The German Question, Part Eighty-Six

"The Aftermath of the Great War & The Weimar Republic"/Part Three

"Austria & Luxembourg"

NOTE: In 1919, negotiators met in Paris to lay out the specifics to treaties to actually end the war between the various nations; this was called the "Paris Peace Conference."

With the end of the war, Austria was again....Austria; not Austria-Hungary, not the Austro-Hungarian Empire, nor the Austrian Empire; just plain old Austria, well... not "plain old," rather "The Republic of German Austria" (Republik Deutschösterreich). With the various ethnic and nationality groups gone their own ways, the German population remained in the territory which once dominated German affairs and produced German Kaisers (emperors) for centuries. The new entity took the name "The Republic of German Austria." The boundaries were not exactly the same as today, although the core area was the same. The upcoming treaties would determine the boundaries, leaving some significant sore spots on the Austrian, and overall German, psyche; a subject I will be dealing with shortly. "German Austria" chose to be part of "the German Republic;" that is, the new German government established at the end of the war and known more so in the public mind as "the Weimar Republic," after the German city where the new constitution was drafted. To confirm the decision made by Austria's new representatives, a series of plebiscites, more commonly called referendums in America, were to be held throughout "the Republic of German Austria." Early regional referendums showed overwhelming support for unification with Germany, with 98% to 99% voting for the proposal (much of the early voting was in western Austria). I will come back to this.

Luxembourg had been occupied by Germany for much of the war, and it was a member of the German Zollverein, the German Customs Union, although it had not technically been a part of Germany (actually the German Confederation) since 1867. Talk about an area of divided loyalties! After Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, peacemakers set up the area as a grand duchy; that is, a territory ruled by a grand duke. At that time Luxembourg was much larger, with the western portion, especially, being heavily French-speaking (but not exclusively). Much of that territory was ceded to Belgium in 1839, which borders Luxembourg to the west. Of the remaining territory, the population was majority German speaking,* but still with a French-speaking minority, and an inclination in some parts of the little country to be more French in custom than German (it also bordered on France to the south). Now, to confuse matters even more, the ruling grand duke was also the King of the Netherlands!** Let's see now, how many countries and nationality groups does that make which were involved here? It is important to remember, while the Dutch king was Luxembourg's head of state, it was not a part of the Netherlands, but rather a part of the German Confederation, and since its grand duke was the King of the Netherlands, he had a vote in the German Assembly! Now you know why some historians call it "The German Question;" sorting out who is a German national can drive one to drink. (Hic...hic..hiccup! Ah, 'scuse me!)***

* The German dialect of Luxembourg, called "Lëtzebuergesch" ("Luxembourgish," in Anglicized form), traces back to the Germanic tribe, the Franks. It is closely related to the German dialect of much of the German-speaking part of Lorraine and the nearby area of Germany.

** This set up is called a "personal union," and it has not been uncommon in European history.

*** Much of the confusing situation with Luxembourg, and also with Alsace/Lorraine, goes back more than a thousand years, to the time of the division of Charlemagne's empire. That time period has had much to do with the hostility between Germany and France over the centuries. For those interested, I covered that era in this article:

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2010/03/german-question-part-three.html

 

WORD HISTORY:
Attack/Attach-These words go back to Indo European "steg/stek," which meant "pole, stake, stick." The Old Germanic offshoot was "stakon." After this, the details of the history are very confusing, but here's what I came up with: for "ATTACH," the Germanic word was borrowed into Old French from (Germanic dialect) Frankish "stakka." The French form became "estachier," with the "e" prefix, later changed to "a," meaning "to;" thus the verb form later changed to "atachier" (the "s" sound now gone) and meant "to fasten or fix into position with a stake or stick." The Normans brought the word to England, but it wasn't until the early 1300s that it became more widespread, as "attachen," by which time it had taken on the more figurative meaning "take into legal custody, arrest;" from a previous "seize possessions by legal means;" with the basic idea being "staked/fastened to the rule of law or the court." The word began to get back to the more direct original meaning seemingly under the influence of French "attacher," meaning "to tie, to bind, to affix." Now, you may wonder what "attach" has to do with "attack;" uh...you did wonder that, right? Well, "ATTACK" goes back to the same Old Germanic word as "attach." I mentioned that the details can be confusing, as some sources seem to indicate that there were separate borrowings from Germanic into Old French for "attach," and then into a form of (Old) Italian for the word that became "attack." Other sources indicate that the Italian form was borrowed from Old French, not directly from Germanic. What seems clear is that French picked up the "attack" meaning from (northern) Italian, which had "attaccare," which meant the same as "attach;" that is, "join, affix, etc." The Italian dialect, however, had coupled the word with "battaglia" ("battle") to form the translated expression "to join battle." The expression became so prevalent, that the "battle" part was dropped, with the form of "attaccare" alone coming to mean the same thing. French picked up the term as "attaquer," which then gave French the noun form "attaque" (modern Italian has "attacco"). English did not acquire the word until the early 1600s, having borrowed it from French. While not used as often as in English, German also borrowed the term as "Attacke," probably from French, and likewise, in the 1600s. German also has the verb form "attackieren."