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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Alsace-Lorraine, by Daniel Blumenthal
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: Alsace-Lorraine
+       A Study of the Relations of the Two Provinces to France
+       and to Germany and a Presentation of the Just Claims of
+       their People
+
+Author: Daniel Blumenthal
+
+Release Date: June 2, 2012 [EBook #39883]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALSACE-LORRAINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Laurent Vogel, Chuck Greif, Christine P. Travers
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by Case Western Reserve University
+Preservation Department Digital Library)
+
+
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+
+
+
+
+  Alsace-Lorraine
+
+
+  A Study of the Relations of the
+  Two Provinces to France and to
+  Germany and a Presentation of
+  the Just Claims of their People
+
+
+  By
+  Daniel Blumenthal
+
+  Formerly Deputy from Strasbourg in the Reichstag;
+  Senator from Alsace-Lorraine; and Mayor
+  of the City of Colmar
+
+
+  With an Introduction by
+  Douglas Wilson Johnson
+
+  Associate Professor of Physiography in
+  Columbia University
+
+
+
+
+  G. P. Putnam's Sons
+  New York and London
+  The Knickerbocker Press
+  1917
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1917
+  BY
+  DANIEL BLUMENTHAL
+
+
+  The Knickerbocker Press, New York
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The problem of Alsace-Lorraine is in a very real sense an American
+problem. We entered this war to help crush the Teutonic scheme of
+world domination and to free the democratic nations of the earth from
+the menace of militaristic autocracy. Any issue which involves these
+fundamental causes of American intervention in the great struggle must
+command the careful attention of every thoughtful American citizen.
+
+Alsace and Lorraine provide just such an issue. In 1871 these
+provinces were forcibly torn from France and annexed to a militaristic
+autocracy, despite the bitter protests of the mother country and the
+impassioned appeals of her unfortunate children. This crime was but
+one of many incident to the scheme of building up a world empire
+controlled by a Prussianized Germany; but in a peculiar degree it
+outraged the democratic sympathies of the world and enhanced the
+prestige of autocratic militarism in the opinion of the German people.
+As the most recent and most striking fruit of the Prussian policy of
+conquest, Alsace-Lorraine is today the visible pledge of the professed
+efficiency of autocracy and the supposed decadence of democracy.
+
+The vindication of democracy demands the "disannexation" of
+Alsace-Lorraine and its return to democratic France. The security of
+the world demands that the Prussian policy of military conquest be
+discredited and destroyed by depriving the German people of the unholy
+profits of that policy. Justice to the mother country and to her lost
+children demands that their combined protests be heard and that the
+crime of '71 be rectified. Americans are fighting for the vindication
+of democracy, for the security of the world, and for the triumph of
+justice. When they fully understand that a peace which should leave
+Alsace-Lorraine under German control would be a denial of democracy, a
+peril to civilization, and a travesty on justice, our chivalrous
+people will refuse to lay down the sword until the lost children of
+our gallant Ally are restored to their rightful sovereignty.
+
+No one is more eminently qualified to bring to the American people the
+facts in the case of Alsace-Lorraine than is the Honourable Daniel
+Blumenthal. Himself an Alsatian by birth, he can speak from the heart
+on behalf of his brothers and sisters. Honoured by his fellow citizens
+with election to the high office of mayor of the important Alsatian
+city of Colmar for a period of nine years, he speaks with the
+authority of one who has the full confidence of those Alsatians who
+know him best. A member of the German Reichstag and of the
+Alsace-Lorraine Senate for many years, he speaks with peculiar
+knowledge of the Imperial Government's treatment of the conquered
+lands. Condemned to death eight times and carrying sentences
+aggregating more than five hundred years of penal servitude, all
+imposed upon him by the Imperial German Government because he escaped
+from the Empire to tell the world the truth about Alsace-Lorraine, he
+comes to us with the highest recommendations which the Prussian
+autocracy has power to give. Americans will read with unusual interest
+his testimony regarding the lost provinces of France.
+
+                                               DOUGLAS WILSON JOHNSON.
+
+  NEW YORK CITY,
+  November 1, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+ALSACE-LORRAINE
+
+
+[Illustration: Map of Alsace and Lorraine.
+
+The darker shading shows portion of territory ceded to Germany in
+1871.]
+
+
+
+
+THE PROBLEM OF ALSACE-LORRAINE
+
+
+The problem of Alsace-Lorraine began with the Treaty of Frankfort made
+between the German Empire and the French Republic, May 10, 1871.
+Beaten by the German armies, France, at the mouth of the cannon, was
+forced, notwithstanding the solemn protests of the inhabitants, to
+give up part of her territory.
+
+The Alsace-Lorraine problem has a three-fold character. It concerns
+Germany, France, and the World.
+
+France not having stipulated in the Treaty of Frankfort any clause as
+to the treatment of the people of Alsace-Lorraine now become German,
+the German Empire alone had the formal right to decide their fate, and
+it is _vis-à-vis_ to Germany that Alsace-Lorraine must make its
+claims.
+
+The question of the rule of Alsace-Lorraine became a problem of the
+internal policy of the Empire, and therefore a purely German affair.
+
+The French Government has always scrupulously respected the Treaty of
+Frankfort, but the French people have never given up the hope of
+redressing the gross wrong of 1871, and all the French policy has been
+based on the necessity of protection against renewed German
+aggression. In vain did Germany declare that no Alsace-Lorraine
+question existed; not only does this question exist, but it has become
+the principal obstacle in the way of political reconciliation between
+France and Germany. Whether one wishes it or not, it is _the_
+Franco-German question _par excellence_. At the same time it has an
+_international_ character of the highest importance. The form of
+alliances, the bidding for armaments, the terms of armed peace, these
+were the natural consequences of this state of things. France never
+would have undertaken, and Alsace-Lorraine never would have demanded,
+a war of revenge to secure the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France.
+But since the horrors of war have been let loose upon the world by the
+criminal folly of Germany, the problem of Alsace-Lorraine has become a
+_world problem_ of the highest importance.
+
+From the beginning of the war, the president of the French Republic,
+the president of the Senate, the president of the Chamber of Deputies,
+the president of the Council, and all the heads of government who have
+succeeded one another, and recently Parliament itself, the Senate, and
+Chamber of Deputies, all have in accord with the whole French nation,
+manifested the unshaken determination not to end the war without the
+assurance of the return of Alsace-Lorraine to the mother country.
+
+Alsace-Lorraine has constituted a striking example of the denial of
+the principle of the right of the people to govern themselves, but now
+the question has become actually of great practical importance. Being
+the principal object of France in the future peace treaty, it is quite
+natural that all the nations, and above all the belligerent ones,
+should be obliged to give to it very particular attention. Even for
+the United States, who will have a most important rôle to play in the
+Congress of Peace, the question of Alsace-Lorraine is one which they
+cannot treat as being of interest only to France and Germany. In its
+nature and from the fact that it is the corner-stone of the first
+claim to be made by France, it concerns right and justice.
