CELTS AND TEUTONS—A STUDY
IN ANTHROPOLOGY
The history of Europe for
the last fifteen centuries has been mainly the history of the two races
whom we know as the Celts and the Teutons. Before that epoch, of course,
the Latin power was supreme over the greater part of the world, and all
other nations were of comparatively little account. But when the Roman
Empire was at the height of its greatness, signs were not wanting to
show that the inheritance of the Caesars was soon to pass away into the
hands of others. As early as the year 9 a.d., tidings came to the
imperial city that a great disaster had befallen the empire. The army of
Varus—the whole forces of the hitherto unconquered Rome—had been
defeated, and nearly exterminated by the Germans, amid the dark forests
and treacherous morasses of their Fatherland. It was the first serious
check which had been given to a people whose career for many generations
had been one brilliant success. The Rhine from that day became the
eastern boundary of the Roman territory, and the ancient Germania
remained, what the modem Germany is to this day, the home of a free and
a mighty nation. This event may be called the turning point in the
history of Rome. It was the first step in the decline, that ended in the
fall of Rome centuries later. The warrior, whose campaign came to such a
disastrous end, is said to have killed himself in despair, and the
Emperor Augustus never ceased grieving for the loss of his splendid
legions. He had cause to grieve, for the loss was all the harder to
bear, because it meant the loss of prestige and the beginning of
national ruin. The Germans still remember with pardonable pride the
glory of that day; and Herman, who led his countrymen to victory at the
battle, which is known as Herman-Schlacht, or Herman’s fight, has been
immortalised, as the Wallace, or King Arthur of his native country.
So much for the first
decisive blow that was struck by the Teuton for liberty and fame.
Symptoms had begun long before this time to show that the Celt also was
destined to achieve greatness. Many ages before the time of Herman, the
Gauls had struck terror into the hearts of the Senators in the City of
the Seven Hills. Brennus, a Gaulish chief, whose name is evidently the
Latin form of Bran, or Brian, a well-known Celtic title, was the hero of
this adventure. At the head of a mighty army he invaded Italy, and
subdued it easily. Rome fell before him in the year 390 b.c., and the
Senate was glad to pay a heavy ransom to propitiate the conqueror, and
save the country from further loss. This brought the wav to an end for a
time. The invaders returned to their homes, and allowed their
discomfited enemies to rest, and gain strength for new enterprises. It
is very remarkable how, on this occasion, the Gauls showed the
invariable characteristics of their race. With them it was simply an
impetuous attack, victorious, of course, but not followed by any
permanent advantage. The fight being over, and the booty won, they were
quite content to give up the conquered territory and enjoy the profits
of their raid, without any thought of improving their position for the
future.
Many years passed away,
and many changes came over the spirit of their dream. Rome grew
stronger. Carthage fell into her hands, and the classic land of Greece
was added to her possessions. Her armies triumphed over the land that
had not only overthrown the whole force of Persia at Marathon and
Salamis, but had carried the fame of her heroes to the borders of India.
The wealth of Corinth and the wisdom of Athens were not able to save
them from the terrible legions of the consuls. Still more wonderful to
say, the Empire of Alexander the Great crumbled into dust almost as
quickly as it had risen. The conquests of the Macedonian King, divided
under the sway of several smaller men, were swallowed up, kingdom after
kingdom, by the all-powerful republic of the west. And Gaul had her own
turn of adversity. Julius Caesar came, saw, and conquered. We cannot
venture to give implicit trust to his own accounts of that war, for they
are no doubt highly tinted by the exuberance of his sublime
self-conceit. Still, it was clear that Caesar's conquest vas very
decided. The Celts of Gaul were rent asunder by internal strife, as the
Celts everywhere have so often been, and the perfect discipline of the
Romans gained the day. It was of no avail that the Gauls, in their
desperation, forgot their rivalries, and banded themselves together
against the common enemy. In the acords of Motley, the historian of the
Dutch Republic, the frail confederacy fell asunder like a rope of sand,
at the first blow of Caesar’s sword. The southern invaders became the
undisputed masters of Gaul.
