German official statistics give on the 1st of December, 1871, a
population of 1,554,738 inhabitants. The last Census of 1910 gives
1,874,014 souls (967,625 men, 906,389 women). This population
includes about 1,500,000 Alsaces-Lorraines of French descent, who
themselves or their parents were born in Alsace-Lorraine before the
1st of May, 1871, and who, except for the Treaty of Frankfort, would
have been French. The aliens (notably the Italians, French, Swiss, and
the people of Luxembourg) make up a contingent of about 75,000. The
rest, 300,000 in all, are German immigrants since the War of 1870-71,
and their descendants, including the military and government officials
with their families.
The original French people of the ceded territories were allowed to
preserve their French nationality on condition of making an express
declaration before October 1, 1872, and to transfer, within the same
extension of time, their domicile outside of Alsace-Lorraine. From the
official German reports, there were about 160,000 options declared in
Alsace-Lorraine, of which only 50,000 were valid. The options given in
France amounted to about 380,000. The statistics of emigration and
immigration for 1871-1910 give an excess of emigration of 267,639
souls. The result of the migration of the population in August, 1914,
can thus be characterized: some hundred thousand Alsatians left the
country, the greater part of whom settled in France. The number of the
native population has remained stationary; 300,000 Germans and 75,000
foreigners must be added. The German population is almost entirely
concentrated in the cities. In Metz, the immigrants make up the
majority; in Strasbourg, they are a third of the population. In the
country, one finds in general only a few officials.
Concerning the language, distinction must be made between Alsace and
Lorraine. In most parts of Lorraine, French is spoken exclusively,
whereas, in the greater part of Alsace, we find a German patois mixed
up with many French words and expressions; and so entirely distinct is
it from the _hochdeutsch_ of the Germans, that after forty-seven years
they are not able to understand it. Everyone who is at all educated
speaks French, in spite of the obstacles the Germans are always
putting in the way of teaching the French tongue. All who know French
speak it from preference, and no one who speaks good German, and they
have all learned it in the schools, ever use it in private life. The
official language is of course German.
As to religion: after the Census of 1910, there were found to be 85%
Catholics, 13% Protestants, 1-1/2% Jews, and a 1/2% miscellaneous. The
_professional_ Census of 1907 gives the following results: about one
fourth of the population are in agriculture, half are occupied in
commerce and industry, and a quarter enter the liberal professions or
follow no trade at all.
As to the ethnological origin of the aboriginal people, the Germans at
once declare that Alsace was settled by the Teutons. About Lorraine
they prefer to be silent. But while it is certain that Alsace after
the migration of the tribes presents a mixed population composed of
Celtic and Germanic elements, it would be very difficult to analyse
today such an amalgamation. Do not let us forget that Julius 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 illustrious historian, declares:
"_Germania omnis a Gallis Rheno separatur_" (the whole of Germany is
separated from Gaul by the Rhine).
The invasion of Alsace by Ariovistus was victoriously repulsed at the
battle of Ochsenfeld 58 B.C., and a new attempt of the Germanic tribes
to invade Alsace in 357 A.D. failed before the army of Julian the
Philosopher. During the centuries of Roman domination, which have left
deep traces on the country (building of cities, construction of roads,
commercial and industrial development of all kinds), Alsace enjoyed
great prosperity. Moreover, a recent authoritative work, _Wohin
gehoert Elsass-Lothringen_, shows that from the last scientific
researches, the shape of the German skull, which the Germans love to
indicate as the sign of the superiority of the German race, is
represented in Alsace only in the proportion of one to three, and the
so-called Germanic type (blue eyes and yellow hair) is nowhere
predominant.
Alsace is in fact a conclusive example of the fact that the use of a
dialect of German origin does not necessarily indicate the race of
those who speak it and certainly does not prove a community of
sentiments or ideas. This applies also to the German names of the
Alsatian communes.
Let us remember on this subject, that very recently German names have
been officially given to French localities in Lorraine. When the
Germans wish to accomplish a master stroke of policy they are careful
to quote the Herren Professoren in justification of the establishment
of an historic precedent. Renan, in a mildly bantering spirit,
complimented them on their extraordinary talent in these ridiculous
attempts. "With the philosophy of history," says he, "as practised by
the Germans, there are no legal rights in the world but those of the
ourang-outangs, unjustly deprived of these by the perfidy of civilized
man."