+
+It is consequently opportune that even those who up to the present
+time have had no special reason for interest in Alsace-Lorraine should
+come to know certain facts about this little country in order to be
+able to form for themselves a just and trustworthy opinion of the
+disputed question.
+
+
+TERRITORY
+
+Alsace-Lorraine is bounded on the north by Bavaria, Prussia,
+Luxembourg, and France; on the south by Switzerland and France, on the
+east by the Grand Duchy of Baden, and on the west by France. It is
+entirely made up of territory surrendered by France to Germany by the
+Treaty of Frankfort. This included the following parts of France: the
+Department of the Lower Rhine, the Department of the Upper Rhine with
+the exception of Belfort, three quarters of the Department of Moselle,
+a third of the Department of Meurthe, and two cantons of the Vosges.
+The area is about 14,500 square kilometres.
+
+
+POPULATION
+
+German official statistics give on the 1st of December, 1871, a
+population of 1,554,738 inhabitants. The last Census of 1910 gives
+1,874,014 souls (967,625 men, 906,389 women). This population
+includes about 1,500,000 Alsaces-Lorraines of French descent, who
+themselves or their parents were born in Alsace-Lorraine before the
+1st of May, 1871, and who, except for the Treaty of Frankfort, would
+have been French. The aliens (notably the Italians, French, Swiss, and
+the people of Luxembourg) make up a contingent of about 75,000. The
+rest, 300,000 in all, are German immigrants since the War of 1870-71,
+and their descendants, including the military and government officials
+with their families.
+
+The original French people of the ceded territories were allowed to
+preserve their French nationality on condition of making an express
+declaration before October 1, 1872, and to transfer, within the same
+extension of time, their domicile outside of Alsace-Lorraine. From the
+official German reports, there were about 160,000 options declared in
+Alsace-Lorraine, of which only 50,000 were valid. The options given in
+France amounted to about 380,000. The statistics of emigration and
+immigration for 1871-1910 give an excess of emigration of 267,639
+souls. The result of the migration of the population in August, 1914,
+can thus be characterized: some hundred thousand Alsatians left the
+country, the greater part of whom settled in France. The number of the
+native population has remained stationary; 300,000 Germans and 75,000
+foreigners must be added. The German population is almost entirely
+concentrated in the cities. In Metz, the immigrants make up the
+majority; in Strasbourg, they are a third of the population. In the
+country, one finds in general only a few officials.
+
+Concerning the language, distinction must be made between Alsace and
+Lorraine. In most parts of Lorraine, French is spoken exclusively,
+whereas, in the greater part of Alsace, we find a German patois mixed
+up with many French words and expressions; and so entirely distinct is
+it from the _hochdeutsch_ of the Germans, that after forty-seven years
+they are not able to understand it. Everyone who is at all educated
+speaks French, in spite of the obstacles the Germans are always
+putting in the way of teaching the French tongue. All who know French
+speak it from preference, and no one who speaks good German, and they
+have all learned it in the schools, ever use it in private life. The
+official language is of course German.
+
+As to religion: after the Census of 1910, there were found to be 85%
+Catholics, 13% Protestants, 1-1/2% Jews, and a 1/2% miscellaneous. The
+_professional_ Census of 1907 gives the following results: about one
+fourth of the population are in agriculture, half are occupied in
+commerce and industry, and a quarter enter the liberal professions or
+follow no trade at all.
+
+As to the ethnological origin of the aboriginal people, the Germans at
+once declare that Alsace was settled by the Teutons. About Lorraine
+they prefer to be silent. But while it is certain that Alsace after
+the migration of the tribes presents a mixed population composed of
+Celtic and Germanic elements, it would be very difficult to analyse
+today such an amalgamation. Do not let us forget that Julius Cæsar in
+his famous work, _De Bello Gallico_, has said that the country of the
+Celts which he calls Galli (Gaul) was bounded by the "_flumen Rhenum_"
+(the Rhine), and Tacitus, the illustrious historian, declares:
+"_Germania omnis a Gallis Rheno separatur_" (the whole of Germany is
+separated from Gaul by the Rhine).
+
+The invasion of Alsace by Ariovistus was victoriously repulsed at the
+battle of Ochsenfeld 58 B.C., and a new attempt of the Germanic tribes
+to invade Alsace in 357 A.D. failed before the army of Julian the
+Philosopher. During the centuries of Roman domination, which have left
+deep traces on the country (building of cities, construction of roads,
+commercial and industrial development of all kinds), Alsace enjoyed
+great prosperity. Moreover, a recent authoritative work, _Wohin
+gehoert Elsass-Lothringen_, shows that from the last scientific
+researches, the shape of the German skull, which the Germans love to
+indicate as the sign of the superiority of the German race, is
+represented in Alsace only in the proportion of one to three, and the
+so-called Germanic type (blue eyes and yellow hair) is nowhere
+predominant.
+
+Alsace is in fact a conclusive example of the fact that the use of a
+dialect of German origin does not necessarily indicate the race of
+those who speak it and certainly does not prove a community of
+sentiments or ideas. This applies also to the German names of the
+Alsatian communes.
+
+Let us remember on this subject, that very recently German names have
+been officially given to French localities in Lorraine. When the
+Germans wish to accomplish a master stroke of policy they are careful
+to quote the Herren Professoren in justification of the establishment
+of an historic precedent. Renan, in a mildly bantering spirit,
+complimented them on their extraordinary talent in these ridiculous
+attempts. "With the philosophy of history," says he, "as practised by
+the Germans, there are no legal rights in the world but those of the
+ourang-outangs, unjustly deprived of these by the perfidy of civilized
+man."
+
+In the main, it matters little to whom Alsace-Lorraine has belonged
+during the vicissitudes of history. That only which is important from
+the point of view of modern history is the act of 1871 by which
+Germany tore Alsace-Lorraine from France when all the inhabitants of
+the ceded territories were thoroughly French and wished so to remain.
+This is the truth, and it is confirmed by an authority little
+suspected by the Germans. Professor Theobald Ziegler, who up to the
+present moment was Professor of Science at the University of
+Strasbourg, and a liberal democrat, has changed to a pan-Germanist of
+the most pronounced type. Here is what the Herr Professor Ziegler
+acknowledges, writing in the review _Die Grenzboten_, March 31, 1915:
+"What makes a nation? Not the feeling of race nor the consciousness of
+belonging to the same stock which is often lost in the uncertainty
+and obscurity of history; not the soil, which may be transferred from
+one people to another as in the case of Alsace; not the language--one
+has only to think of Switzerland where three languages are spoken; not
+even interests in common, for these exist in every society, but just
+the living together of two centuries shared with the great nation of
+France has made Alsace-Lorraine French."
+
+But Ziegler and his friends have forgotten that to live together there
+must be mutual understanding and esteem. History teaches that no
+appreciable advantage is to be gained unless the peoples agree, or if
+one nation tries to impose its brutal domination over another. And yet
+it is just this which is the great obstacle that prevents Germany from
+assimilating Alsace-Lorraine and has condemned all its efforts to
+eternal failure.
