YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift of the Publishers ALSACE-LORRAINE UNDER GERMAN RULE ALSACE-LORRAINE UNDER GERMAN RULE BY CHARLES DOWNER HAZEN PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1917 Copyright, 191J BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY Published November, 1917 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Treaty of Frankfort .... 3 II. Alsace-Lorraine before the Treaty of Frankfort 20 III. Why Germany Annexed Alsace-Lorraine . 78 IV. The Victim's Privilege 97 V. Alsace-Lorraine, 1871-1890 .... 108 VI. Alsace-Lorraine, 1890-1911 .... 139 VII. The Constitution of 1911 . . . . 175 VIII. The Saverne Affair 189 LX. Conclusion . 215 Index 237 ALSACE-LORRAINE UNDER GERMAN RULE " Modern Europe cannot allow a people to be seized like a herd of cattle. ..." Protest of Alsace-Lorraine against Annexation to Germany, delivered in the National Assembly at Bordeaux, February 17, 1871. " Citizens, possessed of souls and of intelligence, are not merchandise to be traded and therefore it is not lawful to make them the subject of a contract." Protest of Alsace-Lorraine against Annexation to Germany, delivered in the Reichstag in Berlin, February 18, 1874. " No right exists anywhere to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property." Address of President Wilson to the Senate of the United States, January 22, 1917. CHAPTER I THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT "France renounces, in favor of the German Em pire, all rights and titles to the territories situated east of the frontier designated below. "The German Empire shall possess these terri tories forever, in full sovereignty and ownership." Such was Article i of the Treaty of Frankfort of May io, 1871, which closed the Franco-German war, a treaty which the French Government was compelled to sign and the French National As sembly to ratify under compulsion as peremptory and as complete as any nation has experienced in modern times. That treaty terminated a war which Bismarck, in his autobiography, claims the honor and the glory of having caused, a treaty which he handed as a brilliant and substantial trophy to the new German Empire, proclaimed in the great Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles on January 18, 187 1, an empire therefore less than four months old. This memorable birthday gift was destined to exert a decisive and enduring influence upon the character 4 ALSACE-LORRAINE of the young recipient and to prove a heavy heritage for modern Europe. It was to set an indelible mark upon all subsequent history, covering the face of the earth with its menace, exacting a continuous and increasing tribute of costly sacrifice from mil lions and millions of human beings who have paid it in fear and trembling. There were at the time Frenchmen of high stand ing in the realm of thought and action who urged the Assembly never to sign this fateful document; Gambetta, soul of the national defense, flaming, dynamic embodiment of the resolution of a people at bay, who had accomplished prodigies during the war, but not quite prodigies enough, and who de manded war to the bitter end, believing that that end would be less bitter than the alternative now offered; Louis Blanc who appealed, in vain, for a people's war, for a repetition of the epic of 1793 when the nation rose en masse and threw back the invader, a kind of war which the German General Staff feared above everything, as it later admitted; Edgar Quinet who called the attention of the As sembly to the new frontier as both illogical and dangerous, a veritable dagger pointed at the heart of France; and who correctly prophesied the future, war always latent, immanent in the nature of things, THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 5 ruinous armaments heavier in the long run than any present efforts would be; and who pointed out the shameful dishonor in this buying of peace by the cession of three departments, the abandonment of a part of the nation that the rest might be free. But these were not the voices heard above the tumult of the times. The Assembly of Bordeaux took counsel of an imperative situation. The un paralleled and comprehensive disasters of the war left it no alternative, if it would avoid the complete annihilation of the independence of the country. Swift submission to the demands of an enemy everywhere triumphant seemed to the great ma jority the only method of keeping open the door of the future for the stricken country. Otherwise short shrift would be made of the victim now in the hands of a state it was powerless to repel, and the future con dition of the nation would be worse than the present. Mutilation was preferable to extinction. Believing the dilemma inexorable, and holding that discretion was the truer wisdom, as well as the greater heroism, the Assembly, with a heavy heart, ratified the treaty by a vote of 433 to 98. Thus were ceded to Germany all of Alsace, save Belfort, and a considerable part of Lorraine, in all 1,694 villages, towns and cities, 1,597,538 human 6 ALSACE-LORRAINE beings, 5,600 square miles of territory, a region nearly as large as Connecticut and Rhode Island. The boundary had been traced months before which was now substantially followed. As early as Sep tember, 1870, before the bombardment of Strasburg, before the capitulation of Metz, a map had been published in Berhn which had been prepared by the geographical and statistical division of the General Staff. It was the famous map "with the green border." With slight modification, the green border stood on the maps appended to the Treaty of Frankfort practically as in this initial sketch. During the negotiations of the final terms of peace, the French had pressed intensely for a better bound ary; but their efforts had been in vain. Concessions are made to the strong, not to the weak. Such was the famous transaction — the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany. The result of a war, incorporated in a treaty bearing a definite date and containing an explicit definition of the thing transferred, it was a fait accompli. Thus was projected into European politics a most vexatious problem, the question of Alsace-Lorraine, a ques tion the very existence of which, however, official and popular Germany has steadily denied. Plant ing herself firmly upon Article 1 of the Treaty of THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 7 Frankfort, Germany has stood immovable, and as if impregnable. For her there was henceforth "nothing to discuss" concerning these territories, now cut off from France. For her "the question of Alsace-Lorraine does not exist." In 1892, the Parisian newspaper, Le Figaro, had the futile idea of questioning a number of important Germans about this matter. Here is the reply of the Presi dent of the Reichstag, Herr von Levetzow. "In your letter of the 24th of last January, you were so kind as to honor me with a series of inquiries concerning the possibility of a peaceful solution of the 'question of Alsace-Lorraine.' "All these inquiries are answered by the provir sion of the first article of the peace preliminaries, confirmed by the treaty of May 10, 1871, between France and the German Empire and according to which the regions designated as the territory of Alsace-Lorraine are ceded forever, in complete sovereignty and possession, to the German Empire. " In referring to this clause of the treaty, I have the honor to beg you to accept the expression of my high esteem." On August 16, 1888, in inaugurating a monument in honor of Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, the Emperor, William II, 8 ALSACE-LORRAINE who had just ascended the throne, spoke as follows: "There are those who have shamelessly asserted that my father wished to give back what he and Prince Frederick Charles had together conquered with the sword. We have all known him too well to keep silent for a moment in the face of this insult to his name. He thought, as we think, that none of the conquests of that great period can be aban doned. I believe that we all know that there is only one opinion on that subject, and that we would leave our eighteen army corps dead upon the field of battle rather than yield a single stone of what was won by my father and Prince Frederick Charles." Between that day and this, there has been with Emperor and with people no variableness, neither shadow of turning, upon this subject. Their atti tude has been one of resolute determination, of rigid, uncompromising finality. Yet it does not take two to raise a question, one will suffice. Despite the studied silence of the victors, tempered now and then with a curt and crushing reference to the Treaty of Frankfort, there is a question of Alsace-Lorraine, and there has been one since May io, 1871. This question has dominated the policy of every nation of Europe, including very THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 9 particularly the one for which it "does not exist." Its shadow has covered the world. Repeatedly this unwelcome ghost has appeared while the feast has been proceeding, and has frozen the hearts of the revellers with its terrible, mute protest, its demand for expiation. If, from the German point of view, this question does not exist, why has it been so ardently discussed by those who constantly deny; why, in the lengthy and lengthening bibliography of the subject are there so many German titles? The question was not settled in 187 1, it was merely raised. And there are reasons to believe that it will not be settled until it is settled right. The present age ought not to have to be told the elementary truth that nothing is stable which is unjust. If in doubt, it might re flect upon the present status of the question of Poland, supposed to have been "settled" in 1772, 1793 and 1795. If a treaty gives inalienable and infrangible rights how does it happen that those which France could cite in support of her claims to Alsace and Lorraine, treaties running over two centuries and a half, could be so lightly disregarded? Why should a single treaty alone be definitive? If we refer only to the principal ones we have the following list: io ALSACE-LORRAINE Peace of Cateau-Cambresis, 1559. Peace of Westphalia, 1648. Peace of the Pyrenees, 1659. Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1668. Peace of Nimwegen, 1678. Peace of Ryswick, 1697. Peace of Utrecht, 17 13. Treaty of Vienna, 1738. Treaties of Basel, 1795. Peace of Luneville, 1801. Treaties of 1814 and 1815. Do treaties differ from one another in validity? Is one at liberty to be eclectic in this field and to pick and choose according to one's taste? Even so, one should be reasonably prudent and circum spect and studiously refrain from tearing up one's own title deeds. A war between two nations abro gates all treaties between those two. By declaring war on France in August, 1914, Germany anni hilated the Treaty of Frankfort and shattered that boasted support. At least since then there has been, by action of the beneficiary herself, a question of Alsace-Lorraine. But there has been such a question since 1871.^ The Armed Peace of 1871-1914 and the World War since 1914, are indubitable proofs of its ex- THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT n istence, its virility and its implacability. It has been kept open all these years because it is more than a local question; because it epitomizes in clear and definite fashion the most absorbing preoccupa tion of the modern world, the aspiration fotjibetty, ' for the recognition and establishment of popular rights. The cause of Alsace-Lorraine is the cause of humanity. The Treaty of Frankfort is a turning point, in modern history. Its specific provisions, its under lying doctrine, its import and significance, have had incalculable and most unhappy consequences. That treaty was a sharp and peremptory denial of the modern democratic principle that governments de rive their just powers from the consent of the gov erned, that a people is entitled to be the captain of its own destinies. It was a blunt assertion of the absolute right of physical force in the world, of the good old principle that those shalltake who have the power and those shall keep who can. Against this act, and its primitive philosophy, the people most directly concerned issued a flaming and impotent protest. It was by action of the victims themselves that the question of Alsace-Lorraine was first raised, and with such poignant emphasis that it has ever since haunted the conscience of the world. 12 ALSACE-LORRAINE The Germans asserted that the incident was closed as soon as the Treaty of Frankfort was signed and ratified. The people of Alsace-Lorraine, on the other hand, asserted that that very act created a question, that it ended nothing, that it enthroned wrong in triumph in the world and was therefore a negation of the moral law, that no wrong can create a right. By the sharpness of the challenge, by the passionate, though unavailing, denunciation of the deed, the people of Alsace-Lorraine defined the issue as one of supreme international morality. They thus ren dered a service to humanity in the age-long struggle for justice similar to that rendered in 1914 by the Belgians in their magnificent loyalty to the cause of right. Even before the official beginnings of the negotia tions for the peace between France and Germany, and on February 17, 1871, the deputies in the Na tional Assembly from the menaced departments de clared solemnly in the Assembly "the immutable will of Alsace and Lorraine to remain French terri tory," asserted that France could not agree to or sign the cession of Alsace and Lorraine, that the French people did not have the right to accept such a mutilation, that France might "experience the blows of force, but could not sanction its decrees," THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 13 that Europe could "neither permit nor ratify the abandonment of Alsace and Lorraine," that it could not allow "the seizure of a people as a common herd" nor permit a peace which would be "a legiti mate and permanent provocation to war." The conclusion of this protest was as follows: "Where fore we call our fellow-citizens of France and the governments and peoples of the entire world to witness in advance that we hold to be null and void every act and treaty, vote or plebiscite, which would consent to the abandonment, in favor of the for eigner, of all or of any part of our provinces of Alsace and Lorraine." Two weeks later, on March 1, 187 1, immediately after the ratification of the preliminaries of peace by the National Assembly, the representatives of the sacrificed provinces again solemnly protested against outraged right. This famous protest, whose passion and whose pathos have since moved all right-thinking men for two generations and ought to arrest and fix the attention of the world to-day, should be read in full. "The representatives of Alsace and Lorraine submitted to the Assembly, before peace ne gotiations were begun, a declaration affirming in the most formal way, in the name of the 14 ALSACE-LORRAINE two provinces, their will and their right to remain French. "Handed over, in contempt of all justice and by an odious abuse of force, to the domination of for eigners, we now have a final duty to perform. "We declare once more null and void a compact which disposes of us without our consent. "Henceforth and forever each and every one of us will be completely justified in demanding our rights in whatever way and manner our consciences may approve. "At the moment of leaving the chamber where our dignity no longer permits us to sit, and in spite of the bitterness of our grief, the supreme thought which we find at the bottom of our hearts is a thought of gratitude to those who, for six months, have not ceased to fight in our defense, and our unalterable attachment to France from which we are torn by violence. "We shall follow you with our wishes and we shall await with entire confidence in the future, the re sumption by a regenerated France of the course of her great destiny. "Your brothers of Alsace and Lorraine, now cut off from the common family, will preserve for France, absent from their hearths, a filial affection until the THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 15 day when she shall resume her rightful place there once more." Three years later, on February 18, 1874, Alsace- Lorraine registered another protest, this time in the very capital of the victor, in Berlin. For three years Germany had ruled with an iron hand this country which she pretended to have "liberated," this home of her long-lost "brothers." Scores of thousands of Alsatians and Lorrainers had left their native land and scores of thousands of Germans had entered it. Yet in the very first elections to the Reichstag after the war, Alsace and Lorraine, en titled to fifteen members in the Reichstag, elected fifteen men whose first act after they reached Berlin was to protest formally before the Reichstag against the change of nationality forced upon them by the conqueror. This protest was preceded by a proposition, to wit: "May it please the Reichstag to decide: "That the people of Alsace-Lorraine, incorporated without their consent in the German Empire by the Treaty of Frankfort, be called upon to pronounce themselves upon this incorporation." The protest itself was in the following words: "The people of Alsace-Lorraine, whom we represent in the Reichstag, have entrusted us with a special 16 ALSACE-LORRAINE and very weighty mission, which we wish to dis charge at once. They have charged us with ex pressing to you their thought in regard to the change of nationality which has been violently imposed upon them as a result of your war with France. "Your last war, which ended to the advantage of your nation, gave it incontestably the right to reparation. But Germany has exceeded her right as a civilized nation in forcing conquered France to sacrifice a million and a half of her children. "If, in times remote and comparatively bar barous, the right of conquest has sometimes been transformed into effective right; if, even to-day, it is pardoned when exercised on ignorant and savage peoples, nothing of this sort can be applied to Alsace- Lorraine. It is at the end of the nineteenth cen tury, of a century of light and progress, that Ger many conquers us, and the people whom she has reduced to slavery — for annexation without our consent is for us a veritable moral slavery — this people is one of the best of Europe, perhaps the ,. people which is most devoted to the sentiment of right and justice. "Do you argue that the treaty ceding to you our territory and its inhabitants was concluded regularly and in due form? But reason, no less than the most THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 17 ordinary principles of right, declares that such a treaty cannot be valid. Citizens, possessed of souls and of intelligence, are not merchandise to be traded and therefore it is not lawful to make them the' subject of a contract. Moreover, even admitting — what we do not admit— _that France had the right to cede us, the compact which you cite against us possesses no validity. A contract is only valid when it represents the free will of the contracting parties. Now it was only when the knife was at her throat, that France, bleeding and exhausted, signed the treaty abandoning us. She was not free, she yielded only to force, and our codes of law inform us that violence nullifies any agreements tainted by it. "To give an appearance of legality to the cession of Alsace-Lorraine, the least that you ought to have done would have been to submit that cession to the ratification of the people ceded. "A celebrated jurist, Professor Bluntschli of Heidel berg, in his International Law (p. 285) says; 'In order that a cession of land be valid, the recognition by the people inhabiting the land ceded and in the possession of political rights is necessary. This recognition can never be omitted or suppressed, be cause peoples are not things without rights or wills 1 8 ALSACE-LORRAINE of their own, whose property may be disposed of by others.' "You see, Gentlemen, that we find nothing in the teachings of morality and justice, absolutely noth ing, which can pardon our annexation to your em pire; and in this our reasons are in harmony with our sentiments. Our hearts, are in fact, irresistibly attracted toward our French fatherland. Two cen turies of life and of thought together create, between the members of the same family, a sacred bond wliich no argument and much less any act of violence can destroy. "By choosing us, feeling as we all do, our electors have above everything else desired to affirm their sympathy for their French fatherland and their right to dispose of themselves." Such was the unanimous protest of the fifteen delegates of Alsace-Lorraine to the first Reichstag in which they sat. It was not even listened to with the respect due the vanquished. Laughter, guffaws, and interruptions, which almost prevented the spokesman from being heard, revealed the amount of magnanimity possessed by the members of the Reichstag. Men who do not honor others do not honor themselves. The next day the Frankfurter Zeitung protested against the disgraceful tumult, THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 19 the ironical laughter that had accompanied the reading of the protest. In July, 1917, a Socialist deputy of the Reichstag is reported to have said: "In the eyes of all Socialists what occurred in 187 1 was nothing else than the return of these fundamentally German provinces into the bosom of the great German family. During the entire course of the war, that party to which I belong has considered as a self-evident principle that the total or the partial cession of Alsace-Lorraine was not at all open to discussion. For every Ger man Socialist, the question of Alsace-Lorraine was definitely settled in 187 1." But in 1871 the leaders of the Socialist party, Bebel and Liebknecht, to their everlasting credit, protested against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. They were forthwith put in prison for having main tained their opinion in speeches and in writings. By Germany's insistence upon the cession of Alsace-Lorrame in 1871, and by these repeated pro tests of the people of Alsace-Lorraine against that act, a new and highly disturbing element was intro duced into the history of Europe, nor has it yet been eliminated. CHAPTER II ALSACE-LORRAINE BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT What was this country, now transferred as a war prize, in its essential character, in its fundamental nature? Was it German or was it French? The question has received two answers. The Germans have asserted that it was German, the French that it was French. The opinion of those most inti mately concerned, the people of Alsace and Lorraine themselves, was just as explicit as either of these. They asserted, as we have seen, that they were French and wished to remain French, and that the document that pretended to transfer them was from the start and would forever remain null and void. What light did history throw upon this problem, if it was a problem? It is impossible within the con fines of this volume to recount with any fulness the crowded annals of this people. The story does not easily lend itself to compression, it is so long, so varied, and so involved. Nevertheless, out of its bewildering intricacies, a few features in the slow BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 21 evolution may profitably be noticed. They may serve to indicate with reasonable certitude the in dividuality of these provinces, which was the prod uct of manifold forces, operating, sometimes ob scurely, sometimes clearly, through the course of many centuries. For, that Alsace and Lorraine had personalities of their own is obvious to any frank and serious student, and even a brief analysis of the various strains of experience that entered into the formation of them ought to prove instructive. Who the first inhabitants were of these regions between the river Meuse, the Vosges mountains, and the Rhine, it is idle to inquire. In the dim back ground of European history groups of human beings flit obscurely, appearing and then disappearing, leaving only a few tantalizing and dubious traces of their passage. Ethnology gives us only an elusive guidance through those remote mazes of time. But with the coming of the Romans, we find ourselves on fairly solid ground. Thanks to Julius Caesar, to his victories and his writings, these regions of Europe pass out of the penumbra into the light of authentic history. And Caesar Uved in the first century before Christ. He found there a population that was Celtic, which had, however, even before he appeared upon the 22 ALSACE-LORRAINE scene, experienced the repeated shock of attempted invasion from beyond the Rhine by another branch of the great Aryan race, the Teutonic. Caesar's conquests added Gaul to the Roman Empire and fixed its boundary at the river Rhine. For nearly five centuries the Rhine remained the boundary between Gaul and independent and barbarous Ger- mania. The "Roman Peace" was thus imposed upon what we know to-day as Alsace and Lorraine . It was under such illustrious auspices that these lands made their real debut into history. With this Celtic-Roman population some German elements were mingled, in what proportion it would be im possible to say. Roman colonists, governmental, military, and commercial, brought with them the characteristic elements of Roman civilization. Here, as elsewhere, some of the great routes, over which men still travel, were Roman roads. Agriculture, industry, and commerce felt the vivifying touch of Rome. Roman deities came to compete with older and cruder principalities and powers in the favor of myth-making men. Some they chased away, others they absorbed and transformed. Roman cities were | founded which are still the busy haunts of men, Metz, Toul, Verdun, Strasburg, Saverne. From the third century vines were planted, whose product was BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 23 consumed in the country or sold to the neighboring Germans across the Rhine. Pottery, arms, textiles were exchanged for other things with the various tribes that lived along the river courses. Roman officials, Roman soldiers, Roman inn-keepers and money-changers, Roman mariners, plied their vari ous trades in these lands which were then and have always been considered exceptionally endowed by nature. The population naturally lost all independ ent existence, absorbed in the mighty and universal empire. From the third century onward Chris- \ tianity gradually penetrated these plains and valleys. I From the third century also dated the renewal of attacks from Germany. Rome, in the long run, did not have the necessary strength to defend the fron- ' tiers of Gaul and with the fifth century the boasted ramparts of her power, the Rhine and the Danube, gave way. The Teutonic floods poured in, wave after wave, and the face of Europe was changed. These Teutonic invasions continued intermit tently for several centuries. Southward to the Mediterranean, westward to the Atlantic came tribe after tribe, each seeking a warmer, a more congenial place in the sun. When these torrential incursions of primitive barbarism were over, the face of Europe was profoundly and permanently 24 ALSACE-LORRAINE altered. With the native stocks of western and southern Europe were blended new racial strains. With the creation of a changed population, resulting from the fusion of conquerors and conquered, came also new ideas and customs which transformed, in the domains of politics and society, the older, more orderly, more elaborate and more rational civiliza tion of ancient Rome. The first rough and uncertain outlines of new nations were gradually sketched against a background of moving, restless, obscure masses of human beings wliich had hitherto played no ascertainable historical role but which were now cooperating in strange, blind, stumbling ways in the inauguration of a new phase of history. Out of the chaos and the darkness of this Wandering of the Peoples a new cosmos gradually emerged. From this infiltration of Teutonic racial elements and peculiar Teutonic institutions into an empire of different racial elements and different institutions proceeded in time the turbid, turbulent stream of history which we call that of the Middle Ages, an absorbing and difficult chapter, a few only of whose outstanding features can be considered here. The country between the Vosges and the Rhine, with whose destinies we are particularly concerned, was inundated by these floods. The ancient Roman BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 25 civilization, and probably the incipient Christianity, of Alsace were swept away. The ancient population either fled to the comparatively safe valleys of the Vosges, or was reduced to slavery or serfdom by the conquerors. Alsace relapsed into its former state of primitive barbarism. Long and confused struggles between Allamans and Franks, resulting finally in the victory of the latter, and in the reintroduction of Christianity into this region, resulting, also, in the appearance of new leaders, called dukes and counts, and in the creation of ecclesiastical domains around monasteries and bishoprics, furnished outer evidences of the inner changes in the constitution of society. In time there appeared the imposing figure of Charle magne trying with temporary success to weld all these disparate and centrifugal elements of western and northern Europe into a single state, trying, also, to push its boundaries farther and farther east by driving back the Slavs and other strange breeds of men. Particularly did Charlemagne influence all subsequent history by attempting to renew the Roman Empire whose mighty memories still haunted the minds of men, holding them in thrall to its elusive, indestructible fascination. On Christmas Day in the year 800 and in the church of St. Peter 26 ALSACE-LORRAINE at Rome, Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of Rome by the Pope, an old title now applied to a very different state. I Charlemagne's empire did not last long after his death. The centrifugal forces were too strong for any attempt at European unification to succeed, even when aided by the powerful patronage of the Pope. After a confused period of dislocation and read justment and the practical transfer of the new title to a line of German princes there appeared that shimmering and half phantasmal institution known as the Holy Roman Empire, wliich lived its pe culiar life all through the Middle Ages and down into modern times, until it encountered the wilful personality of Napoleon, who, for reasons of his own, gave it its quietus in 1806. The Holy Roman Empire was far smaller in its range than the empire of Charlemagne had been. It did not include what came to be known as France, a region which had, in the dominant centrifugaUsm of the times, escaped and was threading its own way toward kingdom and toward unity. The Holy Roman Empire was really a German Em pire with indefinite pretensions to the control of Italy, which pretensions it, in the end, could not BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 27 make good. But the reader should not for a moment imagine that this German Empire of the Middle Ages was the father of the German Empire of to-day, and that the latter is the lawful legatee of the former. It may satisfy the historic sense of modern Germans to see in the HohenzoUerns inheritors and incarna- tors of the secular traditions of the Hohenstauffen and the Hapsburgs. Such conceptions can only appear fallacious to the student who is inter ested in seeing the past as it was, and not in complacently burnishing a grandiose and flattering legend. The Holy Roman Empire was a confederation and a confederation lacking in both material and moral unity. Within it were included states of every rank and grade, of every size and shape, of every degree of weakness and of strength. Some of the states were included only in part within the confederation, other parts lying outside its boundaries. It was a marvellous mosaic, but without the cement that holds the pieces of a mosaic in place, a conglomera tion of petty units, appearing, disappearing, ab sorbed or spUtting off, in endless permutations and combinations during the thousand years of its generally diaphanous existence. Nothing about it was static, little about it was impressive. Its lofty 28 ALSACE-LORRAINE and sweeping pretensions were in ironic contrast with its actual power. The map of Germany was a bewildering collection of patches of color. This empire was the product of feudalism and it illus trated better than any other state in Europe the destructive capacity which lay in the feudal prin ciple, the extreme diffusion, dispersion, dilution of power, the ineradicable tendency to break up into endless particles, combining and dissolving, accord ing to the laws of attraction and repulsion, into in numerable centers of fragile and ephemeral life. A glance at the map of this empire at any moment between 800 and 1800 A. d. will show why the Em pire represented only a maximum of pretensions, a minimum of power. It is said that there were at one time over three hundred and fifty states within the Empire, king doms, counties, duchies, margraviates, bishoprics, principalities, and free imperial cities. From the pohtical point of view it was an organism of a low order. Inclusion within its spacious boundaries, ex pulsion from them, had no such significance as have similar changes in a modern centralized state, with a developed, accentuated consciousness of its own, with intimate and compelling ties of patriotic and national feeling. BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 29 Within the loose framework of this empire, then, the feudal principle worked unchecked. It need occasion no surprise that the most feudal country in modern Europe is Germany. Feudal ideas and institutions, feudal principles and forces have, cen tury after century, found in Central Europe their most favorable environment and opportunity. Their effects have proved perdurable. We find feudalism in the other countries of Europe, in England, in France, in Spain. But we also find, what we do not find in the Holy Roman Empire, counteracting forces, seeking ascendancy and ulti mately gaining it. And when they had gained it they stood forth as large and strongly centralized aggregations, as modern states. But this process of concentration did not occur in the Holy Roman German Empire, and largely because the innumer able princes were interested in preventing such a consummation. Their constant effort and ambition was to snatch from the Emperor some element of his power or influence and to add it to themselves. Thus, century after century, the process of nibbling went on and resulted, necessarily, in leaving a fragile shell, which Napoleon found little difficulty in dashing to pieces; outwardly a whited sepulchre, but within full of dead men's bones. The life of the 30 ALSACE-LORRAINE Empire was for many centuries merely a slow and ignoble process of decay. As the princes of Germany were engaged, genera tion after generation, in mining and sapping the Empire, as they were using it as the medieval Romans used the Colosseum, as a quarry whence to filch their building material, as it was exposed to ex ternal attack on the part of foreigners who also had ambitions and could recognize an easy prey when they saw one, it was but natural and inevitable that outside parts should be lopped off, unless some regeneration or reinvigoration should occur, en abling the Empire to withstand the enemies that encompassed it without as well as those that swarmed within. But this regeneration never occurred, and the main reason why medieval Germany did not emerge in the modern period as a centralized and vigorous state, as did England and France and Spain, was because of the cupidity and the hostility of the German princes themselves. An accessory but distinctly secondary reason was the hostile environment in which it found itself. Within the Holy Roman Empire were the regions that we know as Alsace and Lorraine. In the final break-up of the Carolingian monarchy these regions were lost to the kingdom that came to be known as BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 31 France and were drawn and held within the orbit of the German Empire. Not that the terms, Alsace and Lorraine, during those centuries signified at all what they signify to-day. The unity of Alsace, the unity of Lorraine, are of very recent origin. Alsace was at best a geographical expression, not | a designation for a political entity, a state, except I that there was for about a hundred years, in the seventh and eighth centuries, a duchy of Alsace which soon died, leaving no trace but the memory of a name. And not only were Alsace and Lorraine each lacking in ihe political and geographical unity which we associate with those designations to-day, but there was no connection between them. Each region went its own way, so to speak, each had its own history or rather its collection of many local histories. They did not live a common Ufe, they did not follow the same law of evolution. For such diversity of experience the loose fabric of the Empire of which they formed a part was highly conducive, for the reasons which we have examined. Indeed that Empire was but another name for local in dependence, for the self-direction and self-control of hundreds of petty units. Nowhere was the extreme Zersplitterung, as the Germans expressively caU it, so characteristic of the 32 ALSACE-LORRAINE German map as a whole, better exempUfied than in this very region which we caU Alsace. Very numer ous were the states lying there between the Vosges and the Rhine, very numerous the princes who claimed the right to rule or the suzerainity over this or that tiny or considerable parcel of territory. All the subtleties and complexities of the feudal regime were here operative to complete the confusion and disarray. One could not see the wood for the trees. The Hapsburg emperors possessed certain parts as family domains; the reigning princes of Wurtemberg, of the Palatinate, of Baden, of Lorraine, possessed certain parts. There were the ten free imperial cities, the famous' DecapoUs, Haguenau, Lindau, Rosheim, Munster, Colmar, Schlestadt, Wissem- bourg, Obernai, Kayserberg, Turkheim, jealous of their independence yet subject to the overlordship of the Emperor, his Landvogt or Prefect, each really a self-determining bourgeois republic. There were the republics of Strasburg and Mulhouse, the bishop ric of Strasburg, lands dependent upon the bishop of Speyer, seignorial or ecclesiastical principalities galore, the seignory of Ribeaupierre, the barony of Fleckenstein, and many others. The history of Alsace for centuries is the history of innumerable ^struggles and wars between these insignificant prin- BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 33 cipalities, and of wars into which they were drawn in various combinations by neighboring or outside states. Into this difficult chapter of history it is impossible, as it is unnecessary, for us to enter. We need only to grasp the general fact of ceaseless move ment and agitation, of general insecurity, of the wo ful ravages of war with its recurrent devastation. We cannot here immerse ourselves in this tangled jungle of details. Generally neglected by the em perors busy in the east against Slavs, Hungarians, and Turks, lacking protection against others and against themselves, the Alsatians fought their cease less local wars, only rarely drawn into imperial or national currents of activity. At least their ex perience was a school of independence and self- reUance. Lorraine, like Alsace, experienced the dissolving effects of the feudal system, although to a much less extent. The process of dividing and sub-dividing never went as far, and early experienced counter acting elements tending toward concentration. Its history is therefore much more simple. There were the Duchy of Lorraine and the Duchy of Bar, there were the counties, later bishoprics, of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and lesser local entities, though never such a cloud of dust as floated over the river 111. All 34 ALSACE-LORRAINE these states were parts of the Empire but many of them were French in language and customs. Fre quently connected by marriage or by miUtary al- Uances or as feudal vassals with the kings of France, the Dukes of Lorraine fought side by side with the French at Crecy and other conflicts and made com mon cause with Joan of Arc against the English. For century after century the numerous petty states of Alsace and Lorraine continued their inter necine and local wars under the banner of the Em pire. As border states, lying between the rest of the Empire and the compact and increasing mass of the French kingdom, they were exposed to op posite influences and to extra risks. Most of the Alsatians spoke German, the civilization of Alsace was prevailingly German, of Lorraine prevailingly French. Yet even Alsace showed French influences in her medieval literature, although it was written in German, and her best cathedral architects came from France, bringing with them their Gothic art and taste. The connection of Alsace and Lorraine with the Empire was as fragile as their rulers could make it, and have it exist at all. If there was one uniform law or practice in the history of the Holy Roman Empire it was this, that each of the three hundred and more states sought to achieve a maxi- BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 35 mum of independence of the Emperor, and suc ceeded. The Empire took on more and more the character of a name and an idea, losing more and more, as the centuries went by, the character of a nation. France on the other hand, after long trials and tribulations, became a compact and vigorous state, increasingly self-conscious and ambitious. In any rivalry with the Empire, she possessed the manifest advantages of concentration of authority, and of greater prosperity, owing to her greater internal repose, the troublesome feudal elements having been tamed and curbed to an appreciable degree. France used her newly acquired unity and power for pur poses of expansion. The general conditions that prevailed in Germany aided her. But particularly did the new conditions created in the sixteenth century by the Protestant Reformation redound to her advantage. By playing a bold and skillful part in the religious wars which the Reformation precipitated, France added per ceptibly to her stature. In part her annexations of territories which had hitherto been included within the Empire were natural and legitimate, were the payment for services rendered; in part they were the achievements of violence and usurpation. 