Are Germans barbarians or civilized people?

Germanic people are an important ethnic group originated in Europe, covering many developed areas such as Western Europe, Northern Europe and North America, among which English, Viking and German are the most representative. They not only took the lead in the industrial revolution, but also became the founders and beneficiaries of the world order in modern times for hundreds of years.

But during the Roman Empire, Germans, Celts and Slavs were called the three barbarians in Europe. So how did the Germans develop step by step from the ancient Roman period and gradually become the most representative nation in Europe and even the whole western civilized world?

Ethnic origin: The Nordic branch of the ancient Indo-European language family, in fact, whether Greeks, Latins or the three barbarians representing the classical European civilization, all originated from the "southern Russian grassland" in the lower reaches of the ural river-Danube River (along the northern shore of the Caspian Sea). Because they not only have the same ethnic characteristics, but also belong to the Indo-European language family, their ancestors are also called "ancient Indo-Europeans". It is called "Indo-European family" because when these descendants of ancient Indo-Europeans with similar accents moved westward to Europe, branches of Medes, Persians and Aryans moved southward to the Iranian plateau and the Indian subcontinent.

Different from the branch of southward migration, the terrain of primitive Indo-Europeans was more complicated in the process of expanding to Europe. South-central Europe, which is mild and humid, is blocked by many mountains, such as Alps and Carpathian Mountains. Most of the plains are densely forested (the Atlantic Ocean is full of water vapor) and roads are difficult to pass. Therefore, many branches of ancient Indo-Europeans, including Greeks and Celts, migrated along coastlines or rivers. Among them, the Greeks reached the Greek Peninsula along the Black Sea coast through the Thrace Plain, the Latins crossed the middle and lower reaches of the Danube River from the Black Sea coast into the Po River basin, and the Celts also reached the Bavarian Plateau upstream along the Danube River. Compared with them, Germans, like Slavs, chose to start from the Dniester River at the northern foot of Carpathian Mountain (that is, the river divided by Ukraine and Moldova) and finally arrived in jutland.

Based in jutland, the Germans gradually grew and migrated to other parts of Northern Europe and Central Europe. From about the 2nd century BC, with the sudden drop of climate and seawater intrusion (many Germanic tribes like to live along the coast and cross the sea to Scandinavia in northern Europe), some Germanic tribes began to move south and collided with Rome. It was the Simbri tribe living in jutland that triggered this migration tide. Together, they urged the Ambon people who may have originated in the northern part of the peninsula and the Teutonic tribe in the lower reaches of the Elbe River to join this southward German army.

Knocking on Rome: The Aimless Road to the South In fact, before the Germans moved south, the Celts called the people east of the Rhine Germanic. With the actions of the three tribes of Simbury, Teutonic and Ambon, the Germans officially appeared on the geographical map of European civilization for the first time, and later people called this collision between the two sides "Simbury War". At that time, the barbarians adjacent to Rome and the United States were mainly Celts, so when the three Germanic books went up the Elbe River and infiltrated into the Alps, the first wave of resistance was the Celts in the Bohemian highlands (roughly equivalent to the Czech Republic today).

However, although they were all called "barbarians" by the Romans, the Celtics at this time have been radiated by civilization for hundreds of years, becoming a semi-settled nation with agriculture and animal husbandry. Their fighting capacity has been greatly weakened, and they are no longer as tough as when they besieged Rome (that is, during the period of "White Goose Saving Rome"). In addition, the Germanic Three Moves to the South are purely for foraging and saving lives, and their morale and bravery are incomparable to Celtic. Around 120 BC, after three Germanic armies conquered Bohemia, they quickly entered neighboring Austria, where they went down the Danube River to the Carpathian Basin in Dakar (the plain in the middle reaches of the Danube).

Friends who are familiar with European maps should be very clear. Obviously, when the Germans came to the Carpathian basin, they were not far from the Roman border, what's more, the Celtic tribe here had already become an intimate area ruled by ancient Rome. Adhering to the common sense that others are not allowed to snore and sleep beside the sofa, the trilogy of Romans and Germans soon clashed. However, after the Punic War and the Macedonian War, the social structure of the Roman Republic, including the whole Mediterranean, had already transitioned from farming to commerce, resulting in insufficient soldiers for farmers, a serious gap between the rich and the poor, and a decline in combat effectiveness. Their enemies were Germans who were more ferocious than Celtic tribes. In the end, the Roman army suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Noja.

