Chapter I: Introduction

Earliest Known German Tribes.--The Cimbrians and Teutonians.--Their
Invasion of the Roman Provinces.--They defeat the Romans.--They
invade Gaul.--Romans begin the Conquest of the Germans.--The
Struggle Continues More than Five Centuries.--Decline of the Roman
Power.--Barbarous Condition of the German Tribes.--The Four Chief
German Tribes.--Development of the Alemannic Race.--The Franks
defeat the Alemanni.--Founding of the Palatinate State.--Conrad of
Hohenstaufen, Its First Elector.--Extinction of the Electorate.--The
Alemanni an Important Constituent of the First German Empire.--The
Alemanni the Progenitors of the Pennsylvania Germans.

In telling the story of the Pennsylvania Germans, a brief review of the German race in Europe, beginning with the earliest authentic accounts of it, will enable us to trace the movements of the various tribes during successive periods, until we find an important branch of the original stock settled in the region of the Upper Rhine, in the South of Germany, whence the ancestors of the Pennsylvania Germans emigrated.

The German race is an important branch of the Teutonic stock, which constitutes a chief group of the races comprising, the Indo-European or Aryan family.

It is not known where the original home of the Indo-Europeans was. A vast amount of literature has been produced on this subject by ethnologists, and other investigators, with varying views, only to leave the question of man’s birthplace in dispute and doubt. The weight of the more recent and best evidence on the subject seems to locate his original habitat, at some point, “somewhere on the southern slope of the vast chain of mountains which extend in an almost unbroken line from the northern coast of Spain eastward to the Himalayas, and from our present knowledge the western rather than the eastern extremity of this chain, is that which offers the higher probability of having been the cradle of the species.”

The period during which the dissemination of the species of the human race began, is also shrouded in the gloom of prehistoric times. The first authentic accounts of certain German tribes, locates them in the region of the Baltic Sea, as early as the middle of the fourth century, B. C. It appears that adventurers from the south of Europe visited the shores of the Baltic at that early period in search of trade, and there found numerous tribes of a fiercely savage and warlike people, who proved to be German tribes.

It is believed that soon after their discovery on the shores of the Baltic, some of them began to migrate from their homes, and spread throughout other parts of Europe. It was not, however, until several centuries after their first discovery, that any accurate knowledge of those people was gained.

About the beginning of the second century B. C. two barbarous German tribes, known as the Cimbrians and Teutonians, came down from the north of Europe, and made a descent on the Roman provinces. Their coming was unheralded, and they came in such overwhelming numbers, as to bring dismay to the Romans. History informs us that the fierceness of the invaders, made the Roman power impotent with terror to resist them for a time.

The unwelcome visitors claimed that they had been driven from their homes, on the shores of the Baltic and North seas, by the inundation of their settlements, and that they were in search of new homes. That they came to stay was not doubted, because they brought with them, their wives and children, and all their personal effects.

The Romans after they recovered from the consternation into which they had been thrown, by the precipitous descent upon them by the invading savages, raised up an army against them, to resist their further advance, but were defeated in a great battle, fought in the north of Italy. After this battle the invaders marched into Gaul, destroying everything in their way, leaving nothing but ruin and desolation in their trail. It has been estimated that the invading tribes numbered 200,000. After being absent about ten years, they returned, when they again met the Romans in battle, and were defeated.

From this time on, other German tribes began to make incursions into the Roman provinces, which brought them into frequent conflict with the Romans who were very aggressively engaged at that period in extending their dominion by conquest. After having brought the greater part of Gaul under their sway, they began the conquest of German territory. The Romans soon learned, that they had a formidable people to deal with, who were in possession of the greater part of Central Europe, and who made fierce resistance to their advance. After a struggle which lasted for many years, the Romans succeeded in establishing themselves in that part of Europe, bounded by the Danube on the south, and by the Main on the north. Beyond that region, the Romans could not penetrate, although they kept the struggle up for more than five hundred years. The struggle only ceased with the decline of the Roman empire, after which the Germans lost no time in recovering the territory, which the Romans had deprived them of during the long struggle.

The Germans not only recovered the region between the Danube and the Main, but pushed forward toward the south, as far as Switzerland, making the area re-occupied by them German territory, which has remained German ever since.

THE GERMANS DURING THE PERIOD OF THEIR CONFLICT WITH THE ROMANS.

The German tribes with which the Romans were in conflict during the early centuries of our era, were numerous, and besides fighting a common enemy, were frequently at war with each other. Their prowess in war was great, and if they had been united at all times, it is not believed that the Romans could ever have succeeded in crossing the Rhine, or to have been able to penetrate as far as the Danube. The frequent quarrels among them weakened them, and encouraged the Romans to keep up the struggle for their subjugation.