36 ALSACE-LORRAINE The religious wars, which grew out of the clash of Protestantism and CathoUcism, filled intermit tently more than a century of European history, ending in the famous Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. They left the Empire conspicuously changed. This was particularly evident in the region whose history we are discussing, in Alsatian lands and in Lor raine. The teachings of the Reformers early spread into various parts of Alsace, into Mulhouse, and the region round about, into Munster, particularly into Strasburg which, once having become Protestant, became a place of refuge for many Protestants of France during the periods of their persecution in that country. Religious and pohtical questions be came hopelessly intertwined. German Protestants supported the French Huguenots. Speaking very generally and mindful of numerous exceptions, it became the rule for Protestants in various countries to aid each other. They had a common enemy, the House of Austria, interested in the triumph of CathoUcism, and in the secular might and power of the Hapsburg family, a family which ruled in Austria and in Spain. With this family the House of Bourbon was in evitably, by the compelling force of circumstances. BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 37 bound to clash. Hapsburg possessions surrounded France, in Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium. UntU France had pushed her boundaries back much far ther from Paris than they were, no far-seeing French statesman could consider them secure. The great conflict between Bourbon and Hapsburg lay in the very nature of things. Its vicissitudes were to fiU two centuries and more. Alsace and Lorraine were inevitably involved in the melee. France was Cathohc and her rulers in tended that she should remain Catholic. But for nearly a hundred years she gave toleration to her Protestants, by the Edict of Nantes. And she gave more, not because of religious sympathy, but because of political hatred. The chief enemy of the Protest ants was the Emperor, the House of Hapsburg. The chief enemy of France was also this self-same House. Under the circumstances it was entirely natural that the Protestants of Germany should seek the aid of France against the common enemy, Austria. This coalition of the small Protestant states of Ger many, and of Sweden, Holland, and the Swiss, with France was the outstanding feature of the closing years of the Thirty Years War (1 618-1648). But nearly a century before that France had, in much the same way and by rendering somewhat 38 ALSACE-LORRAINE the same service, begun to push her boundaries farther to the east. By the Treaty of Chambord, signed January, 1552, between Henry II of France and Maurice of Saxony and other Protestant princes of Germany it was agreed that, in return for serv ices to be rendered to the Protestants in their death struggle with Charles V, Emperor of Ger many, the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, officially parts of the Holy Roman Empire, should go to France. The service stipulated was rendered and France received her reward. Charles V made a tremendous effort in 1552 to recover Metz, but faUed. From that time on, Metz, Toul, and Verdun have belonged to France, though that fact was not officiaUy recognized until the signature of the Trea ties of Westphalia in 1648. The chief annexations, however, were gained by France as a result of her participation in the last phase of the Thirty Years War, more than eighty years later. Again her aid was required by the hard-pressed Protestants in their continuing and desperate struggle. With the coming of the Swedes in 1630, they were immensely reinforced and were for a whUe victorious. After the death of Gustavus Adolphus upon the field of battle came the ascen dancy of the French as leaders in the general strug- BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 39 gle against the religious and political absolutism of the Hapsburgs whose purpose was to destroy liberty of conscience throughout the Empire. This was the period of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, of Richelieu and Mazarin. In Alsace the Protestants, in order to defend themselves, appealed to France, inviting Louis XIII to occupy the fortified towns, which was done as early as 1633 and 1634. In 1635, France entered upon a war with the Emperor and the King of Spain and was victorious. The Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648, brought the war to a close and it also introduced France into Alsace by giving her certain rights and possessions. These formed the "compensation" which the French re ceived for the assistance which they had given dur ing thirteen years of war to the enemies of the Em peror of Germany and the King of Spain. The Emperor, by the Treaty of Westphalia, ceded to France, his rights and possessions in Alsace. But what was Alsace? As we have seen, it was not a unit but was a coUection of independent states of different grades, personal and hereditary posses sions of the Hapsburg family, independent free cities, baronies, and seigniories. The Emperor did not own these units but he did possess various rights of suzerainty over them, not as head of the House 40 ALSACE-LORRAINE of Hapsburg, but as Emperor, the feudal overlord. Alsace, to repeat a point which must always be remembered, was not a united province with definite geographical boundaries. The Emperor's rights were of one kind in one part, of other kinds in other parts. It is a gross simplification of the transaction embedded in the Treaty of Westphalia to say that "the Empire ceded Alsace to France." What hap pened was far more complex, much more uncertain. The provisions of that treaty were intentionaUy obscure and in some respects conflicting. What was expUcitly given by one article seemed to be qualified or even contradicted by another article. Floods of ink have been spent in the hopeless at tempt to explain the inexplicable, to elucidate that which defies elucidation. Into this disputatious maze of more than Alexandrian subtlety we cannot enter. No summary treatment would be useful, since it could not be adequate. The Emperor, as head of the House of Hapsburg, ceded his hereditary possessions to France outright. These were mainly in southern Alsace, near Switzer land. This, according to the universal and unques tioned usage of the time, he had a right to do. In this region the title of France was clear, nor has it ever seriously been questioned. But this was only BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 41 a smaU part of what came to be known as the prov ince of Alsace. The Emperor, as head of the House of Hapsburg, also had the right to exercise a sort of superior ad ministration over the Ten Free Cities, which in the course of time had purchased of him the right of depending on him alone, that is, in practice, of being responsible to themselves alone, free from any ob ligations toward any nearer or more meddlesome ruler. This power was personified in the Emperor's representative, the Landvogt, or Prefect. The Emperor also exercised simple feudal su zerainty over the other states, the seigniories, bar onies, ecclesiastical or seigniorial principaUties, which were crowded within the boundaries of what we know as Alsace. Was the Emperor in ceding to France his rights in these two last categories of cases ceding territory or was he ceding only suzerainty and overlordship? France showed in the years after 1648 that she considered she had practicaUy acquired territory as weU as sovereignty. Under the ambitious leader- - ship of Louis XIV, anxious for aggrandizement, she pushed her interpretation of the treaty untU in time she had actuaUy incorporated aU of what we know as Alsace into the French Kingdom. She 42 ALSACE-LORRAINE was not precipitate but she was persistent. The famous "chambers of reunion" namely, certain French courts were ordered by the King of France to determine just what territories were properly included, in accordance with treaty provisions or feudal principles, in the regions now subject to the King. Their decisions were what it was expected , they would be. The claims of the King were de clared incontestable (1677-1680). Thus virtuaUy aU of Alsace was brought directly under the control of France. Only Strasburg re mained outside, a famous old imperial city. By an act of violence and in a time of peace Louis XIV seized Strasburg in September, 1681, and incorpo rated it in France, a deed which created an enor mous sensation in Europe and which it is no purpose of ours to defend. The reader should keep in mind that it was an act no nobler and no more ignoble than innumerable previous acts of other monarchs, or than, in later times, the partition of Poland by Prussia, Austria, and Russia, or than the seizure of Silesia by Prussia or than the seizure of Schleswig- Holstein, Hanover, Frankfort, Hesse-Cassel, by Prussia, or of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany. German monarchs at least are estopped from criticising the ethics of the case, having themselves profited on a BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 43 prodigiously vaster scale from the appUcation of the same methods. Thus by the legitimate results of the Treaties of WestphaUa and by the iUegitimate usurpations of Louis XIV during the thirty-three years subsequent to the signing of that treaty, Alsace had become materially subject in its entirety to France. Mul- house, alone, was not included. This little, in dependent city, an Alsatian enclave, was connected with the Swiss cantons. Not until 1798 was it in- ! corporated in France, when, for economic reasons, it I voluntarily sought union with the greater republic' Meanwhile, the territory which we know as Lor raine had had its own and a different history. Toul, Metz, Verdun, had, as we have seen, been drawn within the French orbit in 1552. The rest became in time an enlarged Duchy of Lorraine, feudal com plications in Lorraine being fewer and less intricate than those in Alsace. This Duchy had early be come practically, through the payment of a fixed sum of money, independent of the Empire — was liber et non incorporalibus. In 1736 it was given to Stanislaus Leszcynski, the dethroned King of Poland, on condition that at his death it should pass to the crown of France. Stanislaus was father-in-law to Louis XV, and his chief pleasure, as monarch ad 44 ALSACE-LORRAINE interim, was to make Nancy, his" capital, resemble Versailles as nearly as he could on a limited income. Under the influence of his taste, which was thor oughly French, Nancy became a spacious and luxurious city. Lorraine was largely French in lan guage, French in its interests and connections, and the administrative system used by Stanislaus in the j government of his peaceful state was French in character. When Stanislaus died in 1766, Lorraine became French. The process of assimilation had already been completed. No pear ever feU to the ground more naturally, more quietly, at its moment of complete maturity. Such then is the varied history of the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine to France, a history running through nearly two centuries and a half, from the acquisition of Metz in 1552 to that of Mulhouse in 1798. Considering the ideas, usages, and prac tices of the times, this history was entirely normal. As compensation for distinct and valuable services rendered, by family inheritance, and by acts of violence and usurpation, France had acquired these famous territories which were destined to an even greater, if more melancholy, fame in our own day. What use did she make of her acquisitions? A BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 45 very wise use, in striking contrast to that made by Germany after 1871. Unlike some modern rulers, the Grand Monarch, whose powers were absolute, did not undertake to overthrow the entire preceding regime, and to GaUicise quickly and by methods more or less violent the daily life and even the men tal outlook of his new subjects. On the contrary, the intention and the practice of the government was to disturb as Uttle and as inconspicuously as possible the usages and traditions of the country. The an cient territorial divisions were respected and Alsace continued to show, as before, a multitude of local sovereignties, lay and ecclesiastical. Only, in the hierarchy, the King of France stood where formerly the Emperor had stood. The old administrative machinery was allowed to continue largely as be fore. The traditions of the land were respected. No attempt was made to force the Alsatians to use the French language. No military service was required of them. The result of this wise policy was to create the felicitous impression among the people concerned, that nothing or almost nothing was changed. Fric tion was thus avoided. Life moved along normally and in the same old grooves. The new regime could strike roots, slowly it is true, but aU the more 46 ALSACE-LORRAINE solidly. No racial opposition was aroused. Changes were effected, but so gradually and so beneficently that only the advantages of the new connection were apparent. The higher administrative system of France, represented by the intendant, was intro duced, but the local administrators were largely the old seigneurs of the numerous divisions which gave to the map of Alsace so bizarre an ap pearance. Those petty feudal sovereigns continued to appoint their baUiffs, who were charged with collecting the taxes, with supervising the viUage officials, with the enforcement of local justice. The result was that the peasant in the Uttle village saw no change in his situation and was unconscious of the fact that he had ceased to be a subject of Ferdinand of Hapsburg and was now a subject of Louis XIV. He saw, in time, that he was being treated some what more justly, for one of the changes that the French gradually introduced was the revision, through a superior royal court, of the unjust or burdensome decisions of the petty seigniorial courts. Also, now that she formed a part of a large and strong state, Alsace was no longer almost continu ously ravaged by wars as she had been. The eight eenth century presented a great contrast to the seventeenth in this respect. The King of France BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 47 could give, and did give, far greater protection to his subjects than the Emperor of Germany had ever given. An increasing prosperity was the natural consequence of this greater security. The hideous devastations of the Thirty Years Wars were rapidly repaired. This golden age did not continue unclouded, but in the main it did continue down to the French Revolution. The demoralization and extravagance of the state during the long and fatal reign of Louis XV had inevitably their unfavorable reaction upon Alsace, as upon the rest of France. During aU this period, however, a natural and healthy process of assimilation went on, unforced. The diffusion of the French language, "the King's lan guage" as it was called, was aided by the constantly increasing number of officials, civil, military, ec clesiastical, sent into the province for various pur poses. The local nobility and many of the bour geoisie saw the advantage of learning it. But for aU internal matters German remained the official language employed by the administrative agents down to 1789. This result of the gradual spread of a knowledge of French was all the more satisfactory, as it was not obtained by political pressure and propaganda. The House of Bourbon, from the 48 ALSACE-LORRAINE Treaty of WestphaUa to the French Revolution, never thought of preventing or hampering the use of German in Alsace, never considered its suppres sion necessary as a means of hastening the assimila tion of the province. The eighteenth century was to witness a sweeping transformation, an extraordinary reinvigoration of the life of this peaceful province. At the beginning of that century Alsatian society presented the same distinctive characteristics it had long presented. It was a specimen of old feudal Germany. A few changes only had occurred. The fleur-de-lis floated over Alsatian towns and fortresses where formerly the double-headed Austrian eagle had been seen. French louis d'or circulated in the haunts of trade. At the end of that century, however, Alsatian so ciety was radicaUy, fundamentaUy, permanently altered, in structure and in spirit, in organization, in ideas, in emotions, in institutions, in political con victions. A movement of ideas, a process of assimUa- tion, a period of incubation, at first slow and almost imperceptible, was, toward the middle of the eight eenth century, hastened by fructifying impulses from without and swept on to complete fruition in the general passion and commotion of the final decade. This smaU section of medieval Germany BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 49 was changed into a highly modern organism, instinct with energy, with an outlook upon life that no more resembled its former outlook than the steam engine resembles the spinning wheel. Alsace and Lorraine were almost UteraUy born again. The first results of the contact of Alsace and Lorraine with France were, as we have seen, longer periods of peace, greater personal security and con sequently greater prosperity, a better administra tion, a larger measure of justice. The more sweep ing changes, just aUuded to, occurred as a result of changes which took place in France itseU. A whole new world of ideas was rapidly and brilliantly expounded by the so-called phUosophers of the eighteenth century. The new spirit expressed by thinkers, poets, and pamphleteers was marvellously contagious and was contagious because it was so optimistic, so bold and fresh and human. This new and passionate phUosophy was highly critical of men's institutions, destructive of their traditions, of their ways of thinking and of feeling. Pointing out unsparingly the abuses of society, the hoary, benumbing restrictions laid upon men by the dead hand of the past, the writers of the eighteenth cen tury urged innumerable changes. The past hung Ughtly upon these reformers. The future was what 5o ALSACE-LORRAINE interested them, a future fairer far, because more rational and more altruistic, than anything that his tory could show. Destructive, constructive, funda- mentaUy sound and partially fanciful, the new phUosophy expressed admirably the longing and the aspiration of a new age toward whose reaUzation it powerfully contributed. The writings of Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau and others stirred the inteUectual world of France and, to a lesser degree, of other countries. This critical spirit of the eighteenth century, this fer ment of a coming revolution, filtered into Alsatian society too, into the upper classes first, then into the middle, then even into the lower. Some of the new liberal ideas were eminently of a character to ap peal to the peasantry, to the masses, if they should hear of them. Thus what had been lacking at first in the contact of France and her new provinces, the principle of spiritual cohesion, was being supplied iby this growing community of new ideas, ideas of ireform, political, social, and economic. .*$ When the final crisis of this great century occurred, (when action succeeded thought, when revolution succeeded philosophy, the people of Alsace and Lorraine were among the most eager to salute the new day, with its gospel of liberty, equality, and BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 51 fraternity. The Bourbon monarchy, by its inteUi gent and tactful treatment of them from the mo ment of their annexation, by wisely trusting to the knitting of interests and affections that would come with the lapse of time, had performed a useful work and had been rewarded with unmistakable evi dences of contentment and even gratitude. The new regime, which was now to supplant the old, aroused enthusiasm. Alsace had never been represented in a meeting of the States-General, as none had been held since she had been annexed to France. Now, in 1789, she was caUed upon to elect twenty-four represent atives to the assembly which was quickly to be come so memorable, six nobles, six ecclesiastics, and twelve members of the third estate. Among the last was ReubeU who was to play a conspicu ous part in the Revolution and was ultimately to be one of the five Directors who were to consti tute the executive of France. With these elections to the States-General began a far more intimate and pervasive connection with France than Alsace had ever before known. From that time on to 1871, Alsace was not only in body but in soul as truly a part of France as any section of the country. The large majority of her people spoke German, but 52 ALSACE-LORRAINE they thought and fought as Frenchmen, and, in the fervor of their passion, the completeness of their immersion in French politics and wars, it is impossi ble to discover any sense on their part of their being a pecuUar people, or even the most remote indication that they regarded themselves as an alien popula tion, a people in captivity. There was a singular contrast between the external aspect of the country which resembled Germany, and the warm, instinc tive, unquestioning attachment of its inhabitants to France. The peasantry were thoroughly French in feeling, grateful to the monarchy for frequently protecting them from the injustice of their im mediate suzerains. The bourgeoisie profited from the connection with a great and relatively progres sive country. The writers, thinkers, and profes sional classes looked toward Paris as the fountain head of inteUectual life. Alsace, Uke France in general, was a land of the Old Regime. Like France, too, it emerged out of the hot tumult of the times, a land of the New Regime. The struggles, incidents, vicissitudes of this rapid and radical change were the same as in the country as a whole. It was, as everyone knows, not a peaceful and orderly evolution of a new form of society out of an old. It was a violent convulsion, BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 53 a consummg flame, destructive of the established order. By sweeping the ground quite clear, it al lowed the new ideas and principles of the eighteenth century a field for experimentation in the work of construction of a new system of society. This significant and stirring history cannot be summarized, either here or elsewhere. It must be studied in detaU by anyone who wishes to under stand its multifarious phenomena. Suffice it to say that the course of the French Revolution was the same in this corner of France as it was elsewhere. We find the same compUca- tions, the same oppositions of social classes, the same warfare of parties, the same mounting frenzy of internecine conflicts, the same increasing rad- icaUsm and ruthlessness. Alsatian society was torn by the same furious dissensions as was that of Normandy or Provence. This epic conflict, a conflict between the Old Regime and the new as pirations of the nation, was enacted in every sec tion, literaUy in every nook and corner of France. The local life of every province and every hamlet was but a cross-section of the national life as a whole. The partisans of things as they were clashed in angry and finally in fratricidal warfare with the partisans of reform. Their relative strength varied 54 ALSACE-LORRAINE more or less according to the region but the con test and the agitation were everywhere fundamen- taUy identical. To tell the story of the Revolution in Alsace one would be obliged to tell its story in France. Alsace was but a microcosm, France the macrocosm. Influences that radiated from Paris were felt to the farthest confines of the land. In fluences from the provinces converged upon Paris and determined the actions of the central govern ment. This reciprocal interplay of forces went on unceasingly, the impetus increasing with every passing month. Alsace had her municipal revolu tions, her popularly improvised national guards, her war upon the chateaux, her festivals of federa tion, her Jacobin clubs, her revolutionary tribunals, her guiUotine. An immense Phrygian cap was for years to be seen on the top of the spire of the Strasburg Cathedral — symbol of the Revolution, thus visible from afar. In June, 1790, Strasburg celebrated with great enthusiasm the victory over feudaUsm and the Old Regime. The national guards marched to the middle of the bridge which spanned the Rhine, and planted there a tricolor flag bearing the inscription "Here begins the Land of Liberty." The Marseillaise was composed in Strasburg by Rouget de Lisle who happened to BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 55 be residing there, and was first sung at a dinner given by the Revolutionary mayor, Dietrich. In the meetings of the clubs the burning questions of the day were passionately discussed in both the languages of the province — French and Ger man. The unenfranchised of the communes rose against the municipal governments, the Magis trates, the patrician monopolizers of local power, overthrew them, and instaUed themselves. The peasants rose against their overlords, ecclesiastical and lay, destroyed the evidences of their subjection to them, and eagerly bought or seized their lands, when these were confiscated by the state and sold. Thus the peasantry became committed to the new regime by the most evident seU-interest. The decrees of August 4th were hailed with joy by the mass of the Alsatian people, as by the general mass of their countrymen. The citizens of Strasburg, assembled in the public square in March, 1790, drew up a solemn address to the National Assembly which contained this phrase: "To this spot, where our fathers gave themselves regretfully to France, we have come to cement by our oaths our union with her. We have sworn and we swear again to shed even the last drop of our blood to maintain the constitution. If the city of Strasburg has not had 56 ALSACE-LORRAINE the glory of herseU giving the first example to the cities of the realm she wiU at least enjoy that of being, by the energy of the patriotism of her in habitants, one of the most powerful of the bulwarks of French liberty." The reUgious legislation of the French assem- bUes, or rather the legislation affecting the Church, made enthusiastic friends and bitter enemies in Alsace as elsewhere and in many instances those who were friends at first were rendered hostUe as the policy developed. The peasants were glad enough to be freed from the tithes and the feudal dues which they had hitherto had to pay to the ecclesiastical authorities and foundations which were particularly numerous among them. They were glad enough of the opportunity to buy church lands, as were the bourgeoisie also, many of whom now became landowners of importance during this period of extensive transference of real estate. There had existed in Alsace more than a hundred monastic institutions, many of them richly endowed with lands and with other forms of wealth. Those into whose hands they now passed were disinclined to relinquish them. But with the passage by the Constituent Assembly of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy a cross-current set in, and the leaders BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 57 of the counter-revolution now had a handle with which to stir up civU dissension. The Duke de Rohan, the "Necklace Cardinal," the chief ec clesiastical dignitary of Alsace, who had left his palace in Strasburg and withdrawn across the Rhine to Ettenheim in Baden, led the counter-revolution, with genuine ecclesiastical finesse and subtlety. The result was that Alsace became the hotbed of intrigue and of disaffection, which was met by more and more vigorous legislation from Paris. The land was torn by religious convulsions which added their peculiar fury to the already overcharged dis tractions of the time. "Martyr" priests and their supporters consequently felt the full, feU wrath of the politicians who proceeded, under the pressure of the elusive conflict, from one excess to another. Strasburg saw her cathedral turned into a Temple of Reason, a hint that was followed in many other Alsatian towns. A fierce decree of the period of the Terror ordered the destruction of the innumer able statues that clustered over the portals and on the facade of the famous church, a decree only partiaUy carried out, owing to the disobedient con nivance of the local authorities. Thus the internecine struggles went on between revolutionaries and reactionaries, between conserva- 58 ALSACE-LORRAINE tives and radicals, between "aristocrats" and "Jacobins," fanned by every breeze that blew to a scorching, consuming flame. The great Revolutionary Wars, which began in 1792, and which subsequently merged into the Na poleonic wars and did not end tiU Waterloo twenty- three years later, wars which twisted the Revolu tion out of aU resemblance to its early promise and sadly deformed it in every way, grew, in part, out of a problem pecuUar to Alsace, a problem the prod uct of her singular history. Among the numerous feudal fiefs which diversi fied the pohtical map of Alsace before 1789, making it a strange patchwork, were many which belonged to German princes. These princes had sworn fealty to their overlord, the King of France, yet they exercised a power over scores of thousands of Alsa tians which intimately affected their dafly lives. The Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt had very ex tensive possessions in Alsace; the Duke of Wurttem- berg, the Duke of Zweibriicken, the Bishop of Speyer, and others were the immediate sovereigns of larger or smaUer territories. A sixth of the soU of the province thus belonged to foreigners, who, though lieges of the French king, yet sent bailiffs and judges from beyond the Rhine to exact taxes BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 59 and administer justice and to perform other acts of government in these territories. They did this, of course, in the German way,- -and thus, for most practical purposes, a part of France was really ruled from Germany. This fact illustrates one of those confusing, crisscross relationships so characteristic of the feudal system. The proclamation of the principles of 1789, par ticularly that of the equahty of aU Frenchmen before | the law, was a direct chaUenge to this system, and j when the decrees of August 4 were passed there was a general protest of these German princes and they considered that the moment was opportune for them to lay their grievances before the Diet of the German Empire, and to solicit the support of the Emperor, Leopold II, who wiUingly posed as their defender. This difficulty, which did not yield to diplomatic adjustment, was one of the causes of the war which was officially declared AprU 20, 1792. One result of the Revolution was the complete elimination of these German princes, of this foreign influence in Alsace. During the debates in the Constituent Assembly on this contentious matter the great lawyer, Merlin of Douai, declared that from the point of view of the new public law the complaint of the German princes was unjustifiable and un- 60 ALSACE-LORRAINE tenable: "The people of Alsace have united them selves with the people of France because they have wished to; it is their wiU alone, and not the Treaty of Westphalia, which has legaUzed this union, and, as they have never attached any condition rela tive to these princely fiefs, no indemnity can be claimed." In the end neither the German princes nor the native Alsatian nobles received any com pensation for the privUeges they had long enjoyed, and, also, long abused. Thus was accompUshed a further liberation of the soU. The Franco-German system which appUed to a sixth of the territory of Alsace was irremediably destroyed. In the same year that the Revolutionary Wars began, the Bourbon monarchy was overthrown and the RepubUc was proclaimed. A new and momen tous phase of French history began, from which modern France and modern Europe have never been able to shake themselves permanently free. A new society was developed, Modern France, wliich, de spite various vicissitudes, has gone on developing ever since. With this profound and sweeping trans formation Alsace and Lorraine were intimately associated at every step. In the tremendous and desperate wars, as in the fierce pohtical and social BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 61 struggles within, Alsace participated with all her energy, and all her soul. There was no holding aloof, no separate or individual action. There was the most complete absorption in the activities of the nation as. a whole. Alsatian life did not flow in channels of its own; the local stream merged into the general current that swept France onward to her strange new destinies, and aU sense of a distinct and different personality was utterly dissipated. At the beginning of the Revolution, Alsace was stiU, from many points of view, an alien in the French family. But now the fusion was completed in the immense heat of the boiling furnace which we caU the French Revolution. The Revolution, by meth ods that were sometimes violent, but particularly by the contagious influence of its principles of free dom, by the generosity of its appeal to the instinctive love of Uberty, easily captivated the Alsatian people, who, with aU their traditional attachments to Uberal ideas, born of their long experience of semi-inde pendence within the loose fabric of the Holy Roman Empire, were willing converts to radical republi canism and democracy. Service in the Revolutionary wars completed the process of assimUation. The sons of Alsace and Lorraine flocked into the volunteer armies, 62 ALSACE-LORRAINE and some of them became , famous generals, like KjU£rmann.,and. Kleber. Their achievements and their fame only intensified the fervor of their pa triotic provinces and acted upon their feUow citizens as a powerful incitement to imitation and emula tion. As Rodolphe Reuss, a native of Alsace and her historian has said: "Considered as a whole, the Revolution exerted a profound' and durable influence upon the generations of that day and of the days to come; the impress which Alsace received from this memorable epoch differentiates still, after forty years of annexation, the inhabitants of its cities, big and little, the Alsatian peasants and working- men, from the peasants and the bourgeois across the Rhine. And the reason is that they were liberated by the Revolution from the yoke of monarchical superstition; that they have preserved the