+
+
+INCOMPATIBILITY OF DISPOSITION OF THE GERMANS AND THE INHABITANTS OF
+ALSACE-LORRAINE
+
+In his excellent volume, _The Peril of Prussianism_, Professor
+Douglas W. Johnson has traced, in a masterly fashion, the difference
+between the two ideals of government, one starting with the principle
+that the State is made to serve the people, the other, that the people
+are made to serve the State, a view personified by the Kaiser in
+Germany today.
+
+The Alsaces-Lorraines have always had great independence of character;
+they are thoroughly democratic and republican, for which reason they
+so quickly and solidly became a part of the French nation, which, even
+under different forms of monarchical government, respected their
+liberty and democratic ideals.
+
+The political history of Alsace-Lorraine furnishes a new proof of this
+fact on every page. Lorraine became a part of France at the Convention
+of Friedwald in Hessen, January 14, 1552, when the German Protestant
+princes at war with the Catholic House of Austria, gave Metz, Toul,
+and Verdun to the King of France, Henry II., in exchange for subsidies
+furnished by France.
+
+In the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, Alsace was ceded to France in
+exchange for services which the King gave to the German Protestant
+princes fighting against the Catholic Empire. Alsace was conquered for
+France by the German Prince, Bernard de Saxe-Weimar, on the demand and
+in the interest of Germany which had called upon France for help.
+Strasbourg, which had remained a free independent city, opened her
+gates to France in 1681. The Republic of Mulhouse, which made a part
+of Helvetia, asked, and obtained the request, to be incorporated into
+France in 1798. Neither Alsace nor Lorraine ever made part of the
+German Empire founded in 1871, and to which vanquished France was
+obliged to give up these territories. When these two provinces came
+into the possession of France, they were bound by rather loose ties to
+the Holy Roman Empire, of which the House of Austria was at the head.
+The Austria-Hungary Empire did not survive the Napoleonic wars, and I
+do not know that it ever claimed any part of Alsace-Lorraine.
+
+On the contrary, in order to found the German Empire and appropriate
+Alsace-Lorraine, Prussia had to make war on Austria in 1866 to put her
+out of Germany. The German Empire is wrong, therefore, in making an
+appeal to anything but _force_ to explain, if not to justify the
+spoliation of France. Alsace-Lorraine was never a political entity
+before 1871. We have seen that Alsace was still a part of the Holy
+Roman Empire, while Lorraine had already belonged to France for a
+hundred years.
+
+Alsace, alone, had never been a state. This is how the learned
+professor of the University of Caen, Georges Weil, describes in his
+remarkable book, _French Alsace from 1789 to 1871_, the period after
+the reunion of Alsace with France: "It was a strange mosaic of
+different freeholds, of principalities both lay and ecclesiastical, of
+free cities or those almost autonomous. Among these freeholds many
+belonged to German princes. A sixth part of Alsace was owned by
+foreigners." The Emperor's authority had been only nominal. On his
+visits, which were few and far between, he was received with courtesy,
+money was freely given to him, but the people always rejoiced when
+they saw him leave. The Alsatians received but little assistance from
+the Empire; Alsace secured no help when menaced or invaded by foreign
+armies. The ten ancient cities flourished under an almost autonomous
+rule. Even before the reunion with France, cultivated society was
+filled with the French spirit. After the Thirty Years' War, the
+country felt the benefit of the protection of a powerful State with a
+well-ordered government which respected its habits and customs and
+which administered justice. So their sympathies were quickly given to
+their new political country with which, by reason of their democratic
+ideals, they were already politically in sympathy. That which rapidly
+attached the people to the new régime was, on the one hand, the
+friendly and intelligent interest of the royal intendants who
+protected the subjects from arbitrary lords and other local
+authorities, and on the other hand, the sovereign Council of Alsace,
+sitting at Colmar, which was to simplify, and, if possible, to unify,
+the customs that were in force in different parts of the country and
+also insure a sound administration of justice. The success was
+complete. A German, François d'Ichterscheim, was obliged to
+acknowledge, in a work published in 1710, that the Sovereign Council
+"rules with strict justice, law-suits are not too lengthy, expenses
+are not too heavy, and above all, no favour is shown to either
+litigant, the subject often winning his suit against the
+sovereign,--the poor against the rich, the layman against the clergy,
+the Christian against the Jew, and _vice-versa_."
+
+The people were contented and satisfied. The Alsatian has always had a
+pronounced taste for the military career. Many young peasants enlisted
+in French regiments and were well received. The nobility furnished a
+number of officers to the French army. Alsatian gentlemen enjoyed
+taking part in the gay social life of the French aristocracy. Alsatian
+scholars kept in constant touch with Paris, where they received every
+encouragement and were much appreciated. It is not astonishing then,
+that Monsieur Schmettan, Ambassador of Russia to the King of France,
+should write in 1709: "It is well-known that the Alsatians are more
+French than the Parisians themselves."
+
+The holding in common of the same ideas and feelings was even more
+accentuated at the time of the Revolution, and no part of France was
+better prepared by her past history for the coming of a rule of
+Democracy and Equality. In 1787, Alsace was called upon for the first
+time to elect a Provincial Assembly which would represent the
+interests of a large number of domains, princely seignorial, and
+municipal, the commission chosen to make a report to the Assembly
+declared: "That which tends to feudalism carries a mark of servitude
+not to be tolerated in a well-constituted society." In the elections
+for the États Généraux, the little bourgeoisie won in all the cities
+against the oligarchy which desired to retain the control. Reubell,
+who played an important rôle in the Revolution, and who was a member
+of the Directory, was elected at Colmar. The peasants hailed with
+enthusiasm the decree of August 4, 1789, which marked the end of the
+feudal régime. The suppression of the custom-house duties between
+Alsace and the rest of France sealed the economic union between the
+new and the old countries so that the creation of the departments of
+the Upper and the Lower Rhine was effected without any difficulty.
+
+After the proclamation of the equality of the French people, the right
+to levy on the feudal rents in France, which the German princes who
+owned property in Alsace had exercised, could no longer exist. The
+Germans protested and the conflict which followed, in 1792, was the
+first war against the French Republic.
+
+In the report which the well-known civilian, Merlin de Douai, made to
+the _Constituante_, October 28, 1790, is the following passage, very
+characteristic of the bonds which unite Alsace to France: "The
+Alsatian people have united themselves to France because they wish so
+to do; it is their own desire, therefore, and not the treaty of
+Münster which has legalized the union."
+
+In February, 1790, Dietrich was elected mayor of Strasbourg against
+the conservative candidate, and in June, 1790, the partisans of the
+_Constituante_ celebrated amid great pomp and with the co-operation of
+the clergy of different denominations, the fêtes of the Federation of
+the Rhine.
