The German Question, Part Seventy-Eight

"Kaiser Wilhelm & World War I" Part Two/H "The Germans At War"
"Last Grasp At Victory"

With Russia out of the war, General Ludendorff and the Germans turned their newly available units against the Allies in France and Belgium in hopes of securing victory before America's entry into the war could have much influence.* Several offensives were launched between March and July 1918, and the Germans came close to Paris, even shelling the city with long range artillery, but in the end, the offensives could not make the final breakthrough of the Allied lines. By August, the Allies had turned the tables and launched a major offensive of their own. A German victory was no longer possible.

* The initial offensive was launched just before the United States entered the war, but America's entry was already anticipated.

WORD HISTORY:
Rock-I'm only dealing with the verb form in this article, not the most common noun; that is, the word meaning "stone." The other noun, "rock;" the most commonly used form being the shortened form of "rock-n-roll," is derived from the verb. So "rock," meaning "to sway, to move, to move back and forth/to and fro," is from the Germanic base "rukk," but beyond that, its origins are not known. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "roccian," which then became "rokken," before the modern spelling. It has relatives among some of the other Germanic languages: German has "rücken," meaning "to move, to shift something from one place to another by pushing, often jerkily." On that meaning in German, it specifically means to move something by pushing it, but not by lifting. In order to do so with heavy objects, we often move the item "back and forth, or jerkily." That shows the tie to the English "sway" meaning. Swedish has rycka "to pull quickly, jerk" (again the idea of movement and back and forth). Dutch has "rukken," meaning "to pull, tug," Danish has "rykke," meaning "to move." Apparently forms have died out in the other Germanic languages.