We are indebted to the Romans for all that we know of the early history of the various German tribes.[1]

One would suppose that the German tribes who had a common origin, connected with ties of blood, religion and habits, with a common destiny, would have lived alongside of each other in peace, with a common enemy constantly in sight threatening their conquest. But when we consider that those people were still savages in the early centuries of our era, and that scarcely more than a generation ago, their civilized descendants engaged in frequent bloody wars with their own kinsmen, it ought not occasion much surprise, that their savage ancestors indulged in similar pastimes many centuries ago.

At the close of the fifth century, when the Roman power was broken, and its legions began to withdraw from German territory, they left behind not a few of their civilized arts, which the Germans acquired during several centuries of contact with them; but notwithstanding, the Germans were still a fierce and savage people in their habits, and mode of life. They had not yet learned to live in towns and villages; the country occupied by them was an unbroken wilderness, through which roamed “wild animals, only a little more savage than the German tribes themselves.”

It is remarkable, how few names of German leaders during five hundred years of conflict with the Romans, are preserved in history, while the names of Roman heroes confront us on every page. Among the few German names which we come across, are the names of Hermann, the first great German leader, who destroyed the Roman legions under Varus; Ariovistus, chief of the ancient Suevi, who invaded Gaul in the first century before the Christian era; Marbod, who at the head of the Suevi and Marcomanni, won numerous battles over the Romans; Theodormar, an Alemannic chieftain; Alarich, who led the Goths into Rome, and Geiserich, king of the Vandals. The poverty of German names may be owing to the fact that the Romans were the chroniclers of all the events that have come down to us from those days to the present, and were more concerned about the fame of their own heroes, than of that of the Germans.

INFLUENCE OF ROMAN CIVILIZATION ON THE GERMANS.

During the wars for the subjugation of the Germans the latter profited by their contact with the Romans. They acquired some of their habits and customs, and it has been asserted that those civilizing influences extended to the speech and laws of their conquerors. While the Romans were bent on conquest, they were also civilizers. Wherever they succeeded in establishing themselves, they were prompt in introducing their civilization; so that when they left the Germans in undisputed possession of their country, after a lapse of centuries, they left the impress of their civilization upon them, which became a valuable acquisition, upon which the Germans began to build a civilization of their own, which was destined to outgrow that of their tutors.

The military stations of the Romans grew into German towns and cities. Everywhere along the Rhine, and throughout Central and Southern Germany are numerous prosperous cities whose names attest their Roman origin. The Romans built roads in the conquered territory, which connected with highways that led to Rome, so as to bring all parts of the subjugated country in easy communication with the Roman capital; streams were spanned by stone arched bridges, whose enduring piers and foundations still remain, to be pointed out to the tourist at the present day.

It can thus be seen how the influences of Roman civilization helped the Germans, to rise from their barbarous condition, to a higher state. The Germans were apt scholars, and long before the middle ages, they had outstripped many other people, in many of the civilized arts.

The tribal names hereinbefore mentioned, began to disappear soon after the struggle between the Romans and the Germans began. Different tribes became united with each other from various causes; often no doubt for mutual aid and protection; while small and weak tribes were absorbed by larger and stronger ones.

About the close of the third century A. D. or the beginning of the fourth, all tribal names had disappeared from history except those of the Alemanni, Franks, Saxons and Goths; all other names had merged into these four; although many tribal characteristics continued, chief among which was that of speech. It is claimed by certain philologists, that the dialects of some of those early German tribes can yet be traced, in some of the numerous dialects spoken by the common people in certain parts of Germany at this day. When it is considered that there are people living in the mountainous region of Switzerland, who after the lapse of more than a thousand years since their progenitors dwelt in the same region, still speak a corrupted Latin dialect, the foregoing claim may be entitled to some credit.

THE FRANKS, GOTHS, SAXONS AND ALEMANNI.

After the various tribal names became merged in the four mentioned, a national formative process was begun by each, which resulted variously during a century or more. The Franks were the most progressive, and soon overran Gaul, and laid the foundation of the kingdom of France. They occupied at this time the region of the lower course of the Scheldt, the Meuse, and the region west of the Rhine. They did not, however, separate at once from all connection with the other German tribes, but maintained a geographical union with them for several centuries, until they finally became separated, during the process of the formation of the European nations.

