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I ALSACE-LORRAINE
II UNDER GERMAN RULE
CHARLES DOWNER HAZEN
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ALSACE-LORRAINE UNDER GERMAN RULE
ALSACE-LORRAINE
UNDER GERMAN RULE
BY
CHARLES DOWNER HAZEN
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
VI
I
v1
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1917
Copyright, 1917
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 191 1 .... 175
VEIL 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 peace preliminaries,
confirmed by the Treaty of Frankfort of May 10,
1 87 1, which closed the Franco-German war, a
treaty which the French Government was compelled
to sign and the French Assembly to ratify under
compulsion as peremptory as any nation has ex-
perienced in modern times. That treaty terminated
a war which Bismarck, in his autobiography, claims
the honor 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
3
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, i,597>53 8 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 Berlin 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
25 if impregnable. For her there was henceforth
"nothing to diii-fs" concerning these territories,
now ait off from France. For her "'the question
of Alsace-Lorraine does not exis:." In 1S92, the
Parisian newspaper, L; 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 provi-
sion of the first article of the peace prelirninaries.
confirmed by the treaty of May ic. 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 treat}-, I have
the honor to beg you to accept the expression of my
high esteem."
On August 16, 18SS, in inaugurating a monument
in honor of Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia at
Frankfort-on-the-Oder, the Emperor, William H,
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 10, 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 181 5.
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 for liberty,
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 shall take 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 waj', in the name of the
i 4 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
18 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
which 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
Zcllung protested against the disgraceful tumult,
THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 19
the ironical laughter that had accompanied the
reading of the protest.
In July, 191 7, a Socialist deputy of the Reichstag
is reported to have said: "In the eyes of all Socialists
what occurred in 1871 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 1871."
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-Lorraine 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
20
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 lived 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.
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 which 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
2 6 ALSACE-LORRAINE
at Rome, Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of
Rome by the Pope, an old title now applied to a
very different state.
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, which 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 centrifugalism
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 Hohenzollerns 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 splitting 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 whv 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
political 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
3 o 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
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 the 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 life, 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 call it, so characteristic of the
32 ALSACE-LORRAINE
German map as a whole, better exemplified than in
this very region which we call 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 suzerainty 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 Wiirtemberg,
of the Palatinate, of Baden, of Lorraine, possessed
certain parts. There were the ten free imperial
cities, the famous Decapolis, 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-
reliance.
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 military al-
liances 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.
3 6 ALSACE-LORRAINE
The religious wars, which grew out of the clash
of Protestantism and Catholicism, 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 political 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
Catholicism, 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. Until
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 fill
two centuries and more.
Alsace and Lorraine were inevitably involved in
the melee. France was Catholic 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
3 8 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
failed. From that time on, Metz, Toul, and Verdun
have belonged to France, though that fact was not
officially 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 while 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 collection 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
4 o 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 intentionally
obscure and in some respects conflicting. What
was explicitly 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 small 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 principalities, 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 practically acquired territory
as well as sovereignty. Under the ambitious leader-
ship of Louis XIV, anxious for aggrandizement,
she pushed her interpretation of the treaty until
in time she had actually incorporated all 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 (167 7-1 680).
Thus virtually all 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 application of
the same methods.
Thus by the legitimate results of the Treaties of
Westphalia and by the illegitimate 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
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
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 fell 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 187 1. Unlike some modern rulers,
the Grand Monarch, whose powers were absolute,
did not undertake to overthrow the entire preceding
regime, and to Gallicise 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 little 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 all 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 bailiffs, who were charged with
collecting the taxes, with supervising the village
officials, with the enforcement of local justice. The
result was that the peasant in the little 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
all 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
all 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 Westphalia 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 (Tor circulated in the haunts of trade.
At the end of that century, however, Alsatian so-
ciety was radically, fundamentally, 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 assimila-
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 small 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 literally 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 alluded to, occurred as a result
of changes which took place in France itself. A
whole new world of ideas was rapidly and brilliantly
expounded by the so-called philosophers 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 philosophy 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
lightly upon these reformers. The future was what
S o ALSACE-LORRAINE
interested them, a future fairer far, because more
rational and more altruistic, than anything that his-
tory could show. Destructive, constructive, funda-
mentally sound and partially fanciful, the new
philosophy expressed admirably the longing and the
aspiration of a new age toward whose realization
it powerfully contributed.
The writings of Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau
and others stirred the intellectual 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
by this growing community of new ideas, ideas of
reform, 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 intelli-
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 called 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 Reubell 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 187 1,
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
peculiar 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 intellectual life.
Alsace, like 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 consuming 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 detail 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 complica-
tions, the same oppositions of social classes, the
same warfare of parties, the same mounting frenzy
of internecine conflicts, the same increasing rad-
icalism 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, literally 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-
tally 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 guillotine. 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
feudalism 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 installed 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 self-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 herself giving the first example to the
cities of the realm she will 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 religious legislation of the French assem-
blies, 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 hostile 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 civil 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, fell 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
partially 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 till Waterloo twenty-
three years later, wars which twisted the Revolu-
tion out of all resemblance to its early promise and
sadly deformed it in every way, grew, in part, out
of a problem peculiar to Alsace, a problem the prod-
uct of her singular history.
Among the numerous feudal fiefs which diversi-
fied the political 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 daily lives.
The Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt had very ex-
tensive possessions in Alsace; the Duke of Wurttem-
berg, the Duke of Zweibrucken, the Bishop of
Speyer, and others were the immediate sovereigns
of larger or smaller territories. A sixth of the soil
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 equality of all Frenchmen before
the law, was a direct challenge to this system, and
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 willingly 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 April 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 will alone, and not the Treaty
of Westphalia, which has legalized 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 privileges they had long enjoyed,
and, also, long abused.
Thus was accomplished a further liberation of the
soil. The Franco-German system which applied
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 Republic 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, which, 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 political 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 all sense of a distinct
and different personality was utterly dissipated.
At the beginning of the Revolution, Alsace was still,
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 call
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 liberty, easily captivated the Alsatian people,
who, with all their traditional attachments to liberal
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 assimilation. The sons of Alsace
&nd Lorraine flocked into the volunteer armies,
62 ALSACE-LORRAINE
and some of them became famous generals, like
Kellermann and Kleber. Their achievements and
their fame only intensified the fervor of their pa-
triotic provinces and acted upon their fellow 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 followed all our destinies, she has lived 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 all our
sorrow."
