The German Question, Part Ninety-Six

"A Divisive Treaty" Part Six/C-1"

Territorial Changes/Eastern Boundaries"

The territorial changes to Germany's eastern boundaries were significant, and some of the changes were highly controversial. Most of the province around the city of Posen ("Poznan" in Polish) was returned to the "new" Poland, although by that time the Poles had already captured much of the area from German control.* It contained a population of more than four million, overwhelmingly Polish, but with a German minority. There was no referendum, but the area would have undoubtedly voted in substantial numbers to be a part of Poland.

A small portion of Upper Silesia also became part of Poland, with some 25,000 citizens, most of them Polish. Again, no referendum, but similar to the above. Another portion of Upper Silesia went to the new state of Czechoslovakia, with nearly 50,000 residents, many of them of Czech ancestry. There was no referendum, but as the area had been under German rule and influence for so long, these "Germanized Czechs" may have opted for Germany, but the call to nationalism can be very powerful, and they likely would have chosen Czechoslovakia, but we will never know. In a larger part of Upper Silesia, a referendum had been held in accordance with the Versailles Treaty, with 60% voting to remain with Germany,** but a large portion of the area, with more than 900,000 people, was given to Poland after Poles took military control of that part of the region, after some serious fighting with nationalist German units. This territorial loss remained something of a German grievance. For Germans who had lived under authoritarian rule for centuries, this was not a good example of "democracy in action." In fact, for a people more accustomed to "might makes right," this whole episode only reinforced that notion, as the Poles seized much of the territory they were then awarded by the Allies, which went against the whole principle of the referendum established by the Treaty of Versailles. This is not a matter of being for Germany and against Poland. The problem was the provision of the Treaty of Versailles. Personally, I favor the idea of the heavily Polish districts joining Poland, rather than observing the overall regional vote, which would have given all to Germany. The more evenly divided districts would have been a problem, as no matter how the vote tilted, the other side would have been less than happy. Then there may also well have been pockets of either Germans or Poles within larger areas where one or the other group was a majority. Moving over the border into one country or the other is about the only solution, but not without great pain, as many of these folks may have lived in these areas for generations.

Next, "The Polish Corridor and Danzig"....

* For more information on Poland and the Polish uprising against German rule, see:

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2011/03/german-question-part-eighty-eight.html

** The overall region had more than 2 million people, and about 1.2 million participated in the referendum. About 717,000 votes were cast for Germany and 483,000 for Poland. Generally speaking, the eastern areas, adjacent to Poland, voted more heavily for Poland and the western areas, adjacent to, and with strong historical ties to, Germany (Prussia), voted heavily for Germany. The areas more around the middle tended to vote for Germany, but by less than overwhelming majorities, and there were definite pockets of pro-Poland votes. It seems that "some" people of Polish background supported Germany, perhaps because of German domination of the area for so long. Just a guess, but I would think many of these people spoke both German and Polish. Silesia was important economically, because part of the area was a major industrial sector, so not only was ethnic identity an issue, but substantial economic impact was a concern for both Poland and Germany.

WORD HISTORY:
Speak-Forms of this word are common in the West Germanic languages (English is West Germanic), but beyond that fact, its ancestry is uncertain. It traces back to Old Germanic "sprekanan," which had the notion of "make sounds." This gave Old English "sprecan," but gradually the "r" sound died out (by 1100s?), which also happened in certain forms in other Germanic dialects back then, but these forms did not overtake the original pronunciation as in English. This left English with "specan," which then became "speken," before acquiring the modern spelling. Standard German has "sprechen," Low German and Dutch have "spreken," West Frisian has "sprekke."

