1871
It would take volumes to describe in detail the martyrdom of
Alsace-Lorraine under the domination of Germany. I can enumerate only
a few of the acts and methods that have characterized German rule. The
impartial reader will easily conclude that Alsatians are not made to
live with Germans and that the return of their province to the mother
country of France is the only possible solution of the Alsatian
question with justice and equity.
Alsace-Lorraine was given to the German Empire unconditionally. The
new master could do with the country just as he pleased. If he has not
divided it between the members of the Confederation it is because it
was difficult to agree on the division of the spoils, and because also
Bismarck wished to make a "glacis" which would cement the union of the
Germans by continually showing them the danger that threatened in the
west. The only thing the Germans did not think of in deciding the fate
of Alsace-Lorraine was the interest of the Alsatians themselves.
Bismarck did not hesitate to acknowledge this and stated in the
Reichstag to the first deputies who protested: "It is not for your
interest that we have conquered you, but for the interest of the
Empire." And the official paper of Strasbourg, the _Strassburger
Post_, after forty years of German domination, also summarizes the
attitude of the German Empire towards the Alsatians in this odious
phrase: _Oderint dum metuant_ (Let them hate, so long as they fear).
The German Empire, which is composed of twenty-five confederated
States, made of the annexed territory a "Reichsland," that is to say,
an undivided joint property. This new political entity received the
name of Elsass-Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine). German scholars are still
arguing today over the legal aspect of this decision. It is certain,
as against the German states which possess equal rights, that
Alsace-Lorraine is arbitrarily ruled by the Empire without any
inherent right. Alsace-Lorraine was always treated as a State when it
was a question of meeting certain obligations (contributions, military
service, assessments for the expenses of the Empire). The honour was
even paid of trusting them with the receipt of custom-house dues for
the account of the Empire on their territory. This brought upon the
province an unwarranted outlay of more than a million marks a year,
representing the excess of the customs above the amount refunded to
the Provinces. Alsace-Lorraine possessed only those "rights" which
the Empire grudgingly conceded. Whereas Louis XV. accorded to the
provinces united to France the enjoyment of their ancient privileges,
the German Empire began by treating the Alsatians less liberally than
its German subjects. In Germany each state has the constitution it
wishes for itself, but Alsace-Lorraine has a constitution imposed upon
it by the Empire, and this can be suspended or suppressed at the
Imperial will.
The different constitutions that have been granted in the course of
forty-two years (the latest went into effect in 1912) to the
Reichsland, which had been ruled by a dictatorship as a legal
constitution, were alike in this, that the legislative and the
executive powers were left completely in the hands of the Kaiser and
the King of Prussia. The Kaiser exercises the power of the state
(_Staatsgewalt_) for the account of the Empire. There is a Parliament
(_Landtag_) made up of two Chambers to which the second is given
universal suffrage, and the first (of which I had the honour of being
a member, elected by the town of Colmar) composed in a way to assure
a majority to the Kaiser, who has the right to name as many members as
the number of those elected and those holding by right. As there are
members not named for life, and as among those who are so by right and
by choice there are always a large number who are not independent, the
Kaiser can never be in the minority in the Senate. But if by any
chance such a thing should happen, it could have no importance because
the Kaiser is himself the chief factor in legislation. In order that a
law for Alsace-Lorraine may come into force, it must have the consent
of the two Chambers and of the Emperor. Under these conditions it is
Prussia that rules, and I know that no attempt to pass a law in
Alsace-Lorraine can be made without first obtaining a favourable
opinion from the Ministry of Prussia. In order never to be thwarted by
the passive resistance of the Second Chamber, our constitution, which
the Germans characterize as democratic, provides that if Parliament
refuses to vote the budget, the government has the right to incur
expenditure based on the figures of the preceding budget. The Germans
have wished to emphasize as a great concession to the claims of
Alsace-Lorraine the fact that in the last constitution given to
Reichsland they have been given a voice in the _Bundesrat_ (Federal
Council). This _Bundesrat_ is composed of the representatives of the
Chief of the States of the Empire. It is this council that with the
consent of the Reichstag, which is the representative of the German
people, gave universal suffrage and that makes the laws for the
Empire. Now, owing to the importance of territory and number of
inhabitants, Alsace-Lorraine ought to hold sixth rank among the States
of the Empire. She has been given three votes in the Council. But, as
it is the _Staatshalter_ (Vice-King) of Alsace-Lorraine who gives the
instructions as to how those three votes will be cast, and as the
Vice-King is an office-holder subject to recall by the Emperor who is
the King of Prussia, there is no danger that those votes will ever
operate against Prussia. This dependence on Prussia of the votes of
Alsace-Lorraine has been disingenuously marked by a special provision
inserted on this occasion in the constitution of the Empire, in which
it is said that every time a favourable majority vote for Prussia
cannot be polled in the _Bundesrat_ except with the help of the
Alsatian vote, those votes will not be counted. Up to this day
Alsace-Lorraine has never ceased to be governed by a legislation
outside of the common right. Today even, an act is pending in Berlin
which provides exceptional measures for the suppression of journals
printed in French.