The Napoleonic period continued the work of
consolidation and inner fusion. Since the 18th of
Brumaire there has been, properly speaking, no
history of Alsace. Alsace and Lorraine were swal-
lowed up, like all the other provinces of old France,
in the general history of the country. Napoleon
cut short the political 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 all the peoples of his empire
in the collective work of the nation, and particularly
in war; continuing, expanding, intensifying, in this
64 ALSACE-LORRAINE
sphere, the activities of the Republic. By the Con-
cordat, Napoleon brought religious peace to these
essentially religious 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 hollow of his hand.
But Napoleon's particular specialty was fighting,
and in that long series of glorious and of catastrophic
wars, which fill this dynamic and thrilling 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 illustrated 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
monopolized officers' positions. No questions were
asked about one's origin, only about one's ability
and achievement. To these brilliant names every
raw recruit knew that he might add his own. If
there was a will there might be a way.
The quality 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, myself." He,
the son of a miller, 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 Kellermann 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, all
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 called upon to pay the price
of defeat. The second Treaty of Paris, of No-
vember 20, 181 5, 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 coal mines
of the Saar, Prussia thus beginning the process of
acquiring French mineral deposits which she was to
carry much farther in 187 1, and to endeavor to com-
plete in the war that began in 191 4.
Prussia demanded all 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 River
but not the Boundary of Germany." But the vic-
torious Allies 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-
stantially intact to France, to which they belonged
68 ALSACE-LORRAINE
by every desire of their people, by every tie that
binds. Even the more intelligent Germans recog-
nized the real sentiments of these "brothers."
The RJieinischer Merkur, an important liberal na-
tionalist 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 villages, 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 soil of France: "And you, Alsace, race
degermanized, you also mock, O final shame!"
To this outburst of German ambition, a Strasburg
poet Stoeber replied, using the native dialect which
he loved and saying that while his "lyre was Ger-
man, his sword was French and faithful to the
Gallic cock." The Alsatians, he added, were not
hybrids; they were Frenchmen, although interested
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 which 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 fellowship 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 181 8, 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 fall of Napoleon in 181 5 to the Franco-
German war in 1870, Alsace and Lorraine lived the
same life that all 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 feudalism, and endowed with the new democratic
institutions and ideas which survived the overthrow
7 o 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 Phillipe,
of the Second Republic 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 182 1 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 all the in-
BEFORE THE TREATY OF FRANKFORT 71
tellectuals, 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 public 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, like 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 recollections 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-
liam 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
life of Germany were well 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 nothing 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 full 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
well as of the brave. Many of the famous battle-
fields of this calamitous war lay on the soil 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
1 8th a private school was struck, five little girls
were killed 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 cellars 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 all 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, while projectiles demolished 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 filled 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, lies in
patience." The national legislature in Paris passed
a resolution, August 31st, to the effect that "Stras-
burg has deserved well 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 buildings were demolished in turn —
ruins everywhere. The long agony finally 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 Strasbuig 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 public buildings and particularly
their cathedral, which was not damaged accidentally
but intentionally, and without military justification.
CHAPTER III
WHY GERMANY ANNEXED ALSACE-
LORRAINE
"Let us take, after that we shall 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
Silesia. 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 1871 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. Skulls
found in the gravel deposits of Alsace and Lorraine
are of the German type, dolichocephalic. 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,
brachycephalic in character, are also abundantly
discovered. All of which proves, we take it, one
well-attested fact of history, that the Germans have
frequently emigrated into Alsace, interposing them-
selves among the primitive peoples. In this men-
suration of skulls 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 Holland, 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 willingness 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 smaller 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 linguistic 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 million 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 applied 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 application 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 will 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
establishing 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 will always be
a formidable ditch to cross in the face of an enemy
controlling the other side. Again, examining the
actual line drawn in 187 1, 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 line 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 collusion 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
which had ruled for six centuries in unquestioned
right? The appetite grows by that on which it
feeds and in our own day the Pan-Germanists have
risen to these heights of ambition but in 187 1 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. All through the nineteenth cen-
tury we can see it gaining expression and rising to
crescendo with the development of militaristic
Prussia. And German volition in this matter has
not at all 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 military 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 admirable 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 187 1 that Germany is indebted for much
of her industrial strength to-day, the basis of her
political power and of her vaulting ambition. In
1 913, out of 28,607,000 tons of iron ore extracted
from German soil, 21,135,000 came from the mines
of annexed Lorraine. To the rapes of 18 15 and 187 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 187 1, in the valley of the Briey.
In 1 913, owing to the expansion of her industries,
Germany was obliged to import from abroad four-
REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 87
teen million tons of iron ore. This is almost the
exact amount annually 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 hostilities was in both cases left necessarily 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 called upon by their rulers to ac-
complish 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 Rliine, 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
followed. 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 amplifying
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 lisere vert, pp. 53-66.
REASONS FOR ANNEXATION 89
Wurtemberg 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 limited demands for a rectification
of the frontier which have already been described.
France lost little, 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
9o 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 children
May be Germans
And may honor the conquerors
Of their fathers! "
In 1 84 1 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 will 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 follows:
"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 all
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 nationality! . . . to march against
Germany, our mother and yours! What! you
would be willing 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 shall without doubt, will press you in
fraternal embrace to our breasts. But before then,
never! Diximus et salvavimus animarn."
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
1 91 4 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 19 14 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
all, 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 Leipsic.
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 solid military establishment must
be set up there. " We will not permit the neutraliza-
tion of Alsace and Lorraine! We have already had
quite enough neutralizations, 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 imploring that "God grant this!"
(Das watte Gott!)