And yet the Celts were by
no means wiped out of the map of the world. Across the English Channel
were other families of the same warlike people, who had not learned to
submit to a foreign Power, and who have not yet learned that bitter
lesson. So the sea of war was transferred to Britain, and the first of a
series of invasions took place. The success of the Roman arms was only
partial. Contrary to all that might have been expected, the islanders
made a stubborn resistance, which was not wholly without, avail. Their
courage and endurance must have been of a high order when they could
make such a stand as they did, considering the disadvantages under which
they had to meet the invaders. The Romans were strong in numbers, in
discipline, in implements, of war, in confidence arising from recent
victory—in short, they were strong in all that constitutes the strength
of an army. The Britons, on the other hand, were divided into a number
of petty States; they were poorly armed, unpractised in scientific
warfare, and their personal courage, great as it undoubtedly was, could
not compensate altogether for defects such as these. Still, it may be
claimed for our hardy ancestors that, like the Germans, they refused to
be conquered. The Romans might ravage the low countries, and might boast
that, with all the resources of their comparative civilisation, they
were more than a match for the barbarians of the North. But the spirit
of the Celts remained unbroken. Retiring to the mountains of Scotland
and Wales, or to the distant island of Hibernia, they refused to confess
themselves beaten, and it may fairly be said that they never were really
subject to the yoke of the foreign intruders. The Celts and the Teutons
were the most indomitable foes that the Romans, ever met in the tented
field.
Before coming to the
period where the two races began to come into close relations with each
other, we may try what we can learn about their origin. That they, along
with most of the other European nations, emigrated from Asia at a remote
period in the past is pretty clear. This has been often disputed, but
the balance of evidence is in favour of the opinion that the emigration
did take place. But further details are obscure and undefined. The time
at which the successive waves of invasion passed on towards the west can
hardly be brought to the accuracy of given dates, and the order in which
the several tribes made their journeys has not yet been quite
determined. The science of Ethnology, if indeed it can properly be
called a science, is a most fascinating study, but unfortunately it
cannot be reduced to anything like an actual demonstration of undoubted
truths. All that is known of it with certainty is but the skeleton of a
system, to which the details have to be adapted, partly from bold
guesses at probabilities, and partly, it is to be feared, from vivid
imagination. All this, however, while it forbids us to regard the study
as an exact science, makes it all the more interesting from a
sentimental point of view. Where exactness is wanting there is room for
the play of thought, wandering from point to point, spelling out here
and there a known fact, and adorning it with a multitude of
possibilities, any one of which may be true, and any one of which can
hardly be proved to be untrue.
How, then, shall we trace
the two tribes of which we have spoken to their origin? History is
available only to a limited extent, for the history of ancient times is
concerned, for the most part, with totally different people. The
inhabitants of many eastern lands have had their records written during
ages before either Germany or England had a literature. Greece and Egypt
have left us some monuments of venerable antiquity to tell us of the
fame of their philosophers and poets. What though printing was unheard
of, and remained to be invented in an age that was yet far away on the
horizon of time, these countries had historical records, carved on
stately piles of stone, more lasting than brass. The worthy who, in
Goldsmith’s immortal romance, spoke so learnedly of Sanchoniathon,
Manetho, and Berosus, brings to mind some names of men who actually did
leave testimony to the events of their time. If we had authorities such
as these to guide us in our present enquiry, we might be able to feel
our wav better than we now can do, through the darkness of ages, in
which so little that is not fabulous can be distinguished.
We are indebted to Jewish
annals for the first notice that we have to guide us. In the tenth
chapter of Genesis we read that Gomer, the eldest son of Japhet, had
three sons, two of whom have a special interest for us at present. It is
to be observed that Gomer was the son of the patriarch from whom we
believe the Aryan races to be descended. His name is identified with the
early Cimmerians, with the later Cimbri, and with the modern Cymri, all
of whose names are strikingly like that of their distant ancestor. His
two sons, to whom we have referred, were Ashkenaz and Riphath. They were
the two oldest branches of the family of Japhet. From the former are
descended the Teutons, and from the latter the Celts have their origin.
Authority for these statements are to be found in Smith’s well known
Dictionary of the Bible, and in the Hebrew Lexicon of Dr Julius Fuerst.
An echo of the name of the elder brother is heard in the word
Scandinavia, that of the younger is repeated in the Khipean mountains,
which are known to us as the Carpathians. It may be too much to say that
the names of the patriarchs were in any way indicative of the character
of their descendants. But it is worthy of remark that Ashkenaz suggests
a derivation from the Hebrew root, shakan, a root which means to rest;
while Riphath is probably related to the verb riph or ruph, which means
to flutter, or move about restlessly. If these derivations be accurate,
they point with great force to the distinctive characteristics of the
two tribes—the one patient, methodical, and persevering, while the other
is quick, lively, courageous, and eager for change. Anyone who has
studied history must know how marked these characteristics have always
been.
