nationality, and was coming to regard peoples as entitled to determine
their own destiny, or at least to be consulted regarding it. To tear
away people from the country of which they formed a part in order to
unite them with a state to which they had belonged two centuries before
was becoming an anachronism.
It is quite true, then, that Germany in 1871 was fighting Louis XIV,
but in the spirit of Louis XIV rather than that of the later nineteenth
century. Its appeal to history was in reality a denial of the facts
of historic change, in that it asserted the predominance of the older
historic tradition against the newer and more vital historic tradition
created during the union of Alsace and Lorraine with France. Only a
clear pronouncement of the inhabitants themselves in favor of such a
transfer could justify it to the thinking of a later age. Yet a popular
vote was neither permitted nor desired by Germany in 1871 or at any
time between 1871 and 1918.
In all such discussions of the affinities of Alsace and Lorraine,
the outsider is struck with the failure of French and German to meet
each other’s arguments. The truth seems to be that the disputants
move in different realms of thought and feeling. To the Germans the
German character of Alsace is accepted as self-evident, so that any
connection with France appears unnatural and contrary to all national
life. To the French the community of political and social ideas gained
by long union with France seems the determining element, and subjection
to Germany seems something monstrous.
In spite of all that has been written about the supposed affinities and
desires of the population of Alsace-Lorraine, it must not be forgotten
that the national interests of Germany and France are vitally concerned
in its possession, not merely in the general sense of the desire to
keep or to recover something which has been fought over as a matter of
national honor, but in the very definite respects of military advantage
and economic power. And there have been times when these considerations
were put nakedly in the foreground as the dominant motives. Thus
Emperor William I wrote to Empress Eugénie October 26, 1870: “The
required cessions of territory have no other purpose than to set back
the point of departure of the French armies which will come to attack
us in the future.”[23] German blood, said Bismarck, “was shed not for
the sake of Alsace-Lorraine, but for the German empire, its unity, and
the protection of its frontiers.”[24] Stern treatment of its people
he defended on the ground that it was the glacis of a fortress, to be
used for the benefit of the Fatherland behind it, irrespective of the
desires of the conquered.[25]
The military purpose of the annexation was also evident from the
boundaries of the ceded territory. The frontier of the Vosges, of
obvious advantage to Germany from a strategic point of view, might
also be argued for on other grounds as the natural line of demarcation
between Alsace and France--the watershed between two river systems,
in part the boundary between French and German speech, etc. No such
‘natural’ or linguistic argument, however, could be urged for the
annexation of French Lorraine. Here the obvious and declared object
was the fortress of Metz, dominating the approaches to the upper Rhine
by way of the Saar and to the middle Rhine by way of the valley of the
Moselle. Bismarck, it is generally understood, wished to take only
Alsace and feared the danger of a French population in the west, but
Moltke and the military party insisted on Metz and had their way.
Still another consideration had weight in drawing the frontiers of
1871, namely the iron deposits of Lorraine. Apart from the potash
of Upper Alsace, it so happens that the great natural resources of
Alsace-Lorraine lay on its outer edges, in the coal of the Saar
valley and the iron of the Lorraine border. The problems of the Saar
will be discussed in the next chapter in relation to the frontier of
1814; those of the Lorraine frontier are particularly instructive in
connection with our present subject.
The iron which forms the greatest mineral resource of Alsace-Lorraine
is a part of the _minette_ district, about forty miles in length
and fourteen miles in breadth, lying on the borders of France and
Luxemburg. The Franco-German frontier of 1871 divided this area nearly
equally between the two countries, save for a small strip on the north
extending beyond the Luxemburg line. Most of this ore is strongly
phosphoric (_minette_), and could not be worked advantageously until
the invention in 1878 of the Thomas process for dephosphorization. The
ores are not relatively rich, the average iron content being 33 to 35
per cent; but they are easily mined and are sufficiently porous to be
easily crushed, while a limestone which fluxes easily occurs either
with the ore, as at Briey, or in the immediate neighborhood.
In 1913 German Lorraine produced 20,600,000 long tons, or three-fourths
of the iron mined in Germany. French Lorraine in the same year produced
19,400,000 tons, or 90 per cent of the product of France, of which a
considerable portion was exported to Germany. Of the world’s total
production of iron in 1913, 29 per cent came from the _minette_
district, i. e., 12 per cent from German Lorraine, 12 per cent from
French Lorraine and 5 per cent from Luxemburg. The rest of Europe
furnished 24 per cent. The reserves have been estimated as 3000 million
tons for French Lorraine and 1830 million tons for German Lorraine;
more recent estimates make the two more nearly equal, but with the
preponderance in favor of the French. The whole constitutes by far the
richest iron supply in Europe and one of the three or four greatest in
the world.