The German Question, Part Eighty-Eight

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

"Poland Anew"

During the war, the Allies, and most certainly American President Woodrow Wilson, agreed that an independent Polish nation should be re-established when the Great War ended. The problem was, no one knew exactly how the borders of the new nation should be drawn.* Poland had been dismembered by three European powers in the second half of the 1700s, although it temporarily appeared for a few years during Napoleon's time, only to go out of existence again upon Napoleon's defeat. Russia controlled the largest part of Poland, including Warsaw and eastern Poland; Austria (still the leading German state at that time) controlled a portion of southern Poland, and Prussia (the other dominant German state) controlled western Poland, including Poznan (Posen, in German),** which was a majority Polish city, but with a substantial German minority, which included the local government officials. Germany controlled the Russian portion for much of World War One, as the Russian armies retreated from most of the area.

When the armistice went into effect on November 11, 1918, Poles rose up in rebellion to German rule shortly thereafter in late December. Much of the Polish territory taken more than a hundred years before was again put under Polish control. Germany, in the midst of revolution and dispirited by defeat, was limited in its ability to launch a major effort to regain the lost territory, but some of the fighting was very intense, and the Germans did periodically succeed in recapturing, at least temporarily, some lost towns and villages.

This rebellion is important, because during that time, a new Polish government (pretty much separate from this rebellion) was taking shape in Warsaw to administer a reborn Poland. Further, negotiations were also simultaneously underway in Paris to put together a treaty to formally end the war (remember, technically there was only an armistice in place at that time) and make boundary adjustments. By taking so much territory, the brave Polish insurgents laid claim to a substantial parcel of land and gained the attention of the Paris negotiators, who decided to include them in the listing of "Allied" forces. It was not long before the "Warsaw" Poles and the Polish forces engaged against the Germans essentially joined together. The details of the eventual treaty would inflame many Germans, and I will deal with the treaty and I will return to the situation between Germany and Poland in the near future. The main thing to remember is, an independent Poland was a fact and again a neighbor on Germany's eastern frontier.

*While most Americans trace their ancestry to Europe, far fewer Americans, in my opinion, understood (or today, understand) the potential consequences of border adjustments between countries in Europe. Americans have to look at things in the context that many European countries are no more the size (in area) of some American states. Americans might drive a few hundred miles and cross into two, three, or even more states and never think anything about it. Doing the same thing in Europe could put you into a different country or two, complete with a different language or languages, ethnic background, religion and type of government. As nationalism grew among the various peoples of Europe, particularly in the 1800s and 1900s, some "ethnic populations" included in countries not ruled by people of their own background grew restless in the desire to be included in nations controlled by their own ethnic group. The extent of this nationalism varied from group to group, but like it or not like it, it was a fact. Just as an example, for those following this series, you have seen how the various ethnic groups of Austria-Hungary put strains on holding the multi-ethnic empire together for quite some time; a force which finally pulled Austria-Hungary apart.