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, philosophers,
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 wherever 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 literary 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
immorality " 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 all the finality 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 feeling, 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 allowing 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 privilege. 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-
tually 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, all 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
lived 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 187 2. 1
1 The subject has been admirably presented in a monograph by
Georges Delahache, L'Exodc. 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 brilliant 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? All 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 obliged
to interpret and decide in such a way as to
strengthen and consolidate the new system, to en-
force and sanction all the police measures the con-
queror might decree, to speak the language of the
victor. To this rdle of remunerated servility the
judges of Alsace-Lorraine could not bring them-
selves to submit. All 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 alien. 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
really included Denmark, part of Belgium, part of
Holland, part of Switzerland, not a little of what
was left of France. And above all 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
ioz 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 while, 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 overwhelming 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 all that men hold most dear paid the ransom
of their country in sadness and in long-continued
misery, until death came to end the cruel agony.
One hundred and sixty thousand had opted for
France but of these the German government an-
nulled 100,000 on the ground that the options had
not been accompanied with actual removal. Now
and then an entire town or village withdrew. Bisch-
willer, a town of 11,500 inhabitants, saw nearly half
its population transport itself 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 1 9 10 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 half a million Alsatians
and Lorrainers to leave their homes, and these
generally 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 billions; 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 family hearth. To be sure no cry had ever
gone up from the Alsatians for deliverance. And
now came the passionate and unanimous protests,
those submitted by the Alsatians and Lorrainers at
Bordeaux in 187 1 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 3S, 000 emi-
grated; from 1880-1885 about 60,000; from 1S85-1890 about
37,000; from 1890-1895 about 34,000-
THE VICTIM'S PRIVILEGE 105
to prevail 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 well 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 will 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 liberty, or we must give up
trying to make her," Cavour, the architect and
builder of Italian 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
accomplish miracles in the future as it has accom-
plished in the past. Its miraculous qualities 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 pestilential heresy, born of
the impious French Revolution, about the right of
the governed. Two centuries of French domination
had naturally made the Alsatians degenerates.
Their ideas must be set right again, their morale
raised by severe discipline. As masters in the art
THE VICTIM'S PRIVILEGE 107
of severe discipline, that is, in the art of subjecting
the wills of millions of men to those of a small self-
constituted minority, the Germans had every right
to plume themselves. This was and is, and their
rulers intend, ever shall be their message to the
world.
Discipline was therefore now applied to these
degenerates who loved the freedom of France more
than the bondage of Prussia. But bondage is the
best school of discipline.
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
partially disguised but generally 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
steadily followed a policy 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-
calcitrant peoples. Metternich knew them 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
familiar 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 wilful or stiff-necked,
must in the end succumb. An attentive and ubiq-
uitous police 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
1 10 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 until finally 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, 1 87 1. 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 political 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 all 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 really 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 all 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 Chancellor, 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 village 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 Hohenzollerns.
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 will.
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 life.
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 individuality, the distinctive needs or wishes
of each component state, thus had a wide sphere for
self-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,
187 1, whose Article 10, the famous Dictatorship
Article, established and legalized arbitrary govern-
ment in its simplest form. "In the case of danger
for the public safety, the President-Superior is au-
thorized to take all 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 military
1 14 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 all the troops
stationed in Alsace-Lorraine. Article 9 of the law
of August 9, 1849, ran as follows: "The military
authority has the right to search by day or by
night the domiciles 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 all
publications and meetings which he considers cal-
culated to excite or encourage disorder."
Thus the chief executive of the Reichsland had the
right to grant himself the power whenever he wished
to, and without limitation of time or place, to take
"all 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 life 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 detail in the system of government of
Alsace-Lorraine have been made at various times
since 1871. They have not altered the fundamental
fact that the Alsatians are an entirely subject people
with no rights whatever which they can call 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-
n6 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-called 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 lieutenant-
governor, appointed by the Emperor and exercis-
ing the powers previously vested in the Chancellor.
The Landesauschuss was nearly doubled in size.
This was the form of government which existed
in Alsace-Lorraine during the next thirty-two years,
from 1879 to 1911. 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 Public Worship; Finance; Commerce, Agri-
culture and Public 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 bills 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 self-government. The Statthalter, it should
never be forgotten, could exercise at any moment
the power given him by the so-called Dictatorship
Article. He was responsible to the Emperor alone.
Legislation was henceforth normally 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 veiled 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
not been annexed because of her beaux yeux, but
simply and solely because she would furnish an
excellent 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 all 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 Chancellor 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 followed 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, mile by mile, by
the engineers appointed for the purpose, was char-
acterized by much sharp practice and by incessant
bullying. 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 earliest 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
by the certain knowledge that the recruits would
be sent far from home for their training, to the
provinces of Old Prussia. Very numerous were
those who sought escape from the ignominy by flight.
Thousands of young men took the road to France,
leaving their families, perhaps forever, and running
the risk of loss of property 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 eliminate 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 all this, the police everywhere
furnished an additional irritant to the public 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 council,
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 council.
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 political 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 what we had been; and
what we wished to be we became through her."
"The Alsatian," says Lichtenberger, "is tempera-
mentally republican. 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 all 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-
tuality and applicability 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-called Constitution of 1879 was the result.
Henceforth the Alsatians were to have an assembly,
called 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 conciliation.
The first Statthalter, under the new regime, Field
Marshal von Manteuffel, attempted to carry on
the government in just this spirit, not abating in
the slightest degree the pretensions to unlimited
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 policy, if 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 filled
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 all
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-
cally rigid and peremptory Prussian official, who
quite naturally 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 called, lasted six years, from 1879 to 1885.
If anyone could have succeeded in the role he had
mapped out Manteuffel could have. Believing cor-
rectly that no government is successful for any length
of time that does not have the people on its side, Man-
1 26 ALSACE-LORRAINE
teufiel sought first to know those among whom he
had come to rule. He travelled much through the
country, trying to impart his ideas to local officials
and notabilities, municipal councilors, 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 a 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 liberties for her.
For six years ManteufTel tried but tried in vain to
win the assent, the affection implied in his reference
to the Doge. In his personal capacity he won gen-
eral esteem. Accessible to all, receiving freely even
workingmen who came to present their grievances,
he exemplified the fine politeness of the Old Regime,
speaking and writing French on unofficial occasions,
greeting acquaintances first when he met them in
his solitary 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-
teuflel 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 instantly 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 gulf
which no bridge could span.