memory, more or less definite, the impression more or less keen, but ineffaceable, of that collection of lofty doctrines, of aspirations for brotherhood, of visions of the future which are summarized in the phrases, 'the principles of '89.' Those who breathed that air were never to forget it." The distinguished French historian, Fustel de Coulanges, at one time a professor in the University of Strasburg, where he gave the famous course of BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 63 lectures which were perpetuated in the Cite antique, a remarkable picture of the life of the ancient world, in a letter addressed to Theodore Mommsen in the year 1870, described the situation with undeniable accuracy when he said, "Do you know what made Alsace French? It was not Louis XIV, it was our Revolution of 1789. Since that moment Alsace \ has foUowed aU our destinies, she has Uved our life. • All that we think, she thinks, all that we feel, she feels. She has shared our victories and our defeats, \ our glory and our mistakes, all our joy, and aU our sorrow." The Napoleonic period continued the work of consoUdation and inner fusion. Since the 18th of Brumaire there has been, properly speaking, no history of Alsace. Alsace and Lorraine were swal lowed up, Uke aU the other provinces of old France, in the general history of the country. Napoleon cut short the pohtical education of Alsace and Lor raine and France in democracy and republicanism, putting obedience to a single mind, itself a leveller, in its place. But he continued the work of the Revolution in some respects, in binding more and more closely together aU the peoples of his empire in the coUective work of the nation, and particularly in war; continuing, expanding, intensifying, in this 64 ALSACE-LORRAINE sphere, the activities of the RepubUc. By the Con cordat, Napoleon brought reUgious peace to these essentially reUgious provinces. By his scientific and orderly administrative system, with its pre fects and subprefects, he held the whole population tightly in the mesh of centralized power, and em phasized the might of the state; and by maintain ing the social reforms of the Revolution intact he held the peasantry in the hoUow of his hand. But Napoleon's particular specialty was fighting, and in that long series of glorious and of catastrophic wars, which fiU this dynamic and thriUing period, Alsace and Lorraine took an honorable, whole hearted and distinguished part, showing by act and attitude that they were French in every fibre and to the very marrow of their bones. To talk of these people being Germans because their lan guage was German was sheer and jejune nonsense. By every token a people can give they were com pletely and proudly French. On the Arc de Triomphe in Paris are inscribed the names of twenty-eight Alsatian generals. The careers and characters of these men were the com mon talk of the Alsatian fireside and of the camp. They Ulustrated the democracy of the French army. Every Alsatian soldier knew that, if he had talent, BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 65 he could have a similar career. The door of op portunity was wide open. No privileged noble class monopoUzed officers' positions. No questions were asked about one's origin, only about one's ability and achievement. To these brilUant names every raw recruit knew that he might add his own. If there was a wiU there might be a way. The quaUty of many of these outstanding figures, the glory of their provinces, lay not in their blood, but in their deeds. They were the homely heroes of democracy, speaking the authentic language of the people. Thus, Lefebvre, a popular hero who never blushed for the modesty of his origin, said to a pretentious nobleman, "Don't be so proud of your ancestors; I am an ancestor, myseU." He, the son of a mUler, and his wife, a former servant in a country inn, were no parvenus, inasmuch as they were entirely unaffected by the brilliancy of their new position in life, and maintained unchanged their simple dignity, their native wit, and their picturesque way of talking. Or take this remark of Kleber, a typical Alsatian, direct, plain, often headstrong, who kept his habit of speaking his mind bluntly even to General Bona parte when others lost the habit; "Riches I do not want. A single farthing more, and particularly if 66 ALSACE-LORRAINE acquired in some bad way, would derange the entire system of my happiness and my philosophy." And again, in a letter to the Directory when offered the position of commander-in-chief, Kleber said: "My first counsellor, whose censure I am most afraid of, is the feeling of my own powers, is my conscience. It commands me not to compromise the interests of the Republic by accepting a post beyond my ability." Not only KeUermann and Kleber of Strasburg, not only Lefebvre of Rouffach, not only Rapp, the hero of Austerlitz and Essling, wounded twenty- four times, faithful but frank, blaming the divorce of Josephine, advising against the Russian cam paign, but also many others, Marshal Ney of Saar- louis, Custine and Richepanse of Metz, and General Schramm, who began life as a tender of geese, aU added imperishable lustre to the history of Alsace and Lorraine, their native lands. Count de Segur was quite right when he said in his Memoirs that there were "no better, no more generous, no braver Frenchmen in all France." When this Napoleonic epic was over, when its doom was signed and sealed at Waterloo, the people of Alsace and Lorraine who had contested, though in vain, every inch of their territory with the on- BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 67 coming invader, who had shared in the grandeur of the period, who had fought magnificently for the common cause, were caUed upon to pay the price of defeat. The second Treaty of Paris, of No vember 20, 1815, began the dismemberment of France, and at the expense of Alsace and Lorraine. Alsace lost territory in the north, including the strong fortress of Landau which for four centuries had been one of the ten free cities, the Decapolis. Lorraine lost Saarlouis and the valuable iron mines of the Saar, Prussia thus beginning the process of acquiring French iron deposits which she was to carry much farther in 187 1, and to endeavor to com plete in the war that began in 1914. Prussia demanded aU of Alsace, as did also Ba varia; and also demanded parts of Lorraine. The ' German desire for French territory was very strong in 1814 and 1815, and was expressed in Moritz Arndt's pamphlet on "The Rhine, a German Riverl but not the Boundary of Germany." But the vic-f torious AUies did not accede to these demands, nor to the other demand, voiced by another poet, that the "enchained Alsatians" should be released from the "infernal" yoke to which, it was asserted, they were subject. Alsace and Lorraine were left sub- stantiaUy intact to France, to which they belonged 68 ALSACE-LORRAINE by every desire of their people, by every tie that binds. Even the more inteUigent Germans recog nized the real sentiments of these "brothers." The Kkeinischer Merkur, an important Uberal na- tionaUst paper of that day, admitted that the Al satians had talked, if their country were handed over, of emigrating with their cattle, after having set fire to their viUages, and the editor explained this grim, defiant resolution as owing to the fear the Alsatians had of being enslaved to selfish petty despots, as were the people across the Rhine. The poet Rickert wrote a "Song of Shame" expressing the wrath of the German soldiers at being forced to leave the soU of France: "And you, Alsace, race degermanized, you also mock, O final shame!" To this outburst of German ambition, a Strasburg poet Stoeber rephed, using the native dialect which he loved and saying that whUe his "lyre was Ger man, his sword was French and faithful to the GaUic cock." The Alsatians, he added, were not , hybrids; they were Frenchmen, although interested I in the language, the literature, the achievements of Germany. Stoeber disavowed Napoleon's wars of conquest. "But if it is a question of the wars of the Revolution in wliich we fought for our inde pendence and for the preservation of the impre- BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 69 scriptible rights of man, we are proud of our zeal," he said, and he closed with the eirenic hope that there would be a reconciliation of "the strength of Hermann and the courage of Roland." Many years later a German historian, writing after 1870, admitted that in 181 5 in Alsace and Lor raine there was to be found no trace of the ancient racial feUowship with the German brothers. Three years after Waterloo the people of Alsace and Lorraine knew these brothers better and liked them even less for, from 1815 to 1818, the Allied armies occupied those regions until the last indem nity, exacted by the Treaty of Paris, was paid. The impression they left behind them with the rural and urban population was anything but agreeable. From the faU of Napoleon in 18 15 to the Franco- German war in 1870, Alsace and Lorraine Uved the same life that aU the other parts of France lived, pursuing the comparatively even tenor of their ways, prosperous and contented. Reinvigorated by the extraordinary energies which had been aroused and stimulated by the Revolution, their outlook broadened and deepened by the sweep and might of the Napoleonic era, freed from the last remnants of feudaUsm, and endowed with the new democratic institutions and ideas which survived the overthrow 70 ALSACE-LORRAINE of the Napoleonic regime, imbued with the prin ciples of '89 which they found congenial to their temperament, Alsace and Lorraine engaged,, hence forth, in all the activities of the most modern state of Europe and experienced all the vicissitudes of the reigns of Louis XVIII, Charles X, Louis PhUlipe, of the Second RepubUc and of the Second Empire. In politics they were usually to be found on the liberal side, sympathetic to the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. General Foy, one, of the great -parliamen tary leaders of the Liberals of the period of the Restoration, was so impressed with the democratic tone of Alsatian society that after a voyage through that country in 1821 he exclaimed, "If ever the love of what is great and generous should grow weak in the hearts of the people of old France, her people should cross the Vosges and visit Alsace, there to renew their patriotism and their energy." This liberal spirit was maintained and strength ened in Alsace by the spectacle of crass reaction and of persecution which spread over Germany during the era of Metternich, and particularly after the odious Carlsbad Decrees were put in force, gagging the German people. These persecutions were frequent after 181 5 and resulted in the expul sion or flight from Germany of almost aU the in- BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 71 tellectuajs, journalists^ students, .authors, publishers. A large number of these found a refuge in Strasburg. Polish refugees came too, and enjoyed the same safety and hospitality. Association with the fugi tives" from despotism only confirmed the attach ment of the native population to the freedom that was theirs. In 1840 was inaugurated the monument to Kleber in Strasburg in the square which bears his name. Beneath it lies the body of the great general, the hero of Alsace, and his resting place has been the shrine of patriotic pilgrimages from that day to this. In 1842, occurred the celebrations in honor of Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, the inaugura tion of his statue by David d' Angers, the opening of an exposition of typography, all of which festivi ties moved and stirred the local pride. In 1848, Alsace observed with great enthusiasm the two hundredth anniversary of the annexation to France. On this occasion the Mayor of Strasburg, addressing his compatriots, said: "Surely we no longer need to make a solemn and pubhc profession of our inviolable attachment to France. France does not doubt us, she has confidence in Alsace. But if Germany still cherishes chimerical illusions, if she thinks that the persistence of the German tongue in our country- 72 ALSACE-LORRAINE side and cities is a sign of irresistible sympathy and attraction toward her, let her undeceive herself. Al sace is just as French as Brittany, Flanders, the country of the Basques— and she wishes to re main so." This utterance, Uke many others which might be quoted, was no doubt intended as a reply to numer ous recurrent expressions of German aspiration to "recover" Alsace and Lorraine, which threw an increasing shadow over the future. The funda mental hatred of the Germans for the French flamed up from time to time. But it inspired no serious alarm in Alsace, so firm and natural did her position seem. Moreover, in 1848 it seemed for a time likely that Germany herself might become free and democratic, and that any menace that might exist in the recoUections of the German people would then be dissipated. A free country would respect the freedom of its neighbors. But that chance for the harmony which would come from unity of ideas and principles and feelings was soon dissipated. The great liberal movement of Germany in 1848 was short-lived and triumphant reaction was soon installed in Vienna and Berlin. An odious period of repression and persecution ensued, teaching the new generation the lesson their fathers BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 73 had learned from Metternich and Frederick Wil- Uam III, that Germany was feudal, monarchical, unfree, and that her governing classes intended she should remain so. The evolution of Germany was not to be- conducted by her democrats, but by her aristocrats, who proclaimed, through their authoritative spokesman, Otto von Bismarck, the efficacy and the virility of the good old method of rule by "blood and iron." The rise of Prussia, the easy and momentous victories of 1864 in the Danish War, of 1866 in the war with Austria, and the successful reenthronement of force in the political Ufe of Germany were weU calculated to inspire alarm and apprehension. And nowhere did they inspire more alarm and apprehension than in Alsace. Men who were attentive to the signs of the times observed the ominous growth of an ardent chau vinism beyond the Rhine. This boded nothmg good for the Alsatians and many of them knew it. After 1866, the German menace became dangerous, and when in 1870, the war between Prussia and France broke out, engineered by the cold Machiavellianism of Bismarck, exploiting the folly of Napoleon III, the heart of the Alsatians sank within them, as they were fully alive to the meaning it might have for them. They knew the minute and careful prepara- 74 ALSACE-LORRAINE tion of the enemy, the criminal insouciance of the government of France. But they rose as one man, in a magnificent elan of patriotism, to defend their country and their hearths. The record of the Alsatians and Lorrainers in the Franco-German War, their eagerness to give the last fuU measure of devotion, is a sufficient comment upon the German assertion that they were Germans, brothers in captivity, yearning for release, an assertion for which no shred of proof has ever been given and which flies in the face of evidence that is overwhelming. The Alsatians and Lorrainers fought the invader tooth and nail, reddening their native lands with their life blood in the hope that these might remain the lands of the free as weU as of the brave. Many of the famous battle fields of this calamitous war lay on the soU of Alsace and Lorraine, Wissembourg, Worth, Spicheren, Borny, Mars-la-Tour, and Gravelotte. Crushed by overwhelming forces, the two provinces were nearly conquered. Only Strasburg and Metz held out. Strasburg was completely surrounded on Au gust 1 2th. On the 13th the first shells began to fall. Two days later the real bombardment began and was directed, not against the fortifications, but against the public and private buildings in the heart BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 75 of the city, against women and children. On the 18th a private school was struck, five Uttle girls were kiUed outright, six others frightfully mutilated. The system adopted by the German commander, von Werder, whom the Strasburgers called Morder (assassin), was that of so terrorizing the inhabitants that they would bring irresistible pressure upon the French commander to surrender, a method which we of to-day are in a position to understand. Werder refrained from nothing that might inspire terror. The people took refuge in their ceUars and when their houses caught fire and they emerged in order to try to extinguish the flames they were unable to do so since the enemy made the blazing houses the target of concentrated attack in order to prevent this very thing. On August 24th and 25th, one of the great churches, the Temple Neuf went up in flames; also the art museum, and two public li braries with aU their treasures, including many precious manuscripts invaluable for the history of Strasburg and Alsace. On the 26th the roof of the Cathedral took fire, its tiles of copper melting in bluish flames, whUe projectiles demoUshed much of the wonderful stone carving of the building and broke the windows of stained glass, the glory of the Middle Ages. 76 ALSACE-LORRAINE This policy of terrorization, of more than primal barbarism, did not terrify, but only steeled the resolution of the citizens and fiUed them with an abiding hatred of their enemies. Their commander said in a proclamation to the people whose price less possessions were being blown to pieces or burned to cinders, "Your heroism, at this hour, Ues in patience." The national legislature in Paris passed a resolution, August 31st, to the effect that "Stras burg has deserved weU of the Fatherland." These two utterances were not exaggerations but were rather understatements. The odious work continued, the Palace of Justice, the railroad station, the church attached to the municipal hospital, the theatre, the prefecture and other public buUdings were demoUshed in turn — ruins everywhere. The long agony finaUy drew to a close. On September 27 the white flag was hoisted on the Cathedral and on the 28th an immense con course of citizens witnessed the departure of their defenders into captivity. Cries of Vive la France broke from the sobbing, stricken multitude. Such was the debut of Germany as the ruler of Alsace. The memories aroused by the bombard ment of Strasburg have never been forgotten. Dur ing the siege, three hundred civilians, men, women, BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 77 and children were killed, and more than two thousand wounded. More than 200,000 projectiles had been hurled against the city, over six hundred houses had been burned. Such was the first manifestation of the love of the Germans for their long lost broth ers. What caused the greatest indignation among the people of Strasburg was the fury shown in the destruction of their pubUc buUdings and particularly their cathedral, which was not damaged accidentaUy but intentionaUy, and without mUitary justification. CHAPTER III WHY GERMANY ANNEXED ALSACE- LORRAINE "Let us take, after that we shaU always find lawyers enough to defend our rights," said Frederick the Great, with his customary frankness and cyn icism. Frederick is the greatest national hero of Germany. But in the case of Alsace-Lorraine the procedure followed was not quite that used in the seizure of SUesia. In this instance jurists, professors, editors, statesmen, warriors, even scientists were prolific in finding reasons for the act before it was com mitted, and they have been prolific since, despite the official dictum that since 187 1 there has been nothing to discuss. Let us examine these German apologetics for this famous achievement. Ethnology has been invoked, and that too in no intentional spirit of humor or persiflage. SkuUs found in the gravel deposits of Alsace and Lorraine are of the German type, dolichocephaUc. Con- 78 REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 79 sidering the number of invasions from the east to the west which these regions have experienced in the course of the ages, we must admit the fact. In the resolve to show ourselves true scholars, lovers of a somewhat dubious science, we must also note the fact that in the excavations Celtic reminders, brachycephaUc in character, are also abundantly discovered. All of which proves, we take it, one weU-attested fact of history, that the Germans have frequently emigrated into Alsace, interposing them- / selves among the primitive peoples. In this men suration of skuUs honors are easy, and commingled, and of doubtful pertinence. One reflection occurs to the inquiring mind. If modern states are to be ethnographic unities, if racial lines are to deter mine national boundaries, why should not Germany incorporate Livonia and the city of Riga? Why should not Prussia incorporate HoUand, why should not France annex Belgium, why should not Spain take Portugal? Again, why should there not be two or three Switzerlands, several Russias, a half a dozen Austrias? Why should not Scotland be separated from England? It should be also noted that the Prussians have shown no conspicuous signs of a wiUingness to give up their Polish possessions out of respect for ethnology. Evidently, in their opin- 80 ALSACE-LORRAINE ion, there are limits to the applicability of its saving grace. One thing is certain and that is that if the political map of Europe is to be redrawn along racial lines the world will see some very remarkable changes and will experience several severe shocks. But the Germans have other arrows in their quiver. One is barbed with a linguistic theory. Alsace and Lorraine were retaken, we are told, because their people speak the German language, and because, therefore, their affinity is with Germany. A good many superficial people have been impressed with this argument. It is worth examining. If those who speak a given language are therefore justified in annexing others who speak it, even if the latter do not wish to be annexed, if the boundaries of the state are to extend as far as the boundaries of the language, then, necessarily, per contra, they are to extend no farther, for each language presumably has the same rights as every other. If this standard of measurement is . to be applied to the modern world, we must again be prepared for surprises. For this principle of one language one people, is loaded with dynamite. In France, even within her present boundaries, more than one language is spoken. Are the Bretons, are the Basques, there fore, to be cut off, as Alsace-Lorraine was cut off? REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 81 In Switzerland, three languages are spoken, and indeed even a fourth. Would Germany, therefore, be justified in annexing the larger part of Switzer land, France a smaUer part, even Italy a section? But the national feeling, and the common patriotism of the Swiss are as deep-seated as are those of Ger many, are rooted solidly in the history of several centuries, and the Swiss would, it is entirely safe to say, defend their country, if attacked, as unanimously and as fiercely as the Germans theirs. Swiss history is there to indicate what would assuredly happen if this much trumpeted linguistic theory should prompt aggression from neighbors who speak the languages spoken in the proud and sturdy Alpine state. Again, the people of the United States speak English; nevertheless they were content to separate from England. Would they give enthusiastic sup port to the theory of language, should England at tempt to apply it? But what is sauce for the goose ought to be, also, sauce for the gander. If this hnguistic criterion or norm is to be applied, it must, out of regard for the most elementary logic, be applied consistently. Prussia's devotion to the doctrine leaves something to be desired. The theory we are discussing, would, 82 ALSACE-LORRAINE for instance, hardly justify the annexation to Prussia of several miUion Poles, Slavs in race and language; nor a hundred and fifty thousand Danes in Schleswig who speak the Danish language. Moreover, even in regard to Alsace and Lorraine it is to be observed that the Germans were no slaves of their theory. In a considerable part of annexed Lorraine, French was the language spoken. Metz, the incomparable prize of the war, was as thoroughly French as Paris or Bordeaux. Even in annexed Alsace, there were considerable French speaking districts, in the south west and in the valleys of the Vosges. Manifestly the Germans are highly tempera mental in their reasoning. A principle, which may be apphed in the west, is not therefore necessarily to be applied in the east. Consistency, it has been affirmed, is but the hobgoblin of little minds. Moreover, the rest of Europe would probably not relish the thorough appUcation of the theory of lan guage. Armed with it, Germany could go far; could annex a part of Belgium, that part which speaks Flemish, could annex Holland, two-thirds of Switzer land, and a good large block of Austria right down to the Adriatic. The present generation has surely no reason for regarding such a possibility as fan tastic. This is the fundamental teaching of Pan- REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 83 Germanism whose power in modern Germany is sufficiently attested. Apply the linguistic theory to Russia, apply it to Austria-Hungary and you wiU split those coun tries into probably twenty or more separate units. The theory is a double-edged sword, adapted to cut astonishing capers in the world. But the Germans have still other arguments. In annexing Alsace-Lorraine, in drawing the western boundary as they did, they said that they were but estabUshing the "natural" boundary. In other words, the Vosges, being mountains, are a natural ob stacle of importance, therefore a fit frontier, while the Rhine, being a river, is not one. Concerning this it may be said that the Vosges are not Alps, and that the Rhine has always been and wiU always be a formidable ditch to cross in the face of an enemy controUing the other side. Again, examining the actual line drawn in 1871, we note the same eclec ticism on the part of the Germans. When it suited them they followed the crest of the Vosges; when it did not, they pushed their Une farther west, with satisfaction to themselves but with conspicuous damage to their theory. Again the query naturally arises, as to what the Germans would prefer as a boundary, in case the French should be victorious 84 ALSACE-LORRAINE in the present war. Would they prefer the river Rhine, or the mountains of the Black Forest, which are as high as the Vosges and which are in singular symmetry with the Vosges, lying about as far east of the Rhine as the latter do west of it. It is known to be unpleasant to be hoist with one's own petard. Another argument greatly stressed by the Ger mans as a justification of the annexation of 1871 is the teaching of history. They urged incessantly their "historical rights." Alsace and Lorraine had once been included within the spacious and tenuous boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire. The an nexation of what Louis XIV had torn from the Germany of that day, with the coUusion of German princes who were rewarded according to their desire, was merely "resuming" what was one's own. Al sace and Lorraine, it is perfectly true, had been German lands before they had become French. But as Renan pointed out in 1870 they had been Celtic before that, and before the Celts had been the aborigines, and apes before the aborigines. "With the philosophy of history, as taught in Ger many, nothing is legitimate in the world save the right of the orang-outangs unjustly dispossessed by the perfidy of civilized men." So had Holland, so had Switzerland been parts REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 85 of the Holy Empire, so had Vienna, so had Prague. Was that a reason for "resuming" them, now that a new empire was in existence which was not a con tinuance and heir of the old but was based upon the overthrow of the old with its Hapsburg dynasty wliich had ruled for six centuries in unquestioned right? The appetite grows by that on which it fee ' } and in our own day the Pan-Germanists have risen to these heights of ambition but in 1871 suffi cient unto the day were the ambitions thereof. Those who have read the preceding chapter of this book are in a position to appraise the merits of the his torical argument. The matter is not as simple as it appears in German exegesis. Leaving the shifting sands of explanation of the great act of 187 1, we can easily gain more solid ground. The Germans annexed Alsace and Lorraine because they wanted them. The German "will to power" was not born yesterday or the day before. It has been a force long operating in the minds be yond the Rhine. AU through the nineteenth cen tury we can see it gaining expression and rising to crescendo with the development of mUitaristic Prussia. And German volition in this matter has not at aU recognized the right of Alsace and Lor raine to have an opposite volition. 86 ALSACE-LORRAINE Military reasons were the primary reasons for the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. The boundary was determined largely by the mUitary men. They wished Metz and they took it, because, as Moltke said, it was the equivalent of an army of a hundred thousand men. They took Alsace because it would be, as Bismarck said, an admii'able glacis, a military zone behind which is a fortress, a technical expres sion, signifying much. The Germans wished Alsace-Lorraine also for economic reasons, for their mines of coal and iron. They began the process of acquiring such lands at the expense of France, in 1815, as we have seen. They carried it much farther in 187 1. It is to the frontier of 1871 that Germany is indebted for much of her industrial strength to-day, the basis of her pohtical power and of her vaulting ambition. In 1913, out of 28,607,000 tons of iron ore extracted from German soU, 21,135,000 came from the mines of annexed Lorraine. To the _rapes.£0 815 and 1 8 7 1 , Germany owes much, as she is very well aware. The French, having lost their mines, subsequently dis covered others in the part of Lorraine left to them in 1871, in the valley of the Briey. In 1913, owing to the expansion of her industries, Germany was obUged to import from abroad four- REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 87 teen mUlion tons of iron ore. This is almost the exact amount annuaUy extracted from the mines of Briey, which Germany intends to keep, if she can, as a result of her present adventure in her time- honored profession of war. The Germans, who pride themselves on being realists and not roman ticists in politics knew what they were aiming at in 1870 as in 1914. Their history is of a piece. The reader should not imagine that the war of 1870 and the Treaty of Frankfort were impromptu occurrences, suddenly improvised out of a favoring, unexpected situation. A long period of preparation lay behind those events, as a long period of prepara tion lay behind the outbreak of the present war. The precise moment chosen for the actual beginning of hostUities was in both cases left necessarUy to the conjunction of circumstances. A happy turn in the complex international life of Europe would furnish the opportune moment, the signal for the premeditated assault. There was a fruitful period of preparation of the minds of the German people for the forcible annexation of Alsace-Lorraine long before they were caUed upon by their rulers to ac- compUsh the deed. We have seen how gravely the two provinces were threatened at the time of the overthrow of Na- 88 ALSACE-LORRAINE poleon. The poet Arndt was the flaming spokes man of the passion of revenge, the desire of ag grandizement, which were aroused, particularly in the Prussians, by the bitterness of the Napoleonic wars. In his famous pamphlet "The Rhine, Ger many's River, not Germany's Boundary," Arndt de manded not only the territories which the French had occupied since the Revolution on both banks of that river, but also Alsace, and in addition the banks of the Moselle, the Meuse, and the Sarre. His pamphlet evoked a widespread and eager re sponse and was never forgotten in the decades that foUowed.1 It exerted a durable influence upon the mind of Germany. Other pamphleteers, poets, and journalists started up at this resounding signal, repeating the same demands and even ampUfying them with every variation of emphasis and elo quence, some claiming not only Alsace and Lor raine, but Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Franche- Comte, the "entire heritage of the Hapsburg and the Burgundian," as Arndt expressed it. The ideas and phrases of these writers were taken up by princes and generals. The Grand Duke of Baden declared that he wanted Strasburg, the King of 1 1 have used in this section the evidence gathered by Delahache in his La carte au lisiri vert, pp. 53-66. REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 89 Wurttemberg that he desired all of Alsace, Prussians that they wished Alsace and Lorraine. The Prus sian chauvinism was most aggressively personified in Blucher, Marshal Forward. But the year 1815 passed without the desired dismemberment of France. England, Austria, and Russia, far from sympathizing with these clamorous ambitions, and not wishing to restore Louis XVIII to a discredited and therefore insecure throne, made only the Umited demands for a rectification of the frontier which have already been described. France lost Uttle, at that time, although that little was valuable. German hopes were thus deferred but they were not extinguished. Germans were indignant at the Treaties of Vienna, which cheated them of their intended prey, and they nourished consequently one grievance the more. Whenever in subsequent years the European sky grew dark, the same thunders were heard rumbling round the horizon. Every international crisis aroused the combative spirit and sharpened the acquisitive instinct. Arndt con tinued his fiery appeals and Becker wrote his "Ger man Rhine," which echoed throughout the land. The future emperor William I, then Prince of Prussia, also tried his hand at poetry not thereby greatly 90 ALSACE-LORRAINE enriching the German anthology, as his Pegasus possessed only a limited afflatus, but nevertheless reenforcing from his lofty coign of vantage the general temper of the times. "The Rhine must become Throughout its entire course The possession of the German lands! Fling out your banner! And you, O people of the Vosges And of the forests of Ardennes We wish to deliver you From the yoke of the alien impostor So that some day your chUdren May be Germans And may honor the conquerors Of their fathers ! " In 1841 Moltke, the Marshal that was to be, expounded in a German review the theory of Ger man rights to Alsace and Lorraine, interlarding his exposition with unrestrained threats to France. She should know the power of the German Sword! Year after year it was the same refrain, not uttered discreetly and in hushed tones but with full-throated power, by journalists, professors, students. Any dissonant note was drowned in instant disapproval as for instance when a publicist, named Charles Biedermann, dared to ask if anyone seriously be- REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 91 lieved that Alsace would voluntarily renounce France "which assured her everything that thought ful people elsewhere wished to secure for them selves." In 1846, the King of Wurtemberg said to Bis marck: "We must have Strasburg. The heart of the matter is Strasburg. As long as she is not Ger man, the states of South Germany wiU not be able to share in the political life of Germany." The meetings of learned societies, the relations of student bodies were embittered by this ever-present preoccupation. In 1861, Kirschleger, a well-known botanist and professor at the University of Stras burg, attending a congress of naturalists at Speyer and being told by his fellow scientists that Alsace must be returned to the confederation replied: "You ought at least to ask if we have any desire to return to you. . . . We wish to remain Frenchmen." In 1867, when the Luxemburg affair aroused France and Germany to a dangerous pitch of feeling, the students of the University of Strasburg sent an address to the students of Germany, a part of which ran as foUows: "War we do not wish, national hatreds we do not feel. Without doubt, if war were inevitable, we would not hesitate over the sacrifices we would 92 ALSACE-LORRAINE make for France, but, now, while there is still time we come to offer you our hand and to ask your cooperation in defending in both our countries, the cause of peace and liberty. . . . Unite Germany, but for freedom and progress, and we too will fulfil our task in the same spirit." To this dignified appeal came a freezing blast from the students of Berlin: "Renegades and turncoats are detested by aU men everywhere, and you will form no exception. . . . At a time when the small nations, the Greeks, the Roumanians, the Serbs, the Slavs are awakening from their torpor, and are recalling their nationali ties, you, Alsatians and Lorrainers, you should not remain apathetic. What! you would be willing to renounce your nationaUty! ... to march against Germany, our mother and yours! What! you would be wUling to stab your Alma Mater in the bosom? Quit being bastards, students of Alsace and Lorraine, become again in your hearts real children of the German fatherland. Then we too, when we shall have conquered in the next war, as conquer we shaU without doubt, will press you in fraternal embrace to our breasts. But before then, never! Diximus et salvavimus animam." This stern rebuke of the students of Berlin was REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 93 not the last word in tact but has its obvious im portance as an historical document. Thus the official world, the army, the press, and the school were all cooperating in laying the bases of the future, and in urging the remaking of the map of Europe. There were Pan-Germanists in abundance long before the present. The war of 1914 was not the only one long and steadily pre pared by the leaders of the German people, each in his several way. Even the ninety-three pro fessors who instructed an obscurantist world so authoritatively in 1914 were but reenacting an ancient geste. When in 1870 the war broke out between Germany and France the celebrities of the universities stood embattled, in serried ranks, headed by Theodore Mommsen, the leader of them aU, who published in certain Italian newspapers his letters, "To the People of Italy," in which he an nounced the intention of Germany to annex Alsace and Lorraine. Others intoned the self-same chant, among whom the most conspicuous were William Maurenbrecher, Professor of History in the Uni versity of Konigsberg and Adolph Wagner, Pro fessor of Economics in the University of LeipsiK Wagner, in his pamphlet said, among many other things, that Germany must have Alsace and "Ger- 94 ALSACE-LORRAINE man Lorraine" with Metz, although Metz was "two miles beyond the linguistic frontier." Then after the victory a soUd military establishment must be set up there. " We will not permit the neutraliza tion of Alsace and Lorraine! We have already had quite enough neutraUzations, to our injury. Alsace and Lorraine must be incorporated in a healthy and vigorous state, in Germany, in Prussia, marching at the head of Imperial Germany." And Professor Wagner closed by announcing that "God wiUs it! {DaswalteGott!)" ( S * & M.