GOLUCHOWSKI, AGENOR, Count (1849- ), Austrian statesman, was born on the 25th of March 1849. His father, descended from an old and noble Polish family, was governor of Galicia. Entering the diplomatic service, the son was in 1872 appointed attaché to the Austrian embassy at Berlin, where he became secretary of legation, and thence he was transferred to Paris. After rising to the rank of counsellor of legation, he was in 1887 made minister at Bucharest, where he remained till 1893. In these positions he acquired a great reputation as a firm and skilful diplomatist, and on the retirement of Count Kalnoky in May 1895 was chosen to succeed him as Austro-Hungarian minister for foreign affairs. The appointment of a Pole caused some surprise in view of the importance of Austrian relations with Russia (then rather strained) and Germany, but the choice was justified by events. In his speech of that year to the delegations he declared the maintenance of the Triple Alliance, and in particular the closest intimacy with Germany, to be the keystone of Austrian policy; at the same time he dwelt on the traditional friendship between Austria and Great Britain, and expressed his desire for a good understanding with all the powers. In pursuance of this policy he effected an understanding with Russia, by which neither power was to exert any separate influence in the Balkan peninsula, and thus removed a long-standing cause of friction. This understanding was formally ratified during a visit to St Petersburg on which he accompanied the emperor in April 1897. He took the lead in establishing the European concert during the Armenian troubles of 1896, and again resisted isolated action on the part of any of the great powers during the Cretan troubles and the Greco-Turkish War. In November 1897, when the Austro-Hungarian flag was insulted at Mersina, he threatened to bombard the town if instant reparation were not made, and by his firm attitude greatly enhanced Austrian prestige in the East. In his speech to the delegations in 1898 he dwelt on the necessity of expanding Austria’s mercantile marine, and of raising the fleet to a strength which, while not vying with the fleets of the great naval powers, would ensure respect for the Austrian flag wherever her interests needed protection. He also hinted at the necessity for European combination to resist American competition. The understanding with Russia in the matter of the Balkan States temporarily endangered friendly relations with Italy, who thought her interests threatened, until Goluchowski guaranteed in 1898 the existing order. He further encouraged a good understanding with Italy by personal conferences with the Italian foreign minister, Tittoni, in 1904 and 1905. Count Lamsdorff visited Vienna in December 1902, when arrangements were made for concerted action in imposing on the sultan reforms in the government of Macedonia. Further steps were taken after Goluchowski’s interview with the tsar at Mürzsteg in 1903, and two civil agents representing the countries were appointed for two years to ensure the execution of the promised reforms. This period was extended in 1905, when Goluchowski was the chief mover in forcing the Porte, by an international naval demonstration at Mitylene, to accept financial control by the powers in Macedonia. At the conference assembled at Algeciras to settle the Morocco Question, Austria supported the German position, and after the close of the conferences the emperor William II. telegraphed to Goluchowski: “You have proved yourself a brilliant second on the duelling ground and you may feel certain of like services from me in similar circumstances.” This pledge was redeemed in 1908, when Germany’s support of Austria in the Balkan crisis proved conclusive. By the Hungarians, however, Goluchowski was hated; he was suspected of having inspired the emperor’s opposition to the use of Magyar in the Hungarian army, and was made responsible for the slight offered to the Magyar deputation by Francis Joseph in September 1905. So long as he remained in office there was no hope of arriving at a settlement of a matter which threatened the disruption of the Dual monarchy, and on the 11th of October 1906 he was forced to resign.
GOMAL, or Gumal, the name of a river of Afghanistan, and of a mountain pass on the Dera Ismail Khan border of the North-West Frontier Province of British India. The Gomal river, one of the most important rivers in Afghanistan, rises in the unexplored regions to the south-east of Ghazni. Its chief tributary is the Zhob. Within the limits of British territory the Gomal forms the boundary between the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan, and more or less between the Pathan and Baluch races. The Gomal pass is the most important pass on the Indian frontier between the Khyber and the Bolan. It connects Dera Ismail Khan with the Gomal valley in Afghanistan, and has formed for centuries the outlet for the povindah trade. Until the year 1889 this pass was almost unknown to the Anglo-Indian official; but in that year the government of India decided that, in order to maintain the safety of the railway as well as to perfect communication between Quetta and the Punjab, the Zhob valley should, like the Bori valley, be brought under British protection and control, and the Gomal pass should be opened. After the Waziristan expedition of 1894 Wana was occupied by British troops in order to dominate the Gomal and Waziristan; but on the formation of the North-West Frontier Province in 1901 it was decided to replace these troops by the South Waziristan militia, who now secure the safety of the pass.