In the main, it matters little to whom Alsace-Lorraine has belonged
during the vicissitudes of history. That only which is important from
the point of view of modern history is the act of 1871 by which
Germany tore Alsace-Lorraine from France when all the inhabitants of
the ceded territories were thoroughly French and wished so to remain.
This is the truth, and it is confirmed by an authority little
suspected by the Germans. Professor Theobald Ziegler, who up to the
present moment was Professor of Science at the University of
Strasbourg, and a liberal democrat, has changed to a pan-Germanist of
the most pronounced type. Here is what the Herr Professor Ziegler
acknowledges, writing in the review _Die Grenzboten_, March 31, 1915:
"What makes a nation? Not the feeling of race nor the consciousness of
belonging to the same stock which is often lost in the uncertainty
and obscurity of history; not the soil, which may be transferred from
one people to another as in the case of Alsace; not the language--one
has only to think of Switzerland where three languages are spoken; not
even interests in common, for these exist in every society, but just
the living together of two centuries shared with the great nation of
France has made Alsace-Lorraine French."
But Ziegler and his friends have forgotten that to live together there
must be mutual understanding and esteem. History teaches that no
appreciable advantage is to be gained unless the peoples agree, or if
one nation tries to impose its brutal domination over another. And yet
it is just this which is the great obstacle that prevents Germany from
assimilating Alsace-Lorraine and has condemned all its efforts to
eternal failure.
INCOMPATIBILITY OF DISPOSITION OF THE GERMANS AND THE INHABITANTS OF
ALSACE-LORRAINE
In his excellent volume, _The Peril of Prussianism_, Professor
Douglas W. Johnson has traced, in a masterly fashion, the difference
between the two ideals of government, one starting with the principle
that the State is made to serve the people, the other, that the people
are made to serve the State, a view personified by the Kaiser in
Germany today.
The Alsaces-Lorraines have always had great independence of character;
they are thoroughly democratic and republican, for which reason they
so quickly and solidly became a part of the French nation, which, even
under different forms of monarchical government, respected their
liberty and democratic ideals.
The political history of Alsace-Lorraine furnishes a new proof of this
fact on every page. Lorraine became a part of France at the Convention
of Friedwald in Hessen, January 14, 1552, when the German Protestant
princes at war with the Catholic House of Austria, gave Metz, Toul,
and Verdun to the King of France, Henry II., in exchange for subsidies
furnished by France.
In the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, Alsace was ceded to France in
exchange for services which the King gave to the German Protestant
princes fighting against the Catholic Empire. Alsace was conquered for
France by the German Prince, Bernard de Saxe-Weimar, on the demand and
in the interest of Germany which had called upon France for help.
Strasbourg, which had remained a free independent city, opened her
gates to France in 1681. The Republic of Mulhouse, which made a part
of Helvetia, asked, and obtained the request, to be incorporated into
France in 1798. Neither Alsace nor Lorraine ever made part of the
German Empire founded in 1871, and to which vanquished France was
obliged to give up these territories. When these two provinces came
into the possession of France, they were bound by rather loose ties to
the Holy Roman Empire, of which the House of Austria was at the head.
The Austria-Hungary Empire did not survive the Napoleonic wars, and I
do not know that it ever claimed any part of Alsace-Lorraine.
On the contrary, in order to found the German Empire and appropriate
Alsace-Lorraine, Prussia had to make war on Austria in 1866 to put her
out of Germany. The German Empire is wrong, therefore, in making an
appeal to anything but _force_ to explain, if not to justify the
spoliation of France. Alsace-Lorraine was never a political entity
before 1871. We have seen that Alsace was still a part of the Holy
Roman Empire, while Lorraine had already belonged to France for a
hundred years.