In his fundamental purpose Manteuflel 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 Alsa-
128 ALSACE-LORRAINE
tians and Lorrainers whose passive resistance to the
one thing that counted revealed the essential su-
perficiality of the "pacification," moreover com-
pelled from time to time in the discharge of his ob-
ligations to the authorities in Berlin to adopt harsh
and unpopular measures, such as the suppression
of certain newspapers, thus showing, as by lightning
strokes the essential fragility of their "liberties,"
Manteuffel stood insecurely upon treacherous sands.
So strong was the opposition to his policy in Ger-
many that he would have been recalled had it not
been that the octogenarian Emperor, William I, did
not like to dismiss old friends and advisers. Never-
theless, in the long run William I was accustomed
to do, not what he liked himself, but what Bismarck
liked, and Bismarck was known to be commenting
on ManteufTel'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 1 88 1 and 1884. Alsace and Lorraine elected,
as in 1874, fifteen "protesters," despite severe of-
ficial pressure.
ManteufTel'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-
plish the work of Germanization. Manteuffel's
official days were numbered. But he was spared
the crowning humiliation of recall because his
earthly days were also numbered. He died on
June 17, 1885, and the policy for which he stood died
with him. His era remains the only attractive one,
with all its defects, in the history of German rule
in Alsace-Lorraine. The administration which was
to follow 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, reconciled 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 at every point
considered dangerous and applied without hesitation
and without interruption, was henceforth the pro-
gramme of the government. To preside over the
130 ALSACE-LORRAINE
execution of this policy a new Statthalter, Prince
Chlodwig von Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst 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 yellow 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 all through this regency, which ended only
with the promotion of Hohenlohe to the chancellor-
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 parliament. 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
alienate 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 Chancellor, January 14,
1887. Bismarck replied that very day by issuing
a decree dissolving the Reichstag, and by beginning
throughout the Empire one of the most violent
political 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 Socialists were routed and the Reichstag was
weakened as a factor in the state, by this important
diminution of its powers.
Meanwhile 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-
cellor. He told the Alsatians that, if war came,
their province would inevitably be the theater of
hostilities and would be fearfully harried by the
contending armies. The result of his intervention
was quite unexpected. All 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 declined 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 expelled 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 annihilation were subjected to a Dra-
conian regime, were obliged to submit their statutes
to government officials for revision, and allow 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
soil of Schnaebele, a French railway official at Pagny-
sur-Moselle, by his German colleague 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 (April 20,
1887). Later (September 24) a German forest-
guard shot and killed one Frenchman and wounded
another, who were peacefully hunting on French soil,
at Vexaincourt, not on German soil. In June, 1887,
eight Alsatians were tried before the Supreme Court
at Leipsic for belonging to a League of Patriots and
four of them were found guilty and were sentenced.
This policy 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 certain 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 wall between France and
the annexed provinces. The theory behind this
measure was that the reason why the Alsatians and
Lorrainers had not hailed 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 daily
mailed 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 opinion,
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 journalists of Germany, for whom
the ridiculous and the servile 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 tactfully chose
the French national holiday, July 14, 1888, as the
occasion on which to announce at Mulhouse, that
"other measures would follow 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 reconciliation. But the system
continued, and the death of William I, the accession
of William II, the fall 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 which 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 all reminders of a separate individuality
and consciousness. There is even ground for be-
lieving that he favored for an ulterior reason all 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 policy: "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 ill feeling. Prince Bismarck
thereupon desired me to introduce the system of
compulsory passports against France, which existing
legislation allows me to do upon my own initiative.
He informed me that our ambassador at Paris would
not be allowed 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 will be
possible to say that the civil government is useless
and that martial law must be proclaimed."
This would mean that the civil 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 annulled.
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 strangling them,
would let in a little fresh air where all 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
i 4 o ALSACE-LORRAINE
signs of flinching on the part of their victims, the
imperial authorities continued the policy of torture,
moral if not physical. Owing to the operation of
the passport regime the Alsatians lived, 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 all
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. Meanwhile 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. All 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, relied 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 Hohenzollerns.
Time was on their side, for time brings with it a
new understanding, new currents of ideas, new
interests, a riper appreciation of realities, a juster
sense of the possible and the impossible. Gods
that at first seem strange and unsympathetic will
in time come to be worshipped and old idols will
be discarded when their impotence is manifest to
all.
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 liberty. 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 Socialism, which was imported from
Germany by the German workingmen who came
in considerable numbers to Strasburg and Mulhouse,
Socialism, fought tooth and nail elsewhere by the
government, was here first tolerated by it, and then
distinctly aided, when its divisive effect upon the
public mind 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 Catholic clergy.
Of the fifteen men first chosen to the Reichstag
from Alsace and Lorraine, 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 rilled, 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 Catholic clergy
refused to follow 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 Catholic 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 of
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; Socialists of Alsace-
Lorraine working together with the Socialists 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, religious 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 steadily
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
slight dalliance with the decently humane concep-
tions of the "era of Manteuffel," was justifying
itself. The only way to judge a tree is by its fruit
and the bureaucrats of Berlin 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
all.
The people of Alsace-Lorraine, harried by the
hostile 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 well 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 191 4. Though
the expression varied according to circumstances,
the contest was always against the policy of Ger-
manization which the conquering country was deter-
mined to effect. Rebellious 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 established
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 Lorraine 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 futile, 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 privileges 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 which affected their daily lives 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 province
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 practically a semi-official body, a parliament,
moreover, likely 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 similar 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
first sight, more than the mere desire to escape
from a degrading political tutelage, a position of
glaring political inequality. There was a social and
a national purpose to be subserved; namely, the
preservation, the conscious preservation, of their
own individuality, of their own civilization, 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
ISO 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 parts 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 until 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 politics and thought as-
serted that the Alsatians were pure and genuine
Germans, and that that was all 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 easily
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 lived 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 intelligent human being.
The Alsatians, however, have had a good deal
more to say about this interesting and, to them, vital
topic. And their opinions illuminate 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
illustree, 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 listen for a moment to native Alsatians com-
menting upon their country and themselves.
