GERMANY 



3504 



GERMANY 



THE OCCUPATION-. Under the 

 armistice the German armies were 

 to evacuate within 14 days Bel- 

 gium, France, Alsace-Lorraine, and 

 Allied and U.S. forces were to 

 occupy these districts. It was 

 further agreed that the countries 

 on the left bank of the Rhine were 

 to be evacuated within 31 days 

 by the German armies and ad- 

 ministered by the local authorities 

 under control of the Allies and 

 the U.S. armies of occupation. 

 The latter were to carry out this 

 occupation by holding the princi- 

 pal crossings- of the Rhine (Mainz, 

 Coblenz, Cologne) together with 

 bridgeheads at these points of a 

 19 mile radius on the right bank, 

 and by garrisons holding the 

 strategic points of the regions. 

 Distribution of Allied Armies 



The general Allied advance to 

 the Rhine began on Sunday, Nov. 

 17, 1918. The Belgian army took 

 up its position between the Belgian 

 frontier and the Rhine, from 

 Emmerich to Diisseldorf. Next to 

 the Belgians were the British, whose 

 line extended to beyond Bonn, and 

 included Cologne. The first cavalry 

 patrol reached Cologne on Dec. 6. 

 On the right of the British were the 

 American troops who occupied the 

 bridgehead of Coblenz and the dis- 

 trict of Treves. On the right of 

 them were the French, whose zone 

 extended to the Swiss frontier. 



The armies of occupation had 

 little to do, as, for the most part, 

 the German population remained 

 peaceful. The only critical period 

 was in May, 1919, when, following 

 the German refusal to accept the 

 peace terms, the whole force pre- 

 pared to march further into Ger- 

 many, but the appointment of new 

 German peace delegates removed 

 the necessity. For a time in 1920 

 French troops occupied Frankfort 

 to put down disorders. 



An important agreement between 

 the Allies and Germany with re- 

 gard to the military occupation of 

 the territories of the Rhine was 

 signed in July, 1919. By it an 

 Inter-allied Rhineland high com- 

 mission was established with 

 power to issue ordinances, having 

 the force of law and recognized by 

 all the Allied and Associated 

 military authorities, and by the 

 German civil authorities. By the 

 agreement the commission was 

 given the power to declare a staie of 

 siege in any part of the territory, 

 or in the whole of it. It was further 

 agreed that if, before the end of the 

 1 5 years, Germany had fulfilled all 

 her obligations under the treaty, 

 the troops of occupation would be 

 immediately withdrawn. 



The British army of occupation 

 was commanded first bv Sir \V. 



Robertson, and later by Sir T. 

 Morland and Sir A. J. Godley. The 

 French army of occupation was 

 commanded first by Gen. Mangin 

 and later by Gen. Degoutte. In 

 Jan., 1923, French troops occupied 

 the Ruhr owing to Germany's 

 failure to pay reparations. See 

 Reparations : Ruhr. 



Bibliography. The Holy Roman 

 Empire, J. "Bryce, 1889 ; The 

 Medieval Empire, H. A. L. Fisher, 

 1898 ; The German Empire, B. E. 

 Howard, 1906 : A Short History of 

 Germany, E. F. Henderson, 1908 ; 

 A History of Germany, H. E. 

 Marshall, 1913 ; Germany, A. W. 

 Holland, 1914; Germany, W. T. 

 Waugh, 1914 ; Imperial Germany, 

 B. H. von Biilow, Eng. trans. 1914 ; 

 The New Germany, G. Young, 1920 ; 

 and The Cambridge Modern History, 

 1902-11. 



LANGUAGE. The language spoken 

 by the greater part of the inhabit- 

 ants of the former German Empire, 

 and by the Germans of Austria 

 and Switzerland, is known as High 

 German, and forms a branch of 

 the Germanic, or Teutonic, family 

 of Indo-European languages. The 

 separation of High German, that is 

 to say, the speech of the " high " 

 lands of the S. from the parent 

 stock, probably took place in the 

 7th century, and was marked by a 

 change in the consonantal system, 

 known as soundshifting, or, in 

 English, as Grimm's Law (q.v.). 

 This change is exemplified by the 

 consonants in such cognate words 

 as the English ten, German zehn ; 

 English do, German <un. 



Upper German Dialects 



The first period of the develop- 

 ment of High German, known as 

 Old High German, lasted from ap- 

 proximately 600 to 1050. The prin- 

 cipal dialects were Upper German, 

 divided into two main dialects (1) 

 Bavarian, which includes German 

 Austrian, E. of the river Lech ; (2) 

 Alemannic, including Swabian, 

 Alsatian, and Swiss, W. of that 

 boundary, and Upper Franconian 

 to the N. The line of demarcation 

 between High German and Low 

 German runs approximately from 

 Maestricht to Diisseldorf, then, 

 after a slight curve to the S., 

 through Minden, Magdeburg, Wit- 

 tenberg, Liibben, and Fiirstenberg. 

 Low German includes Lower Fran- 

 com'an, which developed into 

 modern Dutch and Flemish, and 



the Saxon dialects (Westphalian, 

 Low Saxon, etc.) ; these continue 

 to exist in the form of various so- 

 called Plattdeutsch dialects. 



Old High German is a richly in- 

 flected speech with full endings, and 

 a wide range of vowel sounds. In 

 the course of the llth century, this 

 dialect gave place to Middle High 

 German. The flexional endings 

 were reduced to a more or less uni- 

 form e -sound (e.y. the declension 

 of the plural of the word for " day " 

 is in Old High German : nom. and 

 ace. taga ; gen. tago ; dat. tag um ; 

 in Middle High German, tage, tage, 

 tagen) ; and the general simplifi- 

 cation of the language brought with 

 it a .syntax to a greater extent de- 

 pendent on word-position. 

 Middle High German 



Middle High German was the 

 language of Germany from the llth 

 to well into the 15th century. 

 Besides the two chief dialects of 

 the south, Bavarian and Aleman- 

 nic, it comprised the central 

 German dialects of Upper and 

 Middle Franconian, Thuringian, 

 Upper Saxon, and Silesian. Middle 

 High German passed gradually 

 into New High German or Modern 

 German, the principal changes 

 which mark the transition being a 

 lengthening of short vowels in open 

 positions, e.g. grap to Grab (the 

 vowel being open in the gen. 

 Grabes) ; leben to leben ; a reduc- 

 tion of certain diphthongs to mono- 

 phthongs, as guot to gut; dienen to 

 dienen (ie pronounced ee); also the 

 reversal of the process in zit to zeit, 

 miis to Maus, hiute (where it is pro- 

 nounced like modern ii) to heute. 



Uniformity in High German 

 speech was brought about by three 

 factors : the union of the German 

 states under the medieval empire, 

 which necessitated a generally 

 understood language for govern- 

 ment purposes, the invention of 

 printing, which made it desirable 

 that books should appeal to as 

 wide a public as possible ; and, 

 most important of all, the influence 

 of Luther's Bible, which was trans- 

 lated into a carefully selected 

 language representing a compro- 

 mise between N. and S. Thus the 

 spread of a uniform literary High 

 German language was largely de- 

 pendent on the spread of the Re- 

 formation itself. In the 17th 

 century, High German deteriorated 



b C o D d E 



F f G g II b I i J j 



k L ! l M m 



German Language. Script forms of the 26 characters in the German alphabet, 

 the capitals and small letters side by side 



