Alsace Lorraine Part 1

Alsace-Lorraine.

by Daniel Blumenthal.

INTRODUCTION

The problem of Alsace-Lorraine is in a very real sense an American problem. We entered this war to help crush the Teutonic scheme of world domination and to free the democratic nations of the earth from the menace of militaristic autocracy. Any issue which involves these fundamental causes of American intervention in the great struggle must command the careful attention of every thoughtful American citizen.

Alsace and Lorraine provide just such an issue. In 1871 these provinces were forcibly torn from France and annexed to a militaristic autocracy, despite the bitter protests of the mother country and the impa.s.sioned appeals of her unfortunate children. This crime was but one of many incident to the scheme of building up a world empire controlled by a Prussianized Germany; but in a peculiar degree it outraged the democratic sympathies of the world and enhanced the prestige of autocratic militarism in the opinion of the German people.

As the most recent and most striking fruit of the Prussian policy of conquest, Alsace-Lorraine is today the visible pledge of the professed efficiency of autocracy and the supposed decadence of democracy.

The vindication of democracy demands the "disannexation" of Alsace-Lorraine and its return to democratic France. The security of the world demands that the Prussian policy of military conquest be discredited and destroyed by depriving the German people of the unholy profits of that policy. Justice to the mother country and to her lost children demands that their combined protests be heard and that the crime of '71 be rectified. Americans are fighting for the vindication of democracy, for the security of the world, and for the triumph of justice. When they fully understand that a peace which should leave Alsace-Lorraine under German control would be a denial of democracy, a peril to civilization, and a travesty on justice, our chivalrous people will refuse to lay down the sword until the lost children of our gallant Ally are restored to their rightful sovereignty.

No one is more eminently qualified to bring to the American people the facts in the case of Alsace-Lorraine than is the Honourable Daniel Blumenthal. Himself an Alsatian by birth, he can speak from the heart on behalf of his brothers and sisters. Honoured by his fellow citizens with election to the high office of mayor of the important Alsatian city of Colmar for a period of nine years, he speaks with the authority of one who has the full confidence of those Alsatians who know him best. A member of the German Reichstag and of the Alsace-Lorraine Senate for many years, he speaks with peculiar knowledge of the Imperial Government's treatment of the conquered lands. Condemned to death eight times and carrying sentences aggregating more than five hundred years of penal servitude, all imposed upon him by the Imperial German Government because he escaped from the Empire to tell the world the truth about Alsace-Lorraine, he comes to us with the highest recommendations which the Prussian autocracy has power to give. Americans will read with unusual interest his testimony regarding the lost provinces of France.

DOUGLAS WILSON JOHNSON.

NEW YORK CITY, November 1, 1917.

ALSACE-LORRAINE

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map of Alsace and Lorraine.

The darker shading shows portion of territory ceded to Germany in 1871.]

THE PROBLEM OF ALSACE-LORRAINE

The problem of Alsace-Lorraine began with the Treaty of Frankfort made between the German Empire and the French Republic, May 10, 1871.

Beaten by the German armies, France, at the mouth of the cannon, was forced, notwithstanding the solemn protests of the inhabitants, to give up part of her territory.

The Alsace-Lorraine problem has a three-fold character. It concerns Germany, France, and the World.

France not having stipulated in the Treaty of Frankfort any clause as to the treatment of the people of Alsace-Lorraine now become German, the German Empire alone had the formal right to decide their fate, and it is _vis-a-vis_ to Germany that Alsace-Lorraine must make its claims.

The question of the rule of Alsace-Lorraine became a problem of the internal policy of the Empire, and therefore a purely German affair.

The French Government has always scrupulously respected the Treaty of Frankfort, but the French people have never given up the hope of redressing the gross wrong of 1871, and all the French policy has been based on the necessity of protection against renewed German aggression. In vain did Germany declare that no Alsace-Lorraine question existed; not only does this question exist, but it has become the princ.i.p.al obstacle in the way of political reconciliation between France and Germany. Whether one wishes it or not, it is _the_ Franco-German question _par excellence_. At the same time it has an _international_ character of the highest importance. The form of alliances, the bidding for armaments, the terms of armed peace, these were the natural consequences of this state of things. France never would have undertaken, and Alsace-Lorraine never would have demanded, a war of revenge to secure the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France.

But since the horrors of war have been let loose upon the world by the criminal folly of Germany, the problem of Alsace-Lorraine has become a _world problem_ of the highest importance.