Alsace, alone, had never been a state. This is how the learned
professor of the University of Caen, Georges Weil, describes in his
remarkable book, _French Alsace from 1789 to 1871_, the period after
the reunion of Alsace with France: "It was a strange mosaic of
different freeholds, of principalities both lay and ecclesiastical, of
free cities or those almost autonomous. Among these freeholds many
belonged to German princes. A sixth part of Alsace was owned by
foreigners." The Emperor's authority had been only nominal. On his
visits, which were few and far between, he was received with courtesy,
money was freely given to him, but the people always rejoiced when
they saw him leave. The Alsatians received but little assistance from
the Empire; Alsace secured no help when menaced or invaded by foreign
armies. The ten ancient cities flourished under an almost autonomous
rule. Even before the reunion with France, cultivated society was
filled with the French spirit. After the Thirty Years' War, the
country felt the benefit of the protection of a powerful State with a
well-ordered government which respected its habits and customs and
which administered justice. So their sympathies were quickly given to
their new political country with which, by reason of their democratic
ideals, they were already politically in sympathy. That which rapidly
attached the people to the new regime was, on the one hand, the
friendly and intelligent interest of the royal intendants who
protected the subjects from arbitrary lords and other local
authorities, and on the other hand, the sovereign Council of Alsace,
sitting at Colmar, which was to simplify, and, if possible, to unify,
the customs that were in force in different parts of the country and
also insure a sound administration of justice. The success was
complete. A German, Francois d'Ichterscheim, was obliged to
acknowledge, in a work published in 1710, that the Sovereign Council
"rules with strict justice, law-suits are not too lengthy, expenses
are not too heavy, and above all, no favour is shown to either
litigant, the subject often winning his suit against the
sovereign,--the poor against the rich, the layman against the clergy,
the Christian against the Jew, and _vice-versa_."
The people were contented and satisfied. The Alsatian has always had a
pronounced taste for the military career. Many young peasants enlisted
in French regiments and were well received. The nobility furnished a
number of officers to the French army. Alsatian gentlemen enjoyed
taking part in the gay social life of the French aristocracy. Alsatian
scholars kept in constant touch with Paris, where they received every
encouragement and were much appreciated. It is not astonishing then,
that Monsieur Schmettan, Ambassador of Russia to the King of France,
should write in 1709: "It is well-known that the Alsatians are more
French than the Parisians themselves."
The holding in common of the same ideas and feelings was even more
accentuated at the time of the Revolution, and no part of France was
better prepared by her past history for the coming of a rule of
Democracy and Equality. In 1787, Alsace was called upon for the first
time to elect a Provincial Assembly which would represent the
interests of a large number of domains, princely seignorial, and
municipal, the commission chosen to make a report to the Assembly
declared: "That which tends to feudalism carries a mark of servitude
not to be tolerated in a well-constituted society." In the elections
for the Etats Generaux, the little bourgeoisie won in all the cities
against the oligarchy which desired to retain the control. Reubell,
who played an important role in the Revolution, and who was a member
of the Directory, was elected at Colmar. The peasants hailed with
enthusiasm the decree of August 4, 1789, which marked the end of the
feudal regime. The suppression of the custom-house duties between
Alsace and the rest of France sealed the economic union between the
new and the old countries so that the creation of the departments of
the Upper and the Lower Rhine was effected without any difficulty.
After the proclamation of the equality of the French people, the right
to levy on the feudal rents in France, which the German princes who
owned property in Alsace had exercised, could no longer exist. The
Germans protested and the conflict which followed, in 1792, was the
first war against the French Republic.
In the report which the well-known civilian, Merlin de Douai, made to
the _Constituante_, October 28, 1790, is the following passage, very
characteristic of the bonds which unite Alsace to France: "The
Alsatian people have united themselves to France because they wish so
to do; it is their own desire, therefore, and not the treaty of
Muenster which has legalized the union."
In February, 1790, Dietrich was elected mayor of Strasbourg against
the conservative candidate, and in June, 1790, the partisans of the
_Constituante_ celebrated amid great pomp and with the co-operation of
the clergy of different denominations, the fetes of the Federation of
the Rhine.
The Alsatian National Guard set up in the middle of a bridge over the
Rhine, a tri-coloured flag which bore the inscription: "Here the Land
of Liberty begins."
It was on the night following the day that it was known at Strasbourg
(April 25, 1792), that war had been declared, that Captain Rouget de
l'Isle composed "the War Song for the Army of the Rhine," which under
the name of _La Marseillaise_ became the national hymn of France.
Kleber, who at that time commanded a battalion from the Upper Rhine,
writes, November 15, 1792, in reference to the warlike enthusiasm of
the Alsatian volunteers, "not one of them ever dreams of deserting his
flag; the wounded, yes, and even the sick have implored me for mercy's
sake, to keep them with the battalion."
In 1799, there was the menace of another war, and the inhabitants were
most zealous in strengthening the fortresses. An official of the Lower
Rhine wrote in his report on the subject of the Alsatians: "They will,
like the Rhine, always be the impregnable bulwark of the Republic" (G.
Weil).
