Question: That the Anglos called the Austro-Hungarians and Germans "Huns"

[Mortimer]

Did it had a racial connotation or because they were suppossed to be brutale like the Huns? The Germans called people eastwards of them as Mongols like the Russians or part Mongols. But so did Napoleon said "If you scratch a Russian you will find a Tatar". So the Germans were not first.

 

[rupol2000]

The Huns were not cruel. After Attila in Europe there was a knighthood and Freedom, before the Germans seized power.

The original Germans are the inhabitants of the swampy forests of northern Europe, who were ruled by women. They have nothing to do with the Huns, they are their enemies. The Huns despised them. But part of the German nation descended from the Huns, as they were captured by the Franks and Goths.

 

[whitehall]

Apparently the (last) Keiser gave a speech around 1900 encouraging German soldiers, who were going off to fight some Chinese rebels, to behave like "Attila the Hun" and show no mercy. It looks like the phrase stuck through WW1.