In BC 109, the Germans crossed the Bavarian Plateau and arrived in Gaul. The Romans once again confronted them and were wiped out. The victory of the Germanic trilogy enabled them to run wild in the whole Gaul region, and more importantly, let the Celtics who had surrendered to Rome see the weakness of the Roman army. Two years later (before 107), just as the Germanic trilogy was sweeping through western Europe, the Celtic Guglini tribe on the Swiss plateau invaded Rome and won the first victory of the Celts over the Romans in more than 100 years. In order to vent a century of humiliation, the Celts forced more than 4,000 Roman prisoners of war to get out from under the "Yoke Gate" (the door hole punched by three javelin), which is known as "Yoke Gate Humiliation" in history.

However, compared with the Celtics who actively attacked the hinterland of Rome but had limited success, the Germans with stronger fighting capacity and more savage style were the enemies of the Roman battlefield. However, after all, the Simbri people, Teutonic people and Ambuan people moved south for survival. After the Roman legion was defeated again (the battle of Araucio), they chose to flee into the territory of Gaul instead of going deep into the hinterland of Rome for an away adventure. The Celtic people in Gaul are enough for them to plunder. This predatory way of life still belongs to the category of nomadic life in essence, but the targets of the three nomadic Germanic peoples are other weaker peoples. So according to the Germanic idea, it was several years before they returned to the Roman border again, with the intention of another round of harvesting.

When three Germanic armies visited Gaul, the internal situation in Rome changed greatly. After successive defeats, Roman consul Marius carried out military reform and won the Juguda War in North Africa. So when the Germans attacked again, Marius led the 50,000 new Roman troops he trained to appear. Regardless of the essence of Marius' military reform and the deep factors behind it, we only know that the combat effectiveness and mobilization ability of the Roman army have been reactivated. When the dust settled on the battlefield, the result was completely unexpected to the Germans. Almost all Teutonic and Ambon people have been wiped out, and quite a few women and children (the third part of Germans is family migration) have been captured. Not long after, the Simbri people also came to the Po plain at the southern foot of the Alps and were slaughtered by the Roman legion in vercelli. At this point, the Simbury War ended.

The formation of the border between Germania and the Roman Empire After the Sinbury War, the Romans began to call the area occupied by the northern Germanic peoples "Germania", which means the place where the Germans lived. Within a few decades, Caesar began to lead the Roman legions to conquer Gaul, and took the Rhine River as the dividing line between Gaul (that is, Roman territory) and Germania. In order to achieve this goal, Caesar even crossed the jungle near the east of the Rhine River to achieve the deterrent effect on the Germanic tribes.

However, taking the river as the dividing line between the two nationalities does not conform to the natural laws of the geographical plate. After all, it is easier for the two sides of a river to communicate with each other (business, marriage, war) than the two sides of a mountain. So after Caesar's withdrawal, many Germanic tribes began to try to cross the Rhine line in order to survive. After all, compared with the resistance of the Romans, the geopolitical pressure transmitted by jutland is stronger. In the competition of many Germanic tribes, people constantly sneaked into Gaul, forcing the Roman Empire to build some segmented fortifications along the river. This series of fortifications was later called the Great Wall of Germany.

Of course, not only did the Germans want to move to the west bank of the Rhine, but the Roman Empire also had the ambition to annex the emperor on the east bank of the Rhine. During the period of Augustus and Tiberius, the Roman army went deep into the jungle of Central Europe and occupied more than half of Central Europe. However, most of these Germanic tribes did not really give in. In the end, the Battle of Teutonburg Forest broke out, and the Roman Empire suffered a fiasco at its strongest, so it had to stop expanding, and the position of the Rhine defense line was further strengthened. In fact, the reason why the Romans were defeated in the Battle of Teutonburg Forest was precisely the reason why Caesar did not want to occupy the west of the Rhine. After all, the dense jungle environment is not conducive to the development of the Roman legion, but more conducive to the Germans who are familiar with the terrain.

After crisis of the third century and the Teutonic Fort Forest War in Germanic Rome, the Roman Empire not only failed to conquer Germania, but gradually appeared a series of problems of its own. Among them, there are two most prominent points: first, the confusion caused by the promotion of the status of military generals after the reform of the recruitment system in Marius; Secondly, with the saturated development within the empire, the centrifugal force between different geographical plates is increasing day by day. In the end, the Roman Empire fell into the dilemma that the army frequently abolished the emperor and the "four emperors ruled" to defend the central government.

