A short history of Germany

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY'

Preface To The New Edition

It is a source of gratification that the demand for my book has steadily increased and that, after seven separate printings, the publishers should feel warranted in bringing out a new edition with much additional matter. Behind the gratification is another feeling, one of wonder at being able in the new edition to describe a whole new era from its inception to its end. I had closed my narrative with the assimiption of the imperial crown in the palace of Versailles on January 18, 1871 ; and although my book was completed thirty years later, I did not at that time feel that enough had transpired to warrant a single extra chapter. The Kvlturkampf, to be sure, was ended, but everything else was in a state of transition. Now, on the other hand, we have seen the country advance to unheard-of power and prosperity ; we have seen it take its place as a world power and at the same time develop from a land unable to prevent its people from emigrating into one that attracted nearly a million foreigners yearly. And then, as though with the cut of a sharp knife, the old order ceased, the workers and traders turned into soldiers, the industrial plants into munition factories. Whatever may now happen, it will never be the same Germany again.

In order to avoid controversial matter I have closed the narrative with the murder at Sarajevo. Subsequent events are too numerous and too complicated, even were they not too much in dispute, to be treated of with any profit in a work of this kind. Besides, they belong to a new era, the end of which our children's children may not see.

MONADWOCK, N.H., March 26, 1916.

Ix

Contents

OHAPTXS PAeS

I. The Early Germans 1

n. The Rise and Fall of the Carolingians .... 22 ni. The Relations between Church and State under the

Chapter I The Eakly Germans

LiTEEATOKB : In Bruno Gebhardt, Bandbuch der deutschen Geschichte, there is a useful but dry treatment of the period covered by this chapter. See Tacitus, Qermania, and the extracts from the Salic Law translated in Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, a work compiled with the idea of laying a foundation for the present history. The most attractive treatment of these early times is that of Freytag, Bilder aus der Deutschen Vergangenheit, as good from a historical as from a literary standpoint. Kaufmann's Deutsche Geschichte, reaching to the reign of Charlemagne, is excellent. Hauck's Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands cannot be too highly praised, but only extends to 1125 a.d.

The remains of lake-dwellings found beneath the sur- The lakeface of the water, the belongings of the dead rendered dwellers, up by recently discovered tombs, a few comments of Roman writers on a people with whom their armies had come into hostile contact, a detailed description, finally, by the hand of Tacitus, of Germany and the Germans as they were in his day, — such are the sources from which modern historians have reconstructed the first period in a great nation's history.

No idle whim drove our forefathers out into the lakes and caused them to erect their houses on posts driven into the mud. Here alone in a wild age could they find refuge from beasts of prey and from the greed of man ;

VOL. I — B 1 here they could readily supply themselves with fish, while not debarred from making hunting expeditions to the shore. None too restricted was the area of these watery homes, for in some of the settlements the superstructures rested on no less than from twenty to thirty thousand posts. One enemy, indeed, could not be avoided, for almost every one of the buildings of which the ruins remain ended by being burnt to the water's edge. Charred and broken the piles stand there to this day, while from the mud at their base have been extracted many a tool and weapon — chisels of bone, axes and saws of stone, daggers and arrowheads made from the stag's horn or the tooth of the wild boar.

Ancient The first traceable information concerning the Germans

graves. ^^^ brought to southern Europe by a Marseilles merchant

named Pytheas, who, in the days of Alexander the Great, visited the shores of the Baltic and discovered great quantities of the useful product known as amber. From this period, the fourth century before Christ, seem to date many of the graves that have furnished such interesting relics. The age of stone and bone implements was passing into an age of bronze and iron. A certain striving for elegance and luxury becomes evident — we find necklaces of amber beads, of ivory, and of colored stones, while bits of yellow ochre lead to the inference that paint was not unknown as a means of personal adornment. Owing to the great number of graves laid open, and to the richness and variety of their contents, the museums of Germany are full to overflowing with these implements and trappings of prehistoric man. From the tomb discovered near Hallstatt in the Salzkammergut in 1846 there have been taken six thousand objects of various kinds, while with regard to the human remains themselves, the interesting fact is made apparent that about one-half of the

THE EARLY GBKMANS 3

bodies had been burned, one-half buried in their natural state. Strangely enough, in these old burial places, bodies laid to rest in oaken coffins have been found to be better preserved than those in stone chests. The tombs themselves are of every size and shape, the largest measuring some two hundred and fifty feet in length, by thirty-five to forty in height; some are regular chambers of stone covered each with an enormous slab ; one such discovered near Luneburg measures some eighteen by fourteen feet.

