"Is It 'Rumania' or 'Romania?' " Part 3

Note: Initially I intended to end this series with Part 3, but as I sometimes do, I decided to continue for a likely two additional parts, in order to do justice to Rumanian history, especially the World War Two and postwar eras. 

While manufacturing and oil production expanded after Rumanian independence, wealthy landowners derived much of the benefit. Discontent boiled over in 1907 in the Rumanian Peasants' Revolt, but the government used the army to put down the revolt in which thousands of peasants died and thousands more were imprisoned. In 1913 Rumania gained the territory of the ethnically diverse Southern Dobruja from Bulgaria in a localized Balkan war (known as the "Second Balkan War").

The beginning of World War One in the late summer of 1914 saw Rumania remain neutral, although with its army at the ready. German influence through the German-based monarchy, a branch of the Hohenzollerns,* and German business investment in the country after its independence, made possible a Rumanian entry into the war on side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, but the Allies offered Rumania Transylvania (then under Hungarian control **) when Austria-Hungary was defeated, and this, and a generally more pro-Russian (Russia was on the Allied side) and pro-Allied sentiment within Rumania, had the country enter the war in August of 1916. The Bolshevik  Revolution of late 1917 saw Russian involvement in the war essentially end, and this brought Rumania to the peace table in December 1917.*** As the war approached its end in November 1918, Rumania again entered the war on the Allied side. Votes by various segments of representatives of Rumania territories led to a united Rumania, as Transylvania joined the nation, however, along with more than a million and a half Hungarians, a sore spot which festered thereafter, with a brief clash of arms which ended in 1920. 

* King Carol I died in the fall of 1914 and was succeeded by his nephew, Ferdinand, who was born in Germany, and who ruled as Ferdinand I. 

** Formerly known as the Austrian Empire from 1804, an agreement in 1867 saw the empire divided between Austro-German control of the western areas and Hungarian control of the eastern areas; thus, "Austria-Hungary," or more formally the "Austro-Hungarian Empire." The Habsburg emperor was simultaneously King of Hungary, and foreign policy and military matters were held in common.

*** Russia was the only close ally of Rumania in eastern Europe, and without joint military operations with Russia, the Rumanians were unable to continue the war on their own.

WORD HISTORY:
Vampire-The ultimate origin of this word is unknown, but English seems to have borrowed it from French "vampire," a borrowing from German "Vampir," which was borrowed from Hungarian "vampir," borrowed from Serbian "vampir." Serbian is a Slavic language and there are forms of the word in many other Slavic languages. Whether a form of the word was a Slavic invention or whether Slavic acquired the word as a borrowing, perhaps from a Turkic language source, is uncertain.

It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Thirty-Three

"Clinton Leaves In More Controversy, Bush Takes Office"

Bill Clinton's controversial time in office closed with ... ah ... controversy. On his last day, Clinton, as most presidents do, made some pardons and sentence commutations, many of them involving a certain amount of controversy, but his pardon of Marc Rich drew a resoundingly negative response, even among many Democrats. Rich, who had been born in Belgium, but whose family fled to the United States to escape Hitler, was an American citizen who later became involved in the oil markets, including with Iran, even during the American hostage crisis and in spite of sanctions against Iran put in place by President Carter.* Rich's extensive overseas business dealings had him out of the United States for considerable periods of time. By the 1980s, Rich had been indicted by the U.S. government on criminal charges of tax evasion and illegal dealings with Iran. Rich was in Europe and remained there, thus becoming a wanted man. Later, the U.S. government changed its policy on tax evasion, choosing to pursue such matters in civil suits, rather than as criminal cases. Clinton said the criminal charge should be dropped in favor of the updated civil suit tax evasion procedure,** favoring a position argued by Rich's attorney, one "Scooter" Libby, a Republican, later heavily involved with Dick Cheney. One of the problems was, Rich's wife had made donations to Democrats, making the matter smell like a political deal, but the real problem was Rich's dealings with Iran during the hostage crisis.

Also as Clinton left office, the economy sagged, as high gasoline prices and the bursting of the so called "dot.com bubble" took a toll. The mid to late 1990s had seen a growth in the Internet and in companies doing business on the Web. The lure of the new technology brought stock buyers to these companies in large numbers, but the failure of some businesses to reap fast rewards eventually brought the stock prices tumbling and an uncertainty to the economy. Enter George W. Bush....

As Bush took office, the party division in Congress further highlighted the national split, just as the presidential vote had. Republicans retained control of the House by a narrow margin and the Senate was 50-50, but with Republicans in control by virtue of Vice President Cheney, as the vice president has a Senate vote in case of a tie. The new president proposed to use part of the then record budget surplus for tax cuts to help boost the economy.*** Many Democrats argued the proposed tax cuts would disproportionately favor the wealthy, and the battle was on.

Next... "Tax Cuts and 9/11"

* Rich's idea was, maintain good business relations with as many international leaders of oil nations as possible, including, or "perhaps especially," those out of favor in western countries. With oil scarcities, use the connections to buy oil at relatively cheap prices and then sell it to those willing to pay premium price, thus making millions.

