Teutonic Race

Teutonic Race, a main division of the peoples of Aryan speech [ARYANS], whose domain at the dawn of history (1st century B.C.) comprised nearly the whole of Central Europe between the Elbe and the Rhine, together with all Scandinavia, except the extreme north and Iceland. This domain has been maintained nearly intact throughout the historic period, and greatly enlarged in various directions from time to time down to the present day. Most of the lands occupied by Teutonic peoples at the fall of the Western Empire - Lombardy, Burgundy, a great part of Gaul, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Roman province of Africa - have since been reoccupied either by the indigenous populations or by later intruders. But permanent additions were made to Teutonic territory by the irruption of Angles, Saxons, Frisians, and others into Britain, by the continuous spread throughout the Upper and middle Danube basin (Alsatia, Suabia, Franconia, parts of Helvetia and Rhaetia, Upper and Lower Austria, parts of Bohemia and Transylvania), by encroachments on the western Slavs and Lithuanians in the Elbe basin. and eastwards to the Vistula (Pomerania, Brandenhurg, West and East Prussia, Silesia), by the Norse occupation of Iceland and south-west Finland, and, since the discovery of the New World, by the expansion of the English and others of Teutonic speech throughout nearly the whole of North America, South Africa, and Australasia. Thus a great part of both temperate zones is now held by Teutonic peoples, numbering collectively about 195,000,000, of whom 115,000,000 belong to the Anglo-Saxon branch (English, Scotch, Anglo-Americans, Australasians, South Africans). 63,000,000 to the Germanic (Germans, Austrians, Swiss), 8,000,000 to the Netherlandish. (Dutch, Flemings, Boers), and 9,000,000 to the Scandinavian (Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders).

When they first became known to the Romans the Teutonic peoples appear to have had no national name; even the word Germans applied to them collectively was not a native but a Celtic designation, of disputed origin, adopted by the Romans, and from them by the modern English. Later certain groups and confederacies were known as Teutones, Alemanni, Saxons, Suevi (Swabians), Thuringians, Boioarii (Bavarians), etc. Most of these names either remained localised, disappeared, or became obsolete, while two acquired a general signification - Alemanni amongst the Romance peoples (whence the French Allemand, Allemagne, the Spanish Alemania, etc.), and Teutones amongst the Germani themselves, possibly through association with Teutoburgiensis Saltus (Teutoburger Wald), where Varus and his Roman legions were cutt off by Arminius (A.D. 9). The word, being derived from a root meaning "people," "nation" (cf. Gothic thiuda; Anglo-Saxon theod, as in Oros. i. 11: "Binnan thaem syndon magega theoda, ac hit man haet eall Germania;" thiot Vrancono = "nation of the Franks," etc.), was easily generalised through such adjectival forms as Theodisc, Tudesk, Diutisk, Teutsch, Deutsch, whence the English Dutch, which, however, since the 17th century has been restricted to a small section of the race about the Rhine delta. Through long contact and interminglings with the conterminous Celtic, Slav, Lithuanian, and perhaps earlier populations, the noble Germanic type, as known to the Romans and described by Tacitus - tall stature, florid complexion, blue eyes, flaxen hair, regular features - has almost everywhere undergone profound modifications, and at present is more frequently seen in outlying territories (Great Britain, Scandinavia) than in the primitive Teutonic domain. In fact, the modern descendants of the Germani of Tacitus are not conspicuous for physical beauty in either sex, the bulk of the people being somewhat heavy, coarse-grained, and ill-favoured, though still robust, vigorous, and strong-limbed. But on the intellectual side every branch of the Teutonic race has progressed, and with such names as Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Newton, Harvey, Scott, Turner, Faraday, Darwin, Linne, Thorwaldsen, Kepler, Leibnitz, Kant, Goethe, Humboldt, Mozart, Handel, Beethoven, Grimm, stands almost admittedly at the head of modern European culture in its broadest sense.