The assimilation of France and Alsace was made complete during the
Revolution. Fustel de Coulanges well summed up this truth when he
wrote in 1870: "Do you know what has made Alsace French? It is not
Louis XIV., but it is our revolution of 1789. From that moment Alsace
has followed our fortunes; she has lived our life; she thinks as we
think; she feels as we feel; our glories and our faults, our joys and
our sorrows."
The wars of the Empire gave to the Alsatians a chance to display their
military aptitude which they rendered the more generously to the
service of the country, as promotion was given to each according to
his merits; each soldier carried in his knapsack the baton of a
Marechal de France!
The generals of Alsace and of Lorraine who distinguished themselves in
the army of the Republic and with Napoleon are numerous. Among the
best known are Kleber, Kellermann, Rapp, Lefevre, Ney, Mouton,
Lasalle, Sherer, Westermann, and Schramm. The names of twenty-eight
Alsatian generals are engraved upon the Arc de Triomphe at Paris.
* * * * *
Many able Alsatians devoted themselves to the administration of the
German countries that were at that time under the French Government.
Their knowledge of German helped them in their task. After the
disasters in Russia and in Leipzig, in 1813, the Alsatians showed
exemplary devotion in their preparations for defence and sacrifices
for the army.
In his _Memoires_, Segur says on this subject: "There were no better,
braver, more generous Frenchmen in all France." Never, during all
these trying days, did they remember that their forebears had been
subjects of the Holy Empire.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, after the fall of
Napoleon, the pan-Germans made a campaign for the annexation of
Alsace-Lorraine in launching the slogan: _Der Rhein, Deutschlands
Strom nicht Deutschlands Grenze_ (The Rhine is a German river and not
Germany's boundary). This found no echo in Alsace, which forced from
the poet, Rueckert, the heartfelt cry of indignation which fell from
the lips of the German soldiers, who were obliged to evacuate Alsace:
"And thou Alsace! Degermanized race, thou too dost jeer at us, oh,
deepest infamy!"
The Alsatian poet, Ehrenfried Stoeber, whom the Germans readily
invoked on account of his dialect, said that if his harp was German
his sword was French. Referring to the Revolution he said: "If we
speak of the wars of the Revolution in which we fought for our
independence and the protection of the indefeasible rights of man, it
is because we are proud of our fervent ardour and enthusiasm."
Under the restored kingdom of the Bourbons, orderly citizens knew how
to command respect in their new country without sacrificing in the
least their democratic and republican ideals. A prefect of the Upper
Rhine registered in his report of 1818: "All are submissive, but none
are royalist." De Serre, an elector of the Department wrote:
"Ultra-royalism is not the spirit which actuates my constituents."
The prefect, Puymaigre, candidly complains in 1821 of the advanced
ideas of the citizens: "They give faith," said he, "with a most
deplorable credulity, to all the most dangerous political systems."
The same year, after his tour in Alsace, General Foy expressed himself
as follows: "If all that is good and generous in the hearts of the
inhabitants of ancient France ever becomes enfeebled, they must
journey over the Vosges and come to Alsace to renew their patriotism
and energy."
The monarchy of July marks a period of uninterrupted prosperity for
Alsace. The return of the tri-colour was hailed with joy. The
democratic idea grew and was represented chiefly by the _Courrier du
Bas-Rhin_ which influenced public opinion. After 1815, the reactionary
persecutions abated against the Germans who were liberal minded and
they received an hospitable welcome to Alsace. With their innate
absence of tact, many of them tried to convince their hosts that
Alsace was still a German province, and in this way they forfeited all
sympathy.
The Alsatians desire there should be no misunderstanding as to the
nature of the sympathy shown to unjustly persecuted refugees, and the
international courtesy practised by them even towards the Germans. In
1842, when the German delegates to the Scientific Congress of France
were received at Strasbourg, the mouthpiece of the Alsatians spoke of
the sympathies of his countrymen for Germany; but to avoid any mistake
he added: "But if we gaze toward her, it is not with the eyes of a
child torn from the paternal home, but rather, if you will permit the
comparison, with the affectionate look with which the young wife
greets once more her mother's house, happy under the new roof which
shelters her, and with the name of her husband which she bears with
pride."