+
+The Alsatian National Guard set up in the middle of a bridge over the
+Rhine, a tri-coloured flag which bore the inscription: "Here the Land
+of Liberty begins."
+
+It was on the night following the day that it was known at Strasbourg
+(April 25, 1792), that war had been declared, that Captain Rouget de
+l'Isle composed "the War Song for the Army of the Rhine," which under
+the name of _La Marseillaise_ became the national hymn of France.
+
+Kléber, who at that time commanded a battalion from the Upper Rhine,
+writes, November 15, 1792, in reference to the warlike enthusiasm of
+the Alsatian volunteers, "not one of them ever dreams of deserting his
+flag; the wounded, yes, and even the sick have implored me for mercy's
+sake, to keep them with the battalion."
+
+In 1799, there was the menace of another war, and the inhabitants were
+most zealous in strengthening the fortresses. An official of the Lower
+Rhine wrote in his report on the subject of the Alsatians: "They will,
+like the Rhine, always be the impregnable bulwark of the Republic" (G.
+Weil).
+
+The assimilation of France and Alsace was made complete during the
+Revolution. Fustel de Coulanges well summed up this truth when he
+wrote in 1870: "Do you know what has made Alsace French? It is not
+Louis XIV., but it is our revolution of 1789. From that moment Alsace
+has followed our fortunes; she has lived our life; she thinks as we
+think; she feels as we feel; our glories and our faults, our joys and
+our sorrows."
+
+The wars of the Empire gave to the Alsatians a chance to display their
+military aptitude which they rendered the more generously to the
+service of the country, as promotion was given to each according to
+his merits; each soldier carried in his knapsack the baton of a
+Maréchal de France!
+
+The generals of Alsace and of Lorraine who distinguished themselves in
+the army of the Republic and with Napoleon are numerous. Among the
+best known are Kléber, Kellermann, Rapp, Lefévre, Ney, Mouton,
+Lasalle, Shérer, Westermann, and Schramm. The names of twenty-eight
+Alsatian generals are engraved upon the Arc de Triomphe at Paris.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Many able Alsatians devoted themselves to the administration of the
+German countries that were at that time under the French Government.
+Their knowledge of German helped them in their task. After the
+disasters in Russia and in Leipzig, in 1813, the Alsatians showed
+exemplary devotion in their preparations for defence and sacrifices
+for the army.
+
+In his _Mémoires_, Ségur says on this subject: "There were no better,
+braver, more generous Frenchmen in all France." Never, during all
+these trying days, did they remember that their forebears had been
+subjects of the Holy Empire.
+
+At the beginning of the nineteenth century, after the fall of
+Napoleon, the pan-Germans made a campaign for the annexation of
+Alsace-Lorraine in launching the slogan: _Der Rhein, Deutschlands
+Strom nicht Deutschlands Grenze_ (The Rhine is a German river and not
+Germany's boundary). This found no echo in Alsace, which forced from
+the poet, Rückert, the heartfelt cry of indignation which fell from
+the lips of the German soldiers, who were obliged to evacuate Alsace:
+"And thou Alsace! Degermanized race, thou too dost jeer at us, oh,
+deepest infamy!"
+
+The Alsatian poet, Ehrenfried Stoeber, whom the Germans readily
+invoked on account of his dialect, said that if his harp was German
+his sword was French. Referring to the Revolution he said: "If we
+speak of the wars of the Revolution in which we fought for our
+independence and the protection of the indefeasible rights of man, it
+is because we are proud of our fervent ardour and enthusiasm."
+
+Under the restored kingdom of the Bourbons, orderly citizens knew how
+to command respect in their new country without sacrificing in the
+least their democratic and republican ideals. A prefect of the Upper
+Rhine registered in his report of 1818: "All are submissive, but none
+are royalist." De Serre, an elector of the Department wrote:
+"Ultra-royalism is not the spirit which actuates my constituents."
+
+The prefect, Puymaigre, candidly complains in 1821 of the advanced
+ideas of the citizens: "They give faith," said he, "with a most
+deplorable credulity, to all the most dangerous political systems."
+
+The same year, after his tour in Alsace, General Foy expressed himself
+as follows: "If all that is good and generous in the hearts of the
+inhabitants of ancient France ever becomes enfeebled, they must
+journey over the Vosges and come to Alsace to renew their patriotism
+and energy."
+
+The monarchy of July marks a period of uninterrupted prosperity for
+Alsace. The return of the tri-colour was hailed with joy. The
+democratic idea grew and was represented chiefly by the _Courrier du
+Bas-Rhin_ which influenced public opinion. After 1815, the reactionary
+persecutions abated against the Germans who were liberal minded and
+they received an hospitable welcome to Alsace. With their innate
+absence of tact, many of them tried to convince their hosts that
+Alsace was still a German province, and in this way they forfeited all
+sympathy.
+
+The Alsatians desire there should be no misunderstanding as to the
+nature of the sympathy shown to unjustly persecuted refugees, and the
+international courtesy practised by them even towards the Germans. In
+1842, when the German delegates to the Scientific Congress of France
+were received at Strasbourg, the mouthpiece of the Alsatians spoke of
+the sympathies of his countrymen for Germany; but to avoid any mistake
+he added: "But if we gaze toward her, it is not with the eyes of a
+child torn from the paternal home, but rather, if you will permit the
+comparison, with the affectionate look with which the young wife
+greets once more her mother's house, happy under the new roof which
+shelters her, and with the name of her husband which she bears with
+pride."
+
+Alsace has never wavered from this fidelity to France. In 1848 the
+second Republic was accepted with satisfaction. Under Louis Philippe
+the country had enjoyed great material prosperity, but the middle
+classes were restless because the government took no measures to
+reform the electorate in the democratic sense. At this time great
+fêtes were held to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the
+union of Alsace and France. The mayor of Strasbourg said on this
+occasion: "It is without doubt no longer necessary to make a solemn
+and public profession of undying devotion to France. She does not
+doubt us, she has faith in Alsace; but if Germany still lulls herself
+with futile illusions, if she still finds in the persistence of the
+German language a sign of irresistible sympathy and attraction toward
+her, she is mistaken. Alsace is just as much French as Brittany,
+Flanders, and the country of the Basques, and she will so remain."
+
+The affection of France kept pace always with the profession of
+democratic and republican ideals. When the prince-president came to
+Strasbourg in 1850, he was received in all the villages of Alsace with
+shouts of _Vive la République!_ The municipal council of Strasbourg
+had refused to give any funds for his reception. At Strasbourg and at
+Mulhouse the National Guard was dismissed by the government. The
+Colonel of the Strasbourg Legion said in his farewell address: "It is
+true that at times you express with great vigour republican
+sentiments, but this is with you an original sin, and I fear me that
+the remedy applied will not be effectual in its correction."