^_^ « > ^0 What a plagiarist the Germany of our day is may be seen by anyone who cares to dip into this pre- bellum literature of the Bismarckian era. The same hatreds then as now, the same assertions of superiority, the same intimate revelations of the wishes of the Deity; poets, historians, phUosophers, editors, politicians, vying in noble emulation for the hegemony in this campaign of slander and con tempt tinged, it might be pointed out, with envy and with fear. What did they fear? The answer may be briefly given. They feared the French Revolution, the principles of '89, principles which sounded the doom of feudalism, of absolute monarchy, so ardently admired in Germany. The revolutionary nation REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 95 must be put down with its pernicious principles which carry a deadly blight whenever they go and under mine the sacred Ark of the Covenant, the loyalty to monarchs. Such was the prevailing note in the polemics of pre-bellum Germany. As shaped and directed by Bismarck the political evolution of Ger many was intended to be, and was, a chapter in the Counter-Revolution which has been in the proc ess of execution in Europe ever since 1789 and which is now, perhaps, approaching its final pages. One more aspect of this verbal and Uterary cam paign against France, which preceded the military campaign, and the picture is complete. The famous immorality of the French must be denounced, and it was, with zest. A typical remark was that of General Scharnhorst, whose profession in many countries is synonymous with honoring your pos sible enemy, a remark made in 1840 and to the effect that "France represents the principle of immorahty" and that if she is not annihilated, then there is "no longer a God in Heaven." Scharnhorst was only a general but when his ethical and theo logical dicta were confirmed by those who were specialists in these high matters, they appeared to have aU the finaUty that could be expected or de sired. The finishing strokes to this indictment of 96 ALSACE-LORRAINE France which preceded and accompanied the war of 1870 were furnished by the clergy. A single ex ample is sufficient. Pastor Schroeder, Doctor of Theology and Court Preacher in Berlin, declared that the French were "a people gravely stricken with the leprosy of sin," that it had "lost all sense of its better self" because of its lack of "discipline, its immodesty, and impiety." It only remained to be said that "God was now to inflict upon this people the trial by blood and iron" and that this war was "the judgment of God." Consequently, these things were said, by respected and confident ministers of the gospel, by the ghostly monitors of a people whose piety and morality were supposedly above reproach, thoroughly attested as they were by themselves. Such was the background of German national thought and feehng, against which the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine can only properly be en visaged. CHAPTER IV THE VICTIM'S PRIVILEGE By Article I of the Treaty of Frankfort, Alsace and Lorraine were ceded to the German Empire. That the people of the ceded provinces had any rights whatever in the matter was not for a moment admitted by the German government. Their con sent was not requisite to the validity of the transac tion. The idea of aUowing them to vote on the sub ject of separation was dismissed summarily, as soon as suggested. The principle of the plebiscite has never won the esteem of Prussian statesmen. Appeal to it has always been sedulously avoided in the case of Prussian annexations. By Article II of the treaty, the people of Alsace- Lorraine acquired their one privUege. They were to have until October i, 1872, to decide, individually, whether they would preserve their French citizen ship or become German subjects. If they should choose the former they must by that date have ac- tuaUy withdrawn from Alsace or Lorraine and have physically established themselves in France. This was their option. It was made clear that no one 97 98 ALSACE-LORRAINE could opt for France and at the same time remain in Alsace-Lorraine. As the fatal day approached, and indeed all through the spring and summer of 1872, the agitation of the people increased, as they confronted the bitter choice. Many postponed the decision until the final moment and the trains going westward were, during the last few days, crowded with those who had decided to expatriate them selves rather than don the livery of subjection to the hated foreigner. Pathetic and heartbreaking were the signs of distress and sorrow that accom panied this hegira, unprecedented in the enlightened and humane nineteenth century and in the heart of Europe, of a people attached by all the ties of affection and interest to their native and ancestral fields and villages. The public opinion of Europe was profoundly moved by these harrowing scenes. Consider this problem from the point of view of the Alsatians and Lorrainers. Option for France meant emigration, meant leaving behind all that was dear, atl that made life sweet or tolerable. A more poignant dilemma it would be hard to imagine. What was their duty under the conditions in which they found themselves, what ought to be their line of conduct, both for their own interest and the in terest of the country from which they were now THE VICTIM'S PRIVILEGE 99 torn. The problem would have been bewildering and distressing had they had to do with a tactful and considerate conqueror. Instead they faced a conqueror not known for any sympathetic instincts nor for any excessive magnanimity toward the de feated and the powerless, a conqueror hard, deter mined, exultant, and intoxicated with success. An agonizing choice which one needs little imag ination to picture, an individual decision relentlessly imposed upon every member of the community. To quit the land of one's nativity, to leave the place where one belongs and where one's ancestors have Uved from generation to generation, to leave one's profession, or trade, or craft or farm, to break up one's career and launch forth upon an unknown sea, to begin life again and under new surroundings, and with formidable risks at best, these are the con crete and painful consequences of a change in the boundaries of nations, of which we speak so lightly, without vividly appreciating the suffering, the con fusion, the dismay they may impose. The intimate and intricate personal problem came home in all severity and peremptoriness to every individual in Alsace-Lorraine in 1872.1 1 The Subject has been admirably presented in a monograph by Georges Delahache, L'Exode. Also, by the same author, in La carte au lisere vert, pp. 95-125. ioo ALSACE-LORRAINE One of the conspicuous classes immediately af fected was that of the magistrates of the courts. Rich rewards were in store for any judge who would cooperate with the new regime. For the "conver sion" of a person of such dignity and reputation would be regarded as a briUiant stroke by the con queror, worthy of exceptional favors. Whereas if the judge were to opt for France, how could he find the equivalent of what he would lose? AU judicial posi tions in France were filled already by those who needed them now more than ever. And there would be fewer positions than before owing to the decrease of territory. On the other hand, if they remained, these former French judges would be obUged to interpret and decide in such a way as to strengthen and consolidate the new system, to en force and sanction aU the pohce measures the con queror might decree, to speak the language of the victor. To this role of remunerated servility the judges of Alsace-Lorraine could not bring them selves to submit. AU but six of them left for France. Judges were few but school teachers were numer ous. If they remained they were assured larger salaries than they had ever received. If they re jected the favoring winds of fortune what positions THE VICTIM'S PRIVILEGE 101 could they hope to find? On the other hand, if they remained the iron would enter into their souls every day anew. They would have to teach history as the Germans taught it, with an aggressive pa triotism to which all impartiality and all fairness were aUen. They would have to instruct the youth of their provinces that German rule was an unal loyed good; that Charlemagne was a German Em peror and nothing but a German; that Alsace had been insidiously ravished by Louis XIII and Louis XIV; that Frederick II, however, was a great king for having taken Silesia and Poland; that Germany reaUy included Denmark, part of Belgium, part of HoUand, part of Switzerland, not a little of what was left of France. And above aU they would be obliged to teach that the annexation by the Germans of Alsace-Lorraine was not a conquest but a legiti mate recovery of stolen property. In such an in tellectual atmosphere it would be difficult to breathe. Many felt the shame of it, and opted for France. At the end of 1872 only 20 per cent of all the of ficials of Alsace-Lorraine were natives of those provinces. One could run through every class of society from the highest officials to the humblest peasant and workingman and show in detail how a diplomatic 102 ALSACE-LORRAINE document may react disastrously upon every in dividual in his attempt to earn a livelihood. Every human soul had its crisis to confront and to sur mount. A general overthrow, for a whUe, perhaps for long, of the personal existence of every individual, self-interest wrestling with sentiment, emotion with hard necessity. There was added the tangled question of where duty lay. Would not one show a greater loyalty in remain ing in Alsace than in leaving? To leave was to abandon the field to Germanizing immigrants, to re main was to contest every step in the threatened process of Germanization. Which protest would be more effective, to quit the country or to stay and fight it out, trying to preserve the local patrimony, the ancestral heritage of institutions and traditions, against ovemhelming odds? Duty was not clear. Either choice was compounded of bitterness and suffering. Beside the fears or chances of the future, in every home arose the question, and rapidly be came predominant, should the sons become German soldiers as they would be required to become if they remained in Alsace-Lorraine? Then again why desert the country, why not stay and fight for it, in stubborn, passive, resolute ways, against the coming German invasion? THE VICTIM'S PRIVILEGE 103 By the first of October, 1872, nearly 60,000 per sons had departed. Many never saw again the ancestral roof. Many, thus ruthlessly uprooted from aU that men hold most dear paid the ransom of their country in sadness and in long-continued misery, untU death came to end the cruel agony. One hundred and sixty thousand had opted for France but of these the German government an- nuUed 100,000 on the ground that the options had not been accompanied with actual removal. Now and then an entire town or vUlage withdrew. Bisch- wiUer, a town of 11,500 inhabitants, saw nearly haU its population transport itseU en masse to Elbeuf ' in Normandy. The exodus of Alsatians continued year after year, from seven to twelve thousand on an average leaving annually for France. From 1905 to 1910 even, an examination of official statis tics shows that 50,000 Alsatians emigrated from their country. M. Eccard says that the fact of annexation and the subsequent dislike of the German regime caused more than haU a million Alsatians and Lorrainers to leave their homes, and these generaUy were among the most independent and energetic inhabitants. "What the emigration has cost us in population amounts to hundreds of thou sands; in money to biUions; in capacity and intelli- 104 ALSACE-LORRAINE gence, no estimate can be made. The loss is irrep arable.1 " The Germans had proclaimed themselves the "liberators" of their long lost brothers. They had asseverated in every accent and with every em phasis that the children snatched from them by iniquitous Louis XIV were eagerly awaiting the end of their captivity and that great would be their joy when once more they found themselves around the famUy hearth. To be sure no cry had ever gone up from the Alsatians for dehverance. And now came the passionate and unanimous protests, those submitted by the Alsatians and Lorrainers at Bordeaux in 1871 and later in Berlin in 1874. In the presence of such an attitude and in the face of this continuous emigration, born of desperation, it was not possible long to continue the refrain about the release of the much suffering brothers. The Germans, therefore, angry and humiliated at the spectacle, adopted another shibboleth, more appro priate to the situation. "We know better how to govern Alsace than the Alsatians know themselves," said Treitschke, thus giving the new note which was 1 The movement continued for many years, has, indeed, been uninterrupted since 1871. From 1875-1880 about 35,000 emi grated; from 1880-1885 about 60,000; from 1885-1890 about 37,000; from 1890-1895 about 34,000. THE VICTIM'S PRIVILEGE 105 to prevaU from that day to this in the conduct of the Empire toward the unhappy provinces. If the Alsa tians refused to see a benefactor in the German Em pire nevertheless the benefaction should take place. Benefactions can be imposed, even if not joyously welcomed by the selected recipient. The heavy hand, as weU as the light touch, can mould the human clay. Men are plastic and can be made by Prussians into the likeness of Prussians. It may take time and the process may be characterized by annoying fric tion. But time is to be had cheaply by biding it, and the transformation wUl proceed without haste, with out rest. In determining to incorporate the Alsatians by force into the German family and mould them without asking or awaiting their consent Germany was but using a policy which Prussia had often employed. In the presence of the past achieve ments of "blood and iron" no sane person could deny their efficacy. The Germans had appeared in Alsace proclaiming with their customary naivete the superiority of their "culture" and convinced that! it would be immediately recognized. But they soon found their error, and were mortified and indignant. The "conquest" of Alsace must evidently be made without the cooperation of the Alsatians. It would manifestly be a longer task than had been anticipated. 106 ALSACE-LORRAINE Prussia had been made by force and Prussia had made the German Empire by force. In 1866 Han over, Schleswig-Holstein, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau and Frankfort had been annexed forthwith by right of military conquest. No plebiscites had been held, as in Italy at the time of her unification, and as in Savoy and Nice at the time of their annexation to France. " We must make Italy by Uberty, or we must give up trying to make her," Cavour, the architect and buUder of ItaUan unity, had said and had made his deeds conform to his words. Such methods, involving the right of the people to determine their own destinies, were despised and scorned by Bis marck and they played no part whatever in the making of the present German Empire. Force can accompUsh miracles in the future as it has accom plished in the past. Its miraculous quahties were now to be tested in Alsace and Lorraine and would no doubt be equally apparent. There would be manifest advantage too in stamping out in another region of the world the pestUential heresy, born of the impious French Revolution, about the right of the governed. Two centuries of French domination had naturaUy made the Alsatians degenerates. Their ideas must be set right again, their morale raised by severe discipUne. As masters in the art THE VICTIM'S PRIVILEGE 107 of severe discipline, that is, in the art of subjecting the wiUs of mUUons of men to those of a smaU self- constituted minority, the Germans had every right to plume themselves. This was and is, and their rulers intend, ever shaU be their message to the world. Disciplme was therefore now apphed to these degenerates who loved the freedom of France more than the bondage of Prussia. But bondage is the best school of discipline.j CHAPTER V ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 Although the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine was regarded by the Germans, not as a conquest, but as a "recovery" of what was theirs, neverthe less these provinces were treated and have been treated, ever since 1871, as conquered territory and in the approved and standardized Prussian fashion. Arbitrary and dictatorial government, sometimes partiaUy disguised but generaUy open and harsh, has held the victims of the Treaty of Frankfort as in a vise. Asserting with vocal unanimity and with wearisome iteration that the Alsatians were Ger mans through and through, the government with doubtful consistency adopted at the outset and has steadUy followed a poUcy of Germanization, thus confessing the falsity of its assumption. A sufficient comment on the success of this policy was furnished in 1914 when a high official of the Empire declared that Alsace was "the enemy's country." The methods used in this process were in no sense original. They were the traditional ones long in 108 - • ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 109 use in unhappy Europe for the dragooning of re- calcitranlr-peoples: Metternich knew tnem in his day, and Frederick the Great in his. The Prussian mind, the most conservative in Europe, tenacious not open, kept steadily and heavily along in the famUiar groove. No dallying with hazardous ex periments in winning the unwilling such as England had indulged in, to her great advantage, in Canada and elsewhere. For German statesmen every ques tion is a Machtfrage or question of might. As to the efficacy of sheer "power" the history of Alsace- Lorraine since 187 1 has something to say. The Germans have certainly never discovered the song the sirens sang. Legislation_,and administration, barracks and schools, money and menaces, these are the time-honored weapons of attack to which any people, no matter how wUful or stiff-necked, must in tlie end succumb. An attentive and ubiq uitous pohce is a useful monitor to the wayward. The political organization devised by Germany for her conquered territories was based upon the principle that they were to be ruled without their consent. It was at first proposed that they should be divided up among Prussia, Bavaria, and Baden, their neighbors, a partition in the Polish fashion. But this would have aroused the jealousy of the no ALSACE-LORRAINE other German states which had shared in the con quest and wished also to share in the booty. Another proposal was that they should be incorporated in Prussia alone, the sole German state, it was held, capable of digesting so important a prey. For some time the matter was in suspense untU finaUy the idea was adopted that they should constitute an Imperial Territory, a Reichsland, which would be long in common to the twenty-five states which composed the German Empire. But the Reichsland should not be a state, like each of the other twenty- five, sovereign within its sphere, self-governing, but it should be governed, in the name of the Empire, by its head, the King of Prussia. There would be obvious advantages in such an arrangement, ad vantages pointed out by Bismarck in a speech of May 25, 1871. The jealousy of the various states of Germany would not be aroused; it would be easy with such a form of government to avoid granting any pohtical rights whatever to the Alsatians and Lorrainers which would not be possible were they incorporated outright in the neighboring states, the subjects of which possessed certain rights. More over this device would make aU the members of the confederation, big and little, accomplices in the dismemberment of France, and, consequently guard- ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 in ians of the conquests. The cohesive power of public plunder is well known. And, moreover, William I would reaUy be the undisputed master of the Reichs land, not as King of Prussia, it is true, but as Ger man Emperor, which would do as well and would be, for aU practical purposes, quite the same thing. This point settled, the Reichsland was divided into three "presidencies," Upper Alsace, Lower Alsace, and Lorraine and these in turn into "cir cles," of which Upper Alsace was to have six, Lower Alsace eight, Lorraine eight, each circle to be ad ministered by a Director. Over the Reichsland as a whole stood a President- Superior who was subject to the supervision of the Alsace-Lorraine Division of the Chancery in Berlin. But the ChanceUor, who was responsible only to the Emperor, might at any moment change his attitude or policy toward a people which were en tirely unrepresented either in the local government or in the Reichstag or in the Bundesrath. Such was the initial form of government vouch safed by the conqueror to a people of whom Treitschke in a lyrical outburst had prophesied that the day would come when in the remotest viUage of the Vosges the Alsatian peasant would exclaim, "O 1 1 2 ALSACE-LORRAINE the joy and happiness of being a citizen of the Em pire." Treitschke was not keenly sensitive to the differ ence between being a citizen and an abject sub ject, bereft of rights. Servitude of a people who had long been fundamentally democratic could go no farther. In the sixteenth century, under Hapsburg rule, the Alsatians were far freer and more independent than they were at the close of the nineteenth century under the HohenzoUerns. Yet it is one of the boasts of Germans that the present empire is the authentic continuance of the old Holy Roman Empire whose sway was at any rate far more benign, however inefficient it may have been. The Alsatians have been ever since 1 87 1 slaves of another's wUl. The position of the provinces has been peculiar, exceptional. The German Empire is a confederation of independent, self-governing states. But of these states Alsace-Lorraine is not one. She is a sort of undivided property held in common for the other twenty-five and primarily for their advantage. She was not to be the mistress of her own political Ufe. The laws which were to govern her were to be framed by the Bundesrath, an assembly of dele gates appointed by the rulers of the twenty-five ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 113 states and a body in which she was entirely unrepre sented. Moreover, over such laws the Emperor was to have an absolute veto. Every one of the twenty-five possessed autonomy, and was in a posi tion to preserve and accentuate her own personality by individual legislation on matters which came home to her citizens in the course of every day, education, relations of church and state, industry. The individuahty, the distinctive needs or wishes of each component state, thus had a wide sphere for seU-expression and could secure therefore a large measure of contentment for its citizens, could pre serve their self-respect. Not so with Alsace-Lorraine. No sphere of independent legislation was open to her. The Bundesrath and the Emperor held her in absolute tutelage. She was a subject, a subject of the Empire as a whole. Over her hung like a pall the law of December 30, 1871, whose Article 10, the famous Dictatorship Article, established and legalized arbitrary govern ment in its simplest form. "In the case of danger for the pubUc safety, the President-Superior is au thorized to take aU measures which he may con sider necessary to prevent this danger. He is, in particular, authorized to exercise, in the district threatened, the powers conferred upon the mihtary 114 ALSACE-LORRAINE authorities in the case of the state of siege by the law of August 9, 1849." He has the right, in order to execute these measures, to call out aU the troops stationed in Alsace-Lorraine. Article 9 of the law of August 9, 1849, ran as follows: "The mihtary authority has the right to search by day or by night the domicUes of the citizen; to remove old offenders and the individuals whose domiciles are not in the places subjected to the state of siege; to order the surrender of arms and munitions, and to search for them and to seize them; to forbid aU pubUcations and meetings which he considers cal culated to excite or encourage disorder." Thus the chief executive of the Reichsland had the right to grant himseU the power whenever he wished to, and without limitation of time or place, to take "aU measures" he might judge necessary, including the right to expel citizens from the country, even if they were not charged with any crime, and even when domiciled outside the region subject to the state of siege. This law remained in force until June 9, 1902. At any moment it could be invoked to make waste paper of whatever apparent privileges might be granted in the course of the years to the people of the conquered land. The representative of the ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 115 Emperor in Alsace might at any moment suppress any individual whom he judged annoying. As long as that article remained in force, arbitrary, despotic government was the fundamental law of the land, the system that might be in abeyance for long periods of time, but that might be put into force at any instant. A Damocles sword hung over every Alsatian head. This was the dominant feature in the hfe of the Reichsland, which must never be lost sight of, in spite of the fact that, during any given period, its actual exercise might be suspended. Changes of detaU in the system of government of Alsace-Lorraine have been made at various times since 187 1. They have not altered the fundamental fact that the Alsatians are an entirely subject people with no rights whatever which they can caU their own; with no privileges which cannot at any moment be withdrawn or modified by a power outside them selves. On January 1, 1874, the constitution of the Ger man Empire was introduced into Alsace-Lorraine. This brought two changes in the organization of the country. Henceforth, laws specially applicable to it instead of being promulgated by the Emperor, with the consent of the Bundesrath alone, must also have the consent of the Reichstag. And hence- 116 ALSACE-LORRAINE forth Alsace-Lorraine would have the right to send fifteen representatives to the Reichstag, as if she were a state of the Empire. She was to have, unlike the states of the Empire, no representatives in the Bundesrath, far and away the most important political body in the Empire. The first fifteen repre sentatives chosen in conformity with this arrange ment renewed in forceful language the protest of Bordeaux, as we have seen. In 1874, was instituted also the Delegation or Landesauschuss, a sort of local legislature, or rather a simulacrum of a legis lature since it was, in fact, simply a consultative committee which might or might not be asked its opinion of legislation under consideration by the au thorities in Berlin and destined for the Reichsland. More important were the laws of 1879, enact ing the so-caUed Constitution of Alsace-Lorraine (July 4). The President-Superior, whose function had been to transmit business affecting the Reichs land, now gave way to a Statthalter, or Ueutenant- governor, appointed by the Emperor and exercis ing the powers previously vested in the ChanceUor. The Landesauschuss was nearly doubled in size. This was the form of government which existed in Alsace-Lorrame during the next thirty-two years, from 1879 to 191 1. The executive power was vested ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 117 in the Emperor who was to appoint, dismiss, and act through the Statthalter, who, in turn, was assisted by a Secretary of State and by four heads of departments (Interior and Education; Justice and Pubhc Worship; Finance; Commerce, Agri culture and Pubhc Works). The executive was not responsible to the legislature, but was respon sible to the Emperor alone. The Landesauschuss was, henceforth, to consist of fifty-eight members. It was also given the right to propose laws, to initiate legislation. But no more than before was it to be an independent local parliament, enact ing local legislation, like the diets of Bavaria, Baden, and Wurtemberg. No biUs could become law with out the consent of the Bundesrath, that is the princes of Germany, in which body Alsace-Lorraine was to have no vote. By this Constitution of 1879 the government made concessions to the party which demanded self-government for Alsace-Lorraine; but it did not concede seU-government. The Statthalter, it should never be forgotten, could exercise at any moment the power given him by the so-caUed Dictatorship Article. He was responsible to the Emperor alone> Legislation was henceforth normaUy to be enacted by the Bundesrath and the Landesauschuss. But 1 1 8 ALSACE-LORRAINE it might, however, at any moment be made by the Bundesrath and the Reichstag who might disregard entirely the local legislature (the Landesauschuss) and local opinion. It might justly be said of the so- called constitutional history of Alsace-Lorraine that the more it changed the more it was the same thing. Such was the form of government elaborated for Alsace-Lorraine during the first decade of Ger man rule. The constitution of 1879 was destined to remain unaltered for over thirty years. The government offered the Alsatians no guarantees whatever of life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness. As a concession to the spirit of autonomy it was derisory. The despotism of the authorities of Berlin was not even decently veUed but was frank and unabashed. Its essential spirit was expressed by General von Werder when he said: "I hate the Alsatians because they love France." Hertzog, a high official, admitted publicly in 1872 that "the idealism deeply rooted in the soul of the German people had not been able to make its way into the heart of the Alsatians," but asserted that, never theless, its victory was assured. Bismarck, who in the early days of the annexation had professed a lively and sympathetic and probably insincere interest in the Alsatians, irritated by the progress ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 119 of events, blurted out his real feeling in a speech on November 30, 1874, saying that Alsace had I not been annexed because of her beaux yeux, but \ simply and solely because she would furnish an \ exceUent military defense of the Empire, an im portant first line fortification, and that Germany was equally indifferent to Alsatian lamentations and Alsatian wrath. This typically brutal and contemptuous outburst of high Prussian tact and "statesmanship" was, of course, profoundly re sented by aU Alsatians and Lorrainers, and has never been forgotten. It needed no specialist in psy chology to point out that this was not the best way to gain an entrance into the hearts of the peo ple. But such were then and are still considered in Prussia the surest methods of solidly establishing the state. Other Bismarckian gloss on the difficult art of statecraft had already been furnished by the Iron ChanceUor in the session of May 16, 1873, when in reply to an attack by Windhorst, leader of the Center Party, upon the dictatorial policy be ing foUowed by the government in Alsace-Lorraine, he scornfully exclaimed: "We Prussians and North Germans are not famous for knowing how to make friends gracefully and for handling disagreeable questions with courtesy." 120 ALSACE-LORRAINE The actual measures adopted and enforced in the Imperial Territory were in harmony with the spirit of these utterances. The articles of the Treaty of Frankfort were interpreted and executed in the narrowest and severest sense. The actual deter mination of the new boundaries, mUe by mUe, by the engineers appointed for the purpose, was char acterized by much sharp practice and by incessant buUying. The enforcement of the people's right of option was literal and technical to a degree. The recruiting of young Alsatians into the Prussian army, the most agonizing and galling feature of this new situation for the Alsatians whose fathers had just been fighting desperately for France, was begun at the earhest possible moment and rigidly carried out in 1872. Obligatory military service in what the Alsatians could only regard as the enemy's army was a hateful thing, rendered all the more odious by1 "the certain knowledge that the recruits would btrsent^a¥%6nY home for their training, to the p^ovBifeS ^1($J*_pij?russia. Very numerous were €iBs!5'wHV^!