All the efforts of the Germans, the special legislation for
Alsace-Lorraine, the activities of the functionaries, chiefly Germans
brought from the four corners of the Empire, even the administration
of justice, have had the tendency to exterminate and replace by the
_Deutschtum_ (German culture) the spirit and the sentiments of the
French people.
All this effort and labour were doomed to failure. The Alsatians
remained faithful to their ideals and to the policy expressed in
their protest. Of course the form of this protest has changed with the
current of events. The simple negation which marked the solemn
protests of Bordeaux in 1871 and of Berlin in 1874 could not after the
lapse of time, and should not now, determine the conduct of the
people. The first necessity is to continue to exist, and there were
finally organized political parties which fought passionately, as
happens in every country in the world. But towards the Germans the
real Alsatians were as one man as soon as some particular occasion
presented itself, to show their aversion to the _Herrenvolk_ (the
dominant people), as it pleased the Germans to call themselves. The
demand of self-government for Alsace-Lorraine within the limits of the
German Empire was only one way of showing the desire to be
distinguished as much as possible from the Germans. It was the maximum
that the Alsatians could legally require but the minimum of her real
claim which always demanded the absolute return to France, the mother
country.
A very suggestive fact on this subject is that, in the electoral
struggles between the natives, the different parties did not hesitate
to mutually reproach each other with the desire to lean on the will or
the influence of Germany.
The first demonstration against the Germans was the exodus of a part
of the population. The annual emigration continued until the War of
1914. Another sign of protest was the considerable number of
_refractaires_ (defaulting conscripts) who up to that day had annually
left the country by the hundreds to avoid German military service.
Their property was seized and they never could return to the country.
The greater number entered the Foreign Legion to fight for France.
The French language continued to be spoken in the family,
notwithstanding all the governmental precautions to insure its disuse.
Families continued to send their children to France to learn French,
young girls particularly being placed in French boarding schools to
complete their instruction and education. Up to that time commercial
books had been published in French; bookkeeping was done in francs,
even in those houses where the circumstances made it necessary to use
the German language simultaneously. The condemnation of seditious
utterances and the wearing of seditious emblems were no longer noticed
and never ceased. The public has specially marked the case of
conspicuous persons who have been implicated in prosecutions (the
Samain brothers, Hausi and Zislin, the caricaturists, the Abbe
Wetterlie), but alongside of these cases, thousands of obscure
soldiers of the Alsace-Lorraine cause, victims of their attachment to
France, have paid their tribute to their country. For shouting "_Vive
la France!_", for singing of the _Marseillaise_, for showing a
tri-colour ribbon, innumerable sentences, in some cases running into
years of imprisonment, have been pronounced. When, in 1887, the
situation in France, under the influence of the Boulanger movement,
disclosed the possibility of a conflict at arms with Germany, the
election of the Reichstag for that year resulted in sending to Berlin
a protesting deputation, notwithstanding the tremendous governmental
pressure put upon the electors. That was the signal for increased
persecutions in Alsace-Lorraine. Student societies, singing classes,
athletic associations, people suspected of cultivating French
sympathies, newspapers showing French tendencies, all of these were
suppressed and the members of the League of Patriots were betrayed and
condemned for high treason. Bismarck introduced the regime of
passports to cut off all relations between Alsace-Lorraine and France.
The _Statthalter_ of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfuerst, at that moment
governor of Alsace-Lorraine, has said in his _Memoires_ that he had
the impression that Bismarck wished to drive the population to
insurrection. This plan fell through, thanks to the wisdom of the
people who knew how to resist such a provocation. The result was
simply to strengthen French patriotism. The rising generation which
had gone through the German schools and German army fooled the German
statesmen who had counted on them for the assimilation of German
_Kultur_. On the contrary, these young people were most ardent in
manifesting their devotion to France. Better prepared for the struggle
than their elders, knowing the German language perfectly, familiarized
by their studies with the Teuton dialects, they became most formidable
adversaries. My comrade in combat, Jacques Preiss, killed during this
war, a victim of German persecutions, has very well described the
character and role of the youth in a discourse given in the Reichstag
in 1894. He said: "We young fellows, we are not of the generation of
1870 whom choice and emigration have deprived of elements which are
the firmest and most unresisting. If you do not introduce a more
liberal regime, you will find by experience that this new generation
is much more energetically opposed to fusion than has been the case
since 1870."