+
+During the Second Empire, Alsace was a hotbed of republican
+resistance, particularly in the Upper Rhine. However, at this time,
+the country again enjoyed a great prosperity. The military career
+continued to attract the Alsatians. The great advantages assured to
+the reinlisted soldiers induced many of them to enter the army as
+volunteers. The wars in Algeria under Louis Philippe had already
+shown, among the combatants, a great number of Alsatians. The
+intellectual culture of the provinces turned towards France and made
+great progress. Erckmann and Chatrian expressed marvellously well the
+aspirations and democratic ideals of the people in magnifying the
+rôles of the Alsatians and the Lorrainers in the heroic period of the
+Revolution and the First Empire.
+
+The peoples of Alsace and Lorraine were, like those of the rest of
+France, divided into political parties, and one often saw
+disagreements, generally legal, with the ideas of the respective
+governments. But no one ever evinced the slightest regret at no longer
+belonging to the Holy Empire, or the least desire to re-enter the
+bosom of Germany. When the War of 1870 broke out, Alsace and Lorraine
+were very French, and during that war the people of both provinces
+bravely and patriotically did their duty to France. The people were
+thus badly prepared for a change of nationality, and far from looking
+on their new Teuton compatriots as brothers, they cordially detested
+the Germans who during the war had conducted themselves to the limit
+of savagery. The forced community of life with the Germans soon showed
+an irreconcilable opposition between the native and the immigrant
+population.
+
+Alsace-Lorraine could live whole centuries with the Germans without
+becoming germanized, whereas two centuries of life in common with
+France, freely consented to, had proved sufficient to make them
+Frenchmen. This spontaneous fusion could never have been possible if
+Alsace-Lorraine and France had not always had the same ideals of
+civilization. The Alsatian and the Lorrainer leaned always toward
+French culture, and from the moment they were politically separated
+from the Holy Empire they had nothing more in common with German
+_Kultur_.
+
+The Alsatian-Lorrainer, who from the point of view of character
+greatly resembles the free citizen of America, is a very practical
+man. He willingly makes use of all the opportunities in life to
+improve his economic condition, but joined to these qualities is a
+deeply rooted idealism which will make any sacrifice to secure his
+independence, and to assure for him the dignity of freedom. He has
+brilliant military qualities, but he will never be a militarist. He
+will fight bravely for the defence of a just cause about which he is
+enthusiastic, because it means the fulfilment of a sacred duty. But
+he will never be willing to remain under the dominion of a power
+like that of Prussia and be forced to carry arms for causes that he
+detests and disdains. The Alsatian-Lorrainer has no affection for
+dynasty, he is absolutely wanting in respect for the hierarchy; he
+has a feeling for order and equality before the law, he is loyal and
+respectful to authority but exempt from all servitude. The German,
+on the contrary, with his class feeling, abasing himself, as it
+were, in platitudes before his superiors, hard and arrogant toward
+his inferiors, in admiration before the _Angestammtes Herrscherhaus_
+(traditional dynasty), accustomed to march under the lash, without
+any idealism, finding in the distribution of the booty of war a
+compensation for all humiliations,--such a man does not understand
+that the Alsatian-Lorrainer does not rejoice to find himself
+belonging to a nation of the elect, a nation that has the most
+formidable war machine to crush, from time to time according to its
+whim, any growth of material prosperity effected by free competition
+in the economic struggle.
+
+Alsace-Lorraine is impervious to those ideas. Against her will, she
+was torn from France and she wishes to return. It is this which makes
+clear her history from 1871 to this day.
+
+
+THE PROTEST
+
+As soon as it was a question of the necessity of giving up a part of
+the territory, all the deputies of the threatened departments signed a
+declaration, February 17, 1871, which, among other passages, contained
+the following: "Alsace and Lorraine do not wish to be alienated.
+Associated for more than two centuries with France, both in good and
+bad fortune, these two provinces, exposed without intermission to the
+blows of the enemy, have constantly sacrificed themselves for the
+greatness of the nation; they have sealed with their blood the
+insoluble compact which binds them to France. Made doubtful by the
+claims of the enemy, they assert, through all the obstacles and all
+the dangers under the yoke even of the invader, their unshaken
+fidelity. Unanimously the citizens in their homes, the soldiers who
+rallied beneath the flag, those who voted and those who fought, all
+signified to Germany and to the world the immutable will of Alsace and
+of Lorraine to remain French."
+
+March 1, 1871, the same deputies signed a new protest which they
+deposited at the bureau of the National Assembly in which we find the
+following announcement: "We declare once more null and void a pact
+which disposes of us without our consent. The claim to our rights
+always remains open to each and to all in the form and the measure
+that our conscience dictates to us."
+
+When the Alsatians were permitted by Germany to send deputies to the
+Reichstag, the fifteen who were elected protested on their side
+against annexation February 18, 1874. We find in their declaration the
+following passage: "In choosing us all, just as we are, our electors
+before everything else wish to affirm their sympathy with France and
+their right to govern themselves." These solemn declarations have
+never been revoked by any equivalent or contrary statement. Not even
+during the actual war and reign of terror established in the annexed
+provinces has the German Government succeeded in forcing from the
+representatives of Alsace-Lorraine a statement expressing the desire
+to remain German. The attempt to make such a manifestation by the
+votes of the council-generals, of whom the suspected members had
+previously been deported to Germany, saying that the economic interest
+of Alsace-Lorraine necessitated the maintenance of the _status quo_,
+only served to demonstrate the insecurity of the political situation
+of the German Empire in Alsace-Lorraine. What lamentable drivel in
+comparison to the dignified and generous language of the magnificent
+protests of Bordeaux. It accords well with the philosophy of German
+diction which the Baron de Bulach, Secretary of State, jeeringly
+dared recommend to his compatriots as a line of conduct: "_Wess Brod
+ich ess des Lied ich sing_" (Whose bread I eat, his song I sing).
+
+Nothing, moreover, would be less exact than to think that the
+Alsatians lived on the Germans or that their material well-being
+depended in any way on the economic life of the German Empire, or that
+the prosperity of the country was in all, or even in great part, to be
+credited to the Germans.
+
+It is not within the scope of our essay to present a study of the
+economic situation of the country, which, if she has been prosperous
+in some directions, has often been hindered by the predominance given
+to rival interests of other German countries. The project of
+constructing a canal from Ludwigshafen to Strasbourg was abandoned
+because contrary to the interests of the town of Mannheim. The
+canalling of the Sarre and of the Moselle was basely sacrificed to the
+interests of the Prussian industries of la Ruhr, which looked with an
+enemy's eye on any progress in the industry of Lorraine.
+
+The prohibition of American plants for the replacing of the destroyed
+vines, in execution of the law concerning the fight against the blight
+of the vine, was dictated by a sentiment of protection for the German
+vine-culture against the vine-culture of Alsace-Lorraine. Often also,
+the administration took arbitrary measure against certain trades and
+industries to injure their interests for the profit of their
+competitors, or for some determined political end. The illegal
+prohibition made to the French Insurance companies of Assurances to
+continue business in Alsace-Lorraine, by which a blow was given to a
+number of agents in their enterprises, and the threat made to the
+Alsatian Society of Mechanical Construction of Grafenstaden to
+countermand the orders from Prussia if the Society refused to dismiss
+a director suspected of French sympathy, are convincing proofs of the
+antagonism of the government. We mention the flagrant injustice with
+which the German interests were always advanced to the detriment of
+Alsace-Lorraine in the distribution of contracts for public works.