^trfe^e from the ignominy by flight. TMfeateEs ^PyMl men took the road to France, letaii^tKel^MfiUiel;1 perhaps forever, and running ^«Wfesg^p¥6perty rather than submit. The army and the schools were intended by the ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 121 authorities to be the chief agencies in the policy of Germanization on which- the-government was bent from the start. Even before Alsace and Lorraine were theirs by treaty the administration had begun to wield the weapon of education. Its first act was to eUminate almost completely the study of French from the curriculum of the schools, at the same time ordaining universal and obligatory attendance and increasing the salaries of the teachers. When the study of French was not entirely suppressed it was relegated to a peculiar place. The curriculum of the school in Mulhouse, as described by a speaker in the Reichstag in 1872, prescribed the teaching "of history in German, of geography in German, of penmanship in French (laughter) of drawing in French (laughter)." .In addition to aU this, the pohce everywhere furnished an additional irritant to the pubhc mind by their petty inquisition and general meddlesome ness. Important members of the community were expelled by summary process. The mayor of Stras burg was removed from his office, the city councU, protesting against this infringement of its rights as it chose the^mayor, was rewarded by dissolu tion, and from 1873 to 1886 Strasburg was at the mercy of one man, Back, appointed acting mayor 122 ALSACE-LORRAINE by the Emperor and exercising all the powers of both mayor and city councU. Thus was autocratic government of the purest type rapidly installed in a country which had never known it, which for centuries under the Holy Roman Empire had enjoyed in its "Ten Free Cities," its republics of Strasburg and Mulhouse, free and antonomous poUtical institutions, a country which had joined joyously in the French Revolution be cause the new French democracy was naturally congenial to the traditional democratic sentiments of the Alsatians. As an Alsatian writer has ex pressed it, "France became wha^; we had been; and what we wished to be we became through her." "The Alsatian," says Lichtenberger, "is tempera mentally repubUcan. He has never been subject to the authority of a national dynasty. . . . What made the French army" "so popular with the Alsa tians was its democratic origin." Now, however, the Alsatians were subjected to a national dynasty with a vengeance, and they seized the first opportunity they had to express their opinion of their fate. In view of aU the cir cumstances which have been passed in review it is no occasion for surprise that the initial act of the first representatives ever sent to the Reichstag was ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 123 the protest of 1874, whose echoes have not yet died away, whose phrases have an almost uncanny ac- tuaUty and appUcabUity to the present moment. Gradually during the next five years the political organization of the annexed provinces was worked out, as already indicated, on the basis of the com plete and absolute supremacy of the Empire, and the so-caUed Constitution of 1879 was the result. Henceforth the Alsatians were to have an assembly, caUed the Delegation, or Landesauschuss, whose opinion on measures concerning Alsace-Lorraine might be asked, if it pleased the authorities to ask it. At least henceforth there would be a representa tive of the Emperor resident in Strasburg, and in a position to understand the wishes and needs of the people and to act as a sympathetic and intelligent mediator between the authorities in Berlin and their Alsatian subjects. There was an opportunity here for a useful role of moderation and concihation. The firs,t Statthalter, under the new regime, Field Marshal von Manteuffel, attempted to carry on the government in just this spirit, not abating in the shghtest degree the pretensions to unUmited power and to exact obedience asserted by his govern ment, but seeking to seduce the Alsatians by tactful conduct and by the blandishments of courtesy and 124 ALSACE-LORRAINE sympathy. His was a pohcy, tf need be, of the iron hand encased in a velvet glove. Manteuffel had had a long and important career. The appointment of a man of his distinction as first Statthalter was supposed to express a subtle flattery to the people whom he came to rule from the im perial palace in Strasburg. Manteuffel had fiUed many offices, military and diplomatic, had com manded the fifteenth army corps in the Franco- German war, and the Army of Occupation in France after that war was over, in the discharge of which function he had had an opportunity to display aU his attractive and ingratiating qualities of mind and manner, his understanding, his moderation, his tact. He had gained the respect of the French under conditions which were unfavorable and ex acting. He now made his solemn entry into Stras burg on October i, 1879, and entered upon a task for which his long experience, his diplomatic dex terity, his conciliatory and kindly nature seemed preeminently to fit him. He was seventy years of age, was somewhat broken by his long and arduous services to the state, and would have preferred a life of repose; but at the personal request of Em peror William I, in whose confidence he was, he undertook the new duty, sincerely anxious to make ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 125 his mission beneficent and honorable. But he was destined to learn that however blessed are the peacemakers in this world, their work is frequently but vanity and vexation of spirit. The first and not the least of his vexations came from his own official family, from the administrators of various grades whose characters illustrated the stiffness and the arrogance of the Prussian bu reaucracy rather than the conciliatory graces, and who worked behind his back against the policy he adopted, seeking surreptitiously and venomously to discredit him in the high quarters of Berlin. The leader of these was Hertzog, the chief minister, a man who had been up to that time the head of the Alsace-Lorraine section of the Chancellery, a typi- caUy rigid and peremptory Prussian official, who quite naturaUy thought the system he had hitherto presided over and shaped in Berlin entirely satis factory, and needing no change; whose personal manners, too, were offensive to the Alsatians. The "Manteuffel Era," as this period of Alsatian history is caUed, lasted six years, from 1879 to 1885. If anyone could have succeeded in the role he had mapped out Manteuffel could have. BeUeving cor rectly that no government is successful for any length of time that does not have the people on its side, Man- 126 ALSACE-LORRAINE teuffel sought first to know those among whom he had come to rule. He traveUed much through the country, trying to impart his ideas to local officials and notabilities, municipal councUors, clergymen, and teachers, to say the happy and healing word to everyone. He told the people of Alsace and Lorraine that he understood and respected their sentiments, that he did not ask for an enthusiastic adhesion to the new order of things, but only a reasoned sub mission to the ineluctable fact. He warned them, however, that he would proceed d outrance against anyone who should conspire with the foreigner. He announced that as the Doge of Venice had solemnly wedded the Adriatic, so he wished to woo Alsace-Lorraine and obtain her hberties for her. For six years Manteuffel tried but tried in vain to win the assent, the affection imphed in his reference to the Doge. In his personal capacity he won gen eral esteem. Accessible to aU, receiving freely even workingmen who came to present their grievances, he exempUfied the fine pohteness of the Old Regime, speaking and writing French on unofficial occasions, greeting acquaintances first when he met them in his soUtary walks about Strasburg, helping some old woman whose vegetable cart had gotten stuck in the mud to get it out, he was a more popular ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 127 figure than his predecessor or than any of his suc cessors were to be. But there was a fundamental incompatibility of temper between the wooer and the wooed which no amount of kindliness and tact could dissipate. "I am bound to respect the sentiments which lie in the nature of things after this country has lived for two centuries in communion with France," Man teuffel said to the Delegation in 1880. But the trouble was this very nature of things. The Alsa tians, grateful for the greater mildness shown them, for the freer atmosphere they were breathing, never theless instinctively and mstantly withdrew within themselves whenever asked to give any evidence of German sentiments. If there was an ineluctable fact, there was also an ineluctable difficulty, a guU which no bridge could span. In his fundamental purpose Manteuffel could not succeed. Moreover, he did not have the sup port of his own officials whose conduct served more or less to nullify and insulate the Statthalter. All through his regency the bureaucrats of Alsace- Lorraine, big and little, carried on an incessant and perfidious campaign in the German press, seeking to undermine him. Harassed by the Germans who criticised his moderation and irritated by the Aisa- 128 ALSACE-LORRAINE tians and Lorrainers whose passive resistance to the one thing that counted revealed the essential su- perficiaUty of the "pacification," moreover com pelled from time to time in the discharge of his ob ligations to the authorities in Berhn to adopt harsh and unpopular measures, such as the suppression of certain newspapers, thus showing, as by Ughtning strokes the essential fragility of their "Uberties," Manteuffel stood insecurely upon treacherous sands. So strong was the opposition to his pohcy in Ger many that he would have been recaUed had it not been that the octogenarian Emperor, WUliam I, did not like to dismiss old friends and advisers. Never theless, in the long run WiUiam I was accustomed to do, not what he liked himseU, but what Bismarck liked, and Bismarck was known to be commenting on Manteuffel's blunders and lack of success. The lack of success was, however, not due to Manteuffel but to Bismarck, whose policy of annexation had made it inevitable. How complete that lack was, was strikingly shown in the elections to the Reich stag in 1881 and 1884. Alsace and Lorraine elected, as in 1874, fifteen "protesters," despite severe of ficial pressure. Manteuffel's programme, the only wise one, could only succeed if assured of length of years for ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 129 its realization. And these were not to be vouch safed the sagacious experiment. The Germans have never shown any faith in benignant processes, in trusting to patience, and the lapse of time to accom- phsh the work of Germanization. Manteuffel's official days were numbered. But he was spared the crowning humiliation of recaU because his earthly days were also numbered. He died on June 17, 1885, and the pohcy for which he stood died with him. His era remains the only attractive one, with aU its defects, in the history of German rule in Alsace-Lorraine. The administration which was to foUow it was to be of an entirely different tone and character, was to be pitched in a different and a very strident key. As the Manteuffel regime had not, in the brief space of six years, reconcUed Alsace to Germany, as the process of comparatively mild Germaniza tion had made no appreciable advance, the German government now resorted to methods with which it was more familiar, and in which it had a more robust faith. Coercion, pure and simple^coercion thorough and undisguised, applied atjevery point considered dangerous and applied withQutJiesitation and without interruption, was henceforth the pro gramme of the government. To preside over the 130 ALSACE-LORRAINE execution of this pohcy a new Statthalter, Prince Chlodwig von Hohenlohe-SchiUingsfurst was ap pointed. A member of the royal family, an uncle of the Empress, a former ambassador in Paris, as cold and reserved as Manteuffel had been cordial and even expansive, a lean man with a yeUow complexion, such was the new viceroy, a .fitting embodiment of the irritation and determination of the German governing class. The period of greatest tension since 187 1 now began and lasted for several years; indeed. aU through this regency, which ended only with the promotion of Hohenlohe to the ChanceUor ship of the Empire in 1 894. It was a period of danger, replete with incidents that set Germany, France, and Alsace-Lorraine on edge. Boulangism, then in the ascendant in France, was seized upon by Bismarck for the classic purpose of bringing about an increase of the army and securing a freer hand for the im perial government by making it less dependent than ever upon parhament. Grossly exaggerating the alleged menace from France, Bismarck demanded ad ditional troops and particularly demanded that the appropriations for the army be voted for a period of seven years, the famous Law of the Septennate. The Reichstag, quite naturally not wishing to aUenate its powers for so long a period, to reduce ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 131 its own importance, none too great at best, rejected the demands of the Iron ChanceUor, January 14, 1887. Bismarck repUed that very day by issuing a decree dissolvmg the Reichstag, and by beginning throughout the Empire one of the most violent pohtical campaigns in its history. By unabashed pressure upon the voters, by the unscrupulous ex ploitation of the "French menace" in order to in spire alarm, he won a crushing victory at the polls and quickly secured the Septennate. The Liberals and SociaUsts were routed and the Reichstag was weakened as a factor in the state, by this important diminution of its powers. MeanwhUe Hohenlohe had tried to use the war scare in Alsace to secure from the voters the election of candidates favorable to the project of the Chan ceUor. He told the Alsatians that, if war came, their province would inevitably be the theater of hostilities and would be fearfuUy harried by the contending armies. (The result of his intervention was quite unexpected. AU the Alsatian deputies op posed to the Septennate were reelected by large ma jorities. Candidates patronized and supported by the Statthalter were decisively defeated. A solid delegation of fifteen " protestataires" was sent to the Reichstag. Of 314,000 registered voters, the "pro- 132 ALSACE-LORRAINE testers" received 247,000 votes, that is 82,000 more than had been cast for them in 1884. So stiff-necked a people needed emphatically to be tamed and tamed it should be. Bismarck went at the congenial task with determination, exceedingly irritated by the overwhelming condemnation of his policy in Alsace at the time it was so overwhelm ingly approved throughout the Empire. Extraor dinary, exceptional measures now rained upon the devoted heads of this independent people. The leading Alsatian minister, Hoffman, considered too mild for the work, was recalled and Puttkammer, a relative of Bismarck, was appointed in his place, and began at once a policy of punishment and re pression. Puttkammer had dechned even to accept his post, that of Secretary of State and President of the Ministry of Alsace-Lorraine until Antoine, deputy from Metz, and whose very name was an entire programme, according to Puttkammer, had been expeUed from the Reichstag. Accordingly the Reichstag expelled him on March 31, 1887, an act entirely pleasing to those who did not care for parliamentary immunities. Against another deputy from Alsace, Lalance of Mulhouse, a decree of ex pulsion was issued, then suspended, then replaced by judicial prosecution and finally by a mere ad- ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 133 ministrative measure, which forced the unwelcome deputy to depart. A vigorous attack was made forthwith on various Alsatian organizations, art clubs, the medical society of Strasburg, botanical and zoological societies. Other organizations which refused to admit the Ger man immigrants to their membership, such as gym nastic and choral and student clubs,, were likewise dissolved by administrative decree. Whatever socie ties escaped annUnlation were subjected to a Dra conian regime, were obUged to submit their statutes to government officials for revision, and aUow their banners and insignia to be examined so that the least French word might be stricken from them. They must also declare their willingness henceforth to admit to their membership the German immi grants. No French sign might be put over a store, no word of French might be used at a funeral, or find a place on a gravestone. A series of incidents also occurred, alarming and calculated to increase the irritation and tension of the times, such as the brutal arrest, on Alsatian soU of Schnaebele, a Erench railway official at Pagny- sur-MoseUe, by his German coUeague of Noveant who had summoned him hither for the transaction of routine business, an incident that for several 134 ALSACE-LORRAINE days caused all Europe to hold its breath (AprU 20, 1887). Later (September 24) a German forest- guard shot and kiUed one Frenchman and wounded another, who were peacefully hunting on French soU, at Vexaincourt, not on German soU. In June, 1887, eight Alsatians were tried before the Supreme Court at Leipfiafor belonging to a League of Patriots and four of them were found guUty and were sentenced. This pohcy of intimidation received its appro- priate coronation in a measure, which, in the opinion of the German government would completely sub due the recalcitrants, a new and drastic regulation prescribing the use of passports^ a measure put into force June 1, 1888. Henceforth certam categories of people were absolutely excluded from Alsace- Lorraine, for instance anyone connected with the French army. Every other person, not a German, who wished to enter Alsace-Lorraine must get a passport viseed at the German embassy in Paris, and it was intended that this passport should be granted only in exceptional cases. The purpose was to erect a Chinese waU between France and the annexed provinces. The theory behind this measure was that the reason why the Alsatians and Lorrainers had not haUed the Germans as deliverers and benefactors was that, though such was their ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 135 inclination, they were terrorized from expressing it, not terrorized by the government to which they were now subject, with its dictatorship, its excep tional laws, its systematic espionage and the de nunciations of its immigrant officials, who daUy maUed their innuendoes and delations to Berlin. The official German doctrine was that it was not the Germans who terrorized German Alsace. It was the French! It was through fear of the cen sure of their friends and relatives who had remained French, it was through fear of French public opmion, that the Alsatians rejected assimilation with the Germans! No sooner was this Byzantine theory conceived by the authorities than it was adopted with en thusiasm by the journahsts of Germany, for whom the ridiculous and the servUe have no terrors. To protect the Alsatians against intimidation by their French relatives, intercourse with persons beyond the frontier was made impossible, by the system of passports. This- measure did not break their spirit, but it did harass them, and at times its cruelty was particularly inhuman as, for instance, when it prevented a son or daughter, resident in France, from going to a dying parent in Alsace- Lorraine. 136 ALSACE-LORRAINE Alsace, then, was as completely isolated from France as she could be. This was the famous "peace of the graveyard" and it continued for many years. As if this were not enough to make Germans loved in Alsace the Prince von Hohenlohe tactfuUy chose the French national hohday, July 14, 1888, as the occasion on which to announce at Mulhouse, that "other measures would foUow designed in a durable way to detach Alsace-Lorraine from France and to attach her to Germany." Even those Alsatians who had shown a tendency to go over to the side of the government were re pelled by these senseless and cruel methods, declar ing that they were well calculated to extinguish any tendencies toward reconciUation. But the system continued, and the death of WiUiam I, the accession of WiUiam II, the faU of Bismarck in 1890 made no difference. The new Chancellor, Caprivi, revealed clearly the purpose of the government when he said, on June 10, 1890, that he was resolved to maintain the system of the passports in order "to deepen the gulf wliich separated France from Germany." Ca privi added the significant confession, "It is a fact that after seventeen years of annexation, the Ger man spirit has made no progress in Alsace." Bismarck, before his fall, had shown his irritation ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1871-1890 137 by talking of suppressing the Delegation and the representation of Alsace-Lorraine in the Reichstag, and of dividing the Reichsland between Prussia, Bavaria, and Baden, trusting these to absorb and destroy aU reminders of a separate individuality and consciousness. There is even ground for be lieving that he favored for an ulterior reason aU the oppressive measures carried out by Hohenlohe. There is a significant passage in the Memoirs of Prince Hohenlohe, under date of May 8, 1888, which throws a flood of light upon the purpose of this pohcy: "Since last spring," writes the Statt halter, "in consequence of the excitement produced by the result of the elections, we have introduced a number of more or less vexatious measures, which have aroused much iU feehng. Prince Bismarck thereupon desired me to introduce the system of compulsory passports against France, which existing legislation aUows me to do upon my own initiative. He informed me that our ambassador at Paris would not be aUowed to vise any pass without previously asking permission, so that infinite delays would arise in consequence. There is no doubt that this measure would not only excite general surprise and excitement, but would also greatly embitter the local population. It seems that Berlin desires to 138 ALSACE-LORRAINE introduce these irritating measures with the object of reducing the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine to despair and driving them to revolt, when it wiU be possible to say that the civil government is useless and that martial law must be proclaimed." This would mean that the civU law would be sus pended, that the summary process of courts-martial would represent the highest justice. In that case, also, the few concessions hitherto made to Alsace- Lorraine could be annuUed. This then was the culmination of twenty years of German rule in the conquered provinces. The pas sage quoted is a sufficient commentary on the states manship displayed by the government which knew better what was good for the people of Alsace- Lorraine than did the people themselves. What the people thought of it, however, was shown in the elections of 1890. Alsace-Lorraine again sent a delegation largely of "protesters" to the Reichstag in Berlin. CHAPTER VI ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 We have traced the history of German rule in Alsace-Lorraine during the first twenty years of its existence. Month after month, year after year, the policy of repression was_ continued with a cold tenacity of purpose. In time it produced an effect. In 1890, four "non-protesters" were elected out of the delegation of fifteen to the Reichstag. The success of these four was due solely to the weariness and discouragement of the voters, and to their hope that if they voted for candidates agreeable to the government, then the government would loosen somewhat the fetters which were stranghng them, would let in a little fresh air where aU were suffo cating. The system of calculated and comprehensive terrorism, however, continued despite this virtual appeal for mercy. There was to be no premature leniency. The people of Alsace-Lorraine must repent and bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Convinced of the efficacy of their method, noticing 139 140 ALSACE-LORRAINE signs of flinching on the part of their victims, the imperial authorities continued the pohcy of torture, moral if not physical. Owing to the operation of the passport regime the Alsatians Uved, as it were, in a demi-vacuum, almost suffocated. Cut off from their friends in France, permitted to receive only those French newspapers which consented to forego all reference to them, their letters opened by an active "Cabinet noir" whose efficiency would have pleased even Metternich in the palmiest days of the European reaction, they saw one tie after another snapped that connected them with France, saw aU fruitful and helpful communication with their true mother-country and with their relatives in France brought to an end. As the years went by a new generation grew up which thus "lost" touch, so vital and so necessary, with France. MeanwhUe the older generation which had known what it was to love France and to fight for her, which had kept the faith during all these years, was rapidly disappearing, gathered to its fathers in the final resting place. The new genera tion had had no other experience than that of Ger man subjects. AU its members had passed through the German schools, its young men had known service in the German army. Could they escape ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 141 the powerful impress of institutions which had played upon them during their formative and crit ical years? The German officials in Alsace, con sidering themselves adepts in the subtle art of the psychology of peoples, reUed confidently, in their reports to Berlin, on just these impalpable but in evitable changes of time. The stars in their courses were fighting for the cause of the HohenzoUerns. Time was on their side, for time brings with it a new understanding, new currents of ideas, new interests, a riper appreciation of reaUties, a juster sense of the possible and the impossible. Gods that at first seem strange and unsympathetic wUl in time come to be worshipped and old idols wiU be discarded when their impotence is manifest to ,aU. Therefore, let the transforming finger of time do its work. Meanwhile, however, let whatever mun dane and specific devices there are for hastening the process be used by a wise government. Vigilance is the price of despotism as it is said to be the price of Uberty. Consequently the German government encouraged and favored any measure that seemed likely to help in the work of dissociating and dis persing the Alsatians into various groups, of break ing up their solidarity, of strengthening new cur- 142 ALSACE-LORRAINE rents of thought which might divide and distract them. Thus Sociahsm, which was imported from Germany by the German workingmen who came in considerable numbers to Strasburg and Mulhouse, Socialism, fought tooth and naU elsewhere by the (government, was here first tolerated by it, and then distinctly aided, when its divisive effect upon ±he jpubUcmind was seen. It would serve as a counter-;' irritant to the local aspirations and might also help to stalemate the liberal bourgeoisie of the cities and the great manufacturers who had supported the policy of protest. Another agency for influencing opinion into gov ernmental channels was seen in the upper stratum of^ the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. Hitherto there had been no more effective leaders and spokesmen for the people in their repudiation of the Treaty of Frankfort and of the despotism it had fastened on the land than the Cathohc clergy. Of the fifteen men first chosen to the Reichstag from Alsace and Lorrame, and who made the mem orable protest of 1874, seven were ecclesiastics, two bishops, four parish priests and one abbe. One of the purest and bravest patriots of this people in captivity was Monseigneur Dupont des Loges, Bishop of Metz, whom nothing could buy or intimi- ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 143 date and who was a pillar of strength to a people in distress, distress of body and of soul, who was as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. The lesson of his power was not lost upon the ruling class of Germany who only waited for the oppor tunity to lay their hands upon the high personnel of the Church in order to use it for their purposes. Intriguing with the Holy See when vacancies oc curred, in 1899 and, 1900, in the two bishoprics of Metz and Strasburg, the imperial government was successful in getting the two positions filled, not by Alsatians or Lorrainers, but by two Germans from Germany. Henceforth, the spiritual heads of the Church in the Reichsland were devoted henchmen of the powers that were, active agents in the work of Germanization. Some of the Cathohc clergy refused to foUow in this new orientation and ad hered to the old line. But many did follow. Thus there was division where formerly there had been approximate unanimity in the Cathohc world; as there was, also, through the spread of Socialism, division in the ranks of the working classes. Every thing seemed, from the official point of view, to be working together for good, for the obliteration __qf the old groupings of the population into simple "protesters" and "non-protesters." New group- 144 ALSACE-LORRAINE ings were appearing, Catholics in- Alsace-Lorraine working in union with Catholics in Germany through the agency of the Center party; SociaUsts of Alsace- Lorraine working together with the SociaUsts of Germany for the triumph of their cause. Old war- cries were being forgotten, new party alignments cutting across the old were drawing the Reichsland from its former moorings into the general currents of imperial politics. The particularism of Alsace- Lorraine, the irreconcilable states-rights feeling, was being sapped and mined by the new forces which were in the world contending for mastery. The separate personality of the annexed provinces, the product of their peculiar and highly individual history, was in danger of being absorbed and conse quently annihilated in the Nirvana of Gross-Deutsch- land. The old ideals were apparently losing their power and new interests, rehgious or social or eco nomic, were taking their place. The chronology of this change cannot be given with exactitude. But symptoms of the change were apparent in 1890, and they became steadUy more pronounced during the last decade of the nineteenth century. The government, while not yet satisfied, was quite content with the progress that was being made. The Alsatians might not ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 145 love Germany, but they feared her and were proving amenable to the devices and practices of strong government. The policy of steady compulsion and compression, resumed in deadly earnestness after the shght daUiance with the decently humane concep tions of the "era of Manteuffel," was justifying itseU. The only way to judge a tree is by its fruit and the bureaucrats of Berhn and their servile agents in Strasburg viewed the present with complacency and sensed a serener future. But the situation, during these years, was not quite so simple, after aU. The people of Alsace-Lorraine, harried by the hostfle and drastic legislation which we have passed in review, treated with insolence by the immigrant Germans who came by the scores of thousands to fill the offices of the bureaucracy and to carry out its prescriptions with the thoroughness and the rigid adherence to tradition characteristic of the Prussian civil service, knew full weU what it was to be a subject people. They had felt, year in year out, the heavy weight of the imperial government. They saw how powerless they were, how unequal any contest was with their masters who could and would at any moment, when they judged it neces sary, let loose an overwhelming force to terrify and 146 ALSACE-LORRAINE to crush. They saw clearly how tightly they were caught in the mesh of a despotic system. Indignant at an oppression unworthy of Europe in the nine teenth century, but none the less existent however ignoble, stunned by the regime of terror which brought only the forced "repose of the cemetery," seeing, as the years went by, less and less hope of liberation from outside and none from within, with every factor of the situation adding to the discourag ing perspective, nevertheless they did not flinch but fought on with admirable loyalty to their traditions and with admirable courage. The form of the contest changed, but the substance of it never changed from 1871 to 1914. Though the expression varied according to circumstances, the contest was always against the pohcy of Ger manization which the conquering country was deter mined to effect. RebeUious to this from the very depths of its soul, Alsace was resolved that this should not be. Her opposition to the policy of Ger manization has been the constant, unvarying fea ture of her history from 1870 to the present day. At first, as we have seen, her opposition took the (form of "protest" against the regime estabhshed by the Treaty of Frankfort, against annexation to a foreign country without her own consent, and ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 147 in the teeth of her passionate denial of the right of conquest. In election after election for twenty years, she sent a solid delegation to the Reichstag of "protesters" against the odious deed. But the iniquity seemed inexpugnable as year after year went by. The victors went their way, tightening their grip more and more firmly. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Alsa tian opposition to German rule assumed a different form. Realizing that they could accomplish nothing practical by ceaselessly protesting against the fact of annexation, which in„ truth only increased the rigors of the government, giving it new pretexts for oppression; at the same time resolved to block the avowed policy of Germanization, which aimed at assimilating them completely with their conquerors, at stamping them with the same impress, at making them over in the image of Prussians, the people of Alsace and Lorrame resorted to new methods which they were to continue to use down to the beginning of the present war. No longer continuing the policy of simple protest, as futUe, recognizing the fact of annexation to the German Empire, without ac cepting it as a right, they now insisted that they should be given the privUeges of Germans, that they should no longer be ruled as were Togo and 148 ALSACE-LORRAINE Cameroon by collective Germany, but that they should enjoy those powers of self-government which Bavarians, Wurtembergers, and Saxons enjoyed. They should become an autonomous state, like the twenty-five^states-that -made up the Empire. They asserted their right to be Germans in their own way, just as the Bavarians were, the right to make the local laws wliich affected their daUy Uves so inti mately at every point that they ought to be the ex pression of their local wishes or idiosyncracies; and the right to have these laws administered by Alsa tians and not by a horde of immigrant officials de rived from everywhere in Germany except Alsace. " Alsace for the Alsatians" was the new cry. The Alsatians had, they asserted, the same right to govern themselves, and to express their personality, also the same right to share in the government of the Empire as a whole, as had the people of the other confeder ated states. As it was., they formed a mere provmce of the Empire, not controlling their own local af fairs, but having them controlled by a combination of outsiders, Prussians, Bavarians, Saxons, Mecklen- burgers, Brunswickers; and not participating in the control of national affairs. Though they had fifteen members in the Reichstag they had no voice in the Bundesrath, a far more important body. Their local ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 149 Delegation was a mere semblance of a local parlia ment, which did not even represent the people but was practicaUy a semi-official body, a parliament, moreover, Ukely at any moment to be snubbed, ignored, or overruled by the imperial government. They demanded that the regime of exceptional legislation should cease and that they should be given a position in the Empire simUar to that of the other states. Alsace-Lorraine must no longer have the status of a subject province. Complete statehood must be granted her. She must be recog nized as the equal of every other_ German state, in independence, in rights and powers and privileges. There was more in this demand than appears at I first sight, more than the mere desire to escape from a degrading pohtical tutelage, a position of glaring pohtical inequahty. There was a social and a national purpose to be subserved; namely, the preservation, the conscious preservation^ _pf. their own individuality, of their own civiUzation, which they knew and affirmed to be distinct from that of the other German states. Certainly it was out rageous and humiliating, to be at the mercy of of ficials who came from beyond the Rhine and this must cease. But it was even more important that Alsace and Lorraine should be able to preserve their 150 ALSACE-LORRAINE own habits and customs, should be able to turn their own evolution in whatever direction they might wish, unhampered by external control. Along with this political movement went an in tellectual movement — both part& of the conception of Alsace for the Alsatians. The consciousness of their own separate individuality increased in clear ness and intensity from this time forward untU the great debacle of 1914. The leaders of the movement felt that they were not weaving pretentious fancies, framing chimerical Utopias. They felt that they were grounded on the solid basis of the past history of their little corner of the world. Despite the immigra tion and the emigration of the period after 1870 yet the native element represented three fourths or more of the population and the intruding foreign element had not been able to modify the local char acter or mind. There had been no fusion of the new racial elements with the old, but only the juxta position or rather the superimposing of the new as masters of the old. The Alsatians and Lorrainers were not masters in their own house but others were the masters. This must be changed. What, was { this^Alsatian individuality, which the intellectuals insisted must be respected by Germany and must be given free opportunity for self-expression ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 151 and for growth? Wherein did the Alsatians have any special originality? In what respect did they differ from the other Germans? Bismarck, Moltke, Treitschke, Mommsen and the hierarchs of German pohtics and thought as serted that the Alsatians were pure and genuine Germans, and that that was aU there was to it. Their tone of finality allowed no discussion. There might be a little French varnish on some of the elite, but it was a mere surface polish which would easUy yield to treatment, either artificial treatment, that of the State, or natural treatment, that of time. The Alsatians were Germans, of German race, speaking the German language, who had Uved for centuries in the German fatherland. What more was there to be said? Evidently nothing, by anyone who cared to be known as a sensible or inteUigent human being. The Alsatians, however, have had a good deal more to say abouT this interesting and,, to them, vital topic. And their opinions Uluminate a subject, in which not only the Pan-Germans are greatly in terested but also the world in general. One has only to glance through the pages of the Revue alsacienne Ulustree, a journal founded for the express purpose of giving voice to the Alsatians' sense of individuality, and ably conducted by Dr. Pierre Bucher, a citizen 152 ALSACE-LORRAINE of Strasburg, to become aware of the lamentable superficialty and the fundamental falsity of official German utterances upon this important matter. Let us Usten for a moment to native Alsatians com menting upon their country and themselves. Alsace had had a history, and a long history, fuU of wars, fuU of vicissitudes, wars in which she was simply the battlefield used by the great powers in their struggles with each other, wars also in which she was herseU an active participant, zealous to fight for the maintenance of her Uberties. As a border land she had for two thousand years ex perienced the usual fortunes that faU to lands lying within an exposed and ambiguous zone. This varied and agitated experience had produced a local charac ter, a local outlook upon the world, local aptitudes and inclinations and aspirations which differentiated her from other people. With much in common with them, she possessed much that was pecuUar to herself. The elements which went to the making of the personality of Alsace were mingled in different proportions from those which prevaUed in the mak ing of other peoples. She spoke a German tongue, or rather, to speak more accurately her peasantry spoke various dialects of Germanic origin. But her bourgeoisie and her upper classes spoke French. ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 153 Her population was of Germanic origin, but so for that matter were the populations of large parts of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Great Britain, even Northern and Northeastern France. She had had an exceptional history and this had given her an identity of her own. Now that she was politically included in the German Empire was she just like the other German states, was she to be assimilated to a common type? Her originality in the confedera tion of German states consisted in precisely this, that her culture was notjjurely Germanic, but was mixed, compounded of German elements — and of French. The Germans repeated everlastingly the same refrain, that she had for eight hundred years been a part of Germany, and that this had made her German. They declined to admit that because she had for two tremendous centuries been a part of France she had become French. Yet as far as dynamic, formative influences were concerned the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were far more important, far more transforming, far better adapted to leave a profound mark than the eight centuries that preceded them. In her thinking, in her political and social ideas and convictions and aspirations, in her whole feeling and way of looking at things she was French, and she was French because she had 154 ALSACE-LORRAINE passed through the glow, the heat, the alembic of the French Revolution. In comparison with that experience, with its new and fiery evangel, with its radical and pervasive changes in institutions and ideas and sentiments, what was the long, rather sleepy, quite localized existence within the Holy Roman Empire? As experiences inevitably bound to impress a personality upon the people there could be no question that the two centuries of contact with France had contributed more to the making of jnod- ern Alsace than the eight centuries of contact with Germany — if there was a Germany — which had gone before. The one had accompUshed the fusion of a people by its terrific heat, by its marvellous alchemy. The localized Ufe within the rather unreal, un substantial Roman Empire had no such power as this to shape, to captivate, to transform. The one was a furnace that sent forth molten metal, the other a lumber room, a receptacle of aU kinds of neglected survivals of the past. German writers and rulers are prone to ignore these two centuries in the history of Alsace, and to hurry back to the time of the Hohenstauffen. The last two centuries are throbbing in the heart of Alsace to-day. The throbs emanating from the earlier period are few and far between. The Nibelungen ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 155 and the Minnesinger leave her cold but the Mar seillaise sets her tingling and vibrating with painful ecstasy. That the Germans knew the potency of the Marseillaise over the minds of the Alsatian people was shown by the fact that after 1871 they had forbidden the playing or singing of it. Yet this supreme revolutionary song, this battle hymn of freedom in every European land for a century, was in a real sense the product of this very Alsace. It had been composed in Strasburg, by Rouget de Lisle, at the request of the mayor who wanted a war song expressive of the revolutionary exaltation which he and his feUow citizens were experiencing. There is much instructive history in this single fact that the Marseillaise was composed and was played and sung for the first time in Alsace. But those who proclaim the fundamental Germanism of the Alsa tians do weU to ignore this fact and its imphcations, do weU to pass Ughtly over the two centuries and to hark back to the medieval mummeries of the Holy Roman Empire. But even that earher history teaches a lesson, throws a certain light upon the development of Alsace not much insisted upon by German scholars and publicists, but which it is well to mention. The Ufe which the Alsatians had hved as members of 156 ALSACE-LORRAINE the medieval empire had been calculated to make them more sympathetic to modern France than to modern Germany, had not been at aU calculated to make them good Germans in the sense in which that word was used by Bismarck at the close of the nine teenth century. The Alsatian of to-day is funda mentally repubUcan and democratic and the be ginning of this tendency is to be discovered early in Alsatian history. Down to the time of the an nexation of the country to France, Alsace had never been a political entity. It had consisted of the "ten free cities" and of numerous petty principaUties. AU had had the right to govern themselves, if only they would give men and money to the far off Em peror in Vienna when he wanted them. Left largely alone, the Alsatians had had a practical independ ence and at least the beginnings of self-government. Never in their history had they known a national dynasty, as had Saxony, Bavaria, Brandenburg, Hesse, and innumerable other German states. The Alsatian has never known that adoration of the monarch" and of monarchy, which is characteristic of the Prussian. With those initial popular tend encies confirmed and rendered more profound by the intimate connection with revolutionary France, the Alsatian is in his pohtical ideals and connec- ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 157 tions poles asunder from his masters, the Prussians, with their veneration for monarchy, their respect for the social hierarchy, for authority. ThejGerman is a conservative, the Alsatian a democrat. The German accepts docflely inequality in the state, in society, in the army, and does not rebel against the gross privUeges which birth or wealth gives in each of those spheres. The Alsatian, product of a different history, loves Uberty and the equaUty of aU before the law and hates arbitrary, despotic government and the reign of privilege. In view of all this, what U he does speak German? If language is not fundamentally a mere set of sounds, if it is a set of ideas and emotions, then the Alsatian does not speak the same language as the Prussian. He does not feel that submissiveness to authority which is the prevalent and dubious dis tinction of the German; he does not care for aU that has persisted in Germany of the Old Regime, that exaggerated regard for the national divinities, the State, the Kaiser, the nobility, the army officers, but on the other hand he sees the ridiculous in many of their pretensions and poses. The caricaturist, Hansi, is the truthful representative of this Alsatian irreverence and impatience. In the production of the Alsatian of to-day the 158 ALSACE-LORRAINE period since 1789 has counted infinitely more than many previous centuries, just as it has in the pro duction of the contemporary Frenchman. The Alsatian mentality then, as formed and stamped by history, was of a very different type from the dominant mentaUty of Germany. There was, consequently, Uttle chance of mutual understanding, between Germany and Alsace-Lor raine, none whatever of sympathy. The peremptory psychologists of Berlin with their repetitious asser tions as to the essential and complete identity of Ger mans and Alsatians were not accepted as authorities in Alsace. On the contrary the ' ' inteUectuals ' ' of the Reichsland, knowing the history of their country and its effects, chaUenged the official doctrine, de manded that Germany respect the individuaUty of Alsace, and sought in various ways to impress upon the Alsatians themselves the menace to their herit age of ideas and customs involved in the imperial poUcy, and the necessity of their mamtaining that heritage intact. The last quarter of a century has witnessed in Alsace the counterpart of what has been witnessed in other parts of Europe, a revival and intensification of the sense of local individuality, of what in Germany is caUed particularism. Some of these Alsatian inteUectuals have worked in the ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 159 field of the fine arts, painting, engraving, decora tion, architecture, Uterature. Perhaps the most successful achievement has been the plays of Stoss- kopf, pieces written in Alsatian dialect, played by Alsatian actors, and portraying with psychological insight and with lambent humor and pungent satire the types and characters of contemporary Alsace. Other "inteUectuals" have found a congenial field in coUaborating with Dr. Bucher, on the Revue alsacienne illustrte, studying the history, hterature, art, and customs of Alsace. The Revue has been supplemented by lectures and pageants and fes tivals, given throughout the province, all aiming at a reinvigoration of the local consciousness, at the encouragement of the people to preserve their inheritance of culture in the face of the menace from Germany. Satire and caricature too, have contributed their part, in the work of Zislin of Mul- house, and Hansi of Colmar, whose power has been evidenced by the fines and the terms of imprisonment with which they have been honored by the German courts. AU this inteUectual movement helped the poUti-j cians in their campaign of Alsace for the Alsatians.! This meant, as we have seen, that Alsace ought to 160 ALSACE-LORRAINE have the right to make her own local laws, to en force them through Alsatian officials, to be no longer at the mercy of the Bundesrath and the Reichstag, and of the German immigrant officials. It meant, too, that the attempts at Germanizing them, fol lowed since 1871, and now asserted with increasing and arrogant emphasis by the Pan-Germanist party which was already in fuU swing, must cease. The Alsatians insisted that they be allowed to keep their spiritual and intellectual connection with France. Herein lay their originality, that they, a German state, had shared in the literature, the thought, the ideals, the culture of France. The attempt to cut them off from all their French recollections, to dig a deep gulf between them and France, to stamp out aU the traditions and memories of the French con nection, must be abandoned. The Germans, seeing that the Alsatians no longer sent a solid flock of "protesters" to the Reichstag, that they were splitting up into different parties, Conservatives, Centrists, Radicals, and Sociahsts, each of which worked with its confreres in the corresponding German parties, beheved, or affected to beUeve, that the process of Germanization was succeeding, and that with the advent of the third generation since 1870 the absorption of the province ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 161 in the Fatherland would be complete and final. The "question of Alsace" was getting on famously toward a satisfactory solution. They at first even seemed to find no danger in this cry of Alsace for the Alsatians and to patronize the "legitimate" development of Alsatian particularism. But this approval was insincere and in the word "legitimate" lay an ominous mental reservation. What were the results of this new direction of Alsatian energy? It may be said that they promised after aU to be sUght and in aU likelihood would have been sUght had it not been for the lack of wisdom of the German rulers, for their inveterate, auto cratic conceptions of policy, which might be veUed for a moment but quickly reappeared. In 1896, Jacques Preiss, a young lawyer of Colmar, and a leader of "Young Alsace" said in the Reichs tag, of which he was a member: "Gentlemen, the people of Alsace-Lorraine protested in 1871. They protested through their representatives, speciaUy elected for that purpose, against the annexation to Germany. This protest has not been withdrawn since, either in law, or in fact. . . . The assimila tion, the Germanization of the country has not advanced a step to this day. . . . Fear dominates and poisons our political existence. The Govern- 162 ALSACE-LORRAINE ment does not understand the people, and the people do not understand the Government. . . . History will say: 'The German Empire succeeded in con quering Alsace-Lorraine materially, but its adminis tration did not know, how to conquer her morally, did not know how to win the heart and soul of the people.'" Preiss was right. History wiU undoubtedly say just that. In 1894, the Prince of Hohenlohe abandoned the position of Statthalter to become Chancellor. He was succeeded by a distant relative, Prince Hermann von Hohenlohe-Langenburg, who was destined to hold the office for thirteen years but who did not take as active a part in the government as his pred ecessors had taken. Elections stiU continued to show the same dispersion of the voters among the different parties. OnlyJPreiss, joined now by an other of the figures who were to lead the graduaUy emerging party of "Young Alsace," Abbe Wetterle, continued a poUcy of energetic, though strictly legal, opposition and criticism. But the poUcy of systematic repression seemed 'nevertheless to be having its effect. The govern ment, finally feeling sure of the complete subjection of the people, made a few concessions. The system ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 163 of the passports was mitigated, and finaUy abol ished, excepting as it affected the mihtary; the censorship of the press was rendered a httle less severe; and finally in 1902 the famous Article 10 of the Law of December 30, 187 1 (the Dictator ship Article), was suppressed. The future was to prove that the suppression was not to leave the government without abundant weapons of repres sion and of tyranny, old French laws and old Prus sian laws or ordinances, dating from the early and middle nineteenth century, amply sufficing to that end. These concessions did not indicate an intention on the part of the government to abandon its pro gramme of Germanization; but indicated rather its confidence that the complete Germanization, the final fusion of natives and immigrants, the thorough assimUation of the Reichsland with the Empire, were now assured. In entertaining this expecta tion that henceforth the sailing would be smooth and that the longed-for haven would soon be reached, the government was underestimating its own pow ers of blundering, its talent for reopening old sores. By its reckless playing with the Alsatian demands for larger liberties and then crudely disappointing them, by continuing and even intenstfying its op- 164 ALSACE-LORRAINE position to everything in Alsace that recaUed France, the French language, French traditions, French souvenirs, by conduct which became increasingly dictatorial despite the abandonment of the Dic tatorship Article of the Law of 1871, the govern ment succeeded finaUy in arousing and aUenating even those elements in the Alsatian population which were the most friendly to it. "The Ger mans themselves," as another has said, "thus re opened with a Ught heart the question of Alsace- Lorraine, aroused once more the pubUc opinion of France, and finaUy wearied the long patience of Europe." We have traced the rise of the particularistic movement, the increasing demancHor genuine local seU-govemment, for an equa^status for Alsace- Lorraine with the other states of the German Em pire. The number of those who looked forward to a return to France, either as a result of war or through some peaceful means, was smaU at the beginning of the twentieth century. Germany wasjsojpowerful and so resolute to keep what she had taken that the door of hope seemed closed and locked and barred. The protest in its original form was futile. Since they must Uve in the Empire, however, the Alsa tians wished to Uve as comfortably and as freely ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 165 as possible. This was the thought behind their de mand for autonomy. They wished autonomy be cause it was the only regime-worthy of grown men, the sole alternative being tutelage and subjection to others. They wished it also as enabling them to preserve the special character of Alsace-Lorraine, its Uberty, its inteUectual and spiritual contact with France, the most vital factor in its past. This was entirely consistent with complete ob servance of the fundamental fact that they con stituted a part of the German Empire. There was only one condition necessary, they must have as much freedom in the local hfe as had Bavaria and Baden, and the other twenty-three sisters in the confederation. AU the Germans had to do was to give them this freedom, this opportunity to think and write and act, to preserve their traditions and their customs, to be themselves. But Germany has never seriously^_thought of adopting such a pohcy. The dominant and con stant idea in governing circles, pohtical and mili tary, has always been that f pree can accomplish anything it sets put to accompUsh, and if not the present amount of force, then a stiU greater amount. As evidence of this temper Prince von Billow's Imperial Germany, pubUshed in 1914. is enlight- 166 ALSACE-LORRAINE ening, and particularly his treatment of subject peoples, like the Poles. However, in the twentieth century peoples are not content to be ruled as if they were regiments, their fate determined by arbitrary commands from above. Out of this di vergence of views arose the final and complete rup ture between the government of Berlin and its agents in Alsace on the one hand, and the people of the Reichsland on the other. When the Germans pointed to what they had done for the province the Alsatians and Lorrainers asked: "Were they done for us," or was there an other motive? Certainly the mileage of the raU- roads had been greatly increased since 1871, but much of this mUeage was for military and strategic roads, leading nowhere except to the borders of France. Were these mammoth railroad stations primarily for the convenience of the civil popula- tion?_ Were not the elaborate means for handling big crowds, the spacious platforms, designed for an other purpose, namely, the ease of entraining and detraining large bodies of troops? True, three mU- Uon doUars and more had been spent for the buUd ings alone of the University of Strasburg, but the idea of the authorities in making these liberal ap propriations was to have in the conquered territory ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 167 a German university of the first rank, a center of the "German spirit," of "German science." In 1872 the University of Strasburg had 46 professors and 212 students; in 1900 it had 136 professors and 1 169 students. In 1910, 175 professors. Yet it was and is a semi-foreign institution, not exer cising the influence on the mentaUty of the Reichs land which had been intended. A significant fact, which also had an explanatory value, was that of the 175 members of the teaching staff in 1910, only fifteen were Alsatians. There is an Uluminating phrase in a speech of Dubois-Raymond in Berlin in 1870, "The University of Berlin, housed (ein- quartiert) in a building opposite the Royal Palace, is the intellectual body-guard of the House of Hohen zoUern." The Alsatians have had their doubts, wliich in our own day a large part of the world has come to share, about the desirability of such a body guard for such a House. Again, among the works of architecture which the Germans had built in Alsace during the occupa tion there were too many barracks, too many Forts Moltke and Forts Crown-Prince. And why were the numbers of the troops stationed among them so large and why were they constantly increasing, 67,000 in 1890, 79,000 in 1895, 85,000 in 1909? Bis- 168 ALSACE-LORRAINE marck's brutal statement that Germany had not j conquered Alsace-Lorraine for her good looks, her "beaux yeux," but as a "glacis," for purposes of national defense, had never been forgotten by the conquered. In every aspect of the Ufe of Alsace-Lorraine there had been more room for thought of the Alsa tians and Lorrainers themselves than the imperial authorities had ever bestowed. The growth of Alsatian particularism, which has been described, was met and chaUenged by the rise in the Empire of the Pan-German party, with its aggressive, chauvinistic, ultra-nationaUstic pro gramme. This party opposed the government bit terly for any concessions it thought of making or did make to the people of the Reichsland. Its mem bers in the immigrant bureaucracy of Alsace-Lorraine fed the flames by their strident denunciations of conciliatory men and measures and by their in cessant attacks upon France and everything French, consequently upon the natural and deep sympathies of the Alsatians, mindful of their indebtedness to French civilization, of their participation in the French spirit. As an Ulustration of the tone and temper of Ger man government in Alsace nearly forty years after ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 169 the Franco-Prussian war, of its solicitude for local j feeling, the official treatment of the language ques tion may serve. France.had never, during the period of her sovereignty, sought to impose her language upon Alsace, to the exclusion of German. WhUe French was favored, German was not neglected. Both were taught" in "the primary schools and con sequently those who had only the primary educa tion had the opportunity to learn both languages. Not such was the pohcy of Germany. One of her earhest measures, after the annexation, was to suppress the teaching of French in the primary schools, aUowing it in the higher schools, though under conditions, even there, which did not en courage it. Later it aboUshed obligatory French in the normal schools. The results alarmed many Alsatians, becoming more and more vocal in de manding their rights, of which this would appear to be one of the primary and indefeasible ones. As a result a motion was made in 1908 in the Landesaus chuss by M. Kubler, asking for obligatory instruc tion in French in the primary schools of Alsace- Lorraine. The reason given was an economic one, the practical utUity for a border population to know both languages. The motion was passed by a prac ticaUy unanimous vote. But above the Landesaus- 170 ALSACE-LORRAINE chuss is the Government, that is the Statthalter, and the Alsatian Ministry; and above them is the Fed eral CouncU in Berlin, which has power to overrule anything they may do. In this case they did noth ing. Consequently, Kiibler, in March, 1909, asked what the Government proposed to do. The presi dent of the ministry gave a reply that was unsatis factory to the Landesauschuss, stating that the teaching personnel for obligatory French would be lacking and that there were regions in which French would be useless. A more limited motion was then made to the ef fect that French should be taught in the primary schools of aU locaUties whose municipal coundls should ask for it. At once the municipal govern ments of the large cities pronounced themselves unanimously in favor of this motion. FinaUy on May 12, 1909, the ministry announced that it was not opposed, in principle, to the teaching of the French language, but that it ought not to be taught in the primary schools except in those locaUties near the frontier, that outside that area its teaching would be prejudicial to the general curriculum, would derange the plan of studies, that the pupils who were particularly capable could attend the higher grades, where they would have the opportunity desired. ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 171 The answer being unsatisfactory to Kiibler and other members of the Landesauschuss, a special commission was appointed with Kiibler as chairman and Abbe Wetterle as secretary, to study the dif ferent propositions which had been submitted. This committee presented a report on July 6, 1909, which demanded that the government favor in every way the necessary instruction in the French language by absolutely requiring it at least four hours a week in the upper grades of the primary schools, by not restricting any more than in the other states of the empire private instruction in French by persons outside the teaching staff, by authorizing the teachers in the primary schools to teach French outside the class-room and without Umiting the number of pupUs, by authorizing communities to organize, outside the primary schools, instruction in French at their expense and under the supervision of the regular school authorities and by taking steps so that French should be taught sufficiently in the normal schools and should be required for gradua tion from them. Motions designed to carry out these recommenda tions were passed unanimously. The whole affair aroused the passions of the country and gave rise to many incidents. Herr Gneisse, a director of a 172 ALSACE-LORRAINE Gymnasium in Colmar, was the spokesman of the Germanizers and protested against the motions; Hansi (J. J. Waltz) pubUshed a caricature of a Ger man pedant, which Gneisse considered an aUusion to himseU. Hansi was prosecuted and fined 500 marks. The Abbe Wetterle's name was brought into the case, whereupon Gneisse prosecuted Wetterle. Preiss and Blumenthal, members of the Landesauschuss and Wetterle's lawyers, thereupon caUed attention to the question which was at the bottom of the case — "namely, on the one hand the entire peo ple and the Landesauschuss demanding this in struction, on the other hand, a clan of Pan-Ger manists, Gneisse and consorts, opposing it." Wetterle was condemned to two months in prison. "Alsace-Lorraine," says an historian of this period, "wUl teach French when other wills than her own permit her to." The spectacle of a nation which prides itseU upon its exceptional enlightenment waging war in the twentieth century upon a language which is the mother tongue of twenty per cent of the population of Alsace, is unworthy as well as intolerable. It is also at times ridiculous. The German govern ment permits no new business signs in the French ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 173 language to be put up over stores. Consequently, old French signs, even when shabby and dilapi dated, are retained by many firms, since to regild would mean the necessity of changing from French to German. Dupont Frtres refuse to be Germanized into Gebruder Dupont, and make it a point of honor and of local loyalty to maintain the old form in spite of a meddlesome bureaucracy. Now and then incidents arise, serio-comic in nature, in this fatuous war upon a language, conducted at the orders of the government of a people which does not question the superiority of its culture over that of all other peoples. A few years ago a shopkeeper was obliged to change his sign Liquidation totale, which is French, into Totale Liquidation, which is German. Ad ministrative wisdom permits "Friseur" but forbids "Coiffeur." There have been historic struggles in Alsace as to whether the name inscribed in the register of births should be Jean, as desired by the parents, or Johann as desired by the authorities, whether Rene or Renatus. The government, which has been capable of these achievements, a few years ago, before permitting the inauguration of a monument erected at Wissem- bourg by Alsatians in memory of Alsatians who had died upon that field in the Franco-Prussian war, 174 ALSACE-LORRAINE demanded the removal of four emblems carved on the corners of the pedestal; the sun, emblem of Louis XIV, the lily of Louis XV, the axe and fasces of the Revolution, the eagle of Napoleon! CHAPTER VII THE CONSTITUTION OF 191 1 The people of Alsace-Lorraine had for forty years been in absolute subjection to other wUls than their own. Though aUowed a Delegation or Landesaus chuss, before wliich routine legislative proposals were laid, yet that body was elected not directly by the people but indirectly and largely by and from district and municipal councUs, so that, by reason of its comphcated and carefully controUed com position as weU as because of the humble character of its powers, it could only be servUe. It could at any moment be overruled by outside powers, by the local executive, appointed from Berlin, or by Berlin itself. There was in this form of government no satisfaction given to the legitimate desire of the Alsatians to manage their own affairs. As the de mand for local states-rights grew, as it enlisted the sympathies of the more Uberal German parties and of many members of the Reichstag, who recognized that the Alsatians and Lorrainers were only asking for what they themselves had always had, and as I75 176 ALSACE-LORRAINE the government felt that the grip of Germany upon the Reichsland had steadUy increased with the lapse of time and was now unshakeable, it finally came to feel that it was safe to grant some of the concessions which were so greatly desired. On March 15, 1910, the ChanceUor of the Empire, Bethmann-HoUweg, announced in the Reichstag that the Emperor had agreed with the confederated governments to grant a more autonomous constitu tion to Alsace-Lorraine. This announcement was received with Uvely satisfaction. But the people of the Reichsland were soon to learn that the Greeks are not the only people to suspect when they come forward bearing gffts. When, on June 29, the mem bers of the Landesauschuss expressed the desire that the Landesauschuss should be consulted before hand as to the constitutional changes under con sideration in BerUn they were informed by the Alsa tian ministry that the Imperial Government did not recognize the right of the Landesauschuss to mix in questions wliich belonged exclusively to the Bundesrath and the Reichstag. Indeed the speech of the Chancellor ought to have checked any undue optimism on the part of the Alsatians. Stating that it was necessary to grant "a greater political independence to Alsace," the THE CONSTITUTION OF 1911 177 Chancellor proceeded to lecture both the Pan- Germanists — for their opposition to any conces sions — and those whom he called the "Pan-French," for their particularistic and FrancophUe agitation. The cry "Alsace for the Alsatians" had, he said, a seductive sound, but he added that this could never be realized as long as the leaders of the movement affected not to recognize the fundamentally German character of the population and aimed at Gallicising the country in the face of ethnography and history. This remark, divested of the Hegelian wrappings with which Bethmann-HoUweg was accustomed to clothe his thoughts, meant that the Alsatians must break the ties that bound them to the culture and civUization of France, and must immerse themselves exclusively in the culture and civUization of Ger many. Only then could they expect to be treated as valued members of "the family of German states." The cause of Alsace was thus reaUy lost in ad vance. After this cold douche any clear mind could see what was likely to come. The actual plan for reform was not laid before the Reichstag untU De cember, 1910. Its discussion dragged from the start. When the Landesauschuss expressed opposi tion to certain features of the plan, its session was abruptly closed, May 9, 191 1, an action which nat- 178 ALSACE-LORRAINE uraUy produced a bad impression upon the coun try. On May 26, 1911, the new Constitution of Alsace-Lorraine was voted by the Reichstag. Vio lently opposed by the Pan-Germanists and betrayed by those so-caUed Uberal parties in the Reichstag whose supposed principles required that they sup port it, Alsatian autonomy came out practicaUy by the same door wherein it went. Only one change of any importance was made. The Landesauschuss, or single-chambered body, was now to give way to a bicameral legislature wliich was henceforth to be the sole source of legislation for Alsace-Lorraine. The lower house was to be elected by secret and practically manhood suffrage but this house was to be balanced by an upper house in which the Govern ment would always be assured of a majority. The control of the legislature over the budget, a vital test of its importance, was affirmed but was rendered illusory by the provision that if it should refuse to vote it, then the Government should be entirely free to levy taxes and incur expenses on the basis of the preceding budget, that is, to raise and spend as much money as ever. Moreover the legislature, in this respect like the other legislatures of Germany, would have no means of enforcing its wishes. The executive power re- THE CONSTITUTION OF 1911 179 mained concentrated, as before, in the hands of the Statthalter who would reside, it is true, in Strasburg, but whose inspiration and instructions would come, as hitherto, from Berhn. The local ministry was to be, as hitherto, responsible not to the elected cham ber, but to the Statthalter alone, and the Statthalter, was responsible only to the Emperor. As the Statt halter and the ministry were to appoint and control the bureaucracy, or civU service, Alsace would re main, as in the past, entirely subject to an oligarchy of foreign officials, the detested immigrants from Germany, and to the daily vexations and irritations of a despotic bureaucracy. Every individual in Alsace would be subjected as during the past forty years to the system of espionage which is one of the ubiquitous elements of modern German government. The infamous role of the informer, which the Alsa tians had hoped to stamp out by themselves get ting control of the administration, would flourish as before. The Constitution of 191 1 pretended to raise Alsace-Lorraine to the rank of a German state, to place it on a plane of equality with the other twenty- five members of the confederation. In practice it did nothing of the kind. It allowed her three votes in the Bundesrath. She would thus, like all the i8o ALSACE-LORRAINE other states, be represented in both the Bundesrath and the Reichstag. But the three delegates from Alsace-Lorraine were to receive their instructions from the Statthalter, were to vote in the Bundesrath as he might direct. But the Statthalter was not an independent sovereign like the King of Saxony or the Duke of Mecklenburg, ruling by his own right; nor was he an elected repubUcan head of the state. He was appointed by the Emperor, and was his representative, revocable at wiU and consequently not likely to do anything distasteful to him. The Constitution of 191 1 increased greatly the power of the Emperor; it did not increase the power of the people. In theory Alsace-Lorraine was given statehood; in practice, she was to be as tightly bound as ever. In short the new Constitution was a fraud, as is so much in the "constitutional" guarantees of con temporary Germany, whether in the nation or in the individual states. Moreover, into the Constitu tion itseU were written miserable and vexatious prescriptions limiting the use of the French language in Alsace-Lorraine. To mock a people's aspirations in so crude a manner was a practical joke, of doubtful taste. The Alsatians were shown, in all this campaign of THE CONSTITUTION OF 1911 181 much talk about nothing, that nowhere in Germany did they have any friends in their desire for real seff-government, not even in the Center and So- ciaUst parties which decisively betrayed their allies in the Reichsland for the sake of the immediate political advantages which offered themselves. The latter cooperated with the Conservatives and the Pan-Germanists in granting this mockery of au tonomy. The traU of Pan-Germanism was every where to be seen in the annexed provinces during the few remaining years of peace. The new Constitution was not, therefore, of a character to arouse much optimism or gratitude in Alsace-Lorrame. Moreover, there was, to antici pate a famous phrase, no assurance that it would be more than a scrap of paper. A constitution granted from on high, it might at any moment be withdrawn by those who granted it, U they should become dis satisfied with its working or annoyed with the people who were the recipients of the benefaction. It was indeed provided by Article 28 that any further modification of the new Constitution should be made by the Reichstag and the Bundesrath. The people themselves of the new "state" would not be able to change their fundamental law in any particular. Their Constitution of 1911, like that of 1 82 ALSACE-LORRAINE 1879, now superseded, was bUghted in the same way. Its life was extremely precarious. At any moment the legislative organs of the German Empire were at liberty to withdraw it or to alter it. Alsace- Lorraine remained what she had always been in theory and in fact, an Imperial Territory, a Reichs land, the property of the coUective states of the confederation. She was bound hand and foot to the executive and legislative powers of BerUn. The people of Alsace and Lorraine were thus checked, and completely balked. Great was their disUlusionment. The hope for real seU-governrnent in place of degrading tutelage, legitimate for any inteUigent people in this day and age, a hope at times encouraged by imperial politicians for tactical purposes, was now brutaUy dissipated. Among the enemies who stood across the pathway of their as pirations the most energetic and bitter were the Pan- Germanists whose influence was increasing every day and who were giving a sharper tone to German poUcy and one of increasing menace to the world. The catastrophe of to-day is the logical and natural outcome of their vigilant, contemptuous, and aggres sive spirit. Proud of its mihtary and naval power, entertaining the most vaulting ambitions which could only be realized at the expense of others, THE CONSTITUTION OF 1911 183 modern Germany was riding gaUy for a dazzling triumph — or for a fall. The repercussion of this Pan-German movement was felt widely throughout the world, in France, in England, in the Balkans. It was also decidedly felt in the conquered provinces. Pan-Germanism fundamentally means conquest by arms. It was in the provinces so conquered in 1870 that the mUi tary preparations attained the highest pitch of intensity. The signs of the times were unmistak able. The period from 191 1 to 1914 was the last act in the long and ignoble history of oppression which since 1870 has been the sign manual of German rule. The situation became steadUy more and more critical for the Alsatians and Lorrainers. Among the German immigrant office-holders in the Reichsland were many Pan-Germans, the bit terest opponents of every proposition to grant au tonomy, to try conciUation with the people of the provinces, indignant at the resistance to the policy of Germanization on the part of these renegade sons of the Fatherland. For the Pan-Germans, within Alsace and without, if chastising with whips did not suffice, then chastising with scorpions should be tried. There comes a moment when the rebel- 1 84 ALSACE-LORRAINE lious spirit, apparently the most intractable, recog nizes its master and submits. After 191 1 a species of terrorization was organized in Alsace-Lorraine. Spies infested the country, denouncing every manifestation of opposition or criticism. Even local officials like the Statthalter, Wedel, or the chief secretary, Zorn von Bulach, a native Alsatian who had long ago gone over to the German official side, were reproached bitterly by this aggressive and uncompromising party with lukewarmness and indifference to the weffare of the Fatherland, whereas an outsider would have had difficulty in finding any pronounced mildness or regard for popular feehngs in their acts. They could, however, teU the difference between the practicable and the flagrantly unreasonable. In formed and sensible men like Werner Wittich, a German professor at the University of Strasburg, seeking to enlighten public opinion throughout the Empire on the real situation in Alsace and recom mending a liberal and tolerant policy, were over whelmed by the clamor of the Pan-Germanists. During the three years preceding the present war the cloven hoof appeared repeatedly. The public opinion of the provinces was exacerbated and alarmed by a series of irritating episodes which showed the THE CONSTITUTION OF 1911 185 people the humiliation of their position, the fra gility, indeed the non-existence, of any guarantee of their liberties. Hansi (J. J. Waltz), a native Alsatian, was thrown into prison, as we have seen, for having caricatured a Pan-German high school teacher, Herr Gneisse, and in 1914 he was, to the stupefaction of the world, prosecuted for high trea son in the federal court at Leipsia because of carica tures which in any seU-governing country would pass current as the most ordinary satires upon* the foibles and pretensions of the official class. Abbe Wetterle, editor of a newspaper in Colmar, and for merly a member of the Reichstag, was condemned to fine and imprisonment for protesting agamst the insolence of the Pan-Germans. A merchant of Mul- house was expeUed from Alsace for having asked a hotel orchestra to play the Marseillaise. During these years, also, the authorities proceeded against numerous Alsatian societies and clubs in a way that could only create widespread irritation and resentment, against choral unions, gymnastic clubs, and societies founded for the purpose of caring for the graves of Alsatians who had died on Alsatian soU during the Franco-German war. In addition to military and political pressure, economic pressure was also used to further the pro- 186 ALSACE-LORRAINE gramme of Germanization. Alsatian economic in terests were repeatedly sacrificed in the interest of neighboring states Uke Baden or of the powerful Rhenish- Westphalian steel- and iron-mongers. Alsa tian manufacturers or merchants were the victims of despicable informers and all who were suspected of French sympathies were made to feel the full displeasure of the government. The great locomo tive corporation of Graffenstaden, on which the Ufe of that town absolutely depended, was informed that there would be no more government contracts, unless it dismissed a manager whom the Pan-Ger manists considered FrancophUe. As the business would have been ruined without government orders, the deed was done. The Alsatians were made to understand the significance of the economic boycott practiced against themselves by their own govern ment, a government which now denounces as an outrage the very thought on the part of the Allies of using this weapon against itseU. The reaction of all these incidents, grave or petty as the case might be, was exactly what might have been expected. The Alsatians and Lorrainers united as one man against this recrudescence of tyranny. Dropping their differences of opinion, ignoring party Unes, they joined in indignant protest against a THE CONSTITUTION OF 1911 187 government which subjected them to continued mal treatment, which faUed to assure them the most ele mentary rights of free men. The hoUowness and the mockery of the boasted Constitution of 191 1 were patent to aU the world in the hght of these events. It was not the Alsatians, not the French, who were chiefly responsible for the fact that forty years of German rule had not brought peace or reconcihation. The chief cause was the character of that rule itseU, which every year kept alive popular discontent and which was now accentuating it more and more by renewed disclosure of the guU that lay between the governors and the governed. The Germans might have learned from old or recent Enghsh history the healing and invigorating quality that hes in hberal treatment of a conquered people. The history of Canada and of South Africa would have proved instructive. But as Balzac said many years ago: "There is one instrument the Germans have never learned to play. That instrument is Uberty." It is the Germans who are responsible for the question of Alsace-Lorraine not only in its inception but in its progress and fruition. Denying categoricaUy that any such question exists, they have made it one of the danger spots of modern Europe and through their handling of it have given 1 88 ALSACE-LORRAINE the world the accurate measure of their ability and character as rulers. The fate of Alsace-Lorraine is a striking and melancholy object lesson to a world threatened with Germ<__ domination. The history of Alsace-Lorraine is a sufficient revelation of what such a domination would mean. CHAPTER VIII THE SAVERNE AFFAIR The German system of arbitrary and oppressive government was appropriately crowned, a few months before the outbreak of the present war, by the incident of Saverne. The whole phUosophy and practice of the contemporary German state was vividly revealed in that affair. The German method of treating the conquered and the feeling of the conquered for Germany were seen to have undergone no softening change with the lapse of forty years. The original protest of 1871 was no more emphatic than the outburst of indignation aroused in Alsace-Lorraine, and in every class of society, by this new and culminating outrage. The Treaty of Frankfort, the Saverne Affair, these are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of modern German statecraft. Saverne, or Zabern, as the Germans call it, is an Alsatian town of about nine thousand inhabit ants located in the foothiUs of the Vosges. It was to be made famous in 1913 by the actions of a young 189 190 ALSACE-LORRAINE officer, callow and conceited beyond the permissible limits of any age. Lieutenant Baron von Forstner was twenty years old, was a native of East Prussia and exemplified in his personality the qualities of the Junker class, of whose blood and breeding he was a typical Ulustration. He caUed the Alsatian recruits whom he was training by an opprobrious term "Wackes" or rowdies, ruffians. He told his soldiers to use their weapons fearlessly U they should come into collision with the local civilians and of fered a prize of ten marks to anyone who should succeed in "sticking" any Alsatian native who should assault him. His under-officer, simUarly valiant, took occasion to say that he himseU would add three marks out of his own pocket to any such hero. Forstner's insults to the Alsatian recruits were frequent. He went so far as to oblige them to say, when presenting themselves to him, "I am a Wacke." These things became noised abroad outside the barracks and naturaUy aroused indignation. These wanton insults were levelled, it was felt, not at in dividual recruits, but at the people of Alsace. But the people kept their self-control under provoca tion as they have kept it steadily since 1871. "We are Alsatian Wackes," cried some street gamins to THE SAVERNE AFFAIR 191 the Lieutenant as he walked through the town. Others traUed along after him saying to each other in their salty dialect: "Say, tell me, you, how much is an Alsatian Wacke worth?" "Why, ten marks, of course." Laughed at and teased by the people, especially the chUdren, Forstner gave up walking alone. Whenever he appeared he was escorted by a patrol of four soldiers who stood with bayo nets fixed before the shops where he bought his chocolates and cigars. Going to a restaurant he placed a loaded revolver by his plate and with surpassing imbecUity stabbed the bUl of fare with his sword because he saw on it the French word "poularde." This, of course, incited the natives to renewed laughter and sarcasms. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the growing agitation of the town, Lieutenant von Forstner thought fit to crown his work by showing his con tempt for France as well as for the Alsatians, using an expression of defilement concerning the French flag. The use of the gross and vile term was fla grantly unprofessional, as weU as indecent, and was against aU army etiquette and tradition, formal respect toward the armies and officers and flags of other nations being taught as a military virtue in all the armies of the civilized world. Such language as 192 ALSACE-LORRAINE that used by Forstner, in Alsace of all countries, with its traditions, was a dehberate provocation, a cut across the face. The colonel of the regiment, von Reutter, instead of suppressing this firebrand of a petty officer, sup ported him and proceeded to give the world his own measure. Complaining about insufficient pro tection on the part of the local authorities, he took the law into his own hands. He served baU cart ridges to his soldiers, had machine guns got in readi ness, cleared the public squares, and threatened to fire upon the crowd in front of the barracks, U they did not disperse. They did. Not only was all Alsace trembhng with resent ment at the gratuitous insults and the arrogance of the officers, not only were pubhc meetings held to protest against these acts, but when the Reichstag met on November 25, 1913, a debate was precipi tated on the incidents of Saverne. The Minister of War, General von Falkenhayn, declared from the tribune that the utterances of Lieutenant von Forstner did not constitute insults because "he had not the least idea that his words would become known to the public." Falkenhayn reserved all his wrath for those soldiers who had divulged them and had thus, as he said, committed a gross offense THE SAVERNE AFFAIR 193 against "one of the elementary conditions of dis cipline in the army." The attitude of the army officers was being rapidly outlined. High and low, from heutenant to Prus sian Minister of War, aU thought alike. With such a temper in mihtary circles, naturally dangerous in cidents continued to occur. On the evening of November 28, at seven o'clock Lieutenant von Forstner, in company with some of his comrades, was seen in a pubhc square by some gamins who forthwith proceeded to jeer and taunt him. Lieu tenant Schadt rushed to the barracks to warn the guards who, eighty strong, came out. Colonel von Reutter placed himseU at their head and there began a veritable man hunt. Twenty-nine persons were arrested, some for having laughed, others for not moving on, others for having moved on too rapidly. Some were arrested even in their houses the doors of which were broken down by the soldiers. Among the men thus rounded up were the prosecuting at torney and three judges of the local court who were on their way home from the court house and who were apprehended because they protested against the Ulegal actions of the mihtary. The men arrested were kept in a dirty dungeon, the coal bunker of the barracks, over night. 194 ALSACE-LORRAINE Had aU this been opera bouffe, it would have convulsed the house. But it was not opera bouffe. It was German government in operation in the twentieth century. Not even local government, but national. The affair was no longer purely Alsa tian. Colonel von Reutter, by covering the actions of his subaltern and by substituting himseU for the police in a deUberate and offensive fashion, had raised in an aggravated form the dangerous problem of the relations of the civU and mUitary authorities. Public opinion was aroused throughout Ger many. "We get the impression," wrote the mih tary editor of the "Berliner Tageblatt," himself an officer, Commandant Moraht, "that behind this formidable display of mUitary force there is con cealed an entirely different purpose from that of merely chastising some street urchins. The ques tion arises, is not this an attempt on the part of the mUitary to play a bad turn upon the civil govern ment of the Empire." The Alsatian ministry sent an investigator to the scene of trouble; the sub-prefect or Kreisdirektor also intervened. But Colonel von Reutter went right on. Three new arrests were made by the mUi tary on the night of November 30. An excellent way of pouring oil on the fire. Public THE SAVERNE AFFAIR 195 opinion grew more vehement. "This is the greatest scandal we have ever known," said the radical Morgen Post. " At Zabern, judges and public pros ecutors are imprisoned but Herr von Forstner is at liberty; his imprisonment is not even contemplated, for, accompanied by four soldiers with fixed bayo nets, he goes chocolate-buying. There are sights, more beautiful, more impressive, more grandiose than that of a Prussian lieutenant, accompanied by four armed soldiers, buying chocolate. We have already had the history of Captain von Koepenick. That affair was as ridiculous as it could be, but this history of the heutenant of Zabern is more so — and the ridiculousness of it falls on Germany. This is why it is revolting and profoundly humiliating for the patriotic German." The patriotic German was, however, destined to further humiUations. On December 3, representa tives of Alsace-Lorrame in the Reichstag presented to that body the protests of the Reichsland against these deeds. The Emperor was absent from Berlin, hunting at Donaueschingen, as at the time of the Daily Telegraph incident in 1908, and did not con sider it his duty to return to his capital. Bethmann- Hollweg, who had gone to him to get his orders, made a speech minimizing the whole affair and, like 196 ALSACE-LORRAINE the Minister of War, blaming the soldiers who had told of the provocative remarks of Forstner. But the Reichstag was not disposed to let this question of the conflict of mUitary and civU powers be thus cavalierly treated, and pressed the ChanceUor hard. Bethmann-HoUweg declared that Forstner would be punished but declined to say what the nature of the punishment would be. As a matter of fact the Chancellor was as completely without power or au thority in the matter as any private citizen. For the control of the army is the ruler's prerogative and his acts, in this sphere, do not require the counter signature of any minister. He is absolute. This is a fundamental feature of the Prussian monarchy. The army is the King's, not Parliament's. The civU authorities are powerless to prevent the en croachments of the military authorities. Bethmann- HoUweg was only a civU official. "This is a confession of bankruptcy," exclaimed the Socialist Ledebour. As a matter of fact, such was the situation in Germany, the Army was a state within the state. The Reichstag now had one more opportunity to learn its own impotence. Not only did the ChanceUor indicate his impotence and theirs but the Minister of War, Falkenhayn, peremp torily and in cutting language refused to make any THE SAVERNE AFFAIR 197 statements in regard to the facts on the ground that as Minister of War he had no cognizance of them. Mirabeau's famous phrase was being vindicated again; "Prussia is not a country which possesses an army, it is an army which possesses a country." So indignant was the Reichstag at the high handed actions of the mUitary, at the impersonal, detached, and essentially trivial speech of the Chan ceUor, and at the flaming eulogy of the Prussian officers and army as defenders of Throne and Father land by Falkenhayn that it was in no mood to be put off. "The words of the Chancellor," cried Fehrenbach, a member of the Center party, "seem to come from another world. (Repeated applause.) Army officers are subject to the law. They are not nor ought they to be beyond its reach. That would be the end of Germany, finis Germanice. . . . We hope that the utterances of the Minister of War are not the echo of conversations which he has recently had at Donaueschingen. (Frantic and prolonged ap plause from the Center and the SociaUsts.) If that were so, then it would be a terrible blow for the Empire. (Thunderous applause.) Those who act thus faU to understand the responsibUity which they are assuming at this time." On December 4, Bethmann-Hollweg made an- 198 ALSACE-LORRAINE other speech in order to calm the Reichstag. But that body refused to be calmed. In the midst of indescribable tumult it passed a motion censuring the ChanceUor by 293 votes against 54, the former representing 10,200,000 voters, the latter 1,800,000. Only the Junker Conservatives opposed the mo tion which ran as foUows: "The ChanceUor has treated the affairs concerning the interpolations relative to the incidents of Zabern in a manner which is not in agreement with the sentiment of the Reichstag." This censure was levelled at the Chancellorj not for any acts of his administration — for the incidents of Zabern were deeds of the military — but because he had not been able to arrest the encroachments of the army officers. But the highest mUitary au thority in the army is, as has been said, the King of Prussia, an authority subject by the laws of Prussia to no control whatever. He could be reached only very indirectly. However, here for the first time was a question, originating in Alsace and concerning Alsace, whose glaring implications were of interest to aU Germany, which might now contemplate the nature of her liberties, the character of her government. What had been brought home to the Alsatians for forty THE SAVERNE AFFAIR 199 years was now being brought home to the sixty mUlion Germans who had eagerly cooperated in the work of oppressing Alsace and were now reaping an appropriate reward. The impotence of the Reichstag to control or seriously influence the course of the German Government was to be shown even more clearly on this occasion than it had been five years earlier in the crisis arising out of the Daily Telegraph interview. On December 9, 1913, Bethmann-HoUweg stated that he had no intention of resigning because of the vote of censure. Members have mentioned the usage in France. "But even children know the difference between France and Germany. I know that there are people working to estabhsh similar institutions here. I shall oppose them with aU my might." Bethmann-HoUweg took occasion a little later to express the same idea even more pungently in the Upper House of the Prussian Landtag when he said that "votes of censure merely estabhshed the fact of a difference of opinion in a particular case between the Reichstag and the Imperial Chan ceUor." The Reichstag was condemned in high places — and quite properly as it was quite impotent and would always remain so unless it were wiUing to 200 ALSACE-LORRAINE fight for respectable rights as have parliaments in other nations. This it has never even seriously con sidered doing. MeanwhUe the doughty Lieutenant von Forstner was doing what he could to help along the humilia tion of the civU authorities of the Empire and to emphasize the supremacy of the mUitary. On the 2d of December, on the very eve of the first discus sion in the Reichstag he had covered himseU with new glory. WhUe passing through the town of DettwiUer, a few mUes from Saverne, at the head of a detachment of troops, he heard the famUiar gibes of the people. Immediately the soldiers were ordered to chase the crowd and soon came back, bringing with them as prisoner a lame cobbler, named Blanck. As Blanck protested his innocence and sought to get free, Forstner slashed him across the forehead with his sabre, inflicting a severe wound. Not only was the cobbler lame, but he was being held by both arms by soldiers at the very moment of the valorous slash. It seemed as U such an act must be condemned by the mUitary authorities themselves in the in terest of the good name of the army. As a matter of fact the Lieutenant-Baron was condemned, De cember 19, by a court-martial to 43 days' imprison- THE SAVERNE AFFAIR 201 ment, the minimum penalty possible under the circumstances, and hardly a serious satisfaction for pubhc opinion. Forstner appealed. It would have been weU to let things rest there. But worse was yet to come. The mihtary party now entered aggressively and audaciously upon the scene, apparently resolved to test this matter once for all, and to teach the Ger man people their exact position in the sorry scheme of things. Colonel von Reutter declared himseU responsible, stating that he had insistently recom mended his subalterns to use their arms in order to punish any who should insult the German uniform; in particular he had ordered Lieutenant von Forstner not to go out without his pistol and to have his sabre always ready for use. It was now rumored that the Colonel would himseU be sent before a war councU. Soon another theatrical incident occurred. On December 22, the head of the pohce of BerUn, von Jagow, a civU official subordinate, of course, to the ChanceUor, published an open letter in the Kreuz- zeitung, in which he criticised the condemnation of Forstner. "Military exercises are acts of state," he said. "Those who try to impede acts of state are Uable to be prosecuted and punished. Conse- 202 ALSACE-LORRAINE quently, Lieutenant von Forstner could not be placed on trial and stiU less be punished. The mihtary court which condemned him has apparently faUed to be guided by these considerations. If the law stood differently, its prompt amendment would be needed. For, if German officers who are garri soned in what is practically the enemy's country, are in danger of being prosecuted for Ulegal deten tion because they endeavor to make room for the exercise of the power of the State, the highest pro fession in the land is disgraced." Thus the Berlin prefect of police used his power to influence pubhc opinion whUe the matter was sub judice. His impertinence and incorrection were flagrant. He explained with dubious casuistry that he was speaking not as prefect of police but as a doctor of law. The Crown Prince now appeared upon the stage, judging the moment propitious. Telegrams sent by him to Reutter were published — telegrams of congratulation and including the famous phrase, "Go it strong." (Immer feste darauf.) Would the Chancellor aUow his subordinate, the prefect of police, to pass unrebuked? Would the Emperor neglect to notice the action of his offspring? On January 5, 1914, at Strasburg, the capital THE SAVERNE AFFAIR 203 of Alsace, began the sessions of the Higher Court- Martial entrusted with the final determination of the cases growing out of the Zabern incidents. One or two bits of testimony in what from every point of view of justice was a scandalous trial throw a clear white light upon the proceedings. One of the witnesses, a schoolboy, testified that Colonel von Reutter had caUed him a rowdy. The Colonel on hearing this testimony rose and solemnly addressed the court: "That feUow passed me without taking off his cap. It is not thus that one passes a Prussian colonel." Lieutenant Schadt had arrested a bank teUer because he thought he detected a smUe or grimace on his countenance. The Ueutenant was nineteen years of age and testimony was given to show that he was tipsy at the time of the incident. In justifying his arrest of the public prosecutor and the judges of the civU tribunal he testified: "The pubhc prosecutor was particularly provocative. One of the judges said to me, 'I wUl take no orders from you.' NaturaUy I arrested him. I had every man whom I suspected of laughing at us arrested. As they were too cowardly to do it to our faces one had to be guided by presumption. We were obliged to break into some houses to catch the delinquents." The Strasburg Court-Martial acquitted Lieuten- 204 ALSACE-LORRAINE ant Schadt, on the ground that he had merely obeyed the orders of his superior. It acquitted Colonel von Reutter on the ground that he was innocent of aU intent to violate the law; and also, on the ground that his conduct was in conformity with an ordi nance of October 17, 1820, of the Prussian military cabinet. This ordinance permits army officers to intervene "when, in their souls and consciences, they have the intimate conviction that the civil authorities are too slow in demanding their inter vention." This ordinance, a mere decree of the Prussian military cabinet, had never been counter signed by any Prussian minister, not even by the minister of war, but it had recently been included in the confidential instructions to army officers. But it had never been pubUshed and appeared to be in plain defiance of the Prussian constitution which says (Art. 2, Constitution of Jan. 31, 1850) : "Armed forces may not be employed in the repression of in ternal disorders, except on the request of the civU authorities." No such request had been made at Saverne. On the same day, January 10, 1914, Forstner was acquitted on appeal on the ground that he had only exercised the right of "punitive self-defense." The cobbler, though lame and securely held by THE SAVERNE AFFAIR 205 soldiers, was found to have a pocket knife in his pocket! The caste of army officers thus achieved a famous victory. The reader should be careful to note that questions affecting the relations of the military to the civil power were decided by the military, by a court-martial composed of high army officers. This interesting story may be drawn to a close, although it would be profitable to study it in extenso, so full of instruction is it as to the nature of govern ment in Germany, by a mere mention of a few other incidents. The officer who had presided over the Court-Martial immediately telegraphed the news of the acquittal to Herr von Jagow, the Berlin prefect of pohce, and to Herr von Oldenburg, a leader of the Prussian Junkers and particularly notable for having declared a few years before that "The King of Prussia and the Emperor of Germany must be able to tell a Ueutenant at any moment, ' Take ten men with you and close the Reichstag.' " This presiding officer was later promoted. Colonel von Reutter was transferred to a better regiment, and was given the order of the Red Eagle. He was said, by the German press, to have received from fifty to seventy thousand letters of congratulation, including one from the Crown Prince. He had be- 206 ALSACE-LORRAINE come one of the most popular men of the empire. In the course of the trial, when it was pointed out that such actions as those which his subalterns had committed might lead to bloodshed, he had said that it had been his opinion that "bloodshed would be a good thing" and that citizens had been arrested for "intending to laugh." The picture is not quite complete, although it is nearly so. The civil administration of Alsace-Lor raine, including the Statthalter, von Wedel, and the ministers, were discredited by these events, and resigned. Before the court-martial the local civil of ficials, although mostly immigrant Germans, had testified against the army officers and had defended the rights and the conduct of the local authorities. The decision brushed them aside like chaff as of no importance compared with Reutter and the others. DaUwitz, one of the most reactionary and autocratic Prussian bureaucrats, was forthwith appointed Statt halter. On January 20th, the Upper Chamber of the Diet of Alsace-Lorraine, although consisting almost en tirely of nominated and official members, voted a resolution to the effect that the trouble at Saverne could have been prevented "if the military authori ties had dealt promptly and adequately with the un- THE SAVERNE AFFAIR 207 worthy, insulting and provocative behavior" of Lieutenant Forstner, and also denouncing the "un heard-of manner" in which Colonel Reutter had violated every sentiment of law, and demanding that guarantees be given that such things should not occur again, and especiaUy that the law should be respected by the mUitary authorities. The Upper Chamber might as well have voted that henceforth German statecraft should be based only upon the Golden Rule. The Alsatians in this crisis found some support in the Uberal newspapers of Germany. Vorwarts said: "The Constitution and the rights of the people are banished from the Empire. This is the end of the reign of law. The sword is our master." The Berliner Tageblatt said: "If every officer is permitted to dispossess the civU power of its functions, Prussia becomes a country Uke Mexico or China. If, some day, it should be thought that the Government is incapable and that the Reichstag is exceeding its powers we shaU perhaps see officers stationing their batteries on the Konigsplatz in order to preserve the pohtical ideal of the Conservative Party." The same paper, quoting the Kaiser's threat "to smash the Constitution of Alsace-Lorraine into atoms," added that "To-day's events at Strasburg have 208 ALSACE-LORRAINE saved the Supreme War Lord that trouble as the work of forty-two years of reconciliation in the con quered provinces is now destroyed." Professor von Calker, a member of the Reichstag from Strasburg, had aheady exclaimed in one of its sessions, apropos of the early incidents of Zabern: "It is enough to make one howl with pain! For sixteen years I have devoted myseU to reconciling the immigrants with the natives, and now we have come to the point where we can say that aU has gone up in smoke." A South German writer, Friedrichs, wrote: "What would the people of Manchester or Liverpool do U they had a Zabern: and what would an Enghsh cobbler do U refused redress after an officer had slashed his head. WeU! I should not Uke to be in that officer's shoes whUe the cobbler was at large." But while there were a few voices in favor of jus tice to Alsace-Lorraine, and in favor of the rights of the civil population over the mUitary, they were entirely ineffectual. This crisis, like others in recent German history, Uke that aroused by the Daily Telegraph incident, petered out quickly and ridicu lously. The mUitary and autocratic elements in the nation resolved to drive the lesson of these events home. The members of the Reichstag, who in December had voted overwhelmingly against THE SAVERNE AFFAIR 209 the Chancellor, in January listened with approval to him when he asserted that as a regular thing the army may not intervene except on the demand of the civil authorities but that as long ago as 1855, it was recognized that this rule was subject to so many necessary exceptions that it was found im possible to enumerate them or to formulate them in any legal text. On January 24, the Reichstag passed a motion inviting the Government "to regulate the question of army intervention in such a way as to assure the independence of the civU authorities," but with out insisting that such regulation should be incor porated in a law of the Empire. Other motions of fered by the Socialists and by the members from Alsace-Lorraine were referred to a committee. Noth ing has since been heard of any of them. The atti tude of the Government was shown by the fact that none of its members saw fit to attend this session. The docUity of the Reichstag was complete. The army had won a complete victory. The Prussian rul ing caste was busy, to use an expression of Thomas Paine, in "conquering at home." It had delivered a chaUenge to German democracy and to German parUamentarism and it had shown the impotence of each. The object lesson was impressive. It was a 210 ALSACE-LORRAINE fitting introduction to the world-war inaugurated six months later by this caste which had revealed its power and its insolence in the incidents of Saverne. During the debate, on January 23, 1914, Fried rich Naumann, of "Middle-Europe" fame, took occasion to express an opinion: "Choose any place in Baden or Wiirtemberg or Bavaria and let the heutenants and their colonel conduct themselves as they did at Zabern, and you would see what would happen! . . . With aU respect for regulations the internal order of a country is not kept by regulations alone. What is needed is more respect for men, even though they are only civilians, only Alsa tians. . . . Big words are talked about an army which is said to be a 'people's army.' WeU, U it is that, we must demand that it shaU not be entirely devoid of popular sympathies. . . . Let us have respect for the people, for civUians; then we can have seventy thousand soldiers in Alsace without harm. But when our soldiers go to Alsace with the idea that they are entering an enemy's country, and when the officers presume to play a political role and even to decide whether blood shaU flow or not, the country sees in the army not a 'people's' army but a foreign element. That is the indict ment which is made to-day." THE SAVERNE AFFAIR 211 The immense significance of the Saverne affair has appeared in the course of the narrative. At issue were militarism versus law, violence versus reason, despotism versus Uberty, Prussia versus Germany, and in each case the former had won. France, in the decade preceding, had had her strug gle over military arbitrariness and injustice, over the question as to which is supreme in the state, the mUitary or the civil element. Her national con science had revolted against the wrongs done a Jewish officer and, after a tremendous struggle, she had repaired that wrong, as far as reparation was possible. The "honor of the army" was not con sidered superior to justice. A very different outcome characterized the struggle in Germany, U so feeble and evanescent an effort may be caUed a struggle as that of the opposition described above to the deeds of the mUitary caste. As far as Alsace-Lorrame was concerned the Saverne affair proved once more, what she already weU knew, that she was truly a conquered province, and that her position in 1914 was the same as in 1871. She had no friend anywhere. She found no real support in her insistence upon elementary rights from those parties in the Empire which claimed to represent such rights, the Sociahsts, the Radicals. 212 ALSACE-LORRAINE But with only feeble and transitory friends outside, whose zeal and courage evaporated in a month, the Alsatians were at least true to themselves. The Upper Chamber of the Landtag, created and com posed to hold the Lower Chamber in check, sided with it in denouncing the conduct of the mUitary and in asserting the rights of Alsace-Lorraine. Moreover, the Alsatian Ministry in which there were converts to German rule (Rallies) did the same. The solidarity of public and offic!aI~opinion, of na tives and of immigrant officials, was unprecedented in the history of Alsace and was complete. But this unexpected agreement of the local officials and the people made aU the clearer the subjection of the Reichsland. The Statthalter, Count von Wedel, now considered too Uberal by the dominant faction in the Empire, gave way to a man in whom the mUi tary autocrats had more confidence, Dallwitz. For the Alsatians and Lorrainers there was a bitter irony in this change for Count von Wedel, now considered too Uberal, was the man who, the year before, had urged the passage of exceptional laws agamst the newspapers printed in French, and against native societies, and he had only recently announced anew his adhesion to these views. And this man was considered by Berlin too liberal for Alsace-Lorraine! THE SAVERNE AFFAIR 213 The coUective resignation of the government of Strasburg, nevertheless, had its own significance. In this conflict between the civU and mUitary powers for supremacy the river Rhine was seen after all to be a boundary. East of the Rhine, in Old Germany, the Government proclaimed the preponderance of the mihtary, and pubhc opinion rallied to its sup port; west of the Rhine, in Alsace, public opinion resisted so strongly that the local government fol lowed it and the opposition of the Reichsland to the preponderance of the military was complete, though impotent. The principles for- which modern France has stood are held, as this incident shows, by Alsace-Lorraine, an additional evidence that the Alsatians and Lor rainers are not Germans, whatever language the majority of them speak. The isolation of this people, among the sixty million Germans, was abundantly demonstrated. The foundation of the nationalism of Alsace- Lorraine is not a particular language or a particular religion, it is a principle, the principle of liberty, a principle which France represents, for which she has been struggling passionately for more than a century and which she has realized under the Third Republic, a principle which the ruling classes in 214 ALSACE-LORRAINE Germany have combated with fury ever since the French Revolution, and with increasing success. Germany in 1914 was notoriously less liberal than in 1848. The Rhine is a boundary in the realm of ideas. It ought also to be a boundary in the political map of Europe. In December, 1913, the Prussian Secretary of War, General von Falkenhayn, said, after speaking of the attitude of the people of Zabern: "We want to stamp out in the population the spirit that they manifested and which caUed forth the incidents of Zabern." Six months earher Bethmann-HoUweg had written to the historian Lamprecht: "We are a young people. We have perhaps too much faith in force. We take too httle account of refined means. We do not yet know that what force acquires, force alone can keep." Never has the manner of Germanization, as ap plied to Alsace-Lorraine, been better defined than by Falkenhayn, nor more justly judged and con demned than by these words of the ChanceUor. Democratic Germany talks much but does not act; autocratic Germany acts but does not talk, — such is one of the lessons of the incident of Zabern. CHAPTER IX CONCLUSION The Treaty of Frankfort has been foUowed by momentous and lamentable consequences. It, more than any other cause, is responsible for fastening militarism upon Europe, for the burdensome and precarious armed peace which has weighed with increasing menace upon the world. Had victorious Germany showed toward France in 187 1 the same statesmanlike wisdom and moderation that Prussia showed toward Austria in 1866 the relations of Germany and France might easily have become as satisfactory as the relations between Germany and Austria. The security of Germany as of France would have been assured in the eyes of all. But by the violent seizure of the two provinces, of a miUion and a haU people who protested unanimously against the deed, Germany was obliged to keep armed in ordered to safeguard her booty. If one nation of Europe is armed to the teeth, especiaUy one whose record has long been warlike, then every other na tion that is a neighbor must Ukewise be prepared, 215 216 ALSACE-LORRAINE if it has even an elementary sense of where safety Ues. With the nations fully armed, and with the example of successful rapine always in the mind of Europe to corrupt, to tempt, and to incite, anarchy is installed in international affairs. In the race of preparation for the next raid, there can be no limit, nor was a limit ever reached during the sub sequent period of forty-three years which we have passed in review. AU tendencies toward an in creasing cooperation among nations, which might in time have resulted in a general federation, were decisively blocked. The two Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 are evidence of the maleficent ef fect of so conspicuous and complete an act of primal injustice as that represented by the seizure of Alsace and Lorraine. Resting on a single basis, that of force, it could only strengthen the faith in force in the mind of the victor. European pohtics, hitherto characterized by an increasingly hberal and popu lar trend, brilliantly exemplified in the process of Italian unification, were now turned into illiberal, despotic, and, therefore, anarchical channels by Bismarck. From the moment when the most powerful nation of Europe followed with success an autocratic and mihtary line of policy it was in evitable that this policy would dominate the Con- CONCLUSION 217 tinent. The Treaty of Frankfort marks one of the blackest dates in modern European history. That treaty was based upon the principle of force and upon no other. The unrelieved and unqualified assertion of that principle in the latter haU of the nineteenth century represented a lamentable retrogression to the old and fatal ideas and customs of the Middle Ages and the Old Regime. It made public law synonymous once more with successful violence. It proclaimed not only the legitimacy but the de sirability of war as the primary ideal of ambitious nations. It inferentiaUy exalted the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, the fittest being those strong est in mihtary power. There was no justification for such an act in the year 1871. It was not needed to complete the unification of Germany, U that would have been a justification. The unification of Germany, an event with which the Uberal world generaUy sympathized, was completed by the cooperation of aU the Ger man states in the common undertaking of the war. It would have been assured just as inevitably had Bismarck consented to make peace at Ferrieres on the basis of cession, to use the phrase employed by Jules Favre, of "not one inch of our territory, not one stone of our fortresses." The new French Re- 2i 8 ALSACE-LORRAINE pubhc was not at aU opposed to the recognition of German unity. It was only opposed to the dis memberment of France. Nor could the Germans assert in the year 1871 that the provisions of treaties do but register and record the outcome of a physical struggle, that there was no other principle in the world for the settle ment of the destinies of men, no other basis for public law. If the world in 187 1 was the same world that had existed in 1771 or 1671 or 1571, then there was nothing more to be said. Up to the end of the eighteenth century wars had been the accepted procedure of rulers in the adjustment of their diffi culties or in the