taken away. The Germans did not want to leave behind the
younger daughter in the family, who was not fourteen. Their
grandmother, ill with sorrow and terror, had to be cared for
at once. Finally they met the young daughter coming back. In
one case an old man and two infirm persons could not keep
the daughter who was their sole support. And everywhere the
enemy sneered, adding vexatious annoyance to their hateful
task. In the house of the doctor, who is B.'s uncle, they
gave his wife the choice between two maids. She preferred
the elder and they said, "Well, then she is the one we are
going to take." Mlle. L., the young one who has just got
over typhoid and bronchitis, saw the non-commissioned
officer who took away her nurse coming up to her. "What a
sad task they are making us do." "More than sad, sir, it
could be called barbarous." "That is a hard word, are you
not afraid that I will sell you?" As a matter of fact the
wretch denounced her. They allowed her seven minutes and
took her away bare-headed, just as she was, to the Colonel
who commanded this noble battle and who also ordered her to
go, against the advice of a physician. Only on account of
her tireless energy and the sense of decency of one who was
less ferocious than the rest, did she obtain permission, at
five o'clock in the afternoon, to be discharged, after a day
which had been a veritable Calvary. The poor wretches at
whose door a sentry watched, were collected together at some
place or other, a Church or a school. Then the mob of all
sorts and conditions of people, or all grades of social
standing, respectable young girls and women of the street,
was driven to the station escorted by soldiers marching at
the head of the procession. From there they were taken off
in the evening without knowing where they were going or for
what work they were destined.
And in the face of all this our people evidenced restraint
and admirable dignity, although they were provoked that day
by seeing the automobiles going around which were taking
away these unfortunate people. They all went away shouting
"Vive la France. Vive la Liberté!" and singing the
Marseillaise. They cheered up those who remained; their poor
mothers who were weeping, and the children. With voices
almost strangled with tears, and pale with suffering, they
told them not to cry as they themselves would not; but bore
themselves proudly in the presence of their executioners.
Another document shows better than all this talking the treatment the
French have been receiving from the Germans for over thirty months.
This document is a German notice which was found at Holnon, northwest
of St. Quentin. The document bore the official seal of the German
commander.
HOLNON, 20th July, 1915.
All workmen, women and children over fifteen years of age
must work in the fields every day, also on Sunday, from four
o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock at night, French
time. For rest they shall have a half-hour in the morning,
an hour at noon and a half-hour in the afternoon. Failure to
obey this order will be punished in the following manner:--
1.--The men who are lazy will be collected for the period of
the harvest in a company of workmen under the inspection of
German corporals. After the harvest the lazy will be
imprisoned for six months and every third day their
nourishment shall be only bread and water.
2.--Lazy women shall be exiled to Holnon to work. After the
harvest the women will be imprisoned six months.
3.--The children who do not work shall be punished with
blows from a club.
Furthermore, the commandant reserves the right to punish men
who do not work with twenty blows from a club daily.
Workmen in the Commune of Verdelles have been punished
severely.
(Signed) GLOSE,
COLONEL AND COMMANDANT.
APPENDIX V
HOW GERMANS TREAT ALSACE-LORRAINE
Von Bethmann-Hollweg, Count von Hertling and Herr von Kuhlmann state
that Alsace-Lorraine is a province of the German Empire by right and
by fact, and that it is firmly attached to Germany.
The following picture shows how this _German_ province is treated by
Germany:
_Treatment of the Civilian Population_
The Government has established for the duration of the war an
insurmountable barrier between Alsace-Lorraine, which is called a
territory of the Empire, and the rest of the German states. Briefly,
Alsace-Lorraine is treated as a suspect.
An inhabitant of Alsace-Lorraine can not mail his letters in Germany.
For example, Wissembourg is on the border of the Palatinate. There is
a great temptation for the citizens of this town to assure a rapid
delivery of their letters and their escape from annoying censorship by
making use of the German mail system. A music teacher, Mlle. Lina
Sch---- was sentenced to pay a fine of one hundred marks in March,
1917, for an infraction of this sort. The war council at Saarbruck,
which pronounced this sentence, had already, in June, 1916, sentenced
for like cause, the Spanish Consul, to the payment of a fine of eighty
marks because he had allowed a citizen of Sarreguimine to have letters
to his sons, who were refugees at Lausanne, addressed to the Spanish
Consulate.