Alsace has never wavered from this fidelity to France. In 1848 the
second Republic was accepted with satisfaction. Under Louis Philippe
the country had enjoyed great material prosperity, but the middle
classes were restless because the government took no measures to
reform the electorate in the democratic sense. At this time great
fetes were held to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the
union of Alsace and France. The mayor of Strasbourg said on this
occasion: "It is without doubt no longer necessary to make a solemn
and public profession of undying devotion to France. She does not
doubt us, she has faith in Alsace; but if Germany still lulls herself
with futile illusions, if she still finds in the persistence of the
German language a sign of irresistible sympathy and attraction toward
her, she is mistaken. Alsace is just as much French as Brittany,
Flanders, and the country of the Basques, and she will so remain."
The affection of France kept pace always with the profession of
democratic and republican ideals. When the prince-president came to
Strasbourg in 1850, he was received in all the villages of Alsace with
shouts of _Vive la Republique!_ The municipal council of Strasbourg
had refused to give any funds for his reception. At Strasbourg and at
Mulhouse the National Guard was dismissed by the government. The
Colonel of the Strasbourg Legion said in his farewell address: "It is
true that at times you express with great vigour republican
sentiments, but this is with you an original sin, and I fear me that
the remedy applied will not be effectual in its correction."
During the Second Empire, Alsace was a hotbed of republican
resistance, particularly in the Upper Rhine. However, at this time,
the country again enjoyed a great prosperity. The military career
continued to attract the Alsatians. The great advantages assured to
the reinlisted soldiers induced many of them to enter the army as
volunteers. The wars in Algeria under Louis Philippe had already
shown, among the combatants, a great number of Alsatians. The
intellectual culture of the provinces turned towards France and made
great progress. Erckmann and Chatrian expressed marvellously well the
aspirations and democratic ideals of the people in magnifying the
roles of the Alsatians and the Lorrainers in the heroic period of the
Revolution and the First Empire.
The peoples of Alsace and Lorraine were, like those of the rest of
France, divided into political parties, and one often saw
disagreements, generally legal, with the ideas of the respective
governments. But no one ever evinced the slightest regret at no longer
belonging to the Holy Empire, or the least desire to re-enter the
bosom of Germany. When the War of 1870 broke out, Alsace and Lorraine
were very French, and during that war the people of both provinces
bravely and patriotically did their duty to France. The people were
thus badly prepared for a change of nationality, and far from looking
on their new Teuton compatriots as brothers, they cordially detested
the Germans who during the war had conducted themselves to the limit
of savagery. The forced community of life with the Germans soon showed
an irreconcilable opposition between the native and the immigrant
population.
Alsace-Lorraine could live whole centuries with the Germans without
becoming germanized, whereas two centuries of life in common with
France, freely consented to, had proved sufficient to make them
Frenchmen. This spontaneous fusion could never have been possible if
Alsace-Lorraine and France had not always had the same ideals of
civilization. The Alsatian and the Lorrainer leaned always toward
French culture, and from the moment they were politically separated
from the Holy Empire they had nothing more in common with German
_Kultur_.
The Alsatian-Lorrainer, who from the point of view of character
greatly resembles the free citizen of America, is a very practical
man. He willingly makes use of all the opportunities in life to
improve his economic condition, but joined to these qualities is a
deeply rooted idealism which will make any sacrifice to secure his
independence, and to assure for him the dignity of freedom. He has
brilliant military qualities, but he will never be a militarist. He
will fight bravely for the defence of a just cause about which he is
enthusiastic, because it means the fulfilment of a sacred duty. But
he will never be willing to remain under the dominion of a power
like that of Prussia and be forced to carry arms for causes that he
detests and disdains. The Alsatian-Lorrainer has no affection for
dynasty, he is absolutely wanting in respect for the hierarchy; he
has a feeling for order and equality before the law, he is loyal and
respectful to authority but exempt from all servitude. The German,
on the contrary, with his class feeling, abasing himself, as it
were, in platitudes before his superiors, hard and arrogant toward
his inferiors, in admiration before the _Angestammtes Herrscherhaus_
(traditional dynasty), accustomed to march under the lash, without
any idealism, finding in the distribution of the booty of war a
compensation for all humiliations,--such a man does not understand
that the Alsatian-Lorrainer does not rejoice to find himself
belonging to a nation of the elect, a nation that has the most
formidable war machine to crush, from time to time according to its
whim, any growth of material prosperity effected by free competition
in the economic struggle.
Alsace-Lorraine is impervious to those ideas. Against her will, she
was torn from France and she wishes to return. It is this which makes
clear her history from 1871 to this day.