Alsace had had a history, and a long history, full
of wars, full 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 herself an active participant, zealous to
fight for the maintenance of her liberties. As a
border land she had for two thousand years ex-
perienced the usual fortunes that fall 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 peculiar
to herself. The elements which went to the making
of the personality of Alsace were mingled in different
proportions from those which prevailed 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 not purely 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
1 54 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 mod-
ern Alsace than the eight centuries of contact with
Germany — if there was a Germany — which had gone
before. The one had accomplished the fusion of a
people by its terrific heat, by its marvellous alchemy.
The localized life 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 all 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 fellow 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 well to ignore this fact and its implications,
do well to pass lightly over the two centuries and
to hark back to the medieval mummeries of the
Holy Roman Empire.
But even that earlier 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
life which the Alsatians had lived 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 all 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 republican 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 principalities.
All 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 political 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. The German
is a conservative, the Alsatian a democrat. The
German accepts docilely inequality in the state,
in society, in the army, and does not rebel against
the gross privileges which birth or wealth gives in
each of those spheres. The Alsatian, product of a
different history, loves liberty and the equality of
all before the law and hates arbitrary, despotic
government and the reign of privilege.
In view of all this, what if 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 all 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 mentality of Germany.
There was, consequently, little 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 "intellectuals " of the
Reichsland, knowing the history of their country
and its effects, challenged the official doctrine, de-
manded that Germany respect the individuality 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
policy, and the necessity of their maintaining 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 intensif cation of the sense of local individuality,
of what in Germany is called particularism. Some
of these Alsatian intellectuals have worked in the
ALSACE-LORRAINE, 1890-1911 159
field of the fine arts, painting, engraving, decora-
tion, architecture, literature. 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 "intellectuals" have found a congenial
field in collaborating with Dr. Bucher, on the Revue
alsacienne illustree, studying the history, literature,
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.
All this intellectual movement helped the politi-
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 full 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
all 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 Socialists,
each of which worked with its confreres in the
corresponding German parties, believed, or affected
to believe, 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 all to be slight and in all likelihood would have
been slight had it not been for the lack of wisdom
of the German rulers, for their inveterate, auto-
cratic conceptions of policy, which might be veiled
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, specially
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 will 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 still continued to
show the same dispersion of the voters among the
different parties. Only Preiss, joined now by an-
other of the figures who were to lead the gradually
emerging party of " Young Alsace," Abbe Wetterle,
continued a policy of energetic, though strictly
legal, opposition and criticism.
But the policy 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 finally abol-
ished, excepting as it affected the military; the
censorship of the press was rendered a little less
severe; and finally in 1902 the famous Article 10
of the Law of December 30, 1871 (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
assimilation 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 intensifying its op-
I6 4 ALSACE-LORRAINE
position to everything in Alsace that recalled 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 187 1, the govern-
ment succeeded finally in arousing and alienating
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 light heart the question of Alsace-
Lorraine, aroused once more the public opinion
of France, and finally wearied the long patience
of Europe."
We have traced the rise of the particularistic
movement, the increasing demand for genuine local
self-government, for an equal 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 small at the beginning
of the twentieth century. Germany was so powerful
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 live in the Empire, however, the Alsa-
tians wished to live 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 liberty, its intellectual 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 life as had Bavaria
and Baden, and the other twenty-three sisters in
the confederation. All 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 policy. The dominant and con-
stant idea in governing circles, political and mili-
tary, has always been that force can accomplish
anything it sets out to accomplish, and if not the
present amount of force, then a still greater amount.
As evidence of this temper Prince von Bulow's
Imperial Germany, published in 19 14, is enlight-
166 ALSACE-LORRAINE
cning, 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 rail-
roads had been greatly increased since 1871, but
much of this mileage 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 mil-
lion dollars and more had been spent for the build-
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 1 69 students. In 19 10, 175 professors. Yet
it was and is a semi-foreign institution, not exer-
cising the influence on the mentality 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 illuminating
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-
zollern." The Alsatians have had their doubts,
which 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? Bi6-
168 ALSACE-LORRAINE
marck's brutal statement that Germany had not
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 life 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 challenged by the rise
in the Empire of the Pan-German party, with its
aggressive, chauvinistic, ultra-nationalistic 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 illustration 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
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. While
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 policy of Germany. One of
her earliest measures, after the annexation, was to
suppress the teaching of French in the primary
schools, allowing it in the higher schools, though
under conditions, even there, which did not en-
courage it. Later it abolished 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. Kiibler, asking for obligatory instruc-
tion in French in the primary schools of Alsace-
Lorraine. The reason given was an economic one,
the practical utility for a border population to know
both languages. The motion was passed by a prac-
tically 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 Council in Berlin, which has power to overrule
anything they may do. In this case they did noth-
ing. Consequently, Kubler, 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 all localities whose municipal councils
should ask for it. At once the municipal govern-
ments of the large cities pronounced themselves
unanimously in favor of this motion. Finally 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 localities
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 limiting the number of
pupils, 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) published a caricature of a Ger-
man pedant, which Gneisse considered an allusion to
himself. 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 called 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, "will teach French when other wills than
her own permit her to."
The spectacle of a nation which prides itself 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 Frdres 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 Male, 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 wills than their
own. Though allowed a Delegation or Landesaus-
chuss, before which 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 councils, so that, by reason
of its complicated and carefully controlled com-
position as well as because of the humble character
of its powers, it could only be servile. 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 liberal 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
17s
176 ALSACE-LORRAINE
the government felt that the grip of Germany upon
the Reichsland had steadily 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, 19 10, the Chancellor of the Empire,
Bethmann-Hollweg, 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 lively 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 gifts. 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 Berlin they were informed by the Alsa-
tian ministry that the Imperial Government did
not recognize the right of the Landesauschuss to
mix in questions which 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 Francophile 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-Hollweg was accustomed to
clothe his thoughts, meant that the Alsatians must
break the ties that bound them to the culture and
civilization of France, and must immerse themselves
exclusively in the culture and civilization 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 really 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 until De-
cember, 1 910. 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
urally produced a bad impression upon the coun-
try. On May 26, 191 1, the new Constitution of
Alsace-Lorraine was voted by the Reichstag. Vio-
lently opposed by the Pan-Germanists and betrayed
by those so-called liberal parties in the Reichstag
whose supposed principles required that they sup-
port it, Alsatian autonomy came out practically 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 which 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 Berlin. 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 civil 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
180 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 republican head of the
state. He was appointed by the Emperor, and was
his representative, revocable at will 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 itself 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
self-government, not even in the Center and So-
cialist 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 trail 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-Lorraine. 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, if 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 191 1, like that of
182 ALSACE-LORRAINE
1879, now superseded, was blighted 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 collective states of the
confederation. She was bound hand and foot to
the executive and legislative powers of Berlin.