In addition, German hostility to the Alsatians is shown by a number of
childish measures against Alsatian uniforms and costumes, in
proportion as they resemble the French.
In all seriousness the question arose of forbidding the Catholic
Clergy to wear the soutane, as it was the custom in the Latin
countries. It was given up; but steps were taken in the case of the
firemen.
The _Nouvelle Gazette_ of Strassburg published an official notice,
dated the ninth of December, 1915, which emphasized an order
suppressing the uniforms worn by the Alsatian firemen because the cut
was French, as was the cap, and complained that this order was not
everywhere observed:
Recently, in the course of a fire which broke out near
Molsheim, it is an established fact that the firemen wore
their old Alsatian uniforms, and that the fire alarm was
sounded by means of the old clarions of the type in use in
France. The _Kreisdirection_ finds itself obliged to insist
that the suppressed uniforms disappear, and that the
clarions do likewise; and to ask that it be informed of
contraventions that happen in the future.
Other societies and associations, such as the singing
societies which frequently still wear uniforms recalling
those of the French collegians, ought to lay aside the
forbidden garments, which are to be entrusted to the guard
of the police.
But these puerilities seem insignificant compared to other things to
which the people of Alsace-Lorraine have been subjected, things which
unite them more firmly than ever to the French and the Belgians of the
invaded regions.
The great deportations which have been practiced in France and Belgium
have been repeated in Alsace as recently as January, 1917. The
inhabitants of Mülhausen between the ages of seventeen and sixty years
were assembled in the barracks at that place, whence they were sent
into the interior of Germany.
This proceeding has been practiced on a large scale since the war's
beginning. Preventive imprisonment, called _Schutzhaft_, was applied
to Messin Samain, who was first incarcerated at Cologne and then sent
to the Russian front, where he was killed. It was also applied to M.
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 régime they
have established that the authorities have had to put a check on
anonymous denunciations, almost all of which were false, by an
official communiqué 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 Strassburg 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 Théophile Selier, curé 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 pronounced 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 Grass 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 classroom 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 circumstance 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, née Bach, Mother Superior, and Sister Emertine, née Eckert,
were charged with anti-German manifestations for having treated as
lies the figures regarding French and Russian prisoners sent out in
the German communiqués, 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 assigned 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 arrondissement:
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 Strassburg 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 Amélie 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 principal
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 Strassburg, 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 Mezières, 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 Nassner,
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 Strassburg _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
arrondissements 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 Strassburg.
In his book, "The Martyrs of Alsace and Lorraine," M. André 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.
It has sent them to the Russian front and employed them at the most
dangerous posts, as this secret order, from the Prussian Minister of
War to the temporary commander of the Fourteenth Army Corps, proves:
All men from Alsace-Lorraine employed as secretaries,
ordnance officers, etc., must be relieved of their duties
and sent to the battle front. In the future, all the men
from Alsace-Lorraine will be sent to the "General Kommando,"
who will send them at once to the units on the Eastern
Front. This order to go into effect before the first of
April, 1916.
FOR THE STELLVERT, GENERAL KOMMANDO RADECKE, MAJOR.
Finally, it was only on the ninth of October, 1917, that the
Strassburg _Neue Zeitung_ announced the abolition of the special
postal control to which the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine were
submitted at the front.
It is but just [says the _Freie Presse_ on that occasion]
that the exceptional measures taken against the soldiers
from Alsace-Lorraine be abolished at last. Among these
measures we consider the interdiction still in force for a
man to return to his native town. And [the same newspaper
adds] from the moment that the bravery of our soldiers from
Alsace-Lorraine is vaunted everywhere, it is absolutely
wrong to reward them with scorn and insults.
In the notice from G. Q. G. for the twenty-fifth of November, 1917,
are the details gathered from the Alsatian prisoners themselves of the
treatment their compatriots endure in the German Army.
On the twenty-second of last June, all the Alsatians received orders
to present themselves at the F. R. D. of their division, where they
were received by the Vizé Sergeant, flanked by two guards.