+But, if Alsace-Lorraine in general could prosper economically,
+notwithstanding a detestable policy, hated by its population, in what
+way, we ask ourselves, could that prosperity be compromised by the
+return of Alsace-Lorraine to France? Above all, as France is a
+Republic, a form of government which was welcomed with joy by the
+people September 4, 1870, and which answers in the best manner to
+their time-honoured worldly aspirations. The loss of the market which
+Alsace-Lorraine has made for herself in Germany will find a rapid
+offset in the reopening of its business relations with France.
+
+Certain great industries, such as the iron mines of Lorraine and those
+of potash in Alsace, would certainly increase. But that is not at all
+the question. We have to do with a great moral issue for transcending
+the material considerations which the German thinks so important and
+which in his mind are all-conclusive. Evidence of this is the
+following quotation from the _Gazette de Voss_ published July, 1917:
+"The act of yielding Alsace would involve giving up valuable beds of
+potash and this would be disastrous to German agriculture of which it
+is an absolutely necessary ingredient." One sees by this kind of
+reasoning the nature of the affection of Germany for Alsace-Lorraine.
+
+
+ALSACE-LORRAINE UNDER GERMAN RULE
+
+1871
+
+It would take volumes to describe in detail the martyrdom of
+Alsace-Lorraine under the domination of Germany. I can enumerate only
+a few of the acts and methods that have characterized German rule. The
+impartial reader will easily conclude that Alsatians are not made to
+live with Germans and that the return of their province to the mother
+country of France is the only possible solution of the Alsatian
+question with justice and equity.
+
+Alsace-Lorraine was given to the German Empire unconditionally. The
+new master could do with the country just as he pleased. If he has not
+divided it between the members of the Confederation it is because it
+was difficult to agree on the division of the spoils, and because also
+Bismarck wished to make a "glacis" which would cement the union of the
+Germans by continually showing them the danger that threatened in the
+west. The only thing the Germans did not think of in deciding the fate
+of Alsace-Lorraine was the interest of the Alsatians themselves.
+Bismarck did not hesitate to acknowledge this and stated in the
+Reichstag to the first deputies who protested: "It is not for your
+interest that we have conquered you, but for the interest of the
+Empire." And the official paper of Strasbourg, the _Strassburger
+Post_, after forty years of German domination, also summarizes the
+attitude of the German Empire towards the Alsatians in this odious
+phrase: _Oderint dum metuant_ (Let them hate, so long as they fear).
+The German Empire, which is composed of twenty-five confederated
+States, made of the annexed territory a "Reichsland," that is to say,
+an undivided joint property. This new political entity received the
+name of Elsass-Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine). German scholars are still
+arguing today over the legal aspect of this decision. It is certain,
+as against the German states which possess equal rights, that
+Alsace-Lorraine is arbitrarily ruled by the Empire without any
+inherent right. Alsace-Lorraine was always treated as a State when it
+was a question of meeting certain obligations (contributions, military
+service, assessments for the expenses of the Empire). The honour was
+even paid of trusting them with the receipt of custom-house dues for
+the account of the Empire on their territory. This brought upon the
+province an unwarranted outlay of more than a million marks a year,
+representing the excess of the customs above the amount refunded to
+the Provinces. Alsace-Lorraine possessed only those "rights" which
+the Empire grudgingly conceded. Whereas Louis XV. accorded to the
+provinces united to France the enjoyment of their ancient privileges,
+the German Empire began by treating the Alsatians less liberally than
+its German subjects. In Germany each state has the constitution it
+wishes for itself, but Alsace-Lorraine has a constitution imposed upon
+it by the Empire, and this can be suspended or suppressed at the
+Imperial will.
+
+The different constitutions that have been granted in the course of
+forty-two years (the latest went into effect in 1912) to the
+Reichsland, which had been ruled by a dictatorship as a legal
+constitution, were alike in this, that the legislative and the
+executive powers were left completely in the hands of the Kaiser and
+the King of Prussia. The Kaiser exercises the power of the state
+(_Staatsgewalt_) for the account of the Empire. There is a Parliament
+(_Landtag_) made up of two Chambers to which the second is given
+universal suffrage, and the first (of which I had the honour of being
+a member, elected by the town of Colmar) composed in a way to assure
+a majority to the Kaiser, who has the right to name as many members as
+the number of those elected and those holding by right. As there are
+members not named for life, and as among those who are so by right and
+by choice there are always a large number who are not independent, the
+Kaiser can never be in the minority in the Senate. But if by any
+chance such a thing should happen, it could have no importance because
+the Kaiser is himself the chief factor in legislation. In order that a
+law for Alsace-Lorraine may come into force, it must have the consent
+of the two Chambers and of the Emperor. Under these conditions it is
+Prussia that rules, and I know that no attempt to pass a law in
+Alsace-Lorraine can be made without first obtaining a favourable
+opinion from the Ministry of Prussia. In order never to be thwarted by
+the passive resistance of the Second Chamber, our constitution, which
+the Germans characterize as democratic, provides that if Parliament
+refuses to vote the budget, the government has the right to incur
+expenditure based on the figures of the preceding budget. The Germans
+have wished to emphasize as a great concession to the claims of
+Alsace-Lorraine the fact that in the last constitution given to
+Reichsland they have been given a voice in the _Bundesrat_ (Federal
+Council). This _Bundesrat_ is composed of the representatives of the
+Chief of the States of the Empire. It is this council that with the
+consent of the Reichstag, which is the representative of the German
+people, gave universal suffrage and that makes the laws for the
+Empire. Now, owing to the importance of territory and number of
+inhabitants, Alsace-Lorraine ought to hold sixth rank among the States
+of the Empire. She has been given three votes in the Council. But, as
+it is the _Staatshalter_ (Vice-King) of Alsace-Lorraine who gives the
+instructions as to how those three votes will be cast, and as the
+Vice-King is an office-holder subject to recall by the Emperor who is
+the King of Prussia, there is no danger that those votes will ever
+operate against Prussia. This dependence on Prussia of the votes of
+Alsace-Lorraine has been disingenuously marked by a special provision
+inserted on this occasion in the constitution of the Empire, in which
+it is said that every time a favourable majority vote for Prussia
+cannot be polled in the _Bundesrat_ except with the help of the
+Alsatian vote, those votes will not be counted. Up to this day
+Alsace-Lorraine has never ceased to be governed by a legislation
+outside of the common right. Today even, an act is pending in Berlin
+which provides exceptional measures for the suppression of journals
+printed in French.