This enormous development of the _minette_ district was quite
unforeseen in 1871, yet we know that even then the Germans were not
blind to the importance of its iron. The iron deposits of the region
were carefully studied by German geologists for their government,
with the result that the German territorial demands were shaped with
the purpose of including the best of them and were further increased
between the preliminaries of Versailles and the final treaty of
Frankfort. Hence the meanderings of the frontier then drawn. It was
believed that the main vein had been secured, comprising the ores near
the surface which alone appeared workable with profit, and that nothing
valuable in the deposit had been omitted. Only later was it discovered
that the dip of the strata toward Briey and Longwy concealed an even
richer field on the French side which could be worked to a considerable
depth. Moreover the German geologists of 1871 were especially
interested in the phosphorus-free ore and could not foresee the value
which the Thomas process would give the _minette_. Lamentations over
their shortsightedness were heard before the war,[26] and in August
1914 German engineers hastened to occupy Briey and Longwy, whose ores
are valued not only for their content but for mixing with the less
calcareous German ores. It was frequently declared in Germany that
without this occupied territory the production of German munitions
would have to cease, although this is hardly justified by the facts now
available concerning the actual use which was made of _minette_ ore for
this purpose.
Moreover, it is well to remember that readjustments of the Lorraine
frontier at the expense of France were a constant objective of the
Germans throughout the war. At times these were sketched broadly as
part of a general advance of the German boundary along the whole front
from Belfort to the mouth of the Somme, but more frequently they are
described as “improvements” of the frontier in Lorraine, with the
_minette_ area of French Lorraine and the great border fortresses as
the definite objectives. The acquisition of Briey and Longwy figured in
all the principal programs of annexation, especially those of the great
economic interests, which went so far as to declare that a war which
did not secure them for Germany would be a failure. The object was
clearly economic, or rather, in view of the place of iron and steel in
modern warfare, military-economic.
More specifically military was the demand for the great fortresses of
this part of the French frontier: Belfort, commanding the ‘Burgundian’
gate leading from Upper Alsace to the valleys of the Doubs and Saône,
and still left in French hands after its heroic resistance of 1871;
Epinal, on the Moselle; Toul, commanding the passage from the Moselle
to the Meuse; and Verdun on the Meuse, whose importance was made clear
to the world in the great operations of 1916-17. The strength of
these positions is evident from the fact that the French hold on them
remained unshaken during more than four years of war. Their importance
is further indicated by the German demand, made at the outbreak of
hostilities, that Toul and Verdun be handed over as guarantees of
French neutrality. Such conditions of peace kept reappearing, sometimes
under the specious suggestion of a “slight rectification of frontier”
without indicating the decisive value of a few miles of territory in
this region.
The day of such Pan-German dreams is over. They are mentioned merely to
indicate the nature of the German war aims, and the fact that German
interest in Alsace-Lorraine was not dictated wholly by motives of the
language, race, or historic affinities of the population.
* * * * *
During the war the German attitude on Alsace-Lorraine was to stand pat,
while at the same time taking stronger measures for destroying the
local opposition. The Germans refused, as before, to admit that there
was anything to discuss, much less anything to yield. Autonomy[27],
even, was not officially proposed until the last month of the war,
in a last effort to save Germany’s pride and iron mines. The German
peace terms sent to President Wilson in December 1916 are said to have
conceded to France only the small portion of Upper Alsace which had
been held by French troops throughout the war. The support of “the just
claims of France respecting Alsace-Lorraine”[28] which formed part
of the terms proposed by the Austrian emperor in 1917 was promptly
disavowed by Germany. Only rare Minority Socialists dared support the
idea of a plebiscite.
All this changed with the armistice and the requirement of evacuation
of the Reichsland by German troops and officials. The whole of Germany
became suddenly enamored of the virtues of a plebiscite. President
Wilson’s programme was invoked, on the alleged ground that the wrong
done to France in 1871 lay simply in not calling for a popular vote,
and the German government declared itself ready to right the wrong now
by means of such a vote. The alternatives proposed for the voting were
union with Germany, union with France, and an independent state free
to form a customs union with either country. If Germany could not keep
the Reichsland itself, she might perhaps thus keep its iron and its
trade! To such proposals the French turned a deaf ear. Those who had
opposed a plebiscite before the victory were not likely to support it
now, and doubt disappeared before the reception which Strasburg gave
the French troops and the President and Premier. “This is the best of
plebiscites,” said President Poincaré in the midst of his tumultuous
welcome by the Alsatians, and there were few to deny it. The Germans
were genuinely surprised at the warmth of the popular enthusiasm, and
began to ask themselves why after fifty years they had failed to get
the sympathy of the people.
During the war the idea of a plebiscite in Alsace-Lorraine had been
popular with certain sections of Allied and neutral opinion, both as
a form of self-determination and as a means of settling finally and
conclusively this ancient dispute. Such a decision would be democratic,
and it would be final. Against it had been urged the grave practical
difficulties which stood in the way of any free expression of the
real opinion of the real inhabitants, particularly in view of the
emigration of about half a million since 1871, the coming in of some
hundreds of thousands from Germany, and the wholesale condemnations
and deportations during the war. A popular vote under these conditions
would have opened a wide field to bribery, intimidation, and
influence of every sort, and would have engendered great bitterness
and recrimination. A serious objection of principle was also raised
on the part of the French, who felt they would thus be recognizing
Germany’s legal right in the Reichsland. The will of the people, they
said, had been expressed by the unanimous declarations of their elected
representatives in the French Parliament in 1871 and in the German
Reichstag in 1874, yet it had been openly flouted by Germany so long
as she had any chance of retaining the Reichsland by other means.
