(Quora)

BOCHE

Bosch is spelled Boche in French. It comes from caboche, which is a regional word in France (specifically, northern France) for a cabbage. In fact, this is the word that gave rise to the words cabbage in English and cabáiste in Irish, from Norman French (whereas the word for a cabbage in modern, standard French is chou). The word also survives as the normal word for a cabbage in the Norman French vernaculars of the Channel Islands (les Îles Anglo-normandes; les Îles de la Manche).

As such, caboche with its basic, neutral meaning of cabbage is a word with long history (cf. its putative connection with the Latin caput meaning head, which survives with the meaning of head in the sense of chief, leader in the Italian capo, the Catalan cap and the French chef, and in the sense of end, ending in the Spanish cabo and also in the Catalan cap). Basically, the word caboche conveys a sense of ‘roundness’ (coupled with ‘largeness’) of the vegetable to which it refers - like a head.

The term les Boches in the plural was used in French (whence it also passed into English, where it is known but much lesser used) as a pejorative term for the Germans. The association of Germans with cabbages comes either from:

1. association of the German military with the round helmets that it traditionally wore (sometimes with the famous spike on top, hence the Pickelhaube - literally, ‘spike bonnet’), implying that the Germans have large, round heads and are therefore stupid (cf. the terms blockhead in English and dunderheid in Scots, which are not however specific to persons of any particular nationality); or
2. association of the German people in general with the consumption of cabbages as a foodstuff, implying that they are therefore simple and unsophisticated (cf. the term Kraut as used pejoratively in English, possibly from the popular association with Germans’ eating Sauerkraut - literally, ‘sour cabbage’ - as a basic foodstuff in their national diet).

The term les Boches as a pejorative term for the Germans was popularised by the First World War of 1914–18 in the French language, whence it passed into the English language through the presence of hundreds of thousands of English-speaking soldiers on the battlefields of northern France and Belgium. The circumstances of the era led to the proliferation in the English language of pejorative terms for the Germans (cf. Jerry, Kraut, Hun), of which Boche is but one. The press in both France and the United Kingdom of those days was not shy about using terms to describe enemy nations in terms that would be considered racist and hence socially unacceptable today. However, the usage of Boche in this sense in English has declined hugely since the era of the First World War and is now largely of historical reference, being associated with that particular era.

Although the term Boche as a pejorative for a German person is associated with the First World War, my understanding is that its origins in the French language stretch back further. Specifically, the term may originate in the era of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, which led to the loss by France of the eastern provinces of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany, the unification of Germany as an empire and the defeat and overall humiliation of France as a nation. The revival and re-popularisation of this term forty-odd years later in the First World War may have something to do with a fact that is now largely overlooked and forgotten in light of the huge physical damage that the War inflicted on northern France over the course of four destructive years: namely, the fact that the outbreak of the War in 1914 was greeted by many in France and seen as a chance to avenge the losses and humiliations of the Franco-Prussian War.

Hence, the pejorative terminology of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 was revived in the First World War of 1914–18, whence it passed from the French language to the English language.