These graves furnish information of more than anti- Ancient quarian interest. The fact that the wives and servants of ci^to"«. great personages were immolated with them is proved beyond dispute; one group has been found consisting of a single upright figure surrounded by eight others in a crouching position. Bones of animals mixed with those of human beings lead to the assumption that war-horses, also, followed their masters to Walhalla. The shape and material of the implements and utensils, the uses for which they were evidently intended, the character, finally, of the ornamentation, all throw light on the civilization of the time. Where razors and combs are found we can infer that attention was paid to personal appearance ; while the curious urns with human face discovered in West Prussia point to an interesting attempt at symbolical and artistic expression. Eyes and nose are clearly marked, the cover of the urn is the top of the head, while in the ears hang bronze rings with drops of amber, and around the neck circlets of bronze and iron. Another class of inferences can be drawn from the fact that implements made from a certain kind of stone are found miles away from places where such stone abounds ; an extensive trade in such objects must have been carried on, and, indeed, traces can be found of the very workshops in which they were doubtless manufactured.

A SHOET HISTOEr OF GBEMANT

Romans

and Germans.

The battle in the Teutoburg forest,

Leaving the antiquarian's field for more solid ground, we find various items of interest in tlie works of Latin authors. Caesar, Strabo, and Tacitus all mention the Germans as spreading out toward the south. To this they were driven by pressure from the rear, as also by insufficiency of territory resulting from superficial and extravagant methods of agriculture. Much that we hear is mere rumor, as when Pliny gravely asserts that the dwellers on the Baltic islands have horses' hoofs, and ears large enough to cover their bodies.

Of the clashes at arms with the Germans, Roman writers have more to say. In the days of the Consul Marius the flood-gates of the North seemed opened, and the Cimbrians and Teutons rushed in, making the Romans tremble for their very capital. A few details of the two great battles fought by Marius, one in southern France and one in northern Italy, have come down to us : how the barbarians were completely outwitted by superior tactics, allowing the Romans to fall upon them simultaneously in front and rear ; how the burning sun of the South helped to weaken the power of resistance of the children of the North ; and how, in both cases, defeat meant utter annihilation. On the field of Aquae Sextise none were left but the faithful German dogs, who mounted guard over the bodies of the slain.

The first great organizer among the Germans was a certain Ariovistus with whom Caesar came in contact ; Roman discipline eventually prevailed, Ariovistus was worsted, and, after the flight of the formidable leader, a short era of friendliness and peace ensued. Germans entered the Roman service and even came to form the imperial body-guard, learning valuable lessons of strategy which they were afterward able to turn to telling account. Differences arose between Augustus and the tribe of the Sigambrians, who, joining with others, made an inroad into

THE EAELY GERMANS 5

Gaul, defeated the legate, and even secured a Roman eagle. Peace was eventually restored, but the emperor, determined that his provinces should never again be exposed to such danger, prepared for an invasion of Germany on a large scale. Year after year he sent his stepsons, Drusus and Tiberius, to tame this stubborn people. Fortresses were built, of which one, the Saalburg near Homburg, has remained to our own day, and is about to be reconstructed on the old lines ; a canal was dug through which Roman fleets swept from the Rhine to the Yssel, passing thence through the Zuyder Zee, then an inland lake, into the North Sea.