The people of Alsace and Lorraine were thus
checked, and completely balked. Great was their
disillusionment. The hope for real self-government
in place of degrading tutelage, legitimate for any
intelligent people in this day and age, a hope at
times encouraged by imperial politicians for tactical
purposes, was now brutally 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
policy 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 military 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 gaily 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 mili-
tary preparations attained the highest pitch of
intensity. The signs of the times were unmistak-
able.
The period from 1911 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 steadily 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 conciliation 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 welfare of
the Fatherland, whereas an outsider would have
had difficulty in rinding any pronounced mildness
or regard for popular feelings in their acts. They
could, however, tell 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 Leipsic because of carica-
tures which in any self-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 against the
insolence of the Pan-Germans. A merchant of Mul-
house was expelled 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
soil during the Franco -German war.
In addition to military and political pressure,
economic pressure was also used to further the pro-
1 86 ALSACE-LORRAINE
gramme of Germanization. Alsatian economic in-
terests were repeatedly sacrificed in the interest of
neighboring states like 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
life 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 Francophile. 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 itself.
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
lines, they joined in indignant protest against a
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1911 187
government which subjected them to continued mal-
treatment, which failed to assure them the most ele-
mentary rights of free men. The hollowness and
the mockery of the boasted Constitution of 191 1
were patent to all the world in the light 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
reconciliation. The chief cause was the character
of that rule itself, which every year kept alive popular
discontent and which was now accentuating it more
and more by renewed disclosure of the gulf that
lay between the governors and the governed. The
Germans might have learned from old or recent
English history the healing and invigorating quality
that lies in liberal 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
liberty." 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
categorically 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 German 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 philosophy
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 187 1 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 foothills 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 illustration. He called the Alsatian
recruits whom he was training by an opprobrious
term "Wackes" or rowdies, ruffians. He told his
soldiers to use their weapons fearlessly if 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, similarly
valiant, took occasion to say that he himself 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 naturally 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 187 1. "We
are Alsatian Wackes," cried some street gamins to.
THE SAVERNE AFFAIR 191
the Lieutenant as he walked through the town.
Others trailed 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 children, 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 imbecility stabbed the bill 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 well as indecent, and was
against all 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 deliberate 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 ball 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, if they
did not disperse. They did.
Not only was all Alsace trembling with resent-
ment at the gratuitous insults and the arrogance
of the officers, not only were public 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 lieutenant to Prus-
sian Minister of War, all thought alike. With such
a temper in military 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 public 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 himself 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 illegal actions of the military. The men arrested
were kept in a dirty dungeon, the coal bunker of the
barracks, over night.
194 ALSACE-LORRAINE
Had all 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 himself for the
police in a deliberate and offensive fashion, had
raised in an aggravated form the dangerous problem
of the relations of the civil and military authorities.
Public opinion was aroused throughout Ger-
many. "We get the impression," wrote the mili-
tary editor of the "Berliner Tageblatt," himself an
officer, Commandant Moraht, "that behind this
formidable display of military 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 military 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 mili-
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
M or gen 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 lieutenant 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 humiliations. On December 3, representa-
tives of Alsace-Lorraine 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 military and civil powers be thus
cavalierly treated, and pressed the Chancellor hard.
Bethmann-Hollweg 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
civil authorities are powerless to prevent the en-
croachments of the military authorities. Bethmann-
Hollweg was only a civil 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 Chancellor 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 military, at the impersonal,
detached, and essentially trivial speech of the Chan-
cellor, 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 Germanics. . . . 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 Socialists.) If that
were so, then it would be a terrible blow for the
Empire. (Thunderous applause.) Those who act
thus fail to understand the responsibility 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 Chancellor 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 follows: "The Chancellor 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 Chancellor, 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 military 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 all 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 SA VERNE AFFAIR 199
years was now being brought home to the sixty
million 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-Hollweg 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 establish similar
institutions here. I shall oppose them with all my
might." Bethmann-Hollweg 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 established
the fact of a difference of opinion in a particular
case between the Reichstag and the Imperial Chan-
cellor."
The Reichstag was condemned in high places —
and quite properly as it was quite impotent and
would always remain so unless it were willing to
zoo ALSACE-LORRAINE
fight for respectable rights as have parliaments in
other nations. This it has never even seriously con-
sidered doing.
Meanwhile the doughty Lieutenant von Forstner
was doing what he could to help along the humilia-
tion of the civil authorities of the Empire and to
emphasize the supremacy of the military. On the
2d of December, on the very eve of the first discus-
sion in the Reichstag he had covered himself with
new glory. While passing through the town of
Dettwiller, a few miles from Saverne, at the head
of a detachment of troops, he heard the familiar
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 if such an act must be condemned
by the military 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 SA VERNE AFFAIR 201
ment, the minimum penalty possible under the
circumstances, and hardly a serious satisfaction for
public opinion. Forstner appealed. It would have
been well to let things rest there. But worse was
yet to come.
The military 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 himself
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 himself be sent before a war
council.
Soon another theatrical incident occurred. On
December 22, the head of the police of Berlin, von
Jagow, a civil official subordinate, of course, to the
Chancellor, 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 liable to be prosecuted and punished. Conse-
202 ALSACE-LORRAINE
quently, Lieutenant von Forstner could not be
placed on trial and still less be punished. The
military court which condemned him has apparently
failed 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 illegal 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 public opinion while 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 allow 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 called him a rowdy. The Colonel on
hearing this testimony rose and solemnly addressed
the court: "That fellow passed me without taking
off his cap. It is not thus that one passes a Prussian
colonel." Lieutenant Schadt had arrested a bank
teller because he thought he detected a smile or
grimace on his countenance. The lieutenant 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 civil tribunal he testified: "The
public prosecutor was particularly provocative.