achievement of their ambitions and at the close of wars annexations were made and peoples were handed about as U they were the mon archs' property and nothing more. But what had been for centuries the accepted commonplace of international history was no longer universally admitted. As a result of the French Revolution, of the proclamation of the rights of men, a new principle had found lodgment in the enlightened minds and consciences of Europe, the principle that governments derive their just au thority from the consent of the governed, that the right to liberty is the sole legitimate basis of pubhc CONCLUSION 219 law, not force. This principle, applied practically to international affairs, meant that in the case of annexations or transfers of territory, the important thing was not the territory, but the population Uv ing in it, and that the wishes of that population must be ascertained and carried out. This new democratic and humane principle was not a mere theoretical abstraction in 1871, not a. mere iridescent dream. It was the recognized prin ciple, controlling action on the continent of Europe in the great territorial changes of the period. It was a working principle — except in Germany. The Kingdom of Italy was based upon it. In 1859, i860, 1866 and 1870, the peoples of the various ItaUan states voted, and by tremendous majorities, in favor of union with Piedmont. In i860, Savoy and Nice were annexed to France only after the formal and overwhelming approval of the people concerned. By the plebiscite of AprU 22, i860, 130,533 votes approved out of 130,839 cast, the total number of registered voters being 135,449. The annexations of Prussia in 1866, on the other hand, were based upon the old principle of force alone. Hanover, Nassau, Hesse-Cassel, Frankfort and Schleswig-Holstein were annexed, without con sultation of the people, by right of conquest. But 220 ALSACE-LORRAINE even Prussia made a slight concession to the spirit of the times. By the Treaty of Prague of 1866, a treaty between Prussia and Austria, it was provided that the people of northern Schleswig (who were Danes) should have the right to vote as to whether they would become Prussians or remain within the Danish kingdom. Twelve years later the two contracting parties agreed to annul this article of the treaty and the popular consultation has never been held. Prussia and Austria have kept themselves untainted from the principle of the rights of the people to be consulted as to their fate. Thus in 187 1 two principles confronted each other, the old, feudal principle of the right of force, the new, democratic principle of the right of the governed. Either one might have been made the basis of the Treaty of Frankfort. Two eras stood confronting each other, the past and the future, two peoples, two mentalities. It was a solemn and decisive moment, a turning point in history. Had Germany fallen into line with the rest of the world, had she consented that a plebiscite of the people of Alsace-Lorraine should determine whether they should henceforth be citi zens of Germany or of France, then the new prin ciple would have triumphed definitely in the world CONCLUSION 221 and Europe would have been a safer place in which to live. But Germany, without a moment's hesitation, de cided that her might gave her the right to Alsace- Lorraine and she took them, never for an instant admittmg that the people concerned had any rights wliich she was bound to respect. She sided with the good old fossU past. The right of conquest, said Marshal Moltke with confidence, is "in conformity with the order of things estabhshed by God." That being the case, what is there to discuss? The wise man does not attempt to alter the decrees of the Eternal. The Franco-German war produced in Germany an illimitable faith in force. The Prussianization of German thought, which our own unhappy days have revealed as so complete, began at that time. The most elaborate, systematic and potent anti social, anti-humanitarian doctrine that Europe has known, enjoyed great prestige and authority, be cause it could point to successes of the most pal- i pable sort. Germans beheved that brute force could do anything and everything, and was entitled to do so. Also they came to imagine that this force would always be theirs and that other nations would never have it in the same degree, that as Germany 222 ALSACE-LORRAINE had conquered France in 1871 so she could conquer others henceforth forevermore, a perUous conceit. A state of mind, of soul, was created that was black with menace for the world. The German spirit, victorious and' inflated, was now open to those in fluences which have resulted in the monstrous trag edy of to-day, the boundless egotism, the inabUity to see that other nations have rights quite as sacred as those of Germany, the constant hostility to aU attempts to improve the international relations of the world by the spirit of cooperation, of peaceful adjustment of such difficulties as arise, the concen tration of the national attention upon war and war like preparations, as U war were the only constant and stable and permanent social fact. "As long as men exist," said WUliam II at Carlsruhe in Sep tember, 1909, "there wUl be those who are jealous and hostile. We must be protected from their at tacks; this is why there wiU always be dangers of war and we must be ready for everything." Beth mann-Hollweg, on March 30, 191 1, added an ap pendant to this Imperial thought: "Whoever thinks seriously and practically of the question of dis armament . . . must be convinced that this ques tion is insoluble, as long as men remain men and states states." CONCLUSION 223 Such is the sterUe pohtical monism of modern Germany, a phUosophy that was not beyond the imaginative grasp of the cave-dweUer's mind. The conquest of Alsace checked the march of European civUization. No doubt great technical and economic progress has been achieved since 187 1, but stiU greater progress would have been reaUzed had the Treaty of Frankfort never been signed. The future of democracy was imperiUed, the ultimate Uberties of the world were rendered far more dif ficult of achievement by the militarism now en throned in Europe. Marshal Moltke said in 1870 that Germany would have to remain armed for fifty years to preserve her conquest but that then the Alsatians would have become patriotic Germans and would no longer desire to get free from their new fatherland. The fifty years of militarism have had quite other results. Truer than the prophecy of the Prussian Field Marshal was the prophecy of a Catholic bishop. Monsignor Freppel said to WiUiam I in February, 1871: "BeUeve a bishop who teUs you in the pres ence of God and with his hand upon his heart, 'Alsace wiU never belong to you.'" What of the future? Ought Alsace and Lorraine to be returned to France? The Treaty of Frankfort 224 ALSACE-LORRAINE has been torn up, not by action of France, which has never accepted it as morally binding but has scrupulously observed it as a fact, but by Germany herseU which has steadily announced it as final and as "settling" the question of Alsace-Lorrame once and for aU. For forty years and more German rulers and German generals have denounced France as ceaselessly meditating and plotting revenge. When ever the governing authorities have desired to extract additional mUUons from the German people for the army, they have pointed to the aUeged menace in the West, the irreconcUable foe, weeping for her chUdren and refusing to be comforted. The Ger mans have never explained why the French must after forty years regard the Treaty of Frankfort as final when they themselves did not regard the Treaty of Westphalia as final although it had run two hun dred and thirty-three years. German argumenta tion, however, is generally unUateral. The war which the Germans have declared fox a generation was coming from the West, has come, but not by act of France. It has come from "peace ful, God-fearing" Germany, and was conceived in Berlin and Essen. The Treaty of Frankfort was thrown into the waste paper basket along with another famous scrap in August, 1914. CONCLUSION 225 When the future peace is made the first article in the territorial readjustment should be one restor ing Belgium to the Belgians, and restoring to France her lost provinces, those lost in 1870 as those lost in 1 914. No honest man believes that because Ger many has controUed a tenth of France for the past three years she has the slightest right to that territory or ever wUl have or ever could have. If she should keep her grip upon them for forty years and more, as she has kept it upon Alsace-Lorrame, she would have no greater right than on the very first day of her unspeakable aggression. There is no more a ques tion of Alsace-Lorraine to-day, after forty-six years of occupation, than there is a question of the De partment of the North, after three years of occupa tion. If the German annexations of 1870 are justified, then the actual annexations of the present war are justified. The two cases stand upon an absolute parity. The people of Alsace and Lorraine have never- admitted the right, they have only admitted the fact, of German rule, as no doubt the peasants of Northern France have done and are perforce doing at the present moment. Ought there to be a referendum? No one would think of demanding that a popular vote should be 226 ALSACE-LORRAINE taken to-day in the Department of the North, for instance, to see U it should become French again. There is no more reason for consulting the depart ments of Upper Rhine, of Lower Rhine, and of the MoseUe, taken forty-three years ago, by precisely the same methods. If the proposition had actually been reaUzed which was made in 191 7 by the German Foreign Secretary to the Mexican government that, for services to be rendered Germany by Mexico and Japan by their waging war upon the United Spates, Mexico should be rewarded by the acquisition of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, does any sane person believe that the people of the United States or the people of the states concerned would after forty years have consented to submit the question of their return to the United States to a popular vote, conducted by the Mexican government? The practical difficulties in the way of a referendum arise from the initial act of violence. Who would be the citizens of Alsace-Lorraine entitled to vote and to decide by their vote the fate of the provinces? Should they be only the present residents? But over four hundred thousand Alsatians and Lor rainers have, owing to the annexation, left their native country without hope of return, and have CONCLUSION 227 kept their love of it undimmed in the bitterness of exile, of poignant separation from friends and rela tives. Are they and their sons who have paid this heavy price for their fideUty to the fundamental principle in which every true American beheves and must believe because it is the very corner-stone of our national independence and freedom, are these people to have nothing to say at the time when the reunion of their provinces with France is among the possibUities, and are the Germanizing agents and immigrants in Alsace to have the vote in such a plebiscite? Again, who would conduct the referen dum? In view of the ruthless regime of murder, imprisonment, espionage, and delation which Ger many instaUed in the provinces in August, 1914, would a referendum conducted under German au thority be apt to be honest and scrupulous? This issue does not admit of compromise. It must be kept as clear-cut as it is in its essential nature. The principle at the basis of the Treaty of Frankfort must be repudiated and emphatically discredited by its complete and resounding reversal. Never at any time since 1870 has Alsace-Lorraine admitted that it was German. It declared the Treaty of Frankfort null and void and it has never rescinded that declaration. 228 ALSACE-LORRAINE The character of the German government for forty-three years, the very provisions of German legislation during all these years, the measures of the German administration, the occasional admissions of German officials as to the real situation, aU show conclusively that the official affirmation that Alsace- Lorraine has become thoroughly German has not been believed even in the official circles which have made the affirmation. Their conduct has behed their words. Has German pohcy in Alsace-Lorraine at any time since 1870 been based upon the theory that a people who admittedly were opposed to an nexation have become reconciled to it and are loyal Germans? What has Germany done to turn hatred into love, dissatisfaction into contentment? Fried rich Naumann has admitted in his recent book, Central Europe "that the modern Germans al most everywhere in the world are unfortunately bad Germanizers." There is no more notorious commonplace in European politics than the egregious failure of the Germans to Germanize, or even to concUiate. Germany's Pohsh, Danish, French sub jects are eloquent witnesses to this incapacity. Ger many can hold people in subjection, she cannot or will not give them freedom. If the positive historical evidence which has been abundantly presented in the CONCLUSION 229 course of this narrative as to the f eeUng of the people of Alsace-Lorraine toward their conquerors had been entirely lacking, the most elementary common sense would have sufficed to show that no people could ever be won by such processes. Whatever material prosperity, whatever economic development has come under German rule, has made no difference to the pubhc mind. Feehngs of justice have a far deeper influence upon men than material considera tions. The Alsatians have been held in slavery, for what is slavery if not subjection to the wiU of an other? To be incorporated in a nation they detested, to be obhged to serve in its armies, and eventually to fight against those whom they consider their broth ers, such has been the fate of the people of Alsace and Lorraine. If that be not slavery, what is it? The twentieth century must redress the greatest iniquity of the nineteenth. The only action in har mony with justice and the rights of peoples is the return to France of the occupied provinces; those occupied three years ago and those occupied forty- six years ago. The message of the modern world should be so emphatic, should be so free of all dubiety, should be so clear and loud, that it wiU penetrate the ears of aU its creatures, even those who appear to be stone 230 ALSACE-LORRAINE deaf. There should be no plebiscite. It must never be admitted that might can change a condition of right by creating a new right; that might may, U apphed skilfuUy and ruthlessly, become right; that a territory may be annexed by might against its wUl; that the conqueror may then send scores of thousands of his subjects into it to settle, may at the same time drive from it scores of thousands of its natives and may for forty years try to terrUy and corrupt those who remain, and that then the sum total of aU these high-handed acts of violence alters the situation. In the interest of clear think ing and honorable, humane action, this notion must be stamped out. Otherwise we shaU admit that time and the continuous use of oppressive methods suffice to make vahd a monstrous iniquity. If the passage of time can alter the character of a crime, then robbery is legitimatized after a period, then persecution, U extended over years enough, and U vigorous enough, is moraUy justified by its results. The moral sense of the world will never be content with any such sophistical method of enabling the robber to become the permanent beneficiary of his crime. In the coming work of European reconstruction the lamentable injustice of 1870 must be repaired. CONCLUSION 231 The Protest of Bordeaux must be shown to be more august and valid in the conscience of mankind than the Treaty of Frankfort. No single act could secure so emphaticaUy for conscience the position that belongs to it in the affairs of the world and before the tribunal of history. It may at times have seemed that the question of Alsace-Lorraine was a dispute concerning only France and Germany. The world, U it has ever thought so, now knows better. There can be no excuse for ignorance as to its significance. This is blazoned forth in letters of fire upon every page of contemporary history. From 187 1 date the arro gance, the conceit, the sense of invincibUity of the Germans, the conviction that Providence has raised them up to be the leaders of the world and that nothing can faU wliich they set themselves to do, sentiments which have grown steadUy to appalUng proportions and have finaUy attained their legiti mate expression in the wanton attack upon the liber ties of the world. The words of the deputies of Alsace and Lorraine uttered in the Assembly at Bordeaux on February 17, 1871, were true and sin gularly prescient, a poignant prophecy, every letter of which has been fulfiUed or is in rapid process of fulfillment: 232 ALSACE-LORRAINE "Europe cannot permit or ratify the abandon ment of Alsace and Lorraine. The civilized nations, as guardians of justice and national rights, cannot remain indifferent to the fate of their neighbors, under pain of becoming, in their turn, victims of the outrages which they have tolerated. Modern Europe cannot aUow a people to be seized Uke a herd of cattle; she cannot continue deaf to the repeated protests of threatened nationahties; she owes it to her instinct of seU-preservation to forbid such abuses of power. She knows, too, that the unity of France is now, as in the past, a guarantee of the general order of the world, a barrier against the spirit of conquest and invasion. Peace concluded at the price of a cession of territory could be nothing but a costly truce, and not a final peace." A world which has had militarism imposed upon it and a universal war let loose as a result of the intoxication of pride and the lust of power of Ger many is in a position to appreciate the pitiless ac curacy of this forecast of 1 87 1 . Upon it is incumbent the redressing of a monstrous wrong in a manner so unqualified and so emphatic that in the future no aggressive power will be tempted to repeat the evU deed. It has been suggested that Alsace-Lorraine be CONCLUSION 233 made an independent and autonomous monarchy with a royal house of her own, within the German Empire. It has also been suggested that she be made an independent and neutrahzed state outside the German Empire as well as outside France. These are but ways of evading the problem, not ways of repairing a grievous wrong which has been and still is a serious pubUc injury, an offense to the world's sense of justice, and a menace to the world's peace. They ignore the rights and the wishes of the people concerned. The wrong can be repaired in only one way, by the return of these provinces to France where they belong and where they desire to be. It should be a source of pride for Americans to know that they may aid in the vindication of right and justice, of hberty and humanity. Alsace-Lor raine is a symbol as well as a fact. She represents the cause of the oppressed everywhere. She has come to personify the momentous controversy wliich has been going on in the world for the past one hundred and forty years since the American and the French Revolutions challenged the principle of force as the authoritative arbiter in human affairs and asserted that the people have the right to deter mine their allegiance, that they must be consulted and obeyed by the governments, that they are no 234 ALSACE-LORRAINE longer chattels to be passed from hand to hand as the result of battles or campaigns. The closing eighteenth century saw a war begin between peoples and kings. That war has continued intermittently ever since. It has entered, it is to be hoped, upon the last and final stage. Either the old reUgion of force is destined to be immensely revitalized and is to hold the field free of competitors, or the modern religion of the rights of peoples is to win the day. It was appropriate, as it was inevitable, that, un less the people of the United States were to be rec reant to their country's ideals and indifferent to its interests, they should have a place in the present stage of this epochal controversy as they had in its beginning in the eighteenth century. As our soldiers and our saflors steam down the harbor of New York on their way to the field of battle they pass the statue of "Liberty EnUghtening the World," the work of a gifted son of Alsace, Auguste Bartholdi, of Colmar. Under that prophetic and inspiriting sign they go forth to fight the good fight for freedom. INDEX INDEX Allamans, 25 Alsace Annexation to Germany, 5, 6 Attachment to France, 52 Cession to France 1648, 39-41 Diversity, 32 Earliest history, 30, 31 Early civilization, 34 Early wars, 33, 34 French Revolution in, 52-63 Incorporation with France, 41, 42 Individuality, 150, 151, 153, 158 Isolation from France, 136 New generation, 140 "Alsace for the Alsatians," 148, 161, 177 Alsace-Lorraine Annexation, Germany's reasons, 78-06 Before the treaty of Frankfort, 20-77 Constitution of German Empire introduced 1874, 115 France's policy from acquisition to the Revolution, 44-47 From 1815 to 1870, 69-77 Government, 1871-1890, 138 Government, 1890-1911, 139- 174 New policy superseding protes tation, 147 People's service, 12 Protest of people March 1,1871, 13-15 Protest of the people to the Reichstag, Feb. 18, 1874, 15- 18 Protests, 104, 116, 146, 195 Since the Revolution, 63 Transformation in the 18th century, 48, 49 Alsatian generals, 62, 64, 66 Angers, David d', 71 Annexation to Germany, reasons, 78-96 Annexations, 219, 225 Antoine, of Metz, 132 Arc de Triomphe, 64 Arizona, 226 Army, 120, 121 Control, 196, 197 Honor, 211 See also Military authorities Army officers, 193, 197, 198, 205 Arndt, Moritz, 67, 88, 89 Assembly, French National, 3, 4, 5, 12, 13 Austria, 36, 37, 79, 82, 89 Prussia and, 220 Austria-Hungary, 83 Autonomy, 165, 178, 181 Back, 121 Baden, 32, 109, 165, 186, 210 Baden, Grand Duke of, 88 Balzac, 187 Bar, Duchy of, 33 Barracks, 167 Bartholdi, Auguste, 234 237 238 INDEX Basques, 80 Bavaria, 109, 156, 165, 210 "Beaux yeux," 119, 168 Bebel, 19 Becker, 89 Belfort, 5 Belgians, 12 Belgium, 79, 82, 101, 225 Benefactions, 105 Berlin, 6, 15, 182, 224 Protest of 1874, 104 Berlin, University of, 92 HohenzoUerns and, 167 Berliner Tageblatt, 194, 207 Bethmann-Hollweg, 176, 177, 195, 196, 197, 199, 214 Censure, 198 Quoted, 222 Biedermann, Charles, 90 Bischwiller, 103 Bismarck, 3, 73, 86, 91, 95, 106, no, 118, 119, 128, 136, 137, 151, 168, 216, 217 Boulangism and, 130 Vigorous policy, 132 Black Forest, 84 Blanc, Louis, 4 Blanck, 200 "Blood and iron," 73, 96, 105 Blucher, 89 Blumenthal, 172 Bluntschli, Professor, 17 Bordeaux, 5, 231 Protest of 1871, 104 Border states, 34, 152 Bomy, 74 Boulangism, 130 Boundaries, 83, 120, 213, 214 Bourbon, House of, 36, 37 Overthrow, 60 Boycott, 186 Brachycephalic skulls, 79 Brandenburg, 156 Bretons, 80 Briey, 86, 87 Bucher, Pierre, 151, 159 Budget, 178 Bulach, Zorn von, 184 Biilow, Prince von, 165 Bundesrath, 112, 113, 115, 116, 117, 118, 148, 179, 180 Bureaucracy, 125, 127, 145, 179 Business signs, 172-173 Cabinet noir, 140 Csesar, Julius, 21 Calker, Professor von, 208 Canada, 109, 187 Caprivi, 136 Caricatures, 157, 185 Carlsbad Decrees, 70 Carlsruhe, 222 Catholic clergy, 142 Germanization, 143 Catholicism, 36 Cavour, 106 Celtic race, 21, 84 Censorship of the press, 163 Central Europe, 210, 228 Centrists, 144, 160, 181, 197 "Chambers of reunion," 42 Chambord, treaty of, 38 Chancellor, German, in, 116 Charlemagne, 25, 101 Charles V, 38 Charles X, 70 Christianity, 23, 25 Church German use of, 143 Legislation affecting, 56 See also Catholicism; Clergy Cities, free, 32, 41, 67, 122, 156 Civil authorities and military, 194, 196, 209, 211 INDEX 239 Civil Constitution of the Clergy, 56. 57 Clergy Catholic, 142, 143 Civil Constitution of the, 56, 57 Coal mines, 86 Cobbler, 200, 204 Coercion, 129 Coiffeur, 173 Colmar, 32, 159, 161, 172, 185, 234 Concessions, 163, 176 Concordat, 64 Conscience, liberty of, 39 Conservatives, 160, 181 Constitution of Alsace-Lorraine (1879), "6, 117, 118 Constitution of 1911, 175-188 Coulanges, Fustel de, 62 Counter-revolution, 57, 95 Courtesy, 119, 123 Court-Martial, 202-205 Crecy, 34 Crown Prince, 202, 205 Custine, 66 Daily Telegraph, 195, 199, 208 Dallwitz, 206, 212 Danes, 82, 220 Danish war, 73 Danube, 23 Decapolis, 32, 67 Delahache, Georges, 88, 99 Delegation. See Landesauschuss Democracy, 11, 122, 156, 157, 223 German, 209, 214 Principle, 219, 220 Denmark, 101 Despotism, 115, 118, 145-146 Dettwiller, 200 Dictatorship Article, 113, 117, 163, 164 Dietrich, Mayor, 55 Disarmament, 222 Discipline, 106-107 Dolichocephalic skulls, 78 Donaueschingen, 195, 197 Dubois-Raymond, 167 Dupont des Loges, Monseigneur, 142 Dupont Freres, 173 Duty, 102 Eccard, M., 103 Economic pressure, 185-186 Edict of Nantes, 37 Education, 121 Eighteenth century changes, 48, 49 Elbeuf, 103 Emblems, removal, 173-174 Emigration, 98-99, 103-104 Emperor of Rome, 26 England, 79, 81, 89, 109 Equality, 157 Espionage, 179, 184, 227 Essen, 224 Ethnography, 78, 79 Ettenheim, 57 European politics, 216 Exodus of 1872, 98-99, 103-104 Falkenhayn, General von, 192, • 196, 197, 214 Favre, Jules, 217 Fehrenbach, 197 Ferrifires, 217 Feudal fiefs, 58 Feudal principle, 219, 220 Feudalism, 28, 29, 48, 58, 59 Figaro, Le, 7 Flag, French, igi Fleckenstein, 32 Flemish language, 82 Force, 73, 105-106, 165, 214, 217, 219, 220, 221, 233 240 INDEX Forstner, Lieut. Baron von, 190, 191, 192, 193, 195, ig6, 200, 201, 202, 204, 207 Foy, General, 70 France, 26 Catholic, 37 Changes in the 18th century, 49 Dismemberment begun, 67 Extension to the east, 37, 38 Incorporation of Alsace, 41, 42 Modern, 60, 213 Policy with Alsace and Lor raine, 44, 45 Title to Alsace, 40 Unity, 35, 232 Franche-Comte, 88 Franco-German war, 3, 74, 221 Frankfort, 106 Frankfort, treaty of, 3-19, 87, 189, 219, 224, 227 Alsace-Lorraine before, 20-77 Consequences, 215-234 One privilege of Alsace-Lor raine, 97 Turning point in history, 220 Frankfurter Zeitung, 18 Franks, 25 Frederick Charles, Prince, 7, 8 Frederick the Great, 101, 109 Quoted, 78 Frederick William III, 73 Free imperial cities, 32, 41, 67, 122, 156 Freedom. See Liberty French language, 47, 180 Attacks on, 133 Study, 121 Teaching, 169-172 French National Assembly, 3, 4, 5, 12, 13 French Revolution, 52-63, 154, 218 Alsace's peculiar relation to, 58- 63 Mihtary service, 61, 62 Freppel, Monsignor, 223 Friedrichs, 208 Friseur, 173 Gambetta, 4 Gaul, 22 Generals, Alsatian, 62, 64, 66 German Empire Constitution, 112 Constitution and Alsace-Lor raine, 115 Middle Ages, 26, 27 German Emperor, 180, 195, 207 See also William II German immigration, 145 German language, 47, 48, 8o, 121 German princes, 30, 117 Protest to Diet, 1789, 59 German spirit, 167, 222 German states, 112-113, 148, 149 Germanization, 102, 108, 121, 141, 160, 161, 163, 183, 186, 214 German failure, 228 Germany Alsace-Lorraine position, 6, 7, 8 Ambitions, 67, 68 Feudalism, 28, ,29 Hatred of France, 72 Liberalism, 72 National thought and feeling, 93-96 Pre-bellum, 93-95 Subjects, 228 Unity, 217, 218 See Government Gneisse, Herr, 171, 172, 185 "Go it strong,'' 202 INDEX 241 Government German method, i87i-i8go, 108-138 Temper of Germany, 168-169, 183, 187, 188, 228 Graffenstaden, 186 Gravelotte, 74 Gustavus Adolphus, 38 Gutenberg, 71 Hague Conferences, 216 Haguenau, 32 Hanover, 106, 219 Hansi (J. J. Waltz), 157, 159, 172, 185 Individuality, 113, 150, 151, 153, 158 Insults, ig2 Intellectual movement, 150, 158, i59 Intimidation, 134, 135 Iron mines, 67, 86 Italy, 26, 106, 216, 219 Jagow, Herr von, 201, 202, 205 Japan, 226 Jean or Johann, 173 Joan of Arc, 34 Johann or Jean, 173 Josephine, 66 Hapsburgs, 27, 32, 36, 37, 39, 40, Judges, 100 85, 88, 112 Hegira of 1872, 98-gg, 103-104 Henry II, 38 Hertzog, 118, 125 Hesse, 106, 156 Hesse-Cassel, 219 Hesse-Darmstadt, Landgrave of, Kings, 234 Junkers, 190, 205 Justice, 211, 229, 230, 233 Kaiser. See German Emperor Kayserberg, 32 Kellermann, 62, 66 58 "Historical rights," 34 Hoffman, 132 Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Prince Hermann, 162 Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst, Prince Chlodwig von, 130-137, 162 Memoirs quoted, 137 Hohenstauffen, 27, 154 HohenzoUerns, 27, 112, 141, 167 HoUand, 79, 82, 84, 101 Kirschleger, 91 Kleber, 62 Monument, 71 Quoted, 65, 66 Koepenick, Captain von, 195 Kreuzzeitung, 201 Kiibler, M., 169, 170, 171 I Lalance, of Mulhouse, 132 Lamprecht, 214 Landau, 67 Holy Roman Empire, 26, 27-29, Landesauschuss, 116, 117, 118, 34, 35, 84, 112, 154, 155 123, 175-178 Holy Roman German Empire, 26, Landtag, 199, 212 29 Huguenots, 36 Humanity, 11 Imperial Germany, 165 Language question German policy, 169 See also French language; Lin guistic theory League of Patriots, 134 242 INDEX Leszcynski, Stanislaus, 43, 44 Ledebour, 196 Lefebvre, 65, 66 Legislation, 178 Religious, 56 Legislature. See Landesauschuss Leipsic, 134, 185 Leopold II, 59 Levetzow, Herr von, 7 Liberty, 157, 165, 187, 211, 213, 218, 234 Liberty of conscience, 39 Lichtenberger, 122 Liebknecht, 19 Lindau, 32 Linguistic theory, 80-84 Liquidation totale, 173 Lisle, Rouget de, 54, 155 Livonia, 79 Locomotive corporation, 186 Lorraine Annexation to Germany, 5, 6 Earliest history, 30, 31 Early civilization, 34 Early history, 33, 34 Language, 44 Lorraine, Duchy of, 33, 43 Louis XIII, 39, 101 Louis XIV, 39, 41, 84, 101, 104 Strasburg seizure, 42, 43 Louis XV, 43, 47 Louis XVHI, 70, 89 Louis Philippe, 70 Lower Alsace, in Luxemburg, 88 Luxemburg affair, 91 Machtfrage, 109 Manteuffel, Field Marshal von, 123-130 Map "with the green border," 6, 88 Marseillaise, 54, 55, 155, 185 Mars-la-Tour, 74 Maurenbrecher, WiUiam, 93 Maurice of Saxony, 38 Mazarin, 39 Mentality, 158 Merlin of Douai, 59 Metternich, 70, 73, 109 Metz, 22, 33, 38, 74, 82, 86, 94, 132 German intrigue for bishopric, 143 Metz, Bishop of, 142 Metz, Toul, and Verdun, 38, 43 Meuse, 88 Mexico, 226 Middle Ages, 24 Middle-Europe, 210, 228 Militarism, 211, 215, 223 Military authorities and civil au thorities, 194, 196, 209, 211 MUitary reasons, 86 Military service, 120 Mines, 86 Mirabeau, 197 Modern France. See France Moltke, 86, 90, 151, 223 Mommsen, Theodore, 63, 93, 151 Monarchy, 156, 157 Montesquieu, 50 Monument, emblems on, 173-174 Moraht, Commandant, 194 Morgen Post, 195 MoseUe, 88 Mulhouse, 32, 36, 122, 132, 159, 185 Curriculum of school, 121 Incorporation in France, 43 Munster, 32, 36 Nancy, 44 Nantes, Edict of, 37 INDEX 243 Napoleon, 26, 29, 63, 64, 66, 6g Napoleon III, 73 Nassau, 219 National rights, 232, 233 Nationalism, 213 Nationality, 20 Naumann, Friedrich, 210, 228 "Necklace Cardinal," 57 Netherlands, 88 Neutralization, g4 New Mexico, 226 Ney, Marshal, 66 Nice, 106, 219 Ninety-three professors, the, 93 "Non-protesters," 139 Noveant, 133 Obernai, 32 Officials, 100, 101 Oldenburg, Herr von, 205 Oppression, 183 Organizations, attacks on, 133, 185 Originality, 151, 153, *<5o Pagny-sur-MoseUe, 133 Palatinate, 32 Pan-French, 177 Pan-Germanism, 82-83, 85, 93, 181, 183 Pan-Germanists, 160, 168, 172, 177, 178, 181, 182, 184 Paris, 52, 54, 64 Paris, second treaty of (1815), 67 Particularism, 158 Particularistic movement, 150- 164, 168 Passports, 134, 135, 136, 137, 140, 163 Peace, 232 "Peace of the graveyard," 136 Philosophy, eighteenth century, 49,5o Phrygian cap, 54 Piedmont, 219 Plebiscite, 97, 106, 219, 220, 225, 226, 227, 230 Poland, 9 Poles, 79, 82, 166 Police, 109 Polish refugees, 71 Popular rights, 11 See also Rights Portugal, 79 Poularde, 191 Prague, 85 Prague, treaty of, 220 Preiss, Jacques, 161, 162, 172 Presidencies, in President-Superior, in, 113, 116 PrivUege, victim's. See Victim's privilege Professors, the ninety-three, 93 Protest to the National Assembly, 13-15 Protest to the Reichstag, 15-18 Protestantism, 35, 36 "Protesters," 128, 131, 138, 147 Protests, 104, 116, 123, 146, 195 Prussia, 67, 79, 81, 82, 8g, 109, 211 Annexations, 219 Army and, 197 Austria and, 220 Policy, 105-106 Rise, 73 Prussia, King of, no, in Army, 196, 198 Prussianization, 221 Prussians Courtesy, 119 Creating, 105 Public opinion, 212, 213 Puttkammer, 132 Quinet, Edgar, 4 244 INDEX Racial lines, 78-80 Radicals, 160 Railroad mileage, 166 Rapp, 66 Reason, temper of, 57 Recruiting, 120 Red Eagle, 205 Referendum. See Plebiscite Reformation, 35, 36 Reichsland, no, in, 115 Reichstag, 15, 18, in, 115, 116, 118 Constitution of 1911 voted, 178 Impotence, 196, 199, 209 Saverne affair and, 192, 198, 199 Religious wars, 36 Renan, 84 Rene or Renatus, 173 Representation, 116 Republic, French, 60 Restoration, 70 "Resuming," 84, 85 ReubeU, 51 Reuss, Rodolphe, 62 Reutter, Colonel von, 192, 193, 194, 201, 203, 204, 205, 207 Revue alsacienne illuslrie, 151, 159 Rheinischer Merkur, 68 Rhine, 21, 22, 67, 83, 88, 90, 213, 214 Ribeaupierre, 32 Richelieu, 39 Richepanse, 66 Rickert, 68 Riga, 79 Right, 230 Rights, 200 National, 232, 234 People's, 97 Rights of men, 218, 220 Rohan, Duke of, 57 Roman civilization, 22, 24 Roman Empire, 25 "Roman Peace," 22 Rome, 26 Rosheim, 32 Rousseau, 50 Rupture, 166 Russia, 79, 83, 89 Saar, 67, 88 Saarlouis, 67 Saverne (Zabern), 22, 189 Saverne affair, 189-214 Savoy, 106, 219 Saxony, 156 Schadt, Lieutenant, 193, 203, 204 Scharnhorst, General, 95 Schlestadt, 32 Schleswig, 82, 220 Schlesweg-Holstein, 106, 219 Schnaebele, 133 School teachers, 100-101 Schools, 120, 121 See also French language; Lan guage question Schramm, General, 66 Schroeder, Pastor, 96 Scotland, 79 Scrap of paper, 181, 224 Search, right of, 114 Segur, Count de, 66 Self-government, 117, 182 Movement for, 147-148 See also Autonomy Septennate, Law of the, 130, 131 Signs, business, 172-173 Skulls, dolichocephaUc and brachy- cephaUc, 78, 79 Slavery, 16, 112, 115, 229 Slavs, 25, 82 Socialism aided by Germany, 142 Socialists, 160, 181, 197, 209 Alsace-Lorraine question and, 19 INDEX 24S Societies. See Organizations "Song of Shame," 68 South Africa, 187 Sovereignty vs. territory, 41 Spain, 36 Speyer, 91 Speyer, bishop of, 32, 58 Spicheren, 74 Spies, 184 See also Espionage Statecraft, German, 189 Statehood, 179, 180 Appeal for, 148-149 States-General, 51 Statthalter, 116, 117, 123, 179, 180 Stoeber, 68 Stosskopf, 159 Strasburg, 22, 32, 36, 71, 91, 122, 123, 124, 155, 179, 213 Address (1790) to National As sembly, 55, 56 Court-martial, 202, 205 Franco-German war, 74-77 German intrigue for bishopric, 143 Mayor, 121, 122 Revolution and, 54 Seizure by Louis XIV in 1681, 42 Strasburg, University of, 91 Germanization, 166-167 Strasburg Cathedral, 54, 57, 75-77 Subject peoples, 166 Subjection, 212, 228 Swedes, 38 Switzerland, 79, 81, 82, 84, 101 Temple Neuf, 75 Temple of Reason, 57 Territory vs. sovereignty, 41 Terrorization policy, 75, 76, 134, 135, 184 Teutonic invasions, 23 Teutonic race, 22, 24 Texas, 226 Thirty Years War, 37, 38 Toul, 22, 33, 38 See also Metz, Toul, and Verdun Treaties, 218 List, 10 Treaty of Frankfort. See Frank fort, treaty of Treaty of Westphalia. See West phalia, treaty of Treitschke, 104, in, 112, 151 Tricolor, 54 Troops, 167 Turkheim, 32 Tyranny, 186, 188 United States, 81, 226, 233, 234 Universities of Strasburg and Ber lin, 91-93 Upper Alsace, in Verdun, 22, 33, 38 See also Metz, Toul, and Verdun Vexaincourt, 134 Victim's privUege, 97-107 Vienna, 85 Voltaire, 50 Vosges mountains, 21, 24, 25, 82, 83, 84, 189 Vorwarts, 207 "Wackes," igo, igi Wagner, Adolph, g3-g4 Waltz, J. J. See Hansi War, 217, 222 Waterloo, 66 Wedel, Count von, 184, 206, 212 Werder, General von, 75, 118 Westphalia, treaty of, 36, 38, 3g, 60, 224 Provisions, 40 246 INDEX WetterlS, Abbfi, 162, 171, 172, 185 Wiirtemberg, 32, 210 "WiU to power," 85 Wiirtemberg, Duke of, 58 WiUiam I, 89, in, 124, 128, Wiirtemberg, King of, 88-89, 91 136 WUliam II, 7, 8, 136 "Young Alsace," 161, 162 Quoted, 222 Windhorst, 119 Zabern. See Saverne Wissembourg, 32, 74, 173 Zersplltterung, 31 Wittich, Werner, 184 Zislin, isg W6rth, 74 Zweibriicken, Duke of, 58 EUROPE SINCE 1815 By Charles Downer Hazen. With fourteen col ored maps. (In American Historical Series.) xv+830 pp. Library edition. $3.75 net. For the more intelligent reader who wants a thor ough and detailed story of the background of the war. The author starts where Napoleon left off, at the Con gress of Vienna, and comes down to and explains the situation out of which the present war has developed. The style is fresh and attractive, the matter authorita tive, the scope widely inclusive. The author has paid fully as much attention to eco nomic and social as to military matters, and has simpli fied his narrative by considering one country at a time for considerable periods. Europe's relations to her Colonies and to the United States are also considered. There are fourteen maps, thirty-five pages of bibliog raphy and sixty pages of excellent index. "A clear, comprehensive, and impartial record of the bewil dering changes in Europe. . . . Illuminatingly_ clear. . . . High praise for the execution of a difficult historical task must be accorded him." — New York Sun. "The meaning and effects of the revolutionary movements in the different countries of Europe, . . . are clearly set forth. . . . The author . . . manages his materials well. . . . He certainly has succeeded in making the story of Europe both clear and interesting." — Boston Transcript. "Has easily the field 5n English. For the last twenty-five years it is almost without a competitor. Should be on every book-shelf for reading or reference." — Harvard Graduates? Magazine. "The best set of maps that has ever been incorporated in this kind of a volume. Simple and clear. He is informed, circumspect and impartial." — Professor Schevill, University of Chicago. HENRY HOLI AND COMPANY Publishers New York, HISTORY BOOKS IN THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Absolutely new books, not reprints. "Excellent books, on topics of real interest by men of world-wide reputation.— Literary Digest. of English History, Univer- American History THE COLONIAL PERIOD (1607-1766) By Chari.es McLean An drews, Professor of American History, Yale. THE WARS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA (1763-1815) By Theodore C. Smith, Pro fessor of American History, Williams College. FROM JEFFERSON TO LIN COLN (1815-1860) By William MacDonald, Pro fessor of History, Brown Uni versity. THE CIVIL WAR (1854- 1865) By Frederic L. Paxson, Pro fessor of American History, University of Wisconsin. RECONSTRUCTION AND UNION (1865-1912) By Paul Leland Haworth. General History LATIN AMERICA By William R. Shepherd, Professor of History, Colum bia. GERMANY OF TO-DAY By Charles Tower. NAPOLEON By H. A. L. Fisher, Vice- Chancellor of Sheffield Uni versity, author of The Re publican Tradition in Europe. 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