The Germans appear to have been at all times an eminently warlike and courageous race. History first speaks of them as warriors alarming, nay, terrifying, the arrogant Romans, and that not in the infancy of Rome's power, when the Samnites and Volscians were formidable antagonists, but in the very fulness of its strength, in the first vigor of youthful manhood, when Italy, Spain, part of Gaul, the northern coasts of Africa, Greece, Syria, and Asia Minor, were subdued to the republican yoke. Then it was that the Cimbri and Teutones invaded and harassed Italy, chilling the mistress of the world with fear.
The Germans next meet us in Cæsar's Commentaries. The principal resistance which the future usurper experienced in subduing Gaul, appears to have been offered, not by the Gallic population, but either by German tribes, settled in that country, or German armies from the right banks of the Rhine, who longed to dispute the tempting prize with the Romans. The great general twice crossed the Rhine, but probably more for the éclat of such an exploit, than with the hope of making permanent conquests. The temporary successes gained by his imperial successors were amply counterbalanced by the massacre of the flower of the Roman armies.
At the end of the first five centuries after Christ, nothing was left of the great Roman empire but ruins. Every country in Northern, Western, and Southern Europe acknowledged German masters. The tribes of the extreme north had entered Russia, and there established a powerful republic; the tribes of the northwest (the Angles and Saxons) had conquered Britain; a confederation of the southern tribes, under the name of Franks, had conquered Gaul; the various Gothic tribes of the east, the Heruli, the Longobardi, Ostrogoths, etc., had subjected Italy to their arms, and disputed its possession among themselves. Other Gothic tribes (the Visigoths, Burgundians, and Vandals) had shared with the Franks the beautiful tracts of Gaul, or had carried their victorious arms to Spain, and the northern coasts of Africa. The three most beautiful and most fertile countries of Europe, to this day, retain the name of their conquerors—England, France, Lombardy.
It is impossible now to determine with accuracy the amount of German blood in the populations of the various states founded by the Teutonic tribes. Yet certain general results are easily arrived at in this interesting investigation.
Thus, we know that Germany, notwithstanding its name, contains by no means a pure Germanic population. The fierce Scythian hordes, whom Attila led on to the work of devastation, after the death of their leader, incorporated themselves with various of the Teutonic tribes. They form one of the ethnical elements of the population of Italy, but especially of the south and southeast of Germany. While, therefore, the population of Northern Germany is comparatively pure Teutonic, that of the southern and eastern portion is a mixture of Teutonic and Sclavonian elements.
The Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, are probably the most Germanic nations of continental Europe.
In Spain, the Visigoths were, in a great measure, absorbed by the native population, consisting of the aboriginal Celtiberians and the numerous Roman colonists. In the tenth century, an amalgamation began with the eastern blood brought by the Arab conquerors.
Italy, already at the time of the downfall of Rome, contained an extremely mixed population, drawn thither by the all-absorbing vortex of the Eternal City. In the north, the Germanic element had time to engraft itself in some measure; but the south, passing into the hands of the Byzantine emperors, received an addition of the already mixed Greek blood of the east.
Gaul, at the time of the Frankish conquest, was an extremely populous country. Beside the aboriginal Gauls, the population consisted of numerous Roman colonists. The Mediterranean coast of Gaul had, from the earliest times, received Phenician, Carthaginian, and Greek settlers, who founded there large and prosperous cities. The original differences in the population of Gaul are to this day perceptible. The Germanic element preponderates in the north, where already, in Cæsar's time, the Germans had succeeded in making permanent settlements, and in the northeast, where the Burgundians had well-nigh extirpated and completely supplanted the Gallic natives.[90] But everywhere else,[91] the Germanic element forms but a small portion of the population, and this is well illustrated by the striking resemblance of the character of the modern French to that of the ancient Gauls. But though vastly inferior in numbers, the descendants of the German conquerors, for one thousand years, were the dominant race in France. Until the fifteenth century, all the higher nobility were of Frankish or Burgundian origin. But, after the Celtic and Celto-Roman provinces south of the Loire had rallied around a youthful king, to reconquer their capital and best territories from the English foe, the Frankish blood ruled with less exclusive sway in all the higher offices of the state; and the distinction was almost entirely lost by the accession of the first southern dynasty, that of the Bourbons, towards the end of the sixteenth century. The corresponding variations in the national policy and the exterior manifestations of the national character, Mr. Gobineau has rapidly pointed out elsewhere.[92]
While the population of France presents so great a mixture of various different races, and but a slight infusion of German blood, that of England, on the contrary, is almost purely Teutonic. The original inhabitants of the country were, for the most part, driven into the mountain fastnesses of Wales by the German invaders, where they preserve, to this day, their original language. Every subsequent great addition to the population of England was by the German race. The Danes, and, after them, the Normans, were tribes of the same stock as the Saxons, and all came from very nearly the same portion of Europe. It is obvious, therefore, that England, even after the Norman conquest, when, for a time, the upper and the lower classes spoke different languages, contained a more homogeneous population than France did at the same, or any subsequent epoch. In England, from the Saxon yeoman up to the proudest Norman lord, all belonged to the great German race; in France, only the nobility, while the peasants were Gauls. The wars between the two countries afford a striking proof of the difference of these two races. The battles of Cressy, of Poitiers, and of Agincourt, which will never be forgotten so long as English poetry can find an echo in an English breast, were won by the English against greatly superior numbers. "Victories, indeed, they were," says Macaulay, "of which a nation may justly be proud; for they are to be attributed to the moral superiority of the victors, a superiority which was most striking in the lowest ranks. The knights of England found worthy rivals in the knights of France. Chandos encountered an equal foe in Du Guesclin. But France had no infantry that dared to face the English bows and bills." The Celt has probably, at no time, been inferior to the Teuton in valor; in martial enthusiasm, he exceeds him. But, at a time when bodily strength decided the combat, the difference between the sturdy Saxon and the small, slight—though active—Gaul, must have been great.