German Memories in Asia - German Colonies in Asia and the Pacific

The European colonial era Jaffna reminded one of how the European powers established their colonial empires in Asia, Africa and Americas with a long and hazardous past.

Germany also colonised many of the Asian and African countries with other European nations after the development of imperialism and the awareness of having colonies around the world.

The colonialist thinking was that colonies were ideal to support the economy in the motherland. So, densely populated China came into view as a potential market. Thinkers like Max Weber demanded an active colonial policy from the German government. In particular the opening of China was made a question of life or death, because it was thought to be the most important non-European market in the world.

But a global policy without global military influence appeared impracticable, so establishing a strong Navy came into the scene and the result was the German East Asia Squadron and the European stationed High Seas Fleet. This fleet was supposed to give German interests for a gunboat diplomacy keeping peace and to protect the German trade routes. They had in mind a powerful Navy might help to destroy the hostile enemy navy fleets during war by the cruiser war tactics. Germany wanted to establish a network of global naval bases having in mind the cruiser war tactics and acquired a harbour in China.

In 1860 a Prussian expedition fleet arrived in China and explored the region around Jiaozhou Bay. The following year a Chinese-Prussian trade contract was signed. In 1896 Admiral von Tirpitz, at that time commander of the German East Asia Squadron, examined the area personally.

When on November 1, 1897 two German missionaries of the Steyler Mission, which had been protected by the German Empire since 1890, were murdered in China, Kaiser Wilhelm II used this as a pretext to occupy the Bay. Even before the Chinese government was informed about the murder, Admiral von Diederichs, commander of the East Asian Squadron, was ordered on November 7 to carry out the occupation. On November 14 German naval infantry landed on the strands and occupied the area without any possible confrontation.

After the German-Chinese negotiations which resulted into a settlement of the missionary incident and a few months later the German Empire leased the Bay for 99 years from the Chinese government. As a result of the German-Chinese lease contract the Chinese government gave up the exercise of all its sovereign rights within the leased territory other than the city of Jiaozhou. The "Government Kiautschou" remained part of China under imperial sovereignty but because of the duration of the lease turned it into a German Protectorate. Because of the importance, which the protectorate had, it was not put under the supervision of the Imperial colonial office but under that of the Imperial naval office.

In the middle of the First World War, on 23 August 1914, imperial China cancelled the German lease and on 7 November 1914, the bay was occupied by Japan.

The German colonies faced the same repercussion in other areas of the Pacific. The German New Guinea too was a strategic-zone for the German colonization in the Pacific from 1884 to 1914, consisting of the northeastern part of New Guinea and several nearby Pacific island groups including the German Solomon Islands with other smaller islands, the Carolines, Palau, most of the Marianas, the Marshall Islands and Nauru. A treaty with Spain ensured German control over the island groups.

But following the outbreak of World War I, Australian troops captured areas in New Guinea which was then known as Kaiser-Wilhelmsland and the nearby islands in 1914, after a short resistance led by Captain Carl von Klewitz and Lt. Robert von Blumenthal. The Australian Military and Naval Expeditionary Force attacked a wireless station where the Australians suffered six dead and the German forces fared much worse, with one German officer and 30 native police killed with the final surrender of Germans to Australians. Japan occupied most of the remaining German possessions in the Pacific later on. After the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Germany lost all its colonial possessions in the Pacific and New Guinea.

German Memories - Franco-Prussian War and Otto Von Bismarck's Diplomacy

Prussia's victory over Austria increased tensions with France. The French Emperor, Napoleon III, feared that a powerful Prussia would upset the balance of power in Europe. Bismarck, at the same time, sought war with France; he believed that if the German states perceived France as the aggressor, they would unite behind the King of Prussia.

A suitable premise for war arose in 1870, when the German Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was offered the Spanish throne, which had been vacant since a revolution in 1868. The French not only blocked the candidacy, but also demanded assurances that no member of the House of Hohenzollern become King of Spain.

Bismarck then published the Ems Dispatch, a carefully edited version of a conversation between King Wilhelm and the French ambassador to Prussia. The publication was intended to provoke France into declaring war on Prussia. The Ems Dispatch had the desired effect. France mobilized and declared war, but was seen as the aggressor; as a result, German states, swept up by nationalism and patriotic zeal, rallied to Prussia's side and provided troops.

The Franco-Prussian War in 1870 was a great success for Prussia. The German army, commanded by Moltke, won victory after victory. The French were defeated in every battle. The remainder of the war featured very careful German operations and massive confusion on the part of the French.

At the end, France was forced to pay a large indemnity and surrender Alsace and part of Lorraine. Though Bismarck opposed the annexation, arguing it would be the "Achilles' Heel" of the new empire, Moltke and his generals insisted that it was needed to keep France in a defensive position. He broke France's supremacy over continental Europe after the Franco-Prussian war.

He carefully built the external security of the new German Nation upon his skillful diplomacy, which isolated France internationally and created a vast and complex system of alliances for mutual military support with most of Europe's nations.

