Germany
Germany (जर्मनी) is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate With 81.8 million inhabitants.
Germania region
A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire.
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are also called Teutonic or Gothic in older literature. They are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.[1]
Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North German plain, the Germanic peoples expanded into southern Scandinavia and towards the Vistula river during the Nordic Bronze Age, reaching the lower Danube by 200 BCE.[2] In the 2nd century BCE, the Teutons and the Cimbri clashed with Rome. By the time of Julius Caesar, a group of Germans led by the Suebian chieftain Ariovistus were expanding into Gaul, until stopped by Caesar at the battle of Vosges. Subsequent attempts by Emperor Augustus to annex territories east of the Rhine were abandoned, after Arminius annihilated three Roman legions at the Battle of the Teutoburg forest in 9 CE. At the time, German soldiers were massively recruited into the Roman Army, notably forming the personal bodyguard of the Roman Emperor.
In the east, East Germanic tribes that had migrated from Scandinavia to the lower Vistula pushed southwards, pressing the Marcomanni to invade Italy in 166 CE. Meanwhile, the Germans had through influence from Italic scripts devised their own Runic alphabet. By the 3rd century, the Goths ruled a vast area north of the Black Sea from where they either through crossing the lower Danube or traveling by sea, raided the Balkan Peninsula and Anatolia as far as Cyprus. Meanwhile, the growing confederations of Franks and Alemanni broke through the frontier fortifications and settled along the Rhine frontier, invading Gaul, Hispania and Italy as far as North Africa, while Saxon pirates ravaged the Western European coasts. After the Huns in the 4th century invaded the territories of the Gothic King Ermanaric, which at its peak stretched between the Danube and the Volga river, and from the Black to the Baltic Sea, thousands of Goths fled into the Balkans, defeating the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople and sacking Rome in 410, while thousands of Germans were crossing the Rhine. Meanwhile, several Germanic tribes were converted to Arian Christianity by the missionary Wulfila, who devised an alphabet to translate the Bible into the Gothic language.
Having defeated the Huns at Chalons and Nedao, migrating Germanic tribes invaded the Western Roman Empire and transformed it into Medieval Europe. Nevertheless, it was only with Germanic help that the empire was able to survive as long as it did, as the Roman Army was nearly entirely composed of Germanic soldiers by the 4th century.[3]
By the year 500, the Anglo-Saxons were in Britain, and the Burgundians were in the Rhône valley. Ruled by Theodoric, the Ostrogoths were established in Italy, while the Vandal leader Gaiseric had sacked Rome and founded a kingdom in Africa.
In 507, the Visigoths were expelled by the Franks from most of their Gallic possessions, and thereafter ruled a state in Hispania.
In 568, the Lombard leader Alboin invaded Italy, and founded an independent kingdom which in 774 was overthrown by Charlemagne, who was crowned Emperor of the Romans in 800 CE.
In the 8th century, North Germanic seamen launched a massive expansion, founding important states in Eastern Europe and northern France, while colonizing the Atlantic as far as North America. Subsequently, Germanic languages became dominant among many European countries but in Southern and Eastern Europe the Germanic elite eventually adopted the native Slavic or Latin dialects. All Germanic peoples were eventually converted from Paganism to Christianity.
Modern Germanic peoples
Modern Germanic peoples are the Scandinavians (Norwegians, Swedish, Danish, Icelanders and Faroese), Germans, Austrians, Alemannic Swiss, Liechtensteiners, Luxembourgers, Dutch, Flemings, Afrikaner, Frisians, English and others who still speak languages derived from the ancestral Germanic dialects.
References
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