Just as Rome was about to usher in a new round of historical turning point, Hungarians, a nomadic people in the Asian grasslands, began to invade Europe, and many ethnic groups, including Alans and Germans, took part in attacking the Roman frontier. During this period, the Germanic people formed East Germanic people, mainly Goths, Vandals and Burgundy. North Germanic people, mainly Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. In the end, many East Germanic people and some West Germanic tribes were annexed by Rome, among which the Visigoths (separated from the Goths) occupied the Iberian Peninsula, the Vandals and Alans (non-Germanic groups) occupied the Carthage homeland in North Africa, ostrogoths occupied the Apennine Peninsula (later occupied by Lombardi), and the Franks occupied an absolute advantage in the Gaul area west of the Rhine.

At this time, although the Roman Empire was divided and the binding force on German generals was greatly weakened, it still maintained the formal integrity of the Western Roman Empire. Therefore, West Rome in this period was also called "Germanic Rome". During the "Germanic Rome" period, fierce competition among many Germanic tribes began, and Europe entered an era in which Germanic peoples dominated.

Medieval Europe: After the Germanic world entered the Middle Ages, only the Visigoth Kingdom was left in all parts of East Germanic, and the Eastern Goth Kingdom and the Vandal Kingdom were successively destroyed by East Rome, and the Burgundy people were absorbed by the Franks. The situation of West Germanic ministries is more complicated, and many tribes living in the Elbe River basin eventually evolved into Bavarians (South Germans); People living along the North Sea coast, including Saxons, Angles, Jutes and Batavians, gradually became the direct ancestors of the Dutch and the British. As for the Germanic tribes living on the Rhine and Weser rivers, they gradually became Hessians and Franks. Of course, later, except for the British Isles and Iberian Peninsula, the territory of Franks covered almost the whole of Central and Western Europe, but in the end, Germans with the same cultural consciousness as Germany were formed in Germania.

In fact, the division of the Frankish Empire can be regarded as another geographical division between Gaul and Germania under Caesar's rule. In the final analysis, the dividing line between the West Franks and the Holy Roman Empire is the Rhine-Lorraine region, which stems from the German recognition of the Latin culture on both sides of the strait. Moreover, since the annexation of Rome by West Germany, the east of the Elbe River and Bohemia have been occupied by Western Slavs. In the years when the Franks rose, the Germans began to move eastward and gradually recovered these areas.

Compared with the East Germanic people and the West Germanic people, the North Germanic people failed to benefit from the ruins of the collapse of ancient Roman civilization, but they still could not stop their rise in the Middle Ages. They are good at taking risks at sea and like to plunder other European countries. Since the 8th century, they have become more and more organized. Among them, the Danes even once gained the rule of England and established the North Sea Empire. In order to express their disgust at this group of maritime robbers who are good at plundering and killing, Finns call them "Russians", Eastern Slavs call them "Varyags", German relatives in Western Europe call them "Vikings", and their descendants in Western Europe are called "Normans".

In their heyday, these vikings, on the one hand, ran wild in western Europe (from the North Sea to the Mediterranean Sea) and even occupied Sicily, serving as the southern gate of Europe and resisting Arab invasion; On the other hand, it runs the "Waxi Trade Road" between Northern Europe (Varyag) and Byzantium (Greece) on the territory of Slavs in Eastern Europe. Even Novgorod, an eastern Slavic city-state that rose because of this trade route, was later invited by Slavic nobles to welcome Ryurik, the leader of Varyag people, to establish the first maharaja regime in Russian history (Russian historians have objections to this).

At this point, Britain (Anglo-Saxon/English), Germany (Bavaria, Saxon/Saxon, etc. ), France (West Franks), Spain (Visigoths), and even European countries such as Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and even Russia have retained the Germanic descent, customs or influence to varying degrees. When Europe was invaded by Arabs and Ottomans in the Middle Ages, most Germanic countries such as France, Britain and the Holy Roman Empire launched the "Crusades" in the name of protecting Europe. In the era of great navigation and the arrival of industrialization, these countries have further influenced and occupied the right to speak in the world by shaping the global order (global colonial system, Westphalia system, Vienna system, Versailles system, Bretton Woods system, etc.). ).

To sum up, the Germanic people originated from the ancient Indo-European language family in the grasslands of southern Russia, then moved westward to jutland and northern Europe, and began to move southward with the deterioration of the living environment. They fought the Simberly War and the Teutonburg Forest Battle with Rome successively, and drew the dividing line between them. After the Roman Empire split, many Germanic tribes took advantage of the situation to annex West Rome and established a series of regimes on its collapsed ruins. After entering the Middle Ages, Germans gradually became the most representative nation in Europe and became the image of maintaining European civilization.

After the end of the Middle Ages, the Germanic national consciousness was gradually replaced by their national identity, and English, French and German became more recognizable labels. The concept of Germanic gradually shrank into Germany's self-proclaimed population (highly consistent with Germania).