+
+All the efforts of the Germans, the special legislation for
+Alsace-Lorraine, the activities of the functionaries, chiefly Germans
+brought from the four corners of the Empire, even the administration
+of justice, have had the tendency to exterminate and replace by the
+_Deutschtum_ (German culture) the spirit and the sentiments of the
+French people.
+
+All this effort and labour were doomed to failure. The Alsatians
+remained faithful to their ideals and to the policy expressed in
+their protest. Of course the form of this protest has changed with the
+current of events. The simple negation which marked the solemn
+protests of Bordeaux in 1871 and of Berlin in 1874 could not after the
+lapse of time, and should not now, determine the conduct of the
+people. The first necessity is to continue to exist, and there were
+finally organized political parties which fought passionately, as
+happens in every country in the world. But towards the Germans the
+real Alsatians were as one man as soon as some particular occasion
+presented itself, to show their aversion to the _Herrenvolk_ (the
+dominant people), as it pleased the Germans to call themselves. The
+demand of self-government for Alsace-Lorraine within the limits of the
+German Empire was only one way of showing the desire to be
+distinguished as much as possible from the Germans. It was the maximum
+that the Alsatians could legally require but the minimum of her real
+claim which always demanded the absolute return to France, the mother
+country.
+
+A very suggestive fact on this subject is that, in the electoral
+struggles between the natives, the different parties did not hesitate
+to mutually reproach each other with the desire to lean on the will or
+the influence of Germany.
+
+The first demonstration against the Germans was the exodus of a part
+of the population. The annual emigration continued until the War of
+1914. Another sign of protest was the considerable number of
+_refractaires_ (defaulting conscripts) who up to that day had annually
+left the country by the hundreds to avoid German military service.
+Their property was seized and they never could return to the country.
+The greater number entered the Foreign Legion to fight for France.
+
+The French language continued to be spoken in the family,
+notwithstanding all the governmental precautions to insure its disuse.
+Families continued to send their children to France to learn French,
+young girls particularly being placed in French boarding schools to
+complete their instruction and education. Up to that time commercial
+books had been published in French; bookkeeping was done in francs,
+even in those houses where the circumstances made it necessary to use
+the German language simultaneously. The condemnation of seditious
+utterances and the wearing of seditious emblems were no longer noticed
+and never ceased. The public has specially marked the case of
+conspicuous persons who have been implicated in prosecutions (the
+Samain brothers, Hausi and Zislin, the caricaturists, the Abbé
+Wétterlie), but alongside of these cases, thousands of obscure
+soldiers of the Alsace-Lorraine cause, victims of their attachment to
+France, have paid their tribute to their country. For shouting "_Vive
+la France!_", for singing of the _Marseillaise_, for showing a
+tri-colour ribbon, innumerable sentences, in some cases running into
+years of imprisonment, have been pronounced. When, in 1887, the
+situation in France, under the influence of the Boulanger movement,
+disclosed the possibility of a conflict at arms with Germany, the
+election of the Reichstag for that year resulted in sending to Berlin
+a protesting deputation, notwithstanding the tremendous governmental
+pressure put upon the electors. That was the signal for increased
+persecutions in Alsace-Lorraine. Student societies, singing classes,
+athletic associations, people suspected of cultivating French
+sympathies, newspapers showing French tendencies, all of these were
+suppressed and the members of the League of Patriots were betrayed and
+condemned for high treason. Bismarck introduced the régime of
+passports to cut off all relations between Alsace-Lorraine and France.
+The _Statthalter_ of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, at that moment
+governor of Alsace-Lorraine, has said in his _Mémoires_ that he had
+the impression that Bismarck wished to drive the population to
+insurrection. This plan fell through, thanks to the wisdom of the
+people who knew how to resist such a provocation. The result was
+simply to strengthen French patriotism. The rising generation which
+had gone through the German schools and German army fooled the German
+statesmen who had counted on them for the assimilation of German
+_Kultur_. On the contrary, these young people were most ardent in
+manifesting their devotion to France. Better prepared for the struggle
+than their elders, knowing the German language perfectly, familiarized
+by their studies with the Teuton dialects, they became most formidable
+adversaries. My comrade in combat, Jacques Preiss, killed during this
+war, a victim of German persecutions, has very well described the
+character and rôle of the youth in a discourse given in the Reichstag
+in 1894. He said: "We young fellows, we are not of the generation of
+1870 whom choice and emigration have deprived of elements which are
+the firmest and most unresisting. If you do not introduce a more
+liberal régime, you will find by experience that this new generation
+is much more energetically opposed to fusion than has been the case
+since 1870."
+
+In fact, not only has Germanization made no progress, but the
+Alsatians become each day more impatient of the German yoke. The two
+populations, the native and immigrant, have never had social
+intercourse. The native societies or clubs have always been closed to
+the immigrant. On the National Fête, July 14th, the Alsatians will
+cross the frontier by tens of thousands to partake communion under the
+religion of their own land and with their brothers of France. They
+return with the tri-colour ribbon in their buttonholes, and this
+creates each year a number of unpleasant incidents. In vain Germany
+wished to change the appearance of things by trying to win the masses,
+by means of a lower chamber elected by general suffrage. We have shown
+the factitious value of this concession, which as a consequence only
+increased opposition. The affair of Grafenstaden, and the trouble at
+Saverne caused by the attempt to cover up the exactions of a young
+lieutenant, brought indignation to a climax. The military authorities
+arrested haphazard the civilian natives and even the German
+immigrants, instituting in the midst of peace, a military dictatorship
+and aroused the irreconcilable antagonism between the German mentality
+and that of Alsace-Lorraine. After some slight attempts of
+independence on the part of the Alsace-Lorraine government and the
+Reichstag _vis-à-vis_ the military, the whole German world fell upon
+the obstinate and hard-headed Alsatians who, according to them, were
+the cause of all the trouble because they refused to admire the beauty
+of the German _Kultur_. The Saverne affair resulted in the dismissal
+of the government of Alsace-Lorraine which had among its officials two
+won-over Alsatians, and the replacing this by a group of Prussians of
+rank.
+
+The Minister of War, General von Falkenhayn, announced to the
+Reichstag: "We want to uproot from the people's mind the feeling that
+has been manifested up to this time and which has provoked the Saverne
+incident." And this feeling is none other than the French democratic,
+republican spirit of the Alsatians, incompatible with Prussian
+militarism.
+
+On the same occasion, Deputy von Calker, unfortunate candidate from
+Strasbourg, but elected in a Prussian district, and an exceptionally
+friendly immigrant, confessed in the following fashion the defeat of
+Germanization in Alsace-Lorraine, shouting aloud in the Reichstag: "I
+cry out in anguish. For sixteen years I have worked to wipe out
+misunderstanding and to reconcile the natives and the immigrants, and
+now we have arrived at the point where we can say, It all again
+amounts to nothing (_Kaput_)." The conservatives very wisely answered
+this undeceived elector that if it was merely the Saverne incident
+that had caused this failure, it was evident that the desired harmony
+had rested on a very slender foundation.