A few years later, 9 A.D., came the crucial conflict for land and liberty. It was then that the Cheruscan leader, Hermann or Arminius, fell on the Roman proconsul. Varus, in the Teutoburg Forest, destroying his splendid army. " Varus, Varus, give me back my legions ! " was the wail of the distracted emperor when he heard the disheartening news. He dismissed his body-guard and forbade the city to all German visitors. With a few unimportant expeditions the long series of Roman aggressions closed, and Tacitus does not hesitate to call Arminius " the undoubted liberator of Germany."

From now on, for several generations, there was peace. The Gerand the great Roman historian learns to love and honor the ™"""' °* country about which he writes. Within the compass of a few pages he gives us a wonderful picture of the Germans of his day ; he, the aristocrat, writhing under the imperial yoke, feels strangely drawn toward this simple and innocent people, this "special, unmixed race, like only to itself."

Tacitus tells of a land full of " bristling " woods and " uncanny " marshes, but rich in cattle, which lacked, however, " a peculiar stately character " and the " proud adornment of its brows." To have a numerous herd was the b A SHORT HISTORY OF 6ERMANT

"joy of the German, his favorite, his only j' source of wealth." The settlements were made, not in towns as with the Romans, but in open spaces near fountains or groves; the houses stood by themselves — possibly, suggests the historian, through dread of fire, but probably because the people knew no better. Each village had its common pasturage and distributed its arable land in lots or parcels, prescribing rigidly to all its members what land should lie fallow, what crops should be raised, and when and how the seed should be sown.

The " marks," as they were called from the broad boundary line drawn around them, over which no stranger could come without blowing his horn, were populated by large groups of kinsmen or clans. Strong as in the old patriarchal days were the ties of family ; the head of the clan commanded and watched over all the rest, and the Romans wondered at seeing chieftains as anxious to redeem their nephews from captivity as though they were their own sons. Justice was administered in the court of the " hundred," or district containing some hundred families with their slaves and dependants, and the " oentenariua " or hundred-man, who opened and closed the " moot," remained for centuries the acknowledged mouthpiece of the old Germanic liberties.

The The German men as described by Tacitus were a strange

German mixturg^jof high-mindedness and brutality. Loyalty and bravery were cardinal virtues. Each chieftain was surrounded by a war-band of chosen youths, who were to cover and defend him and to sacrifice their own heroic deeds to his glory; the chieftain fought for victory, the war-band for the chieftain. If, on the one hand, it was disgraceful for a leader to be outdone in bravery by any of his followers, it betokened, on the other, the ineffaceable shame of a lifetime to have deserted a leader or to have thrown wamor.

THE EARLY GEEMANS 7

away the shield in battle. To supplement these virtuous ideals it must be stated that reverence for old men and hospitality to strangers are mentioned among the characteristics of the ancient Germans. To refuse shelter to one asking it was considered a crime, and when a man's own stores were exhausted, he accompanied his guest to the house of a neighbor. For persons of distinction entertainments were inaugurated : naked youths would disport themselves in the sword dance among upturned blades and sharpened spear-heads ; " pleasure it gave to the lookers-on, pleasure, too, to those who performed," which is more remarkable. When a chieftain died he was honored to the utmost in his burial, his body being burned amid the fumes of the richest and rarest of woods.

The reverse of the picture is highly unedifying. When The Gernot on the war-path the chieftains were wont to lie about man in time I like lazy dogs, leaving the care of the fields and all other 9 peaceful labors to the women and slaves. For their own part they passed their time in gambling and in drinking a concoction which was new to the Roman historian, and of which he did not approve, but which we of wider experience have no difficulty in designating as a kind of . beer brewed from barley. For successive days and nights these carouses would continue, to the accompaniment of the falling dice, the desire of winning amounting to a frenzy. On one casual throw the players would stake all their earthly possessions, yes, even the liberty of their own persons. Voluntarily the loser submitted to be bound and to be handed over to a neighboring tribe in exchange for merchandise. " Stubbornness in a wrong cause," is the verdict of Tacitus ; but he adds that the Germans themselves consider it pride in keeping the word once pledged.