** The Prussian controlled territories later became part of Germany upon unification in 1871.

WORD HISTORY: 
Deck-Since I did "thatch" in the last installment, I decided to follow with "deck," which is really the same word as "thatch." "Deck" is interesting, because it replaced an already existing English word to which it is closely related (as I noted above, actually the same word, but in altered form). It goes back to Indo European "(s)teg," which meant "cover." The "s" is in parentheses because some Indo European dialects emphasized its sound (modern Lithuanian, for instance, has "stogas" for "roof"), while Old Germanic emphasized the "t" sound (or "d" in some dialects). This gave Old Germanic "thakan," which also meant "cover, covering," which then gave Anglo-Saxon (Old English) the verb "theccan," "to cover," and the noun "thaec," "roof" (see "thatch" in previous article for the further history of this word in English). Meanwhile, in Low German and Dutch, close relatives of English, their forms of the same word developed, it seems as "deck" and "dek" (meaning "roof" or "covering") in the noun forms and "decken" and "dekken" in verb forms, and both meaning "to cover." There was heavy trade between England and northwestern Europe, the land of Dutch and Low German. With the related English word, "thaec," that became modern "thatch," already taken, so to speak (and by then having the tie to "straw" for roofing), English borrowed "dekke" from Dutch "dec" in the early to mid 1400s. It COULD be that English developed the sense of "covering for a ship," as early usage of this borrowing related to "canvas material to cover a boat." That meaning progressed to "covering for a ship," and then to "covering/roof of one area that served as a walking surface above." Modern German has "Deck" with the same meaning, but German could have taken that meaning from English, or did it just take the same sense development? I don't know. Dutch didn't develop the same nautical meaning until well after English used it in that manner; however, at about the time of the English borrowing, Low German had "(ver)deck," with a possible tie to "ship's covering." All sources noted that use for "a pack of cards," dating to the late 1500s, undoubtedly came from the notion of the "cards being stacked like the decks of a ship." "Deck the halls," as in the Christmas song, simply means "cover the halls," which was use of the verb form, also a borrowing from Dutch "dekken." This borrowed verb form replaced the closely related English form, "theccan," of the same meaning. German has "Decke"=cover; "Deckel"=lid; "Deck"=ship's deck; (verb) "decken"= to cover. Besides the German and Dutch forms, other Germanic languages have similar words, all tracing back to the same sources as the original Old English words, and having to do with "cover": West Frisian has "dekke" (to cover, wrap up), Swedish has "däck," Norwegian has "dekk," Danish has "daek." (NOTE: The verb "deck" meaning "to hit someone hard enough to knock them down," as in, "If that guy makes another remark to my wife, I'll deck him," can be seen as a separate verb or simply as another meaning of the original verb borrowed from Dutch, as it came from the notion of knocking someone to the deck of a ship in the 20th Century, perhaps patterned after the verb use of "floor" in the similar sense, which developed in the mid 1600s: "If that guy messes with me, I'll floor him.")

The German Question, Part Thirty-Seven

Just ever so slightly edited 8/15/2015


"Aftermath of Napoleon" Part One

When Napoleon was first sent into exile in 1814, representatives of many of the major European powers assembled in Vienna to work out the many border issues left in the wake of Napoleon's fall. By the time final agreements of this Congress of Vienna, as it was called, were signed in 1815, Napoleon was again on the march, after having escaped from his captivity on the island of Elba (off the western Italian coast). His final defeat came only days AFTER the agreements had been signed.

The Congress of Vienna changed the map of Europe, and the changes were far too numerous to enumerate here, but many dealt with the German states and what to do with them now that the Holy Roman Empire (the German Empire) had been dissolved. The negotiations and diplomatic twists and turns are also far too complex for this article. The Napoleonic creation, the Duchy of Warsaw, was divided between Russia and Prussia, with Russia receiving the largest portion (including Warsaw), but with Prussia receiving the territory in and around the city of Posen (Poznan, in Polish). This area was heavily Polish in ethnicity, with a German minority of about 25%.* Prussia also received a large chunk of Saxony (one of the German states),** Danzig,*** Westphalia (another German state), and the Rhineland, much of which had been occupied and then annexed by France during Napoleon's rule.**** Prussia came out of Vienna much larger.

To be continued.... (Two Word Histories are below the notes)

* Even after a hundred years of Prussian/German rule, about two-thirds of the population still considered themselves to be Polish.

** Saxony had been known previously as the "Electorate of Saxony" (" Kurfürstentum Sachsen," in German); that is, it had a vote in the election for German emperors, but it was given the elevated status of "Kingdom of Saxony" ("Königreich Sachsen," in German), by Napoleon. The ruler of Saxony, with the new title, "King Friedrich August I," allied himself to Napoleon. Previous family ties to the kings of Poland, which by then no longer existed (it had been partitioned out of existence-See previous parts of this series for details), had Napoleon choose Friedrich August as head of the French created "Duchy of Warsaw." The king's strong ties to Napoleon made it very difficult for him later, when other German states banded together to drive Napoleon out of German territory. He tried to have it both ways by establishing ties with his fellow German rulers, but by also remaining as an ally of Napoleon. Napoleon demanded that the king put Saxon (and Polish) military forces into the field against the other German and allied armies, but in the end, most of the Saxon forces defected and joined their fellow Germans against Napoleon. During the Congress of Vienna, the king's ties to Napoleon did him no good, and there's no question those ties helped negotiators decide to award part of Saxony to Prussia, although Friedrich August remained on the throne of the reduced kingdom, probably more out of Austrian concern that Prussia, its arch competitor in German affairs, would become too strong.