From the beginning of the war, the president of the French Republic, the president of the Senate, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, the president of the Council, and all the heads of government who have succeeded one another, and recently Parliament itself, the Senate, and Chamber of Deputies, all have in accord with the whole French nation, manifested the unshaken determination not to end the war without the a.s.surance of the return of Alsace-Lorraine to the mother country.

Alsace-Lorraine has const.i.tuted a striking example of the denial of the principle of the right of the people to govern themselves, but now the question has become actually of great practical importance. Being the princ.i.p.al object of France in the future peace treaty, it is quite natural that all the nations, and above all the belligerent ones, should be obliged to give to it very particular attention. Even for the United States, who will have a most important role to play in the Congress of Peace, the question of Alsace-Lorraine is one which they cannot treat as being of interest only to France and Germany. In its nature and from the fact that it is the corner-stone of the first claim to be made by France, it concerns right and justice.

It is consequently opportune that even those who up to the present time have had no special reason for interest in Alsace-Lorraine should come to know certain facts about this little country in order to be able to form for themselves a just and trustworthy opinion of the disputed question.

TERRITORY

Alsace-Lorraine is bounded on the north by Bavaria, Prussia, Luxembourg, and France; on the south by Switzerland and France, on the east by the Grand Duchy of Baden, and on the west by France. It is entirely made up of territory surrendered by France to Germany by the Treaty of Frankfort. This included the following parts of France: the Department of the Lower Rhine, the Department of the Upper Rhine with the exception of Belfort, three quarters of the Department of Moselle, a third of the Department of Meurthe, and two cantons of the Vosges.

The area is about 14,500 square kilometres.

POPULATION

German official statistics give on the 1st of December, 1871, a population of 1,554,738 inhabitants. The last Census of 1910 gives 1,874,014 souls (967,625 men, 906,389 women). This population includes about 1,500,000 Alsaces-Lorraines of French descent, who themselves or their parents were born in Alsace-Lorraine before the 1st of May, 1871, and who, except for the Treaty of Frankfort, would have been French. The aliens (notably the Italians, French, Swiss, and the people of Luxembourg) make up a contingent of about 75,000. The rest, 300,000 in all, are German immigrants since the War of 1870-71, and their descendants, including the military and government officials with their families.

The original French people of the ceded territories were allowed to preserve their French nationality on condition of making an express declaration before October 1, 1872, and to transfer, within the same extension of time, their domicile outside of Alsace-Lorraine. From the official German reports, there were about 160,000 options declared in Alsace-Lorraine, of which only 50,000 were valid. The options given in France amounted to about 380,000. The statistics of emigration and immigration for 1871-1910 give an excess of emigration of 267,639 souls. The result of the migration of the population in August, 1914, can thus be characterized: some hundred thousand Alsatians left the country, the greater part of whom settled in France. The number of the native population has remained stationary; 300,000 Germans and 75,000 foreigners must be added. The German population is almost entirely concentrated in the cities. In Metz, the immigrants make up the majority; in Strasbourg, they are a third of the population. In the country, one finds in general only a few officials.

Concerning the language, distinction must be made between Alsace and Lorraine. In most parts of Lorraine, French is spoken exclusively, whereas, in the greater part of Alsace, we find a German patois mixed up with many French words and expressions; and so entirely distinct is it from the _hochdeutsch_ of the Germans, that after forty-seven years they are not able to understand it. Everyone who is at all educated speaks French, in spite of the obstacles the Germans are always putting in the way of teaching the French tongue. All who know French speak it from preference, and no one who speaks good German, and they have all learned it in the schools, ever use it in private life. The official language is of course German.

As to religion: after the Census of 1910, there were found to be 85% Catholics, 13% Protestants, 1-1/2% Jews, and a 1/2% miscellaneous. The _professional_ Census of 1907 gives the following results: about one fourth of the population are in agriculture, half are occupied in commerce and industry, and a quarter enter the liberal professions or follow no trade at all.

As to the ethnological origin of the aboriginal people, the Germans at once declare that Alsace was settled by the Teutons. About Lorraine they prefer to be silent. But while it is certain that Alsace after the migration of the tribes presents a mixed population composed of Celtic and Germanic elements, it would be very difficult to a.n.a.lyse today such an amalgamation. Do not let us forget that Julius Caesar in his famous work, _De Bello Gallico_, has said that the country of the Celts which he calls Galli (Gaul) was bounded by the "_flumen Rhenum_"

(the Rhine), and Tacitus, the ill.u.s.trious historian, declares: "_Germania omnis a Gallis Rheno separatur_" (the whole of Germany is separated from Gaul by the Rhine).