One of the judges said to me, 'I will take no orders
from you.' Naturally 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 piesumption. 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 all
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 published 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 civil
authorities." No such request had been made at
Saverne.
On the same day, January 10, 1014, 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 SA VERNE 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 police, 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 lieutenant 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.
Dallwitz, 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 especially that the law should
be respected by the military 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 liberal 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 civil power of its functions, Prussia
becomes a country like Mexico or China. If, some
day, it should be thought that the Government is
incapable and that the Reichstag is exceeding its
powers we shall perhaps see officers stationing their
batteries on the Konigsplatz in order to preserve
the political 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 already 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 myself to reconciling the immigrants with
the natives, and now we have come to the point
where we can say that all has gone up in smoke."
A South German writer, Friedrichs, wrote: "What
would the people of Manchester or Liverpool do
if they had a Zabern: and what would an English
cobbler do if refused redress after an officer had
slashed his head. Well! I should not like to be in
that officer's shoes while 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 military, they were
entirely ineffectual. This crisis, like others in recent
German history, like that aroused by the Daily
Telegraph incident, petered out quickly and ridicu-
lously. The military 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 SA VERNE 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 civil 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 docility 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
challenge to German democracy and to German
parliamentarism 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 Wurtemberg or Bavaria and let the
lieutenants and their colonel conduct themselves
as they did at Zabern, and you would see what would
happen! . . . With all 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.' Well, if it is
that, we must demand that it shall not be entirely
devoid of popular sympathies. . . . Let us have
respect for the people, for civilians; 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 shall 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 SA VERNE 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 liberty, 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
military 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, if so feeble
and evanescent an effort may be called a struggle
as that of the opposition described above to the
deeds of the military caste.
As far as Alsace-Lorraine was concerned the
Saverne affair proved once more, what she already
well knew, that she was truly a conquered province,
and that her position in 19 14 was the same as in
187 1. 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 Socialists, 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 military
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 official 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 all the clearer the subjection of
the Reichsland. The Statthalter, Count von Wedel,
now considered too liberal by the dominant faction
in the Empire, gave way to a man in whom the mili-
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 liberal, was the man who, the year
before, had urged the passage of exceptional laws
against 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 collective resignation of the government of
Strasburg, nevertheless, had its own significance.
In this conflict between the civil and military 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 military, and public 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 1 914 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 called forth the incidents of
Zabern." Six months earlier Bethmann-Hollweg
had written to the historian Lamprecht: "We are
a young people. We have perhaps too much faith
in force. We take too little 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 Chancellor.
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 followed 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 million
and a half 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, especially one whose
record has long been warlike, then every other na-
tion that is a neighbor must likewise be prepared,
215
216 ALSACE-LORRAINE
if it has even an elementary sense of where safety
lies. 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. All 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 politics, hitherto
characterized by an increasingly liberal 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 military 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 half 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 inferentially exalted the doctrine of the
survival of the fittest, the fittest being those strong-
est in military power.
There was no justification for such an act in the
year 187 1. It was not needed to complete the
unification of Germany, if that would have been a
justification. The unification of Germany, an event
with which the liberal world generally sympathized,
was completed by the cooperation of all 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
public was not at all 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 if 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 public
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 liv-
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 187 1, 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
Italian 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 April 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
admitting that the people concerned had any rights
which she was bound to respect. She sided with the
good old fossil past. The right of conquest, said
Marshal Moltke with confidence, is "in conformity
with the order of things established 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-
pable sort. Germans believed 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 perilous 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 inability
to see that other nations have rights quite as sacred
as those of Germany, the constant hostility to all
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 if war were the only constant
and stable and permanent social fact. "As long
as men exist," said William II at Carlsruhe in Sep-
tember, 1909, "there will be those who are jealous
and hostile. We must be protected from their at-
tacks; this is why there will 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 sterile political monism of modern
Germany, a philosophy that was not beyond the
imaginative grasp of the cave-dweller's mind.
The conquest of Alsace checked the march of
European civilization. No doubt great technical
and economic progress has been achieved since 1871,
but still greater progress would have been realized
had the Treaty of Frankfort never been signed. The
future of democracy was imperilled, the ultimate
liberties 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 William I in February,
1871: "Believe a bishop who tells you in the pres-
ence of God and with his hand upon his heart,
'Alsace will 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
herself which has steadily announced it as final and
as "settling" the question of Alsace-Lorraine once
and for all. 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 millions from the German people for the
army, they have pointed to the alleged menace in
the West, the irreconcilable foe, weeping for her
children 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 twenty-three years. German argumenta-
tion, however, is generally unilateral.
The war which the Germans have declared for
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, 19 14.
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 9 14. No honest man believes that because Ger-
many has controlled a part of France for the past
three years she has the slightest right to that territory
or ever will have or ever could have. If she should
keep her grip upon it for forty years and more, as
she has kept it upon Alsace-Lorraine, 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 if it should become French again.
There is no more reason for consulting the depart-
ments of Upper Rhine, of Lower Rhine, and of the
Moselle, taken forty-six years ago, by precisely the
same methods.