It is to be regretted
that so little is known with certainty about the fortunes of the tribes
down to a period comparatively modern. Fain would we roll away the cloud
of darkness that hangs over the past, that we might see the gradual rise
of the tribes of the east, and their successive movements in quest of
new homes, when their early abodes had become too narrow to contain
them. It is strange to see how often history repeats itself. The leading
families of mankind, in the very early ages of the world, had to move to
the west, in order to find new openings for their energies, just as
their descendants at the present day have to flock in thousands to
America, there to settle, and lay the foundations, it may be, of many
new nations, in the twentieth century and in the ages that are to follow
it. The very name of Europe is to us a reminder of the feelings that
rose in the minds of the first travellers when they drew near the
Hellespont, and saw, across the waves, what was to them indeed a new
world. The Wide Prospect —such is the meaning of the Greek words which,
according to Matthew Arnold, have given a name to that continent on
which the Celts and Teutons have acted such a distinguished part ever
'since the Christian era. It is by no means a great effort of the
imagination to call up some of the thoughts that must have filled the
minds of the wanderers when they looked at the view that lay before
their eyes. Journeying from we know not how far, they •came to a point
where further march was stopped by the sea. There it became necessary
either to stop their career or to find a means of crossing to the
opposite shore. When navigation was in its infancy it must have been an
arduous work to move a multitude of people even across the narrow strip
of sea that separates the two continents, near the place where
Constantinople now stands. Yet it was the destiny of both Celts and
Teutons to leave their first homes far behind, and seek their fortune in
an unknown land, that was by and by to be very well known by their
families in future ages. They made their way across, and proceeded to
take possession A new inheritance lay before them, and we may well
believe that they were prepared to make a vigorous effort to secure
them.
Teuton. This feud appears
in history as early as the fourth century A.D., when the Franks, a
German tribe, began to threaten the decaying power of Rome in Gaul.
These Franks, with the firmness and energy of their race, made
themselves masters of the land, to which they gave the mediaeval name of
France, which it is likely to bear during the rest of its history.
France did not lose her identity as a nation when thus overrun. On the
contrary, this was the turning point at which her career began as one of
the great Powers of the world. From the fifth century to the close of
the eighteenth the French monarchs held the reins, many of them with
great ability and distinguished success, raising their country step by
step, till France, under Louis XIV., was perhaps the most powerful
nation in Europe. The age of splendour was followed by the disastrous
war of the Spanish succession; and the misrule of Louis XV. and Louis
XVI. brought the kingdom of Clovis to an end.
Not to digress any
further, it is interesting to notice the results of the Frankish
invasion. As the Norman conquerors of England combined with the Saxons
whom they found there, so the Franks, on assuming the sovereignty of
France, became part of the people over whom they ruled. Hence the
greatness to which the country attained. The two essentials were
introduced. Freedom and order were established, and the heavy yoke of
Rome was thrown off for ever. But France was, and still is, Celtic to
the core. Consequently she has never been able to keep up a good
understanding with Germany. As the Normanised England became the
inveterate foe of France, so the German power, once set up in France,
became more Celtic than the Celts themselves in hating the country
beyond the Rhine. It is not difficult to see circumstances that tended
to strengthen this mutual distrust. There was, for one thing, the
rivalry that was natural, and almost inevitable, between the two leading
nations of the continent. Further, in process of time a sort of alliance
sprang up between England and Germany, which was equally natural between
two countries who had a common ancestry, whose languages were closely
connected, and who latterly were drawn together by the Reformation in
the sixteenth century. It was not possible that the friend of England
could at any time be the friend of France. With all these
considerations, it is not strange that the French and Germans should for
so long a time have lived in a state of chronic warfare. The fire has
not yet burnt out. The stirring scenes of Metz and Sedau were the
consequences of the strife that led to the battle of Jena, and the fall
of the Prussian capital before Napoleon Bonaparte. And when the Prussian
king was crowned as Emperor, in the palace of Versailles, a new score
was begun, which France is only too eager to wipe out again.