+
+Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg was conscious of the great mistake
+that had been made in annexing Alsace-Lorraine and had a foreboding of
+the coming loss of the Reichsland. He thus expresses himself in a
+letter written June 21, 1903, to Professor Lamprecht at Leipzig: "We
+are a young nation; we have yet perhaps too much naïve faith in force,
+we make too little importance of subtle measures, and we do not
+understand that those who are conquered by force cannot be kept by
+force alone."
+
+The prefect of police at Berlin, von Jagow, declared in January, 1914,
+in relation to the Saverne affair: "The Germans in Alsace are in an
+enemy country." And during this war more than one German general has
+said to his troops at the time of marching into Alsace-Lorraine: "Now
+we will march into the enemy country."
+
+It is easy to imagine what has been the fate of the country since the
+opening of hostilities. It is the reign of terror. In the first place
+persons inscribed on the black list, that is to say, those most
+suspected, have been arrested and imprisoned. Those, who like the
+author, have succeeded in escaping the talons of the Germans, have
+been the objects of prosecution for so-called high treason, liable to
+capital punishment. They have had their property seized and--supreme
+misfortune--they have been declared to have forfeited their German
+nationality. The future only will tell us the fate of those who were
+captured. The suspects not on the list and the families of the
+imprisoned were by thousands deported into Germany. The Council of War
+was in permanent operation. It gave sentences of thousands of years of
+imprisonment with hard labour against Alsatians guilty of the
+slightest anti-German manifestation or for the simplest token of
+sympathy given the French prisoners or the wounded. All classes of
+society fill the prisons. The penalties imposed on persons having
+committed the crime of speaking French have been so numerous that a
+facetious jailor said to a lady, who with tears in her eyes appeared
+at the prison door: "Do not weep, Madam, you will be in good society
+here, for this is the only spot where one still speaks French." The
+summary executions can no longer be counted. Only the crimes committed
+by the Germans in Belgium can surpass the horrors practised in
+Alsace-Lorraine.
+
+The French sentiment showed its greatest strength in the wholesale
+desertion of the Alsatians to take service in the French army; and
+also by the fact that the Alsace-Lorrainers, made prisoners of war by
+the French, have asked to be enrolled in the French army. Many of the
+Alsatians, who had the chance to go to the colonies so as not to run
+the risk of being shot as "traitors" in case of being captured by the
+Germans, have begged to be sent to the front to fight the Germans,
+thus risking their lives twice in the service of France. I think I am
+understating the truth in estimating at 30,000, the number of
+Alsatians who were mobilized in the German forces and who have gone
+over to the ranks of the French army. The latter has always had a
+great attraction for the Alsatian, and whereas the number of Alsatians
+serving as officers in the German army does not amount to a dozen, of
+whom only one is a brigadier-general, the French army has thousands of
+Alsatian officers among whom are hundreds of generals. It is the same
+thing among the civilians. Many office-holders of all grades are of
+Alsatian origin, whereas the Alsatian who has accepted an office or
+looked for any general position in Germany is exceptional. Wherever
+the French troops have been able to penetrate into Alsace-Lorraine,
+they have been received with enthusiasm, and when they were obliged to
+retreat many people followed them into France in order to escape the
+reprisals which were waiting for them.
+
+With the press muzzled and the severe censorship of letters, it will
+be only after the war that we shall have exact knowledge of what
+Alsace-Lorraine has passed through during this dreadful period. But
+what we are certain of at present is that the attitude of the people
+is the same now as in the past. The Alsatians, faithful in their
+devotion to France, await with a patriotic impatience, but with an
+unshaken faith in the victory of their holy cause, their deliverance
+from the German yoke.
+
+Deputy Preiss, already quoted, was able to say to the Reichstag, June
+30, 1896: "The assimilation, the germanization has not taken a single
+step forward.... It is terror that governs and poisons our political
+life. The government does not understand the people and the people do
+not understand the government.... History will say, The German Empire
+was able to conquer Alsace-Lorraine materially, but was not able to
+conquer her morally; she has not known how to win the heart and the
+soul of the people."
+
+Is it not like a paraphrase of the celebrated verse so often sung all
+through the country:
+
+  "Vous n'aurez pas l'Alsace et la Lorraine
+     Et malgré vous nous resterons Français!
+   Vous avez pu germaniser la plaine,
+     Mais notre coeur, vous ne l'aurez jamais!"
+
+  "Alsace-Lorraine ne'er will you own,
+     In spite of you, Frenchmen are we,
+   Others may serve with a curse and a groan,
+     But ever our hearts shall be free!"?
+
+The situation has never changed. This is what one could read a short
+time before the war in a book of Professor Forster's of Munich in a
+study on the failure of German policy in the frontier provinces:
+"Alsace, a country of arch-German origin, forty years after her return
+to Germany, has still to an astonishing degree French sympathies, or
+at least it has no German sympathies. After more than forty years, we
+have not been able to re-Germanize this population."
+
+Let us finish by another German testimony. This is how, from the
+_Matin_, July 18, 1917, the _Kieler Zeitung_ expresses itself on the
+results of the germanization of Alsace-Lorraine: "The wise
+conservatives thought that thanks to the reunion under the established
+rule of the Empire, they could reconcile two provinces different from
+each other, and having in common only an arrogant defiance of the
+ambitions of the Empire."
+
+This confidence was an ignominious mistake. Lorraine bound itself
+solidly and stubbornly to French congenial ideas, vigorously developed
+in her in a large measure by the mother tongue; while, as to Alsace,
+she was like the twig of a German bough strayed away from its ethnic
+tree and rotted to the core by French climate. They can be reclaimed
+neither by benevolence nor by force.
+
+One understands why the German press and the German government are
+interested in the dismemberment of Alsace-Lorraine and their division
+between the Confederated States without thought of taking the opinion
+of the people. Such opinion counts for nothing with the rulers of the
+country, because the sentiments of the people are already well known.
+They are French and for that reason Alsace-Lorraine will, without the
+slightest difficulty, again become French. In an article of the _Revue
+de Paris_, January, 1914 ("The Sentiments of Alsace-Lorraine"), at a
+time when the question seemed to have only a theoretical interest, I
+attempted to make this clear.
+
+That which the author of the article in the _Kieler Zeitung_, in his
+ill-tempered German hatred, calls "rottenness" is, I contend, the
+gentle radiance of the French spirit. It is the bloom of a
+civilization in which the savage adherent of _Kultur_ recognizes a
+lasting antagonist.
+
+Yes, Alsace-Lorraine has suffered under the Prussian rule of Germany.
+This rule has weakened the strength of the country but could not kill
+the spirit of its people. There is but one way in which the two
+provinces can regain their health. They must again be united to
+France, their mother country, their rightful home.
+
+We depend upon America, strong and generous, to help to bring about
+this great result. It is America which will give the decisive aid
+required for the Allies in their great struggle to preserve against
+the barbarous assaults of German militarism, right, justice, and
+civilization.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Alsace-Lorraine, by Daniel Blumenthal
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