Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The German Nexus
    The German Nexus
    The German Nexus
    Ebook97 pages1 hour

    The German Nexus

    By Geoffrey Gibson

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This book consists of three essays on the effect of the German people on England. The titles and subtitles are as follows: Migrants (How the Germans finished off the Roman Empire and created England so that Germany and England could stand up against Rome); Unbelievers (How two Germans - Luther and Kant - shook up all Europe and then went down like lead zeppelins in England); and Crowns (How the Germans of Hanover lost the first empire of the English and then later as the Windsors lived on as the darling dodoes of the New World). There are no footnotes but full annotations. The book is about 27,000 words.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGeoffrey Gibson
    Release dateJun 14, 2014
    ISBN9781311777065
    The German Nexus
    Author

    Geoffrey Gibson

    Geoffrey Gibson is an Australian writer living with the Wolf - his dog - in a kind of rural peace one hour out of Melbourne, the home of his football team, the Melbourne Storm. He has practised law as either a member of the Bar or a major international law firm. He has presided over at least one statutory tribunal for nearly thirty years and he has conducted arbitrations or mediations in Australia and the U S. He has published five books before on the theory and practice of the law, A Journalist's Companion to Australian Law (Melbourne University Press); The Arbitrator's Companion (Federation Press); Law for Directors (Federation Press); The Making of a Lawyer (What They Didn't Teach You at Law School) (Hardie Grant); and The Common Law - A History (Australian Scholarly Publishing)). He is now focussing on writing in general history, philosophy, and literature, fields that he was trained in and that he has pursued over very many Summer Schools at Cambridge, Harvard, and Oxford universities. His twelve eBooks so far published include five volumes of A History of the West - The Ancient West; The Medieval West; The West Awakes; Revolutions in the West; and Twentieth Century West; Confessions of a Babyboomer; Confessions of a Barrister; Parallel Trials, Socrates and Jesus; The English Difference, The Tablets of their Laws; The German Nexus, The Germans in English History; The Humility of Knowledge, Five Geniuses and God; and Windows on Shakespeare. The photo is not great, but at least the Wolf comes out OK.

    Read more from Geoffrey Gibson

    Related to The German Nexus

    Related ebooks

    European History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      A Sunny Depiction Of Dark Times

      Sep 28, 2023

      A Sunny Depiction Of Dark Times
      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Aug 31, 2023

      Reading about Roger Mortimer's 14thcentury escape from the Tower of London (The King of Folly, August) reminded me of another remarkable breakout from the fortress – with equally dramatic consequences. In April 1660, John Lambert, the Roundhead major

      3 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Mar 16, 2023

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      6 min read

    • Article

      Post-colonial Bad Jokes

      Mar 25, 2021

      Post-colonial Bad Jokes
      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      May 12, 2022

      I feel that the article concerning Napoleon (April) was unfair to its subject. While his later career frequently saw his original ideals undermined by the reality of power, he was from the first a believer in the revolution, as his letters and genera

      3 min read

    • Article

      Culture Chronicle

      Jul 4, 2021

      Culture Chronicle
      7 min read

    • Article

      Fighting Dirty

      Nov 24, 2022

      Military leaders pulled off some outrageous stunts to outfox their enemies in the Middle Ages. But the one that the Norman leader Bohemond of Taranto deployed at the beginning of the 12th century - pretending he was dead - surely takes some beating.

      6 min read

    • Article

      The ‘Oops’ War

      Jan 25, 2022

      The ‘Oops’ War
      11 min read

    • Article

      Anniversaries

      Jul 8, 2021

      Anniversaries
      5 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Oct 29, 2020

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      Seaborne Outlaws

      Mar 5, 2019

      Seaborne Outlaws
      9 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Mar 16, 2023

      Q&A
      2 min read

    • Article

      European Champions

      Oct 29, 2020

      European Champions
      4 min read

    • Article

      Books & co

      Nov 10, 2023

      by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe This historical biography chronicles the story of America’s Astor family across several centuries, showing how they rose from beginnings in the fur business, purchasing property and dazzling American society, bef

      5 min read

    • Article

      The King Of Westminster

      May 24, 2023

      The King Of Westminster
      5 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Apr 16, 2020

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      9 min read

    • Article

      How Asterix Conquered The World

      Dec 21, 2023

      How Asterix Conquered The World
      6 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Feb 24, 2022

      Reviews
      6 min read

    • Article

      History

      Jun 29, 2022

      History
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Roots Of German Militarism

      Sep 29, 2022

      The Roots Of German Militarism
      5 min read

    • Article

      Britain’s Black Trailblazers

      Oct 1, 2020

      Britain’s Black Trailblazers
      14 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Feb 17, 2022

      Q&A
      3 min read

    • Article

      Seeking the ‘Lost Legion’

      Jun 8, 2021

      Seeking the ‘Lost Legion’
      3 min read

    • Article

      Wrath And Aftermath

      Aug 6, 2019

      By Elisabeth Gallas; translated from the German by Alex Skinner. New York University Press, 2019. $35. Reviewed by K. M. Kostyal Europe lay in ruins and 6 million Jews had been murdered when, in late winter 1946, the American military designated an o

      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The German Nexus

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The German Nexus - Geoffrey Gibson

      THE GERMAN NEXUS

      THE GERMANS IN ENGLISH HISTORY

      By Geoffrey Gibson

      ****

      Published by:

      Geoffrey Gibson at Smashwords

      Copyright (c) 2014 by Geoffrey Gibson

      ****

      All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

      Smashwords Edition Licence Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      This book is dedicated to the people in the Bierbar

      of the Barenschenke, Friedrichstrasse, Berlin.

