Danube
"Danube" is an Old European river name derived from a Proto-Indo-European "*dānu". Other river names from the same root include the Dunaj, Dzvina/Daugava, Don, Donets, Dnieper, Dniestr, Dysna, Tana and Tuoni. In Rigvedic Sanskrit, "dānu" means "fluid, drop", in Avestan, the same word means "river". In the Rigveda, "Dānu" once appears as the mother of Vrtra, "a dragon blocking the course of the rivers." The Finnish word for Danube is Tonava, which is most likely derived from the word for the river in Swedish and German, "Donau". Its Sámi name "Deatnu" means "Great River". It is possible that "dānu" in Scythian as in Avestan was a generic word for "river": "Dnieper" and "Dniestr", from "Danapris" and "Danastius", are presumed to continue Scythian "*dānu apara" "far river" and "*dānu nazdya-" "near river", respectively.
Commissions of the Danube River
At the end of the two years, the powers that signed the treaty were to "pronounce the dissolution of the European Commission", and the so-called "permanent", upstream, IDC was then to extend its supervision to the Lower Danube. The latter commission was supposed to consist of Austria-Hungary, Bavaria, the Sublime Porte (Turkey), Württemberg and the two Danubian principalities (Moldavia and Wallachia). The IDC did draw up an Upper Danubian Navigation Act in November 1857, but it was not accepted multilaterally because of opposition of all the powers except Austria. It was, however, applied to parts of the river by conventions between Austria, Bavaria, and Württemberg. The river-bordering states, Krehbiel stressed in his 1918 article, "were eager to get control of the river into their own hands", but the non-riparian states were "loath to lose control." As a result, the CED was constantly strengthened, and the IDC never came into power, but "was presently abandoned."
The CED gradually extended its power until it became an international entity glimmering in what Blackburn called "the twilight of statehood." It expanded its functions until it was ranked "the most successful" such agency until the League of Nations. At the start, though, it had no funds, "it had no basis for an opinion as to the best way to attack the river problem; it found river traffic paralyzed." At the end of the two years, Sir Charles Hartley, war comrade of Stokes, had been appointed chief engineer (a post he was to hold for forty-nine years) but large-draft vessels were unable to sail unimpeded up the meandering river. These meager results led the powers to extend the life of the commission for another two years, over the objection of Austria.