No less anomalous than the position of these sottish yet courageous chieftains was that of the German women.

women.

8 A SHOET HISTOKY OF GERMANY

Legally considered they were chattels, like the slaves, and the very name "Weib" has come down in grammar as The of the neuter gender. Their marriage contracts were regu-

German lar sales, the union not being lawful unless the bridegroom could prove by witnesses that he had paid the required sum. It was a token of subjection when the free, waving hair was bound into a braid and knot.

Yet Tacitus has much to say about the honor and respect shown to these same women, and about their helpfulness and strength of character. They, with their children, stood by in the battles, exhorting or chiding as the case might demand. " In them," writes Tacitus, " each man sees his holiest witnesses — those best fitted to award him his meed of praise. To his wife or mother he brings his wounds, which they are not afraid to look upon and count. . . . History tells how, by their prayers, the tide of many a wavering and half- despair ed-of battle has been turned." The marriage relation was respected, and polygamy only allowed among the princes, who for state reasons might make family alliances. Infidelity was punished by severe and public scourging: "there among the Germans," writes Tacitus, " vice is not laughed at, and to do evil with evil doers is not scoffingly called 'being up to date.' " The Roman With the last page of the G-ermania the curtain falls for wall. a long period of years, but we can trace developments from

the final outcome. The Romans definitively abandoned an aggressive policy and built away at their protecting wall, a monumental fortification, second only in conception and execution to the great wall of China. There are sections of this Limes or Pfahlhau which must have been fifty feet broad at the base and as high as sixteen feet. The whole was some three hundred miles in length, flanked by hundreds of camps and towers, the latter near enough to each other to permit of communicating signals by lighting

THR EARLY GERMANS 9

fires at night or by raising and lowering beams by day. Behind the wall was a moat, in front a waste stretch of land which Germans might only cross when escorted by Roman soldiers.

Meanwhile, within the precincts of the Roman Empire intercourse itself, numerous Germans had been allowed to settle ; o* Eomans whole tribes at last were given tracts of land, receiving the ^° " official title of foederati, or allies, and engaging to fight the battles of their adopted country. Their influence made itself felt in every direction ; many individuals rose to honor and distinction in the state service, and allied themselves in marriage with the noblest families of the capital. The Romans, for their own part, found pleasure in the general appearance and cast of countenance of the foreigners ; it became the fashion to imitate them, and the Roman ladies took to wearing blond wigs, or to smearing their own hair with the reddish oil which the German warriors used when they decked themselves for battle. Of such moment did the Emperor Honorius consider the matter, that he issued an edict against the practice. Even with the Germans who remained at home the Romans maintained a certain amount of intercourse and commerce. ) German traders, indeed, were subject to stern restrictions, and were only allowed to approach the Limes at stated points, but the Roman merchants penetrated into the very heart of Germany. Essentially Roman products, such as statues of Jupiter, not to speak of numberless imperial coins, have been found in Freienwalde and in the Lausitz — as far north, indeed, as modern Sweden. The Emperor Tiberius is known to have looked upon the German turnip as a delicacy, while the grain of which the Sohwarzbrod is made is referred to in a decree of the year 301. About the same time, too, we hear of German smoked meats, beyond a doubt the famous Westphalian hams. Other staples were furs, goose feathers, sausages, antlers, human hair, and pomatum.

The Chris- Roman culture, to some extent at least, penetrated in tianizing of ^.^jie wake of the traders, while Roman Christianity, in the form of the Arianism just then in vogue in the Eastern Empire, found its way to the trihe of the Goths. Toward the end of the third century the latter had made an inroad into the empire and had carried away captive two Greeks from Cappadocia. To these exiles there was born in 311 A.D. a son named Ulfila or Wulfila, a gifted boy who made himself equally familiar with the Greek, the Gothic, and the Latin languages. As he grew up and regained his liberty he embraced that form of the Christian religion in favor at Constantinople, was consecrated bishop at Antioch, and returned as missionary to the scenes of his youth. Here, after making a number of converts, he incurred the enmity of Athanarich, king of the Visigoths, and was obliged to flee to Roman soil, where he founded a haven of rest in Moesia. He labored and taught for many years, occasionally journeying to Constantinople, where we find his name in the records of a council in 360 a.d., as one of the subscribers to the Arian creed. When, twenty-one years later, he died, his loss was widely felt, and no less a person than the Emperor Theodosius walked in his funeral procession.