Union between the two
races has often been tried on the continent of Europe, but never with
decided success. The attempt has generally been like trying to unite
fire and water. Charlemagne, King of the Franks, was also Emperor of
Germany from the year 800 till his death in 814. But the wide dominion
which yielded to his valour and genius, was again divided almost as soon
as his master hand was taken away. Anyone who has read “Morley’s Dutch
Republic,” knows what was the result of the endeavours made by Philip
the Second of Spain to hold the Teutons of Holland in the same leash
with the Belgian Celts. That was a most striking instance of failure,
for it was one in which the outside pressure was so tremendous that, if
it had been possible to weld the two into one, the thing would have been
done. The whole power of Spain was brought down upon William the Silent,
Prince of Orange, and his faithful Hollanders—and Spain was a much
greater Power in those days than she has ever been since then. Indeed,
it may be said that the desperate effort that she made at that time to
hold the Dutch in bondage was too much for her, and that she has not yet
recovered from the effects of the struggle. During the present century
again, the experiment has been tried of making a kingdom of the
Netherlands out of Holland and Belgium. The union lasted for about half
a generation, and then the two ill-assorted partners separated, not to
be united again, in our time at least. And the Franco-Prussian war of
1870 became the occasion of separating another connection of a somewhat
similar kind. Alsace, a German province, with strictly German
inhabitants, became a part of France in the time of Louis XIV., about
two centuries earlier. France’s difficulty became Germany’s opportunity,
and the Alsatians once more entered into the community of the German
States, that were joined into a mighty empire under the veteran Kaiser
William, the fame of whose army made all the world to ring.
Enough has been said on
this point. We have spoken of the relations of the two races in foreign
lands. It remains to be seen, and will perhaps be more interesting to
know, how they have fared in our own country. Here we find that the
course of events has been different, and that the difference has been
for the most part to our advantage. Owing to our insular position, a
coalition of Celts and Teutons in Great Britain was possible, and in
process of time became an accomplished fact. Yet even here the rivalry
was difficult to kill, and it retained its vitality for many ages, to
the great loss of both races. We have a deeply rooted habit of thinking
of our own nation as the greatest in the world. This is certainly
pardonable, as we have good grounds for our belief. But we are apt also
to think that this pre-eminence has been ours for an indefinite period,
extending to remote antiquity, which is an error as ridiculous as it is
gigantic. If we look back for three hundred years we find that England
and Scotland were two separate nations that had, from the dawn of their
history, been almost constantly at war with each other. Divided as they
were, it was not possible for either of them to exercise much influence
in the councils of Europe. Scotland had a kind of alliance with France
for many years, partly, no doubt, owing to the Celtic element in the two
nations, but chiefly due to the fact that England was the common enemy
of both. This alliance may have been very profitable to France, but was
not at all beneficial to the smaller country. It could never make up for
the want of power that was caused by the constant jealousy and enmity
that our ancestors cherished against their neighbours on the south of
the Tweed.
In the year 1603 the two
crowns were united, and James VI. became the sole monarch of Great
Britain. But for the next hundred years things were worse than before.
The union of the crowns did not bring with it a union of the people.
Disunion bore its natural fruit, and England became a smaller power than
she had ever been since the Norman conquest. It is only when we read
history with attention that we see how low our standing as a nation was
during the reigns of the Stuart dynasty. Spain, and France, and Holland,
by turns swayed the destinies of the world, while we were exercised with
contests between Cavaliers and Roundheads, or between Resolutioners and
Protesters. Even at this distance of time it is with a sense of
humiliation that we remember how the Dutch sent their fleet into the
Thames, and threatened the liberty of the Metropolis, while Charles the
Second was trifling his life away in the palace. We may be glad that the
follies of those days gave place to something like earnestness of
purpose in a succeeding age.
The fusion of races was a
work of time, and till it was carried out there was little but violence
and disorder to be recorded in our annals. It is interesting to notice
how the two contending races at last came to be made one, and what happy
results followed from the change. With the union of the crowns came a
sense of power in the minds of the people. It is not to be supposed that
the union alone brought this about, for there were other causes at work.