The invasion of Alsace by Ariovistus was victoriously repulsed at the battle of Ochsenfeld 58 B.C., and a new attempt of the Germanic tribes to invade Alsace in 357 A.D. failed before the army of Julian the Philosopher. During the centuries of Roman domination, which have left deep traces on the country (building of cities, construction of roads, commercial and industrial development of all kinds), Alsace enjoyed great prosperity. Moreover, a recent authoritative work, _Wohin geh.o.e.rt Elsa.s.s-Lothringen_, shows that from the last scientific researches, the shape of the German skull, which the Germans love to indicate as the sign of the superiority of the German race, is represented in Alsace only in the proportion of one to three, and the so-called Germanic type (blue eyes and yellow hair) is nowhere predominant.

Alsace is in fact a conclusive example of the fact that the use of a dialect of German origin does not necessarily indicate the race of those who speak it and certainly does not prove a community of sentiments or ideas. This applies also to the German names of the Alsatian communes.

Let us remember on this subject, that very recently German names have been officially given to French localities in Lorraine. When the Germans wish to accomplish a master stroke of policy they are careful to quote the Herren Professoren in justification of the establishment of an historic precedent. Renan, in a mildly bantering spirit, complimented them on their extraordinary talent in these ridiculous attempts. "With the philosophy of history," says he, "as practised by the Germans, there are no legal rights in the world but those of the ourang-outangs, unjustly deprived of these by the perfidy of civilized man."

In the main, it matters little to whom Alsace-Lorraine has belonged during the vicissitudes of history. That only which is important from the point of view of modern history is the act of 1871 by which Germany tore Alsace-Lorraine from France when all the inhabitants of the ceded territories were thoroughly French and wished so to remain.

This is the truth, and it is confirmed by an authority little suspected by the Germans. Professor Theobald Ziegler, who up to the present moment was Professor of Science at the University of Strasbourg, and a liberal democrat, has changed to a pan-Germanist of the most p.r.o.nounced type. Here is what the Herr Professor Ziegler acknowledges, writing in the review _Die Grenzboten_, March 31, 1915: "What makes a nation? Not the feeling of race nor the consciousness of belonging to the same stock which is often lost in the uncertainty and obscurity of history; not the soil, which may be transferred from one people to another as in the case of Alsace; not the language--one has only to think of Switzerland where three languages are spoken; not even interests in common, for these exist in every society, but just the living together of two centuries shared with the great nation of France has made Alsace-Lorraine French."

But Ziegler and his friends have forgotten that to live together there must be mutual understanding and esteem. History teaches that no appreciable advantage is to be gained unless the peoples agree, or if one nation tries to impose its brutal domination over another. And yet it is just this which is the great obstacle that prevents Germany from a.s.similating Alsace-Lorraine and has condemned all its efforts to eternal failure.

INCOMPATIBILITY OF DISPOSITION OF THE GERMANS AND THE INHABITANTS OF ALSACE-LORRAINE

In his excellent volume, _The Peril of Prussianism_, Professor Douglas W. Johnson has traced, in a masterly fashion, the difference between the two ideals of government, one starting with the principle that the State is made to serve the people, the other, that the people are made to serve the State, a view personified by the Kaiser in Germany today.

The Alsaces-Lorraines have always had great independence of character; they are thoroughly democratic and republican, for which reason they so quickly and solidly became a part of the French nation, which, even under different forms of monarchical government, respected their liberty and democratic ideals.

The political history of Alsace-Lorraine furnishes a new proof of this fact on every page. Lorraine became a part of France at the Convention of Friedwald in Hessen, January 14, 1552, when the German Protestant princes at war with the Catholic House of Austria, gave Metz, Toul, and Verdun to the King of France, Henry II., in exchange for subsidies furnished by France.

In the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, Alsace was ceded to France in exchange for services which the King gave to the German Protestant princes fighting against the Catholic Empire. Alsace was conquered for France by the German Prince, Bernard de Saxe-Weimar, on the demand and in the interest of Germany which had called upon France for help.

Strasbourg, which had remained a free independent city, opened her gates to France in 1681. The Republic of Mulhouse, which made a part of Helvetia, asked, and obtained the request, to be incorporated into France in 1798. Neither Alsace nor Lorraine ever made part of the German Empire founded in 1871, and to which vanquished France was obliged to give up these territories. When these two provinces came into the possession of France, they were bound by rather loose ties to the Holy Roman Empire, of which the House of Austria was at the head.

The Austria-Hungary Empire did not survive the Napoleonic wars, and I do not know that it ever claimed any part of Alsace-Lorraine.