Teutonic peoples

“ As no Teutonic inscriptions are extant from before the 3rd or 4th centuries, it cannot be stated with absolute certainty what types of objects are characteristic of Teutonic civilization in the bronze and earliest iron ages. Yet throughout the bronze age it is possible to trace a fairly well-defined group of antiquities covering the basin of the Elbe, Mecklenburg, Holstein, Jutland, southern Sweden and the islands of the Belt, and archaeologists have conjectured with much probability that these antiquities represent the early civilization of the Teutonic peoples. ”

“ When we recollect the invasion of the Normans; the wholesale eastward migration of the Crusaders, men, women, and children; and the later colonization by Teutonic peoples, of every quarter of the globe, is there anything wonderful in the belief that similar migratory manias may have seized the old tribes; that the spirit of Woden, ‘the mover,’ may have moved them, and forced them to go ahead, as now? Doubtless the theory is strange. But the Teutons were and are a strange people; so strange, that they have conquered—one may almost say that they are—all nations which are alive upon the globe ”

“ Such religious gatherings were no doubt common to all Teutonic peoples in early times, but it may be questioned whether among the eastern and northern tribes they were invested with all the powers ascribed to them by Tacitus. After his time tribal assemblies are seldom mentioned, and though we hear occasionally, both in England and elsewhere, of a concourse of people being present when a king holds court on high days or religious festivals, there is no evidence that such concourses took part in the discussion of state affairs. ”

“ On the other hand there does not appear to be any considerable population anywhere which claims Teutonic nationality without using a Teutonic language. We know indeed that France, Spain, Italy, &c., contained within historical times large populations which were Teutonic both by origin and by language, but these have now been completely absorbed. Similarly, there is no doubt that the inhabitants of England and of the German-speaking regions of the Continent are descended very largely from peoples which two thousand years ago spoke non-Teutonic languages. ”

“ Such a trait ought to have been derived either from the north or the south of Europe. Teutonic intermixture is not a competent explanation for two reasons. In the first place,
the heads are often more Teutonic in form than those of the peoples of direct Germanic descent along the Belgian frontier; nay, more, in some cantons the people outdo the purest Scandinavians in this respect. This region is also separated from all Teutonic centers across country by several hundred miles of broader-headed peoples. That disposes of the theory of colonization from the north across France. ”

“ After the migration of nations and the coming down of the barbarians upon the Roman Empire, there was little opportunity for Christianity to assert itself until after these Teutonic peoples had been lifted out of their barbarism to a higher plane of civilization. ”

“ THE TEUTONIC RELIGION. WITCHES
The Teutons, that race of northern peoples called by the Romans,
"barbarians," comprised the Goths and Vandals who lived in
Scandinavia, and the Germans who dwelt north of Italy and east of
Gaul.
The nature of the northern country was such that the people could
not get a living by peaceful agriculture. ”

“ All such cases were perhaps peculiar to the western peoples; in the east, north and centre we have no evidence for kingless government. Further, while Tacitus represents the power of Teutonic kings in general, with reference no doubt primarily to the western tribes, as being of the slightest, he states that among the Goths, an eastern people, they had somewhat more authority, while for the Swedes he gives a picture of absolutism. It is quite in harmony with these statements that many Northern and probably all the Anglo-Saxon kingly families traced their origin to the gods. ”

“ A word entirely foreign to the Teutonic speech of northern Europe. Deutschland then, the country of the Deutsch—not Dutch, for they are really Netherlander. What do these words mean? What territories, what peoples do they comprehend? The Austrians speak as pure German as the Prussians; yet the defeat of Königgratz, barely a generation ago, left them outside of Germany. On the other hand, the Polish peasants of eastern Prussia, with their purely Slavic language, are accounted Germans in good standing to-day. ”

“ Not among our English forefathers only, but among all the peoples of mediaeval and modern Europe has the struggle gone on, with various and instructive results. In all parts of romanized Europe invaded and colonized by Teutonic tribes, self-government attempted to spring up. What may have been the origin of the idea of representation we do not know; like most origins, it seems lost in the prehistoric darkness. Wherever we find Teutonic tribes settling down over a wide area, we find them holding their primary assemblies, usually their annual March-meetings, like those in which Mr. ”

“ It is curious how a certain strain or vein of temperament, like that just mentioned, will run through a nation's whole life, and colour its actions in all departments, recognized and commented on by the whole outside world, and yet remain unobserved by the nation itself.
Every one who has known the Germans at home—even years back—has been conscious of a certain strain in the Teutonic character which has had a like bearing in the German national life. ”

“ All the remainder of the empire—no, not even excluding Prussia, east of the Elbe—is less Teutonic in type, until finally in the essentially Alpine broad-headed populations of Baden, Würtemberg, and Bavaria, in the south the Teutonic race passes from view. The only difference, then, between Germany and France in respect of race is that the northern country has a little more Teutonic blood in it. ”

“ The Teutons loved personal freedom. They never called any man master, but followed their chosen leader as companions and equals. They could not even bear to have the houses of their villages set close together. And again we see the same independent spirit expressed in their assemblies of freemen, in which meetings, all matters of public interest were debated and decided. In this trait of the Teutonic disposition lay the germ of representative government and of Protestant, or Teutonic Christianity. ”

“ And then there were the Bohemians who began the revolt, and the Swiss Calvinists, and the rebels of the Peasants' War in Würtemberg! None of these were ethnically Teutons. Let us beware of such ascriptions of a monopoly of virtue or intellect to any given race, however comforting they may be to us who are of Teutonic descent. Modern Germany, to be sure, is half Catholic and half Protestant, but the division was not of ethnic origin in any sense. ”

