum worded so as to be almost impossible for Serbia to comply with and not be humiliated as an independent, sovereign nation. Up to this point, it was thought that any war would be very limited. The problem was, there were so many moving parts in other areas of Europe.** (A Word History is below the notes)

* It certainly didn't help that the Serbian government, early on, denied being in on the plot, and Serbian officials stated that they had warned the Austro-Hungarian government of the attack, only then to turn completely around and state that they had no foreknowledge of the attack. You can't have it both ways.

** Just briefly: Russian government and (seemingly) public opinion wanted Russia to stand up for Serbia in its role as protector of Orthodoxy and Slavic people. France still wanted Alsace-Lorraine. The German military, well aware of the Russian alliances with France and Britain, and therefore the possibility of a two-front war for Germany, had developed plans over time to deal a quick blow against France, and then turn against Russia, if such a war ever came about. This is a VERY important detail, as the Germans, once the Russians, French and British began to show that they would honor their alliances, were faced with enacting their overall strategic plan, or being battered in both the west and the east. Further, their plan rested upon fast action against France. Russia was a huge country with a large military age male population, but it was also an antiquated country, with far removed provinces, where mobilization of its large forces would take several weeks. Germany, with its reservists and excellent rail system, could mobilize substantial forces quickly, deploy a major portion of them against France, and defeat France before the Russians could get sufficient forces mobilized and into the field against Germany, or at least that was the German theory. So, time was of the essence for the Germans, something that worked against peace. The Germans also advocated a quick and decisive surprise attack by Austria-Hungary against Serbia, before too much involvement by other European nations could take place. Instead, the situation festered.

WORD HISTORY:
Gift-This common word is simply a form of the verb "give," but it has taken an interesting turn in meaning in most of the other Germanic languages. It goes back to Indo European "ghebh-ti," which meant "something received or given," a suffixed form, the main Indo European root of which, "ghabh/ghebh," is the source of "give." This then gave Old Germanic "giftiz," which related to a "dowry" for marriage. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "gift," with much the same meaning, "dowry, a family's marriage contribution or portion" (Old High German had "gift," and modern German has the compound "Mitgift," with the same meaning, "dowry"). There are some who believe "gift," meaning "dowry," died out in English, as that word "gift" was "seemingly" replaced by "dowry," a word borrowed from French. They believe English then reacquired the word "gift" in the 1300s from Norse "gipt" (North Germanic), and it has kept that word's most common meaning, "present, something given or received." Others believe this general history to be true, but that the original English word did NOT die out, and that it was simply influenced in meaning by the Norse form "gipt." The interesting turn in this word is, in some of the other Germanic languages, it came to mean "poison, venom." "Possibly" we don't use "gift" with that meaning, as English had borrowed the word "poison" from French, which had replaced our own English word "ator" (which had several forms); thus, no need for another word with that meaning. Anyway, the idea of "marriage portion" (remember, it still meant this in other Germanic languages) came to be applied to a "portion" of other things, including a "portion" or dose of medication, and then later to a dose of "poison," or an injection of venom by insect or snake. So the base word means "poison" in the other continental Germanic languages and they use other words to convey the sense "a present, something given." So, forms of "gift" in the other Germanic languages German and Low German have "Gift," Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish all have "gift," West Frisian has "fergif," Dutch has both "gif" and "gift" (Dutch "gift" has the duel meaning "poison" and "present/gift," which could pose some interesting statements. Hmm....). Only (non-continental) Icelandic varies, and it has "gjöf" for "gift," and "eitur" for "poison" (notice the Icelandic word and the former English word for poison, "ator," plus modern German "Eiter" and Dutch "etter" both mean "pus," and all forms come from the same original Germanic source). The verb form of "gift" came along in the late 1500s meaning "to give a gift to someone," also, "to give as a gift to someone," but the verb isn't very commonly used; at least, not in the U.S.