The Goths during about the same period were scattered over a large area north of the Danube, from which they made frequent incursions into the Roman provinces, against which the declining Roman power could make but little resistance. The Saxons at the same time dwelt along both sides of the Elbe, extending northwest to the North Sea, and west as far as the Lower Rhine. Their name is preserved in the Saxony of to-day. The Alemanni were chiefly of Suevic origin, but they embraced many other German tribes, as their name, Alemanni--all men, or men of all nations--indicates. In the third century of our era, they occupied the region from the Main to the Danube, from whence they were driven by the Romans, but which territory they recovered after the Roman empire began to decline. They not only re-established themselves in the country from which they had been driven, but extended their dominion as far as the Rhine and beyond, including Alsace and part of Lorraine. Southward they pressed forward, until they occupied the greater part of South Germany, and Eastern and Northern Switzerland.

At the end of six hundred years, from the time of their first contact with the Romans, the triumph of the German races was complete, after which they were never again disturbed by a Roman foe. The Alemanni remained in the region of the Upper Rhine country, where they developed into the race, from which sprung the progenitors of those Germans, who many centuries afterwards found their way to Pennsylvania.

The Roman writers regarded the Alemanni as the largest, and most formidable of all the German tribes. They constituted a league of different German races against which the Romans struggled in vain, and when the latter ceased to offer much resistance, the Alemanni themselves undertook the part of conquerors. About the close of the fifth century they met an army under Clovis, the first French king, in battle, on a field not far from the present city of Cologne, in which they were defeated, when they withdrew to Southwestern Germany where their descendants are living at this day. During the whole period of German history, from the founding of the first empire, the Alemanni constituted a very important element, and for many centuries maintained an influential and independent political existence.

* * * * *

With the coming into existence of the princely family of Hohenstaufen, in the twelfth century, whose members furnished a long line of kings and emperors to Germany, the political state of the Palatinate was founded, with Conrad of Hohenstaufen as the first prince invested with the Electoral authority by his brother, the Emperor Frederick I. The Palatinate as a distinct hereditary sovereignty, continued for nearly seven hundred years, until in 1801, when it became extinct, and its territory went to the adjoining states in Germany, except Rhenish Bavaria, which yet remains to remind us, of the dignity of a once influential principality. During the continuance of the old state of the Palatinate, its people spread to Baden, Wurtemberg, Swabia, Bavaria, the Tyrol, and parts of Switzerland. All of these states contributed to the German emigration to Pennsylvania, and all practically spoke the same dialect, which came down from the Alemanni, and which students claim to be the best type of old High German, as it exists in German literature from the eighth to the eleventh century.

Down to the time when the Romans quitted Germany, there had been no successful attempts made to nationalize the German races, notwithstanding the greater part of Europe had fallen under their sway. Soon after this period, the races began to coalesce, and lay the groundwork from which the European nations began to be evolved. The Franks, who conquered Gaul, founded the kingdom of France about this time. The Alemanni who were established in Southwestern Germany and who had maintained their independence long before that period, also began the formation of a national existence with a hereditary chief at the head. Later they constituted the most powerful political division of the first German empire, which dates its existence from 843, with the Treaty of Verdun.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] According to Bayard Taylor’s “History of Germany” the German tribes, during their early contact with the Romans were settled, east of the Rhine, except two or three small tribes, which are supposed to have crossed that river and settled between the Vosges and the Rhine, from Strasburg to Mayence. The greater part of Belgium was occupied at that time by the Eburones and Condrusii, to which were afterwards added the Aduatuci. At the mouth of the Rhine dwelt the Batavi, the forefathers of the Dutch. A little eastward of the Rhine, on the shores of the North sea, dwelt the Frisii, where they still dwell in the province of Friesland; and beyond them, about the mouth of the Weser, lived the Chauci.

What is now Westphalia was inhabitated by the Sicambrians; the Marsi and Ampsivarii lived beyond them, towards the Hartz, and south of the latter the Ubii, from the Weser to the Elbe, in the north was the land of the Cherusci; south of them were the Chatti, the ancestors of the modern Hessians; and still further south along the headwaters of the Main were the Marcomanni. The Hermunduri were settled in what is now Saxony, with their kindred, the Chatti, who were called Suevi by the Romans. Northward toward the mouth of the Elbe, dwelt the Longobardi (Lombards); beyond them, in Holstein the Saxons; and north of the latter, in Schleswig, the Angles.

East of the Elbe were the Semnones; north of them dwelt the Vandals, and along the Baltic coast the Rugii; between these and the Vistula were the Burgundiones, and a few smaller tribes. In the extreme northeast, between the Vistula and where Königsberg now stands, was the home of the Goths, south of whom were the Slavonic Sarmatians, who afterwards founded Poland.

The German tribes enumerated constituted all the tribes with which the Roman power contended for five centuries, few of which have their names preserved in history. It will be seen later on in this volume how all the names of the German tribes disappeared, and were merged into four principle ones.