In the role of an 'honest broker', Bismarck was also successful in maintaining peace and stability in Europe by settling French political conflicts through negotiations. Essentially a cautious politician, Bismarck never pursued an imperialistic course in Europe. In Africa however, Bismarck followed for some time a policy of imperial conquest, in a manner similar to the other European powers.

His most important tool in politics was his talent in the successful planning of complex international developments.

Bismarck decided to act immediately to secure the unification of Germany after his victory over France. He opened negotiations with representatives of southern German states, offering special concessions if they would agree to unification. The negotiations were successful; King Wilhelm was crowned "German Emperor" on 18 January 1871 in the Hall of Mirrors in the Chateau de Versailles for the further humiliation of France.

German Memories - Ancient Germans Migration

I remembered an incident in my CARE days, when I visited an NGO near Nallur, the once flourishing city of the Nagas in the coastal Jaffna lagoon. I asked an elderly person who had an inkling of history as to what happened to the Nagas and the Yakkas. He told me they were all in our blood.

The assimilation transmitted genetically beneficial traits among the people all over the world and an interesting study recently revealed in the ice age old Europe, how the Germanic element of the genes helped for the survival of the dying Finns.

As ice melted about 10,000 years ago, stone-age men, perhaps early Finns, occupied the rich new lands between Norway and the Urals. Other wanderers in the North, many of whom were Germanic, followed them into those areas. According to Matti Klinge of the University of Helsinki, the dominant "genetic element" in Finland today is Germanic.

Germanic people had followed the Finns northward since the dawn of history and were accepted there amongst them. When the waves of disease swept over Europe, it is possible that the Germanic genetic traits which was the ones carrying specific immune factors, such as blood type A, survived because the immune factors were already there and did not have to be produced by a human immune response.

Even during the second and fifth centuries as the western Roman Empire lost military strength and political cohesion, numerous Germanic tribes migrating en masse in far and diverse directions. Taking them to England and as far south through present day Continental Europe to the Mediterranean and northern Africa passed on the beneficial Germanic genetic elements to other tribes.

The Germanic tribes intruded into other tribal territories, and the ensuing wars for land escalated and then the wandering tribes began staking out permanent homes as a means of protection. Much of this resulted in fixed settlements from which many, under a powerful leader.

A defeat meant either scattering or merging with the dominant tribe. In Denmark the Jutes merged with the Danes; in Sweden the Geats merged with the Swedes; in England, the Angles merged with the Saxons to form the Anglo-Saxons.

Outside of Scandinavia, present-day countries speaking a Germanic language have mixed ethnic roots not restricted to the earliest Germanic peoples. Germanic peoples were often quick to assimilate foreign cultures.

There were Romanized Norsemen in Normandy, and the societal elite in medieval Russia among whom many were the descendants of Slavified Norsemen, though it was contested by some Slavic scholars in the former Soviet Union calling it the "Normanist theory".

In England assimilation happened by the migrating Angles, Saxons and Jutes who merged with the indigenous Celtic speaking Britons, resulting in an English identity for the inhabitants of that land.

In the latter part of mid-11th century, French-speaking Norsemen arrived and similarly altered what was known as Anglo-Saxon England and set the English language on the path from Old English to Middle English.

As in England, Scotland's indigenous Brythonic Celtic culture succumbed to Germanic influence due to Teutonic invasion; while the Scottish Highlands and Galloway retained a Gaelic heritage due to the recent invasions from Ireland which supplanted the British culture there, the Scottish Lowlands became English speaking.

France saw a great deal of Germanic settlement, and even its namesake the Franks were a Germanic people. Entire regions of France (such as Alsace, Burgundy and Normandy) were settled heavily by Germanic peoples, contributing to their unique regional cultures and dialects. But most of the languages spoken in France today are Romance languages, while the people have a heavy Gallic substratum that predates Latin and Germanic settlement.

Portugal and Spain also had a great measure of Germanic settlement, due to the Visigoths and the Suevi (Quadi and Marcomanni), who settled permanently. The Vandals were also present, before moving on to North Africa, where they were absorbed into the local population. Many Spanish words of Germanic origin entered into the Spanish language at this time and many more entered through other avenues (often French) in the ensuing centuries.

Italy, especially the area north of the city of Rome, has also had a history of heavy Germanic settlement. Germanic tribes such as the Visigoths, Vandals, and Ostrogoths had successfully invaded and sparsely settled in Italy in the 5th century AD. Most notably, in the 6th century AD, the Germanic tribe known as the Lombards entered and settled primarily in the area known today as Lombardy. The Normans, a partially Germanic people, also conquered and ruled Sicily and parts of southern Italy for a time.

Germany itself assimilated Slavic and Baltic peoples to the east in medieval and modern times; after World War II their descendants spread to other parts of Germany.

Going further back, most of the current territory of Germany was occupied by Celtic and Nordwestblock tribes who were eventually linguistically assimilated into the Germanic peoples.