      CONTENTS

      I

      Migrants

      How the Germans finished off the Roman Empire and

      created England so that Germany and England

      could stand up against Rome

      II

      Unbelievers

      How two Germans - Luther and Kant - shook up all

      Europe and then went down like lead zeppelins in England

      III

      Crowns

      How the Germans of Hanover lost the first empire of

      the English and then later as the Windsors lived on as

      the darling dodoes of the New World

      I

      Migrants

      The English law is more German than the law of Germany itself.

      (James Barr Ames)

      Some former colonies of England – like the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – are fond of calling themselves migrant nations. The fondness is likely to be felt more by the migrants – generally white Europeans – rather than the indigenous peoples whom the Europeans displaced or killed – like the American Indian, the Inuit, the Aborigine, and the Maori. If we put to one side the post-war backwash from the Empire, and the current influx from Europe, it has been some time since England could call itself a migrant nation, but once upon a time that title would have been right. This essay is about the migration to England of people who made it then a migrant nation. It was a migration that gave England its name, and it was a German migration.

      About four centuries after the Romans crucified Jesus of Nazareth, barbarians led by Alaric the Visigoth sacked the city of Rome. Before he flattened the Eternal City, Alaric received a Roman deputation. They made a submission to Alaric ‘perhaps’, says Gibbon, ‘in a more lofty style than became their abject condition’. The reply of Alaric was to the point: ‘The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed.’ When the chastened Romans asked what would be left to them, the bleak answer was ‘Your Lives’.

      At this time the declining Roman Empire got out of England. Their departure from England was related to the threat to Rome. Over the next six hundred years the Germans would be involved in completing the fall of the Roman Empire and in starting the English nation. The German nations were active in bringing down Rome; they were more active not in starting up the British Empire but in creating the English nation. Hardly anything of the indigenous peoples or of the Roman occupation was to remain as a living influence after the Germans had completed moving into and settling in England. They did so with a kind of concentrated efficiency that would never make them objects of affection for others – they did so as if they were behaving according to the maxim that nature abhors a vacuum.

      When Gibbon came to write of the German conquest of England, he referred to his idol, the great Roman historian Tacitus. Tacitus described a speech given by a Roman leader (dux) to French subjects (then called Gauls) who were getting restive about the cost of being part of the Empire of which Britain had been part. The Roman leader said this: ‘The protection of the Republic has delivered Gaul from internal discord and foreign invasions. By the loss of national independence you have acquired the names and privileges of Roman citizens … Instead of exercising the rights of conquest, we have been content to impose such tributes as are requisite for your own preservation. Peace cannot be supported without armies, and armies must be supported at the expense of the people. It is for your sake, not for our own, that we guard the barrier of the Rhine against the ferocious Germans, who have often attempted, and who will always desire, to exchange the solitude of their woods and morasses for the wealth and fertility of Gaul. The fall of Rome would be fatal to the provinces, and you would be buried in the ruins of that mighty fabric which has been raised by the valour and wisdom of eight hundred years.’

      You could not find a more candid or concise description of Empire as a protection racket. The Roman was telling the French that unless they kept paying up and toeing the line, they would be sitting ducks for the Germans. If that was in substance true, and it probably was, the Romans were effectively handing England over to the Germans when they decided to get out of England.

      Tacitus has the Roman make even ruder remarks about the Germans. ‘There have ever been the same causes at work to make the Germans cross over into Gaul – lust, avarice, and the longing for a new home, prompting them to leave their own marshes and deserts, and to possess themselves of this most fertile soil and of you its inhabitants. Liberty, indeed, and the like specious names are their pretext, but never did any man seek to enslave his fellows and secure dominion for himself without using the very same words.’

      There are three things about this passage. First, the Germans did not then get a good press. Nearly two thousand years ago they were looked on with as much affection as a wolf in a lair (the name that Hitler gave to his favourite retreat). This was a kind of racial vilification being indulged in by an Italian (or Roman), but a different form of abuse was to be levelled by a later and more august Italian. Dante referred in his Inferno to the ‘guzzling Germans’.

      The suave English historian of the 19th century, T.B.Macaulay, put the boot in while indulging in an even more sweeping form of racial discrimination in a kind of Romantic apotheosis. ‘They [the Normans] renounced that brutal intemperance to which all the other branches of the great German family were too much conditioned. The polite luxury of the Norman presented a striking contrast to the coarse voracity and drunkenness of his Saxon and Danish neighbours. He loved to display his magnificence, not in huge piles of food and hogsheads of strong drink, but in large and stately edifices, rich armour, gallant horses, choice falcons, well-ordered tournaments, banquets delicate rather than abundant, and wines remarkable for their exquisite flavour than for their intoxicating power. That chivalrous spirit, which has exercised so powerful an influence on the politics and the morals was found in the highest exaltation among the Norman nobles.’

      Here is the myth of the polite refined Frenchman against the boozy German lout. It clearly had a hold on the Victorian imagination, but it is pure moonshine. If, we might fairly ask, the Norman culture had been so superior to the German, and if it was being invested in England with the full force of Norman arms, as it was, might we not have expected that it may have taken root and triumphed in England? The answer is, no. This banal level of vilification does also make it a little hard to explain Duhrer, Luther, Bach, Kant, Mozart, Goethe, Beethoven, Freud and Einstein – a reasonable challenge to the contributions to humanity of any of England, France or Italy – not

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1