** The pardon did not exempt Rich from civil suits and it levied a multi million dollar fine on him.

*** The budget surpluses looked larger than they actually were, because of Social Security being included in the overall federal budget numbers. Understand, that also means the budget deficits of previous years were really worse than most Americans realized, because of the inclusion of Social Security. What do I mean? Well, during that general era, Social Security was taking in more money than it paid out annually, thus, when added to the overall federal budget, it made surpluses look larger in the late 1990s, just as it had made federal deficits look smaller prior to that time.
   
WORD HISTORY:
Spear-This word traces back to Indo European "sper/spar," which had the notion of "pole." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "speri," which meant "spear." This gave Old English "spere," which meant "spear, lance," and this then became "spear." The verb form developed from the noun. Other Germanic languages have: standard German and Low German Saxon "Speer," Dutch "speer," West Frisian "spear." The North Germanic languages use a different word for this meaning.   

The German Question, Part One Hundred Forty-Five

"Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/C
"Germany In World War Two" Part Two/F/2
"Germany Versus the Soviet Union" Part Two "The Attack"

With Britain still undefeated, but relatively contained, Hitler felt confident to pursue the goal of all the maneuvering in eastern Europe, the conquest of Russia, the Soviet Union. While Stalin was usually prone to paranoia, in this case, though he was given many warnings of an imminent German attack by other nations and by some in his own military, he did not take these warnings as seriously as he should have, and while not naive, he thought he still had time to prepare for any German attack, and possibly enough time to even carry out an attack of his own on Germany.* The world was dealing with two major scoundrels, Hitler and Stalin, and if you had put them in a bag and shook it up, you wouldn't have known which one would have hopped out first.

On June 22, 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union. From East Prussia, German armored and motorized units thrust through the Soviet annexed Baltic states toward the metropolis of Leningrad.** Simultaneously from the north, Finnish troops sought to reclaim the territory lost to the Soviets in the recent war. Further north in Finland, actually near the Arctic Circle, German troops moved to capture the Soviet port city of Murmansk. From German occupied Poland, German units attacked toward Moscow. In the south, aided by Hungarian, Slovak, and Rumanian forces,*** the Germans advanced toward the Ukrainian city of Kiev, and toward the Crimea. Huge Soviet forces found themselves surrounded by the fast moving German mechanized units, and Soviet troops surrendered by the hundreds of thousands.**** Leningrad was surrounded and much of the Soviet leadership evacuated Moscow as the Germans approached the city. The Germans and Rumanians entered the Crimea and besieged the fortress city of Sevastopol. It certainly looked as if Hitler would win a stunning victory over Stalin and the Soviet Union, but time was running out.

Winter set in, and German forces found themselves unprepared for it, as the giddiness of early victories caused many Germans to assume the fighting would be over before winter arrived. Further, while the Axis forces won many astounding victories, the Soviets inflicted severe casualties on the invaders. Their units depleted, and the cold and snow taking its toll, the German offensive ground to a halt. The Soviets, reinforced by fresh units from Siberia, launched their own massive attacks, driving the Germans back in many places, but the German retreat was not a rout, and before long, the front stabilized. Both sides were exhausted.

With his units diminished, Hitler sent some fresh troops to bolster his forces for a new offensive in 1942. Leningrad remained surrounded in the north, Murmansk was still in Soviet hands, and German forces had retreated from the outskirts of Moscow to points somewhat further away from the capital. Hitler decided to narrow his 1942 offensive to the southern areas of the Soviet Union. Sevastopol fell to the Germans and Axis forces advanced toward the Caucasus, the center of Soviet oil production.***** Hitler then divided his southern forces, sending one segment after the oil fields, and the other after the city of Stalingrad, which was located on the Volga River, the capture of which would have deprived the Soviets of using that part of the river for shipping. The German forces entered and eventually captured about 90% of Stalingrad, but the Soviets hung on. With the city so devastated by the fighting, and especially by earlier German air attacks, there was plenty of rubble to provide cover for the stubborn Soviet defenders. The Germans could never completely dislodge them, and the situation stagnated as another winter approached. This time it was Stalin who had a surprise for Hitler.

* Stalin had a major streak of paranoia, although the political system in which he had functioned for so long didn't lend itself to any leader getting too comfortable, and his paranoia may well have kept him alive and in power. In the mid to late 1930s, Stalin carried out a huge purge in the Soviet Union, including of his military leaders, ruthlessly removing and putting on trial many commanders at various levels. Hundreds in the military were imprisoned or executed, leaving the military with a leadership gap. Most historians agree that the Soviets' poor military showing against Finland in 1939-40 showed the negative effects of the military purge. By the time of the German invasion, the Soviet army was still in the midst of reorganization, and the leadership gap had not been closed significantly.

** This was the former capital of St. Petersburg, renamed by the Communists in honor of Lenin. They moved the capital to Moscow.

*** In a short time, Mussolini sent an Italian corps, later expanded to an army, to fight in Russia.

**** In and around Kiev, the Germans claimed to have captured more than 600,000 Soviets troops. and that was just one battle!