German Memories - Victory of Roman Forces Over Germanic Teutons & Cimbri

In 103 BC, the Cimbri and their Proto-Germanic allies, the Teutons, had turned towards Spain where they pillaged far and wide. During this time Roman general Gaius Marius had the time to prepare and in 102 BC, he was ready to meet the Teutons and the Ambrones at the Rhone River. These two tribes intended to go into Italy through the western passes, while the Cimbri and the Tigurines were to take the northern route across the Rhine and later across the Tyrolian Alps.

At the estuary of the Isere River, the Teutons and the Ambrones met Marius, whose well-defended camp they did not manage to overrun. Instead, they pursued their route, and Marius followed them. Marius took up a strong position on a carefully selected hill and enticed the Teutones to attack him there using his cavalry and light infantry skirmishers by using the allied Ligurians. The leading Teutone elements, the Ambrones, took the bait and attacked. They were soon foolishly followed by the rest of the horde.

Meanwhile, Marius had hidden a small Roman force of 3,000 nearby. At the battle's height this force launched an ambush, attacking the Teutones from behind, and throwing them into total confusion. In the ensuing massacre 90,000 Teutones were slain including their King Teutobod, captured.

The captured women committed mass suicide, which passed into Roman legends of Germanic heroism: By the conditions of the surrender three hundred of their married women were to be handed over to the Romans. When the Teuton matrons heard of this stipulation they first begged the consul that they might be set apart to minister in the temples of Ceres and Venus; and then when they failed to obtain their request and were removed by the lictors, they slew their little children and next morning all were found dead in each other's arms having strangled themselves in the night.

The Cimbri, however, had penetrated through the Alps into the areas of today's northern Italy. However, the consul Quintus Lutatius Catulus had not dared to fortify the passes, but instead he had retreated behind the Po River, and so the land was open to the invaders. However, the Cimbri did not hurry, and the victors of Aquae Sextiae had the time to arrive with reinforcements.

The Cimbri desired battle, and according to their custom sent to the Romans to settle the time and place for it; Marius gratified them and named the next day - it was the 30th July 653 (101 BC) - and the Raudine plain, a wide level space, which the superior Roman cavalry found advantageous for their movements.

Here they fell upon the enemy expecting them and yet taken by surprise; for in the dense morning mist the Cimbrian cavalry found itself in hand-to-hand conflict with the stronger cavalry of the Romans before it anticipated attack, and was thereby thrown back upon the infantry which was just making its dispositions for battle. A complete victory was gained with slight loss, and the Cimbri were annihilated. The Cimbri were virtually wiped out, with over 140,000 killed and 60,000 captured, including large numbers of women and children in the fateful battle of Vercellae in the Raudine Plain near the settlement of Vercellae (modern Vercelli) around 101 BC.

Thereafter the human avalanche had alarmed for several decades the nations from the Danube to the Ebro, from the Seine to the Po, rested beneath the sod or toiled under the yoke of slavery; the forlorn hope of the German migrations had performed its duty; the homeless people of the Cimbri and their comrades were no more.

German Memoirs - German Strike on Romans and Invasion into the Roman Empire

Whatever the persecution Germans faced historically what Dietmar Doering was telling me came into mind as to how the Germanic tribes under the command of Arminius (Hermann) by one stroke against the Roman Forces in Germania and the subsequent Germanic tribes invasion into the Roman Empire changed the trend of the world.


The remains of the Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum [Credit: Andreas Tille]

As one historian said: "If the Romans could not have been defeated and the Germanic tribes had accepted the Roman culture and language like the Gauls (today's France) did, the largest percentage of today's Europe would likely consist of Latin languages. Germanic-based German would be as extinct as the Celtic language of Gaul. The Germans of today would probably speak a language similar to French.

If Britain had not been conquered by the Germanic Anglians and Saxons, today's world language English would never have come into existence. Instead they would still speak a variety of Latin, or again Celtic. Maybe North America would have been conquered and settled by the British nevertheless, but then still today's U.S. citizens would speak modern Latin or maybe even Celtic. The same would have occurred to many peoples in Africa and India, who were subdued by the English and assumed their language.

If the Romans had succeeded to integrate the Germanic people, maybe the continuing Roman rule would have merged the European peoples into a permanent nation of Roman citizens. Possibly, Europe then might even have remained politically united in a single state.

Maybe even the history of North and South America would have run a different course. A large European empire, with domestic trade from the Atlantic to the Euphrates river in the Middle East, would likely have had less interest in colonizing remote areas than the two national states that were rivaling with their neighbors, Spain and England.

However, perhaps it was especially the fragmentation of Europe into many rivaling states that spurred European peoples to their greatest achievements, by fanning, striving and competing with each other. These often led to bloody wars, but more often to fast technological progress, business-friendly politics and wealth, military might, explorations and conquests, and glorious achievements of culture and art - whereby the leading nations of each period were not held back by the slower ones or by a torpid central government."

By destroying the ailing Roman Empire, the Germanic tribes ultimately made possible for the peoples of the western world a much brighter development and greatness, which contributed, spirally to the development of the entire world.

German Memories in Asia