The Bible Of all Wulfila's services to his people and to posterity, of Wulffla. Qjjg Qf ^;jjg greatest was the translation of the Bible into the Gothic tongue, a large fragment of which work, including nearly the whole New Testament, is known as the Silver Codex and is preserved in the library of the university at Upsala, a treasure beyond price, the oldest existing monument of German learning and letters. To us, indeed, it has a value that is more than philological and literary, for from it we glean historically almost all that we know

THE EARLY GERMANS 11

of the culture of the Germans during the whole fourth century. There are native words for many a Biblical term that show a fair degree of civilization: "smiths" are distinguished from "carpenters," "buildings" from "tents." Jars and kettles, dishes, chests, and baskets seem to have been in common use, as also threshing-flails and millstones. Gardeners cultivated their gardens, deeds were drawn up and sealed. Yet the written language of the Goths must have been very imperfect, for we know that Wulfila was obliged to extend the alphabet, supplying the deficiencies from the Greek and Latin. Fondly and faithfully the old bishop labored over his task ; but in the midst of his work the thought came to him that the warlike doings in the Book of Kings might not edify his rude hearers, sO he quietly left it out.

All this time, while the Goths were being guided toward The Christianity and civilization, and while Roman armies and wandering Roman society were growing more and more Germanized, a great and important change was coming over the face of northern Europe. The marvellous prolificness of the Germans, added to their lack of intensive methods of cultivating the soil, precipitated the movement known as the wandering of the nations. Already, in the third century, the fifty or more tribes whose names are mentioned by Tacitus had merged and coalesced into larger associations, which had gradually pressed forward to the very borders of Roman territory. The final impetus came from the rear, when, about 375 A.D., the fierce Asiatic tribe of the Huns crossed the Volga and entered on their career of conquest and intimidation. With the Visigoths, whom they drove before them, was that Alaric who was later to sack Rome. There is no need here to follow in detail the different migrations of the tribes, or to trace the rise and fall of each small monarchy; of the eight Teutonic kingdoms of the nations.

A SHORT HISTOEY OP GERMANY

Manner of settlement on Boman ground.

founded on Roman soil in the fifth and sixth centuries, four, those of Odoacer and Theodoric, of the Burgundians, and of the Vandals, were quickly to wane and fall ; two, those of the Visigoths in Spain and the Lombards in Italy, were to endure for a few centuries, while only two, that of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain and that of the Franks in Gaul, were to show real and lasting vitality.

It must not be supposed of these wandering German conquerors that, wherever they came, they utterly stamped out the Roman civilization. On the contrary, the two peoples often settled down peacefully side by side, the newcomers merely claiming for themselves a certain fixed share, one-third or two-thirds of each estate. In this there was no great hardship to the Romans, for, according to the same principle, armies of so-called allies had often been quartered on them. For the student of institutions, nothing can be more instructive than to trace the gradual fusion of the two civilizations: the Romans gave language, literature, and law, as well as many of their time-honored customs, to their invaders ; the latter brought in new principles of government and a new conception of liberty and personal rights.

The question suggests itself, why Germany was not emptied, and rendered desolate by this constant pouring forth of peoples. In point of fact the migrators rarely constituted the whole of their tribe ; remnants, for instance, of Goths who remained behind on the Black Sea while their fellows invaded Italy could still be found in the seventeenth century. It was the surplus population, as a rule, that was anxious to be gone ; and their exodus, not infrequently, took place with the solemn sanction of a general assembly. Nor was the break with the parent stock considered final ; individuals might still hold land in their old settlements. Long after his coijquest of the north coast of Africa, Genseric, the Vandal king, received a deputation

Franks.

