Fighting France Part 16

Bourson, former correspondent of _Le Matin_, who is interned at Cannstatt in Wurtemburg. Other citizens, after having been held in prison for weeks and months, have been exiled finally into Germany.

The Germans themselves have been so demoralized by the regime they have established that the authorities have had to put a check on anonymous denunciations, almost all of which were false, by an official communique published in the _Gazette de Hagenau_ for the sixth of December, 1916.

The story of how the civilian population has been treated will only be known in its entirety later on. The government has, as a matter of fact, forbidden the press to publish accounts of the war councils'

debates because the population, far from being terrified by them, would find in them laughing matter.

It is estimated that the people of Alsace-Lorraine have served in actual hours more than five thousand years in prison. Here are some crimes committed by them:

M. Giessmann, an old man seventy years old, saluted French prisoners in a Stra.s.sburg street: Sentence, six weeks in prison.

Guillaume Kohler, an infantry soldier from Saverne, during a journey in Germany, censured the inhuman manner in which certain German officers treated their men at the front. The council at Saarbruck sentenced him to two years in prison.

Emilie Zimmerle, a cook at Kolmar, sang an anti-German song as she washed out her pots. Thirty marks fine.

Mlle. Stern, the daughter of a pastor at Mulhouse, spoke against the violation of Belgium. One month in prison.

Abbe Theophile Selier, cure at Levencourt, for the same offense, six weeks in prison.

Even children and young girls have been punished for peccadillos that were absolutely untrue.

The _Metz Zeitung_ for the twenty-second of October mentions the sentences p.r.o.nounced against Juliette F. de Vigy, eighteen years old, a pupil in the commercial school, and Georgette S----, twenty-three years old, a shop girl, dwellers at Mouilly. Having gone one morning to the station at Metz, they saw some French prisoners in a train to whom they spoke and at whom they "made eyes."

Juliette F----, the more guilty of the two, was sentenced to pay a fine of eighty marks, and Georgette S---- to pay one of forty marks, because "acting this way to prisoners of war exercises a particularly disturbing effect on them."

Two little girls of Kolmar, named Gra.s.s and Broly, were arrested for "having answered, by waving their hands, kisses French prisoners threw to them."

A boy fifteen years old, pupil in the upper school at Mulhouse, named Jean Ingold, who, in the cla.s.sroom tore down the portrait of the Emperor and painted French flags on the wall with the inscription "Vive la France," was condemned to a month in prison. The War Council saw an aggravating circ.u.mstance in the fact that Jean's father "occupies a very lucrative position as a German functionary."

On the thirtieth of March, 1916, two sisters from Guebwiller--Sister Edwina, nee Bach, Mother Superior, and Sister Emertine, nee Eckert, were charged with anti-German manifestations for having treated as lies the figures regarding French and Russian prisoners sent out in the German communiques, for having protested against the bombardment of Rheims Cathedral, for having treated as false the German victories that had been announced, and for having said on the subject of the German invasion of Belgium, "How can they attack a country that asked for nothing?"

The result was that they got six months' imprisonment.

The case of Mme. Berthe Judlin, in the faith Sister Valentine, is more tragic.

The Mulhouse newspapers have published the account of the proceedings in the case of this Sister before the War Council. It appears that she has been the victim of monstrous calumnies, and that her fate can well be compared to that of Miss Edith Cavell.

She was accused of having, from the ninth to the fourteenth of August when she was a.s.signed to the convent of the Redemptorists at Riedishiem, favored the French wounded at the expense of the German wounded. These accusations, which specified in particular, that she had taken various objects away from one wounded man (a charge the prosecution withdrew) and that she hid the cartridges of the French wounded in the attic, were contested by Sister Valentine. After the testimony of the witnesses, nine for the prosecution and fourteen for the defendant, the government commissioner asked that she be punished with a sentence of fifteen years at hard labor and ten years of deprivation of civil rights. Her lawyer asked for her acquittal. The War Council on the fourteenth of December, 1915, after an hour and a quarter's deliberation, decided that "Sister Valentine has done harm to the German Army" and has hidden the cartridges. It condemned Sister Valentine to "five years of hard labor and five years' deprivation of civil rights."

_The War on the French Language_

The Germans never cease recalling and von Hertling has just repeated the fact that eighty-seven per cent of the Alsatians speak German. It is strange, then, that the German reign of terror has manifested itself in one particular against the use of French, even in the region where French is the language universally spoken.

The fact that a person speaks French has become a special offense, that of "provocation." And this offense appears to be a frequent one.

