The determination of the people of Alsace and Lorraine not to submit to
the pressure of their conquerors was made evident even up to the very
day that war was declared in 1914. Von Moltke had predicted that "It
will require no less than fifty years to wean the hearts of her lost
Provinces from France." Notwithstanding all their efforts, the German
leaders in 1890 had said, "After nineteen years of annexation, German
influence has made no progress in Alsace." When the German soldiers at
the beginning of the World War entered the provinces, their officers
said to them, "We are now in enemy country."
This remark seems all the more strange because the population of the
provinces was largely German. Most of the French citizens had
emigrated to France, and all the young men had left to avoid German
military service and the possibility of being forced to fight France.
Many Germans had moved in. Indeed if at this late day a vote had been
taken, no doubt the majority would have expressed the desire to remain
under German rule. But Germany still considered the country as an
enemy. She knew the whole world disapproved of her seizing the
provinces. Therefore it did not surprise the German government to
learn that President Wilson, as one of the fourteen points to be
observed in making a permanent peace for the world, gave as the
eighth,--
"The wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871, in the matter of
Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly
fifty years should be righted."
At the foot of the Vosges mountains near the Lorraine border, the
American armies joined those of France. There in the Lorraine sector
they fought valiantly and finally drove the enemy headlong before them
through the Argonne forest, helping to make it possible for the
peacemakers to gather again in the great council hall at Versailles
where, nearly half a century before, France had seen the first German
emperor crowned and then had been forced to sign the humiliating
agreement that later became the Treaty of Frankfort.
But now the tables were turned; this meeting was in answer to the plea
of a defeated Germany who was to agree to return her stolen property
and to make good as far as possible the wrong she had done France and
the world.
The statue of Strassburg in Paris had been stripped of the mourning
which had covered it for nearly fifty years. Germany, as a victor, had
indeed been a hard master, not caring in the least for the interests of
the people in the conquered territories. How different was the spirit
of the French as victors is shown in General Pétain's orders to the
French armies after the signing of the armistice.
[Illustration: Memorial Day, 1918, was celebrated abroad as well as at
home. In Masevaux, the provisional capital of the recaptured Alsatian
territory, the American troops, headed by their band, paraded through
the streets. In the contingent directly behind the band you can see a
delegation of American and French officers and prominent citizens.]
As a piece of military literature it ranks with the soundest and the
most eloquent ever delivered. In the spirit of President Lincoln's
second inaugural address, "With malice towards none, with charity for
all," it emphasizes a contrast which will be remembered for
generations, to the everlasting shame of Germany and the glory of
France. To every true American patriot it means that our armies have
been fighting with the flower and chivalry of France, not for revenge,
but for the overthrow of oppression, the freedom of the oppressed, and
for honorable and permanent peace.