***** As I mentioned in Part 144, the fight for oil was well under way well before our own time, and Hitler made the strategic decision to go after the significant Russian oil supplies in hopes of solving his own potential oil shortage, as well as depriving the Soviets of the oil.

WORD HISTORY:
Live-This verb goes back to Indo European "leip," which had the notion of "continue (on), remain, exist further." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "libjanan," meaning "to be alive." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "lifian," and "libban," depending upon dialect, both with the same "to be alive" meaning. Later, the two forms merged into "liven," and then the modern spelling. It is, of course, closely related to the noun "life." Common throughout the other Germanic languages: German has "leben," Dutch and Low German Saxon have "leven," Frisian has "libje," Norwegian and Danish have "leve," Swedish has "leva," and Icelandic has "lifa."

The German Question, Part One Hundred Forty-Four

"Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/C
"Germany In World War Two" Part Two/F 1
"Germany Versus the Soviet Union" Part One "Background"

Going back to his book "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"), Hitler talked often about Germans needing "Lebensraum" ("living space"). In Europe (and elsewhere, for that matter), looking well back in history, as various peoples settled into areas, developing their respective homelands, they often lacked various resources to help with their existence or to keep up with the changes taking place over the centuries, or to keep up with their own population growth. This led to one of two things happening; either they developed some sort of commerce with other people to get the items or land they needed, or they tried to take what they needed by conquest. If you have followed this series, you have seen how rulers tried to gain lands or specific resources by a variety of methods, including "strategic marriages," trade deals, and certainly wars (indeed "ego" played a part, too). For centuries, the "ethnic" composition of a region did not much matter to the rulers. They wanted certain territories for waterways, raw materials or other resources, including later, factories these areas possessed, not necessarily for the people who lived there. Later, however, the people living in these various territories developed a much more cohesive sense of "belonging to particular groups," which brought on the development of "nationalism" and the desire of these groups of people to live together and be ruled by people with much their same background, especially language, and often other characteristics, like religion. With so many territorial changes over the centuries having been made with little or no regard to the "ethnic background" of the population, the new sense of nationalism was bound to bring conflict. With western and central Europe more densely populated, Hitler saw the more sparsely populated, but agriculturally, and even industrially productive, areas of the Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union as the target for German expansion.

The population of these areas would become slaves to Germans, or be "eliminated." In Poland, many Poles in the areas annexed to Germany were moved to other regions, and per the agreement with the Soviet Union, Germans were resettled from Soviet controlled areas to places like the former Polish Corridor. Further, again per the German-Soviet agreement, in 1940 the Soviets moved into the small Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and they then annexed them to the Soviet Union. There were German minority settlements* within both Latvia and Estonia, some of these German settlements dating back centuries. A process of resettlement of these "Baltic Germans" to former Polish territory started, but it was interrupted by Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Further, also per the German-Soviet agreement, the Soviet Union pressured Rumania for a large region of its eastern boundary, called Bessarabia, and also a part of the Bukovina region, and these areas were annexed to the expanding Soviet empire. The turmoil caused the abdication of the Rumanian king, who was succeeded by King Michael, a great-great grandson of Britain's Queen Victoria. However, much of the real power lay with right wing general, Ion Antonescu, who became Prime Minister. Antonescu was pro-German, and Rumania became much closer with Hitler's Reich as a consequence. Rumania signed the Axis alliance within weeks of Antonescu's taking power. Rumania was very important to Hitler's plans, because of extensive oil reserves and oil refineries located there.** German troops and military advisers were permitted on Rumanian territory. Germany now had a common border with the Soviet Union from northern Europe to southern Europe; that is, with its own border in East Prussia and in occupied Poland, combined with the pro-German nations in eastern Europe, and Finland, in the far north, a nation anxious to get back the territory it ceded to the Soviets in 1940. Hitler now prepared to use that lengthy border to invade his "pact partner," the Soviet Union.

* These Germans were often referred to as "Baltic Germans."

** So, as you can see, the battle over oil was well under way long before our own era. It also demonstrates the point I made in the opening part above about nations and resources. Germany was technologically advanced in the automotive and aviation industries compared to many other nations, including the various military aspects of these industries, but it lacked extensive oil of its own as fuel for its vehicles, although this was not a situation limited to Germany, as other nations suffered similar low domestic oil production.

WORD HISTORY:
Soviet-This word came into use in English in the aftermath of the Bolshevik takeover in Russia. It is a compound formed from "su" and "vetu;" "su" meaning "with" and "vetu" meaning "counsel, advise." The history of both of these words is sketchy beyond about 900 A.D., but the compound goes back to Old Church Slavonic "suvetu," with a general meaning of "with agreement" (to something). Old Church Slavonic was the oldest form of written Slavic, developed back around 900 to translate religious texts into Slavic; thus the "church" terminology. The term passed into Old Russian, still with the same spelling, before altering to "sovet" ("совет" in the Cyrillic alphabet used by Russian, Serbian, and Bulgarian, for instance), which meant "council." The Bolsheviks used the term for a type of "governance council of workers." Once in power, the Bolsheviks "united" these various councils, giving the former Russian Empire the name "Soviet Union," a shortened form of "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."