On the twenty-second of February, 1916, the sous-prefect of Boulay gave the following warning to the mayors of his arrondiss.e.m.e.nt:

The use in public of French will be considered a "provocation" when used by persons who know enough German to make themselves understood or who can have recourse to persons who understand German as intermediaries.

The War Council Extraordinary at Metz, in consequence handed down a decision condemning two women to fourteen days in prison because, in a manner that gave "provocation," they spoke French in a trolley car in spite of the warnings of the conductress.

In addition, the War Council Extraordinary at Stra.s.sburg fined a salesman who "not only let a French label remain on his packages, but had put a French label on a package addressed to a customer who understood German."

A little girl from Bourg-Bruche who, although she spoke German, used the French language in spite of repeated warnings, had a sentence of detention inflicted on her by the same tribunal.

The Mulhouse _Tageblatt_ for the twenty-third of September, 1917, announced that women who had conversed to one another in French in public had been condemned to from two to three weeks imprisonment by the War Council at Thionville.

Another person who had made a usage of the French language that gave grounds for "provocation," was condemned to pay a fine of fifty marks or serve ten days in prison.

The _Oberelsaessische Landeszeitung_ for the twelfth and twenty-sixth of October published the following sentences: "Fines of twenty and ten marks to the venders A. Nemarg and M. Cahen for having spoken to a convoy of French officers in the station at Thionville."

Twenty and thirty marks fine to Amelie Bany and Catherine Jacques of Knutange "for having spoken French although they understood German."

The Mayor of Broque, a commune where French is spoken, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for having spoken French to his councilors.

In Alsace this campaign against the French language is carried even into the girls' boarding schools, which have always been the princ.i.p.al centers for the study of French.

An order from the Statthalter, dated March tenth, 1915, forbade French conversations in the schools.

A German pastor of the Lutheran Church named Curtius, who had opposed suppressing the old parish of Saint Nicholas at Stra.s.sburg, was removed. His successor, who was better disciplined, gave in to the measure that was demanded.

The war against the French language has been marked by the suppression of all French newspapers since the war's beginning, the _Journal d'Alsace-Lorraine_, the _Messin_, _the Nouvelliste d'Alsace-Lorraine_.

But nothing shows better the necessity of having organs of public opinion in French than the establishment at Metz of the _Gazette d'Alsace-Lorraine_ by the government, which served as a model for the _Gazette des Ardennes_, founded later on at Mezieres, to demoralize the inhabitants of the invaded districts in the north and west of France.

_The Treatment of the Soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine_

The soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine, whose loyalty was proclaimed at the war's beginning, have, as a matter of fact, been treated like spies and embryo deserters.

In August, 1915, at the opening of the Alsatian parliament, the Statthalter denounced the anti-patriotism of a part of the population and stigmatized the "traitors" who had "gone over to the enemy."

In fact, no less than fourteen thousand Alsatians, in the face of manifold perils and difficulties, had rejoined the colors of their true country. All the newspapers of Alsace-Lorraine still publish the lists of them as citizens and of their belongings as "refractory individuals."

The movement has never stopped. During the thirty-second month of the war, on the fourteenth of March, 1917, General von Na.s.sner, commandant for the district of Saarbruck, published the following extraordinary order:

"Whoever, after due examination, has reason to believe that a soldier or a man on reprieve proposes to desert and who can still prevent the execution of this crime, must without delay give notice of this fact to the nearest military or police authority."

The Stra.s.sburg _Neueste Nachrichten_ for the twenty-seventh of September announced that the "_chambre correctionnelle_ at Kolmar had condemned by default one hundred and ninety men from the arrondiss.e.m.e.nts of Guebwiller and Ribeauville to fines of six hundred marks or forty days in prison for having failed to perform their military obligations."

The _Oberelsaessische Landeszeitung_ for the eleventh of October, 1917, announced sentences of fines of three thousand marks or three hundred days in prison for the same reason against seven persons.

The _Haguenauer Zeitung_ from the eleventh to the twentieth of October published the names of seventeen soldiers, some of them deserters, the others guilty of rebellion in favor of the enemy or of treason.

On the twenty-fifth of October there was another list of deserters, nineteen of whom were natives of Stra.s.sburg.

In his book, "The Martyrs of Alsace and Lorraine," M. Andre Fribourg has fifteen pages taken from the lists of the debates of the German war councils. These pages are made up of the names of young Alsatians who have left their country rather than fight against France.

Besides, far from treating the Alsatians enrolled in the German Army like Germans, the government has accorded them a distinctly different treatment.