“ Man easily makes himself at home under any sky, and the national characteristic, far from being much changed by the place of abode, dominates and changes the latter after its own pattern. Moreover, the variety of natural influences in the region inhabitated by the Teutons is not very great. Just as little importance should be attached to the fact that the Teutonic race has intermingled with the former inhabitants of the countries it conquered ”

“ Our first glimpse of the Teutons shows them in their central German land, already occupying both sides of the Rhine, though seemingly not very old settlers on its left bank. The long wanderings of the various Teutonic and Slavonic tribes over all parts of central Europe, their settlements in the southern and western lands, are all matters of history. So is the great Teutonic settlement in the British islands, which partly exterminated, partly assimilated, their Celtic inhabitants, so as to leave them as mere a remnant, though a greater remnant, as they themselves had made the Basques. ”

“ Side by side with the splendid achievement of the German mysticism, the Teutonic race has always been apt to give practical proof of its individualism by endless petty quarrels and by splittings into numerous cliques. ”

“ New nations or confederacies, bearing, for the most part, names unknown to earlier times, begin to be far more dangerous than the smaller and more scattered tribes of the earlier times had been. These movements{85} among the German nations themselves, hastened by pressure of other nations to the east of them, caused the Teutonic attacks on the Empire to become more and more formidable, and at last to grow into Teutonic settlements within the Empire. ”

“ In our reckonings and prognostications we should keep in mind that the German is the centre body of the Teutonic race. He is down, but he is not finally beaten. His mind is resentful, and indeed full of the revenge instinct. ”

“ The people who say that parliaments or pictures or gardens or roads or universities were made by the Teutonic race from the north can be disposed of by the simple question: why did not the Teutonic race make them in the north? ”

“ The Germans of to-day, whether they live on the farms or in the cities, are for the most part descendants of the peasants who survived, not of the brilliant knights and sturdy foot soldiers who fell in that mighty conflict. Knowledge of this great past when Europe was Teutonic and memories of the shadowy grandeur of the Hohenstaufen Emperors, 187who, generation after generation, led Teutonic armies over the Alps to assert their title to Italian provinces, have played no small part in modern German consciousness. ”

“ The beginning of the thirteenth century is as great an era in the history of German literature as the beginning of the nineteenth. The German mind was completely regenerated. Old words, old thoughts, old metres, old fashions, were swept away, and a new spring dawned over Germany. The various branches of the Teutonic race which, after their inroads into the seats of Roman civilization, had for a time become separated, were beginning to assume a national independence,—when suddenly a new age of migration threatened to set in. ”

“ They do not belong to any one people, but have been used by the most different nations at the same stage of civilisation; and there is no historical evidence strong enough to prove that the Teutonic people were in that respect an exception. ”

“ It is evident that for Teutonism to enter France, it must pass through the Gap of Belfort, around north through Flanders, or follow the valleys above mentioned. All three of these it has certainly done in the anthropological sense. It has overflowed along each of these channels, traversing the Alpine racial barrier. It has done even more. Its influence is manifest even in the nooks and byways. For the people of the whole region are well above the average French in stature. They are quite Teutonic in this respect. ”

“ Among those whose Aryan descent is generally recognized as beyond dispute are the Teutons, to whom the Angles and Saxons belonged.
The Teutonic or Germanic people, after dwelling together in a body, appear to have scattered in various directions, their language gradually breaking up into three main groups, which can be already clearly distinguished in the 4th century A.D., North Germanic or Scandinavian, West Germanic or Low and High German, and East Germanic, of which the only important representative is Gothic. ”

“ His descendants to this day never celebrate a great occasion without a huge feed and corporation dinners, thus establishing their legitimate descent from Teutonic stock. The Teutonic man ever led a life of vigorous action; hence his keen appetite, whetted by the cold blasts of his native North. What wonder, then, at the presence of sodden boar's flesh in his ancient Elysium, and of a celestial goat whose teats yielded a strong beverage? ”

“ Then came the wandering of the nations, on which, as regards men of our own race, we need not dwell. The Goths marched at will through the Eastern Empire; but no Teutonic settlement was ever made within its bounds, no lasting Teutonic settlement was ever made even on its border. The part of the Teuton in the West was played far less perfectly indeed by the Slave in the East. ”

“ But the spirit of progress is Teutonic, although the form, in many instances, may be Roman. It must be observed, too, that the foundation of local government in Germany, England, and the United States was of Teutonic {283} origin; that the road from imperialism to democracy is lined with Teutonic institutions and lighted with Teutonic liberty, and that the whole system of individual rights and popular government has been influenced by the attitude of the Teutonic spirit toward government and law. ”

“ Converting the Saxons,—a triumph of civilization, however barbarous were the methods employed,—subduing the rebellious329 Bavarians, keeping the Danes and the Sclavonic tribes on his eastern border in check, and utterly crushing the Avars, he gave the Teutonic race that position of supremacy in Central Europe which, whatever may have been the ebb and flow of Teutonism in later centuries, it has never been forced to surrender, and which, with all its faults, has been a blessing to Europe. ”

“ Although for some ten years after the Franco-German War it was a poor country, it was nevertheless laying the foundations of that preparedness for eventual attack upon others, which it felt would be necessary in order to consolidate its position of prominence. After 1880 the great growth in material prosperity facilitated the extension of armed power, whilst national pride, which before had been reasonable, now grew into an extraordinary conception of the Divine right of Teutonic aspirations. ”