During the second half of the sixteenth century an enormous advance had
been made in learning and civilisation. The art of printing had made
knowledge more easy of attainment than it had ever been before. And it
is hardly necessary to do more than mention that the literature of the
Elizabethan age will be famous so long as the English language is
remembered. All this, of course, opened the eyes of the people to see
their own power, to the existence of which they had in the past been
strangely blinded. The Stuarts—most unwisely for themselves— tried to
stem the current of public feeling. The result was civil war, followed
by a series of revolutions. A king was beheaded, and it seemed as if the
monarchy was overthrown for ever. A short term of republicanism was
followed by the restoration of the royal house to power, a restoration
which only paved the way for the great revolution of 1688. The throes
and convulsions through which the nation passed while these events were
taking place, had one good effect which compensates for all the evil
which they did. The troubles of the seventeenth century made it
impossible for Celts and Teutons to remain separate any longer. It was
evident that national ruin was at the door unless national union were
resorted to. That union came about in 1707, when the two Parliaments
were made one, and the Scottish legislature in Edinburgh ceased to
exist. The change was, to use words that have become famous, “the end of
an auld sang.”
But it was a great deal
more than that, for it was the birth of a new nation, the greatest that
the world has ever seen. To unite the Celts with the Teutons was a work
that had often been tried in vain. The attempt failed on the Continent
because on the Continent there was always plenty of elbow room. When one
race was worsted by the other the vanquished people could simply move a
little further away. There was plenty of natural boundaries of mountain
ranges and mighty rivers that helped to keep up the separation. To this
day, then, we see the French and Germans continuing, not at all to the
credit either of their heads or their hearts, the feud of their
ancestors of a thousand years ago. In our island circumstances were
different. Here the bounds were narrow, and encircled by the adamantine
wall of the ocean. Fusion was inevitable in “this precious stone set in
the silver sea.” It was only a question of time, and that time came in
the days of Queen Anne, when Britain first became the ruling power of
the world. The splendid series of victories achieved by Marlborough, the
first really great triumphs of our arms since Agincourt, in the middle
ages, were only the precursors of still greater events in coming years.
The British empire was not much longer to be confined to the old world,
or to the lands that had felt the iron hand of Rome. Regions that Caesar
never knew, and where his eagles had never flown, were to be possessed
by the descendants of the rude tribes of the North, whom he tried so
hard to subdue. The valour of the one, with the steady perseverance of
the other, made the united nation irresistible, and her people are now
dominant in every quarter of the globe.
It is not to be
forgotten, indeed, that a violent rupture took place last century
between the North American colonies and the mother country. Nor is it at
all unlikely that in process of time other colonies, both in the New
World and at the Antipodes, may spring up into new nations. All this is
part of the general law of nature, in virtue of which new life springs
out of the old, and children grown to manhood cease to depend upon the
parent. This should be no cause for serious regret, and it is certainly
no cause for thinking that the Anglo-Saxon, or rather the Anglo-Celtic
race, has begun to decline from its eminence. The right view to take is,
that new nations springing from the old stock serve to carry the vigour
and the enterprise of the races from which they have sprung, in a chain
of increasing strength around the world. If it be the case, as perhaps
it is, that this is not a statesmanlike opinion, it is also the case
that statesmanship has often failed to see what has been apparent to
common sense. The independence of the United States was for years a
cause of grief to the people of the old country. It seemed like a
breaking up of the established order of things, and a step towards
ultimate ruin. It was certainly a misfortune that the division was made
with such a wrench, and that we did not part on good terms with our
kinsmen beyond the Atlantic. But after all, a few years of war, followed
by an international misunderstanding for a generation or two, is but a
small thing in the history of a world. Such events bulk largely in the
annals of a reign, and in the memories of those in whose days they
happen, but in the general progress of humanity they are but as pebbles
in a stream. They cause a ripple for a little while and then the waters
move onward, never stopping, never turning back till they reach at last
the ocean.
Even so has been the
progress of the races formed by the union of the Celts and Teutons.
Troubles have befallen them, but out of the nettle of danger the flower
of safety has been plucked. Not only has a great country grown out of
the American Colonies, but the country that was left has grown more
powerful than it was before. The people of the United States, made up as
they are from a happy combination of the two best tribes of the old
world, have risen into a nation that still continues to grow in
strength, and which promises to maintain beyond the seas the fame of
that from which it had its beginning. And as far as can be seen from the
evidence of history, and the present course of events, the extension of
the Anglo-Celtic race must go on till the language of Britain becomes
the universal language, and British civilisation rules mankind. |