The former said to them:
"What! You have not yet laid aside your accoutrements; traitors,
deserters, scoundrels, rascals. Get into the shelter quick where you
can put up nine additional supports for the roof and where you can
kick the bucket at your ease."
Since some of the Alsatians declared that, having received nothing to
eat or to drink, they could not work, a lieutenant, who was summoned
by the adjutant, ran up with his riding whip and, making one of them
step forward, beat him until he lost consciousness.
Later on another lieutenant ordered the Vizé Sergeant to "train the
Alsatians well. They are all robbers and traitors."
All these facts proclaim in an undeniable manner that the soldiers
from Alsace-Lorraine are not treated like ordinary citizens by the
German Army, but like foreigners temporarily under the domination of
Germany.
_The Sequestration of Property_
For a "German" country, Alsace-Lorraine seems to have a great number
of landowners who are French, if one is to judge by the sequestrations
and confiscations with which the authorities have been so desperately
busy for three years.
In fact the local newspapers contain lists of sequestrations that are
almost as long as the lists of deserters.
And these confiscations apply not only to the landowners who live in
France. A large number have been pronounced against inhabitants of
Alsace-Lorraine who live abroad. Orders were given them to reënter the
German Empire, orders they had no possible chance of obeying, but
which gave the imperial government an easy pretext for pronouncing
their denationalization and the confiscation of their property.
Also, the sequestrations followed by sales under the hammer, of French
and Alsatian properties were extremely numerous. Among these
properties there are a certain number of considerable importance.
On the twenty-fourth of August, 1916, _Les Dernières Nouvelles de
Strasbourg_, advertised the sale under the hammer of the properties of
Prince de Tonnay-Charente, situated at Hambourg and consisting of a
splendid château, furnished in Louis Fourteenth style, Gobelin
tapestries of great value, family portraits, green houses, outhouses,
ponds, farms, etc., etc.
The Strassburg _Post_ for the twenty-ninth of October announced the
liquidation sale of Cité Hof, belonging to the heirs of Paul de
Geiger, including "forty-two hectares of fine arable land, fine
dwelling houses, barns and stables, a very fine park, summer houses, a
coach house, etc." ... "of the Villa Huber, with a fine park,
servants' quarters, garden, surrounded by twenty-eight hectares of
fields."
The same paper for the fourth of October announces the sale of the
famous château of Robertsau, the property of Mme. Loys-Chandieu, née
Pourtalès, with two hundred and thirty hectares of farm land and one
hundred and thirty hectares of forest.
The _Metzer Zeitung_ for the twentieth of October announced the
liquidation of twenty properties in the Moyeuvre Grande district, and
of eleven in that of Sierek.
Many people have obviously been covetous of these French possessions.
On this subject curious letters and unceasing polemics appeared in the
Alsatian newspapers.
Certain interested persons complained (_Strassburger Post_ for the
third of November) that the time was so short that only the
inhabitants of the country and their immediate neighbors had any
opportunity of profiting by these occasions. They remarked with all
justice that to get the highest prices for these sales there ought to
be a large number of bidders.
For the farm lands, the neighbors would suffice to bring up the bids
to a high enough sum, but when it was a matter of a magnificent
château, like that at Osthofen, with a garden and a park, bidders for
this luxury would scarcely be found among the peasants. The
speculators alone would step in and would acquire for a mere nothing
properties of great value. And the plaintiffs added, "Is that
desirable?"
The following considerations advanced by one of the plaintiffs are not
without interest. "Sufficient means of communication still remain
between France and Germany. Do you not see the danger of feigned
sales, to third persons, who will buy in the goods at small cost and
will hand them over later on to their former proprietors? In this way
the French influence over the ownership of the land will be
reëstablished in the future."
To these complaints and wrongs the _Strassburger Post_ for the eighth
of November replied in detail.
It assured that the list of goods to be disposed of had not only been
placed by the authorities in the several states of the empire, to give
buyers time to take advantage of possible bargains, but also a
catalogue of stationary objects had been published in fifteen hundred
copies by Schultz & Co. of Strassburg.
This catalogue was quickly used up and the demand for it continued to
come in, which proved that the buyers were informed in time.
The newspaper adds that the things to be sold have been visited by
buyers coming from old Germany as well as from Alsace-Lorraine, and
sales propositions have been made before the publication of notices in
the newspapers.