The German Question, Part Ninety-Five

"A Divisive Treaty" Part Six/B
"Territorial Changes/Austria"

It is very important to note, the Versailles Treaty provided that Germany and Austria could not unite; thus throwing out the results of the early referendums in Austria, which had overwhelming support for Austrian unification with Germany. Understand, this was not the Austria of the just ended war, but rather the German part left over after the Austro-Hungarian Empire came apart. The population was approximately six and one half million, with a Hungarian minority of about 25,000 in the eastern part of the country, a Croatian minority of about 44,000 in the southeastern area, and a Slovenian minority in the south.* There were other very small minorities, including Gypsies, but Jews of various nationality backgrounds numbered at least 175,000, with most in Vienna. The German percentage of the population was likely around 95-96%; that is, those who considered themselves to be German.

Next in Part 6/C, the eastern boundaries.....

* Determining the Slovene population of those times is not easy. There was a referendum in some parts of the mixed German and Slovene areas to determine what sections would remain a part of Austria or to join what was to become Yugoslavia. The vote in this disputed area produced a vote of about 60% to 40% to remain part of Austria, with the 40% constituting some 14,000 votes, presumably all Slovenian. If I add in a thousand or so children and some non-voters (turnout was high), I'll call it 15,000 or so. The problem is, this was only in one area, and more Slovenes lived in a neighboring district, although much of the southern part of that district did join Slovenia, which became part of Yugoslavia.

WORD HISTORY:
Meat-This word traces back to Indo European "met/med/mat," which signified "measure." This gave Old Germanic "matiz," which had the notion of "portion of food" (Get it? Portion=measurement). This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "mete," still with the general meaning of "food, portion of food." By the 1300s, the word came to be used more and more to mean "flesh prepared as food." Close English relatives standard German, Low German, and Dutch all also have a form of the word with the "meat" meaning: German has "Mettwurst," a type of sausage, but this was borrowed from Low German "Met(t)," which meant "finely chopped or ground meat." Dutch too has "Metworst." Old High German had "maz," with the general "food" meaning, but the word has since died out, as did forms in West Frisian. So, did English perhaps influence its kindred languages in northwestern Europe, or did they influence the English meaning? Or was this "meat" meaning a secondary meaning anyway among the West Germanic languages (see note) when the Anglo-Saxons left the continent; remaining unrecorded amongst the common folk until gaining traction at a later time? Whatever the case, during the 1300s, the word began to overtake "flesh," which had been the general English word for "meat."

NOTE: The North Germanic languages retained the "food" meaning, as Danish has "mad," Swedish and Norwegian have "mat," and Icelandic has "matur," all meaning "food."