GOMARUS, FRANZ (1563-1641), Dutch theologian, was born at Bruges on the 30th of January 1563. His parents, having embraced the principles of the Reformation, emigrated to the Palatinate in 1578, in order to enjoy freedom to profess their new faith, and they sent their son to be educated at Strassburg under Johann Sturm (1507-1589). He remained there three years, and then went in 1580 to Neustadt, whither the professors of Heidelberg had been driven by the elector-palatine because they were not Lutherans. Here his teachers in theology were Zacharius Ursinus (1534-1583), Hieronymus Zanchius (1560-1590), and Daniel Tossanus (1541-1602). Crossing to England towards the end of 1582, he attended the lectures of John Rainolds (1549-1607) at Oxford, and those of William Whitaker (1548-1595) at Cambridge. He graduated at Cambridge in 1584, and then went to Heidelberg, where the faculty had been by this time re-established. He was pastor of a Reformed Dutch church in Frankfort from 1587 till 1593, when the congregation was dispersed by persecution. In 1594 he was appointed professor of theology at Leiden, and before going thither received from the university of Heidelberg the degree of doctor. He taught quietly at Leiden till 1603, when Jakobus Arminius came to be one of his colleagues in the theological faculty, and began to teach Pelagian doctrines and to create a new party in the university. Gomarus immediately set himself earnestly to oppose these views in his classes at college, and was supported by Johann B. Bogermann (1570-1637), who afterwards became professor of theology at Franeker. Arminius “sought to make election dependent upon faith, whilst they sought to enforce absolute predestination as the rule of faith, according to which the whole Scriptures are to be interpreted” (J. A. Dorner, History of Protestant Theology, i. p. 417). Gomarus then became the leader of the opponents of Arminius, who from that circumstance came to be known as Gomarists. He engaged twice in personal disputation with Arminius in the assembly of the estates of Holland in 1608, and was one of five Gomarists who met five Arminians or Remonstrants in the same assembly of 1609. On the death of Arminius shortly after this time, Konrad Vorstius (1569-1622), who sympathized with his views, was appointed to succeed him, in spite of the keen opposition of Gomarus and his friends; and Gomarus took his defeat so ill that he resigned his post, and went to Middleburg in 1611, where he became preacher at the Reformed church, and taught theology and Hebrew in the newly founded Illustre Schule. From this place he was called in 1614 to a chair of theology at Saumur, where he remained four years, and then accepted a call as professor of theology and Hebrew to Groningen, where he stayed till his death on the 11th of January 1641. He took a leading part in the synod of Dort, assembled in 1618 to judge of the doctrines of Arminius. He was a man of ability, enthusiasm and learning, a considerable Oriental scholar, and also a keen controversialist. He took part in revising the Dutch translation of the Old Testament in 1633, and after his death a book by him, called the Lyra Davidis, was published, which sought to explain the principles of Hebrew metre, and which created some controversy at the time, having been opposed by Louis Cappel. His works were collected and published in one volume folio, in Amsterdam in 1645. He was succeeded at Groningen in 1643 by his pupil Samuel Maresius (1599-1673).
GOMBERVILLE, MARIN LE ROY, Sieur du Parc et de (1600-1674), French novelist and miscellaneous writer, was born at Paris in 1600. At fourteen years of age he wrote a volume of verse, at twenty a Discours sur l’histoire and at twenty-two a pastoral, La Carithée, which is really a novel. The persons in it, though still disguised as shepherds and shepherdesses, represent real persons for whose identification the author himself provides a key. This was followed by a more ambitious attempt, Polexandre (5 vols. 1632-1637). The hero wanders through the world in search of the island home of the princess Alcidiane. It contains much history and geography; the travels of Polexandre extending to such unexpected places as Benin, the Canary Islands, Mexico and the Antilles, and incidentally we learn all that was then known of Mexican history. Cythérée (4 vols.) appeared in 1630-1642, and in 1651 the Jeune Alcidiane, intended to undo any harm the earlier novels may have done, for Gomberville became a Jansenist and spent the last twenty-five years of his life in pious retirement. He was one of the earliest and most energetic members of the Academy. He died in Paris on the 14th of June 1674.
GOMER, the biblical name of a race appearing in the table of nations (Gen. x. 2), as the “eldest son” of Japheth and the “father” of Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah; and in Ezek. xxxviii. 6 as a companion of “the house of Togarmah in the uttermost parts of the north,” and an ally of Gog; both Gomer and Togarmah being credited with “hordes,”[1] E.V., i.e. “bands” or “armies.” The “sons” of Gomer are probably tribes of north-east Asia Minor and Armenia, and Gomer is identified with the Cimmerians. These are referred to in cuneiform inscriptions under the Assyrian name gimmirā (gimirrai) as raiding Asia Minor from the north and north-east of the Black Sea, and overrunning Lydia in the 7th century B.C. (see [Cimmerii], [Scythia], [Lydia]). They do not seem to have made any permanent settlements, unless some such are indicated by the fact that the Armenians called Cappadocia Gamir. It is, however, suggested that this name is borrowed from the Old Testament.[2]
The name Gomer (Gomer bath Diblaim) was also borne by the unfaithful wife of Hosea, whom he pardoned and took back (Hosea i. 3). Hosea uses these incidents as symbolic of the sin, punishment and redemption of Israel, but there is no need to regard Gomer as a purely imaginary person.