*** When the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, Napoleon had Danzig declared a "free city," separate from other German lands. Interestingly, this sort of pattern was used after World War One when Danzig was made a "free city," under the League of Nations. I'll deal much more with this later.

**** The Rhineland area in question was overwhelmingly German in population, but the French had long coveted the region for its many resources and industries, and they sought to make the Rhine River France's eastern boundary (as they had in Alsace), regardless of ethnic make up of the area (just as we can also say how German states took over areas often with Slavic or Hungarian majorities along their eastern borders).

WORD HISTORY:
Dale-This goes back to Indo European "dhel," which had the notion of "curve;" thus also, "valley." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "dalam/dalom," which meant "valley, gorge." This then gave Old English "dael," with the same meaning, and this then became "dale." The other Germanic languages have: German "Tal," Low German Saxon "Daal," West Frisian "delling," Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic all have "dal." All these forms mean "valley, dale," in the other Germanic languages too.

Dell-Like its close relative "dale," this goes back to Indo European "dhel" (notion of  "curve," thus "valley"). The Old Germanic base "dal," then gave Old Germanic "daljo." This then gave Old English "dell," which later became "delle," before reverting to "dell." Other Germanic relatives include Dutch "delle" and German "Delle," with the meaning "depression, dent, hollow,"  A famous old childhood song is "The Farmer in the Dell."

The German Question, Part Thirty-One

"The Dismantling Of Poland" Part Two

Frederick the Great died in 1786 leaving no direct heir, as he was childless. His successor was Friedrich Wilhelm II (Frederick William II), the son of one of Frederick the Great's brothers. Meanwhile, in Russia, Catherine the Great was still in control (known as Empress or Tsarina). This information is important only because they were the rulers who participated in the Second Partition of Poland, during 1793.

What brought about this partitioning was simply this; the remainder of Poland after partition #1 was still a very troubled land, and much dependent upon Russia. The Poles decided to enter into an alliance with Prussia, hoping that it would give them some balance against Russia intervening in their affairs. Polish attempts to keep Russia out of their reforms only angered Catherine the Great, and she eventually sent in troops, who, along with Poles of pro-Russian sentiments, essentially took over Poland. Prussia chose not to intervene against the Russian military advance, in spite of its treaty with Poland. For this reason, and for Prussia's stand against the revolutionary government in France,* Friedrich Wilhelm demanded compensation of Polish territory from Catherine, and she agreed; thus the Second Partition of Poland.

Russia took a large part of what is known today as "Belarus," plus the area of Kiev, in the Ukraine (today just "Ukraine," with no preceding "the"), and part of Lithuania. Prussia received the very important city of Danzig (Gdansk, in Polish), some lands to the south of Prussia with a mixed German-Polish population (but mainly Polish), plus a large section of Polish populated territory. Many of the new lands were formed into the new province of "South Prussia" (Südpreussen, in German), with the provincial capital, for a time, at Posen (Poznań, in Polish). Poland still remained as an entity, but with only about a third of its former population (compared to what it had prior to the first partition). Worse was to come.

* Naturally, all absolute monarchies in Europe were worried that the ideas of the French Revolution would spread to their own lands, and Russia was certainly one of those lands.

WORD HISTORY:
Partition-This goes back to Indo European "per," which seemingly had variants, but the basic notion was "distributing;" and thus the idea of "dividing" and "portioning" comes out. This gave Latin the offshoot verb "partire," which meant "to divide up, portion off, split up." The verb's participle form "partitus," then gave Latin the noun form "partitio," which then was passed onto Old French (a Latin-based language) as "particion." English acquired it from French in about the 1430s, and one source notes that at first it was spelled "particioun" under the influence of the French of that time (modern French spells it as the English version), and with the meaning "division into shares," but within just a few decades, it had taken on the more modern extended meaning of "separation." The verb form seems to have come along in the 1700s.