In fact, not only has Germanization made no progress, but the
Alsatians become each day more impatient of the German yoke. The two
populations, the native and immigrant, have never had social
intercourse. The native societies or clubs have always been closed to
the immigrant. On the National Fete, July 14th, the Alsatians will
cross the frontier by tens of thousands to partake communion under the
religion of their own land and with their brothers of France. They
return with the tri-colour ribbon in their buttonholes, and this
creates each year a number of unpleasant incidents. In vain Germany
wished to change the appearance of things by trying to win the masses,
by means of a lower chamber elected by general suffrage. We have shown
the factitious value of this concession, which as a consequence only
increased opposition. The affair of Grafenstaden, and the trouble at
Saverne caused by the attempt to cover up the exactions of a young
lieutenant, brought indignation to a climax. The military authorities
arrested haphazard the civilian natives and even the German
immigrants, instituting in the midst of peace, a military dictatorship
and aroused the irreconcilable antagonism between the German mentality
and that of Alsace-Lorraine. After some slight attempts of
independence on the part of the Alsace-Lorraine government and the
Reichstag _vis-a-vis_ the military, the whole German world fell upon
the obstinate and hard-headed Alsatians who, according to them, were
the cause of all the trouble because they refused to admire the beauty
of the German _Kultur_. The Saverne affair resulted in the dismissal
of the government of Alsace-Lorraine which had among its officials two
won-over Alsatians, and the replacing this by a group of Prussians of
rank.
The Minister of War, General von Falkenhayn, announced to the
Reichstag: "We want to uproot from the people's mind the feeling that
has been manifested up to this time and which has provoked the Saverne
incident." And this feeling is none other than the French democratic,
republican spirit of the Alsatians, incompatible with Prussian
militarism.
On the same occasion, Deputy von Calker, unfortunate candidate from
Strasbourg, but elected in a Prussian district, and an exceptionally
friendly immigrant, confessed in the following fashion the defeat of
Germanization in Alsace-Lorraine, shouting aloud in the Reichstag: "I
cry out in anguish. For sixteen years I have worked to wipe out
misunderstanding and to reconcile the natives and the immigrants, and
now we have arrived at the point where we can say, It all again
amounts to nothing (_Kaput_)." The conservatives very wisely answered
this undeceived elector that if it was merely the Saverne incident
that had caused this failure, it was evident that the desired harmony
had rested on a very slender foundation.
Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg was conscious of the great mistake
that had been made in annexing Alsace-Lorraine and had a foreboding of
the coming loss of the Reichsland. He thus expresses himself in a
letter written June 21, 1903, to Professor Lamprecht at Leipzig: "We
are a young nation; we have yet perhaps too much naive faith in force,
we make too little importance of subtle measures, and we do not
understand that those who are conquered by force cannot be kept by
force alone."
The prefect of police at Berlin, von Jagow, declared in January, 1914,
in relation to the Saverne affair: "The Germans in Alsace are in an
enemy country." And during this war more than one German general has
said to his troops at the time of marching into Alsace-Lorraine: "Now
we will march into the enemy country."
It is easy to imagine what has been the fate of the country since the
opening of hostilities. It is the reign of terror. In the first place
persons inscribed on the black list, that is to say, those most
suspected, have been arrested and imprisoned. Those, who like the
author, have succeeded in escaping the talons of the Germans, have
been the objects of prosecution for so-called high treason, liable to
capital punishment. They have had their property seized and--supreme
misfortune--they have been declared to have forfeited their German
nationality. The future only will tell us the fate of those who were
captured. The suspects not on the list and the families of the
imprisoned were by thousands deported into Germany. The Council of War
was in permanent operation. It gave sentences of thousands of years of
imprisonment with hard labour against Alsatians guilty of the
slightest anti-German manifestation or for the simplest token of
sympathy given the French prisoners or the wounded. All classes of
society fill the prisons. The penalties imposed on persons having
committed the crime of speaking French have been so numerous that a
facetious jailor said to a lady, who with tears in her eyes appeared
at the prison door: "Do not weep, Madam, you will be in good society
here, for this is the only spot where one still speaks French." The
summary executions can no longer be counted. Only the crimes committed
by the Germans in Belgium can surpass the horrors practised in
Alsace-Lorraine.