THE EARLY GERMANS 13

from his former home in Silesia, urging that he and his followers should renounce their old possessions. The request was refused on the plea thati no one could be secure against a change of fortune.

Far, then, from being depopulated, Germany's store of warriors seemed to the Romans fairly inexhaustible; " they increase, but we decrease," wrote Salvianus in the fifth century, while Paul, the son of Wamefried, who outlived the last invasions, contrasts his own desolate land with crowded Germany, and surmises that the ice and snow of the North are more favorable to propagation than the climate of poor, plague-ridden Italy.

The Franks, especially, never lost touch with their own The tribe and with kindred German peoples, — an important fact, °* *^^ when we consider the enervating effect of purely Roman influences on Goths and Visigoths, Burgundians and Vandals. These Franks were the founders of a new Germany ; and with them our history will concern itself almost exclusively ; they had begun their career of expansion about the year 400 A.D., at which time, unlike the Goths, they were still heathen. We hear of them, a little later, in northern Gaul, and in the present Holland and Belgium, roughly divided into two great groups, the Salians and Ripuarians, each group in turn consisting of many different tribes. It was Clovis, a Salian Frank of the family of Meroveus, who, by extensive conquests, and especially by the base murder of all possible rival princes, first consolidated these lands into a strong kingdom. He captured and put to death Syagrius, that enterprising Roman governor who, after the fall of the Western Empire, had continued to administer in his own name a large part of Gaul. He lopped off many of its provinces from the once powerful Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse, and carried off the treasures which Alaric had gathered together in Rome. He defeated the AUemanni in a memorable battle, and their former lands along the Main and the Neckar became known by the name of Franconia, with the principal city of Frankfort, or ford of the Franks. The Burgundians were partially, in the next generation wholly, subdued.

But Clovis was more than a conqueror, he was also a far-seeing statesman ; no wiser political move was ever made than when, in 496 a.d., he determined to become a Christian, and to adhere to the form of religion authorized by Rome, as opposed to that spread by the Eastern church. Many writers have, with justice, attributed the fall of the other Germanic kingdoms to mutual hatred of the Arians and the orthodox. \ Clovis, on the contrary, rallied around him the entire clergy of Gaul, with all their wealth and influence.! His biographer, the Bishop of Tours, lauds him to the skies as the champion of the true faith, and even when commenting on a treacherous murder, which the king himself had instigated, declares that thus the Lord laid low his enemies, as a reward for walking in His ways and doing what was pleasing in His sight.

The conversion took place publicly and with dramatic effect. The king had registered a vow that, should he prove successful in the battle of Tolbiacum against the The con- AUemanni, he would yield to the entreaties of his Burversion of gundian wife and accept her God. After the battle, with a number of his followers, he received baptism; and the proud Sigambrian knelt at the feet of Remigius of Rheims, and meekly bowed his head while the bishop bade him burn what he had adored and adore what he had burned. It must not, however, be supposed that this act was the result of any mere sudden impulse. Clovis was well prepared for it, and had well weighed its future consequences. He had always desired to win the support of the church, and had already allowed his infant sons to be baptized. The story

Clovis.

THE BAELY GERMANS 15

has been often told of how at a distribution of booty he had interfered to save a sacred vessel for a Christian bishop; his design had been defeated, for his warriors were far from looking upon him as an absolute despot, but with his own hand he had afterward killed the man who thwarted him. The results of the conversion proved in the end more far-reaching than even Clovis could have foreseen ; the way Results of had been opened for a close alliance between the Roman *^® ^^ Papacy and the Frankish kingdom. Had the Franks re- ?fj^ . ^° mained heretics in the eyes of Rome, the imperial crown tiauity. could never have been placed on the head of Charlemagne. As for Clovis himself, he had found a watchword that legitimatized, as it were, his position: "I cannot endure it," he said of the Visigoths, " that these Arians should possess a part of Gaul. Let us, with God's help, set forth and conquer them and add their land to our kingdom ! "