If the proposition had actually been realized 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 States, 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, ovdng 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 fidelity to the fundamental
principle in which every true American believes 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
possibilities, 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 installed in the provinces in August, 19 14,
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, all 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 belied
their words. Has German policy 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
conciliate. Germany's Polish, 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 feeling 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 public mind. Feelings 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 will of an-
other? To be incorporated in a nation they detested,
to be obliged 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 will penetrate the ears of
all its creatures, even those who appear to be stone
2 3 o 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, if
applied skilfully and ruthlessly, become right; that
a territory may be annexed by might against its
will; 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 terrify
and corrupt those who remain, and that then the
sum total of all 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 shall admit that
time and the continuous use of oppressive methods
suffice to make valid a monstrous iniquity. If the
passage of time can alter the character of a crime,
then robbery is legitimatized after a period, then
persecution, if extended over years enough, and if
vigorous enough, is morally 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 emphatically 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, if 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 invincibility of the
Germans, the conviction that Providence has raised
them up to be the leaders of the world and that
nothing can fail which they set themselves to do,
sentiments which have grown steadily to appalling
proportions and have finally attained their legiti-
mate expression in the wanton attack upon the fiber-
ties of the world. The words of the deputies of
Alsace and Lorraine uttered in the Assembly at
Bordeaux on February 17, 187 1, were true and sin-
gularly prescient, a poignant prophecy, every letter
of which has been fulfilled 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 allow a people to be seized like a herd of
cattle; she cannot continue deaf to the repeated
protests of threatened nationalities; she owes it to
her instinct of self-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 187 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 evil
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 neutralized 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 public 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 liberty 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
which 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, tliat 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 religion 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 sailors steam down the
harbor of New York on their way to the field of
battle they pass the statue of "Liberty Enlightening
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, 5s, 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,
78-96
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 pro'
tation, 147
People's service, 1 2
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
Hohenzollerns 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
Bliicher, 89
Blumenthal, 172
Bluntschli, Professor, 17
Bordeaux, 5, 231*
Protest of 1871, 104
Border states, 34, 152
Borny, 74
Boulangism, 130
Boundaries, 83, 120, 213, 214
Bourbon, House of, 36, 37
Overthrow, 60
Boycott, 186
BrachycephaJic 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
Ca;sar, Julius, 21
Calker, Professor von, 208
Canada, 109, 187
Capri vi, 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), n6, 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
Ferrieres, 217
Feudal fiefs, 58
Feudal principle, 219, 220
Feudalism, 28, 29, 48, 58, 59
Figaro, Le, 7
Flag, French, 191
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, 196, 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-Comt6, 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
Military 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, 80,
121
German princes, 30, 117
Protest to Diet, 1789, 59
German spirit, 167, 222
German states, n 2-1 13, 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 Individuality, 113, 150, 151, 153,
German method, 1871-1890, 158
108-138 Insults, 192
Temper of Germany, 168-169, Intellectual movement, 150, 158,
183, 187, 188, 228 159
Graffenstaden, 186 Intimidation, 134, 135
Gravelotte, 74 Iron mines, 67, 86
Gustavus Adolphus, 38 Italy, 26, 106, 216, 219
Gutenberg, 71
Jagow, Herr von, 201, 202, 205
Hague Conferences, 216 Japan, 226
Haguenau, 32 Jean or Johann, 173
Hanover, 106, 219 Joan of Arc, 34
Hansi (J. J. Waltz), 157, 159, 172, Johann or Jean, 173
185 Josephine, 66
Hapsburgs, 27, 32, 36, 37, 39, 40, Judges, 100
85, 88, 112 Junkers, 190, 205
Hegira of 1872, 98-99, 103-104 Justice, 211, 229, 230, 233
Henry II, 38
Hertzog, 118, 125 Kaiser. See German Emperor
Hesse, 106, 156 Kayserberg, 32
Hesse-Cassel, 219 Kellermann, 62, 66
Hesse-Darmstadt, Landgrave of, Kings, 234
58 Kirschleger, 91
"Historical rights," 84 K16ber, 62
Hoffman, 132 Monument, 71
Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Prince Quoted, 65, 66
Hermann, 162 Koepenick, Captain von, 195
Hohenlohe-Schillingsfiirst, Prince Kreuzzeitung, 201
Chlodwig von, 130-137, 162 Kiibler, M., 169, 170, 171
Memoirs quoted, 137
Hohenstauffen, 27, 154 Lalance, of Mulhouse, 132
Hohenzollerns, 27, 112, 141, 167 Lamprecht, 214
Holland, 79, 82, 84, 101 Landau, 67
Holy Roman Empire, 26, 27-29, Landesauschuss, 116, 117, 118,
34, 35, 84, 112, 154, 155 123, I7S-I78
Holy Roman German Empire, 26, Landtag, 199, 212
29 Language question
Huguenots, 36 German policy, 169
Humanity, 11 See also French language; Lin-
guistic theory
Imperial Germany, 165 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 Male, 1 73
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, S3> 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 XVIII, 70, 89
Louis Philippe, 70
Lower Alsace, 111
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, William, 93
Maurice of Saxony, 38
Mazarin, 39
Mentality, 158
Merlin of Douai, 59
Metternich, 70, 73, 109
Metz, 22, S3, 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
Military 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, i73 -I 74
Moraht, Commandant, 194
Morgen Post, 195
Moselle, 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, 69
Napoleon III, 73
Nassau, 219
National rights, 232, 233
Nationalism, 213
Nationality, 20
Naumann, Friedrich, 210, 228
"Necklace Cardinal," 57
Netherlands, 88
Neutralization, 94
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, 160
Pagny-sur-Moselle, 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,
49,5°
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
Privilege, victim's. See Victim's
privilege
Professors, the ninety-three, 93
Protest to the National Assembly,
13-iS
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, 89, 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 191 1 voted, 178
Impotence, 196, 199, 209
Saverne affair and, 192, 198, 199
Religious wars, 36
Renan, 84
Rent or Renatus, 173
Representation, 116
Republic, French, 60
Restoration, 70
"Resuming," 84, 85
Reubell, 51
Reuss, Rodolphe, 62
Reutter, Colonel von, 192, 193,
194, 201, 203, 204, 205, 207
Revue alsacienne illustree, 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, dolichocephalic and brachy-
cephalic, 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
245
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 privilege, 97-107
Vienna, 85
Voltaire, 50
Vosges mountains, 21, 24, 25, 82,
83, 84, 189
Vorwarts, 207
"Wackes," 190, 191
Wagner, Adolph, 93-94
Waltz, J. J. SeeHznsi
War, 217, 222
Waterloo, 66
Wedel, Count von, 184, 206, 212
Werder, General von, 75, 118
Westphalia, treaty of, 36, 38, 39,
60, 224
Provisions, 40
246
INDEX
Wetterle, Abbg, 162, 171, 172, 185 Wiirtemberg, 32, 210
"Will to power," 85 Wiirtemberg, Duke of, 58
William I, 89, in, 124, 128, Wiirtemberg, King of, 88-89, 91
136
William II, 7, 8, 136 "Young Alsace," 161, 162
Quoted, 222
Windhorst, 119 Zabern. See Saverne
Wissembourg, 32, 74, 173 Zersplittertmg, 31
Wittich, Werner, 184 Zislin, 159
Wbrth, 74 Zweibrvicken, Duke of, 58
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