The French sentiment showed its greatest strength in the wholesale
desertion of the Alsatians to take service in the French army; and
also by the fact that the Alsace-Lorrainers, made prisoners of war by
the French, have asked to be enrolled in the French army. Many of the
Alsatians, who had the chance to go to the colonies so as not to run
the risk of being shot as "traitors" in case of being captured by the
Germans, have begged to be sent to the front to fight the Germans,
thus risking their lives twice in the service of France. I think I am
understating the truth in estimating at 30,000, the number of
Alsatians who were mobilized in the German forces and who have gone
over to the ranks of the French army. The latter has always had a
great attraction for the Alsatian, and whereas the number of Alsatians
serving as officers in the German army does not amount to a dozen, of
whom only one is a brigadier-general, the French army has thousands of
Alsatian officers among whom are hundreds of generals. It is the same
thing among the civilians. Many office-holders of all grades are of
Alsatian origin, whereas the Alsatian who has accepted an office or
looked for any general position in Germany is exceptional. Wherever
the French troops have been able to penetrate into Alsace-Lorraine,
they have been received with enthusiasm, and when they were obliged to
retreat many people followed them into France in order to escape the
reprisals which were waiting for them.
With the press muzzled and the severe censorship of letters, it will
be only after the war that we shall have exact knowledge of what
Alsace-Lorraine has passed through during this dreadful period. But
what we are certain of at present is that the attitude of the people
is the same now as in the past. The Alsatians, faithful in their
devotion to France, await with a patriotic impatience, but with an
unshaken faith in the victory of their holy cause, their deliverance
from the German yoke.
Deputy Preiss, already quoted, was able to say to the Reichstag, June
30, 1896: "The assimilation, the germanization has not taken a single
step forward.... It is terror that governs and poisons our political
life. The government does not understand the people and the people do
not understand the government.... History will say, The German Empire
was able to conquer Alsace-Lorraine materially, but was not able to
conquer her morally; she has not known how to win the heart and the
soul of the people."
Is it not like a paraphrase of the celebrated verse so often sung all
through the country:
"Vous n'aurez pas l'Alsace et la Lorraine
Et malgre vous nous resterons Francais!
Vous avez pu germaniser la plaine,
Mais notre coeur, vous ne l'aurez jamais!"
"Alsace-Lorraine ne'er will you own,
In spite of you, Frenchmen are we,
Others may serve with a curse and a groan,
But ever our hearts shall be free!"?
The situation has never changed. This is what one could read a short
time before the war in a book of Professor Forster's of Munich in a
study on the failure of German policy in the frontier provinces:
"Alsace, a country of arch-German origin, forty years after her return
to Germany, has still to an astonishing degree French sympathies, or
at least it has no German sympathies. After more than forty years, we
have not been able to re-Germanize this population."
Let us finish by another German testimony. This is how, from the
_Matin_, July 18, 1917, the _Kieler Zeitung_ expresses itself on the
results of the germanization of Alsace-Lorraine: "The wise
conservatives thought that thanks to the reunion under the established
rule of the Empire, they could reconcile two provinces different from
each other, and having in common only an arrogant defiance of the
ambitions of the Empire."
This confidence was an ignominious mistake. Lorraine bound itself
solidly and stubbornly to French congenial ideas, vigorously developed
in her in a large measure by the mother tongue; while, as to Alsace,
she was like the twig of a German bough strayed away from its ethnic
tree and rotted to the core by French climate. They can be reclaimed
neither by benevolence nor by force.
One understands why the German press and the German government are
interested in the dismemberment of Alsace-Lorraine and their division
between the Confederated States without thought of taking the opinion
of the people. Such opinion counts for nothing with the rulers of the
country, because the sentiments of the people are already well known.
They are French and for that reason Alsace-Lorraine will, without the
slightest difficulty, again become French. In an article of the _Revue
de Paris_, January, 1914 ("The Sentiments of Alsace-Lorraine"), at a
time when the question seemed to have only a theoretical interest, I
attempted to make this clear.
That which the author of the article in the _Kieler Zeitung_, in his
ill-tempered German hatred, calls "rottenness" is, I contend, the
gentle radiance of the French spirit. It is the bloom of a
civilization in which the savage adherent of _Kultur_ recognizes a
lasting antagonist.
Yes, Alsace-Lorraine has suffered under the Prussian rule of Germany.
This rule has weakened the strength of the country but could not kill
the spirit of its people. There is but one way in which the two
provinces can regain their health. They must again be united to
France, their mother country, their rightful home.
We depend upon America, strong and generous, to help to bring about
this great result. It is America which will give the decisive aid
required for the Allies in their great struggle to preserve against
the barbarous assaults of German militarism, right, justice, and
civilization.