Germany could not be permitted to ignore a principle at one moment and
to invoke it at another when it might possibly be manipulated in her
favor, a system of “heads I win, tails you lose.” Such a proceeding
was plainly unfair to France, and it also set a bad example of
international morality by leaving Germany a chance to profit by her
violation of international right in 1871. Under the guise of popular
rights this would really sanction an international wrong. Some even
maintained that, the treaty of Frankfort having been torn up by Germany
in 1914, Alsace and Lorraine therewith reverted to France, _ipso facto_
disannexed. To accept a plebiscite as the basis of restoration was to
admit the lawfulness of the act of violence by which they had been
seized.
These arguments were hard to answer save on the ground of a strongly
expressed demand on the part of the people of Alsace-Lorraine, and,
whatever their opinion, no such general demand was forthcoming.
Certainly Germany’s record of oppression and failure as a ruler was
sufficient to forfeit whatever claims she might justly have had upon
the Reichsland, and she had formally accepted President Wilson’s demand
that “the wrong done to France in 1871 should be righted.” That wrong
consisted, not in failing to hold a plebiscite, but in contemptuously
disregarding the unmistakable expressions of popular opinion then and
thereafter expressed.
French Socialist opinion still wanted a plebiscite, but the purpose was
plainly to satisfy a theoretical scruple, which required a popular vote
for any change of sovereignty. For good or ill, Alsace-Lorraine came
back to France without a popular consultation; it was administered by
France in the interval between the armistice and the treaty of peace;
and the treaty recognized French sovereignty as beginning with the
armistice, November 11, 1918. The deed of Frankfort was thus undone. A
plebiscite seemed impracticable, unless as a mere matter of form, and
in that case it was unnecessary. There was something to be said for
summoning a popular assembly for other purposes which might easily have
expressed the opinion of the people, but this again would have been
chiefly a matter of form, to forestall future objections.
* * * * *
So the fundamental provisions of the treaty which concern
Alsace-Lorraine consist merely of a preamble by which the high
contracting parties, Germany thus included, recognize “the moral
obligation to redress the wrong done by Germany in 1871 both to the
rights of France and to the wishes of the population of Alsace and
Lorraine,” and the article[29] restoring to France the territories
ceded by the treaty of Frankfort. The other articles[30] are,
essentially, consequences and applications of this act of restoration.
Some of them merely reproduce, in the opposite sense, clauses of the
treaty of 1871. In general, however, the Paris articles are fuller
and more complicated, partly because they had to be adapted, either
by reference or by way of exception, to the other provisions of the
instrument in which they are contained, partly because the restoration
of territory after half a century necessarily raises questions not
involved in the original cession.
Such a question was that of citizenship, which is regulated by an
elaborate annex, adjusted to the complex conditions of citizenship
and nationality which had arisen in the Reichsland. The general
principle adopted is, broadly speaking, that French nationality is
acquired _ipso facto_ by those who had lost it in 1871 and by their
descendants, except the offspring of a native mother and a German
father who had come to the Reichsland subsequently to the outbreak
of the Franco-Prussian war; that it may be claimed before the French
authorities by all others save Germans and the descendants of Germans
who have come in since 1870; and that such German immigrants and their
descendants can acquire French citizenship only by the process of
naturalization. The purpose of the whole was to admit on the basis of
domicile before 1870, and to exclude, for the present, the Germans,
with their descendants, who had come to the Reichsland in large numbers
since the German conquest.
The economic provisions had to consider not only the status of such
individual matters as debts and contracts, pensions and suits at law,
but also the new relations created in the region as a whole. Thus
France acquired the public property, including the railroads, without
any payment, and no share of the German public debt or war indemnity
was attached to the transferred territory--arrangements which offset
in some measure the principal and interest of the five milliards of
war indemnity imposed by Germany in 1871. German economic penetration
is restricted not only by the liquidation of existing enterprises
but by the right to prohibit new participation in public utilities,
mines, quarries, and metallurgical establishments. Important temporary
provisions guard against the effects of a sudden interruption of
relations between the Left and Right Banks in such matters as ports,
terminals, and water power, and in respect to customs tariffs, a period
of five years being set during which free exportation is permitted
into Germany and free importation of textile materials from Germany
into Alsace and Lorraine. This last is particularly important, for the
Reichsland enjoyed profitable markets in Germany, and its economic
prosperity was constantly urged as an argument for remaining under
German rule. Whether or not France can furnish equally good outlets for
local manufactures, she must at least provide a reasonable period for
readjustment of the lines of trade.
The largest economic question involved in the return of the lost
provinces to France is not mentioned in the treaty, namely the enormous
transfer of mineral resources. By securing the potash of Upper Alsace
France halves the German supply and thus breaks the German monopoly of
the world’s mineral potash; by joining the iron of Lorraine to the iron
of Briey, Longwy, and Nancy, France obtains, save for the small share
of Luxemburg, full control of the greatest iron field in Europe. The
_minette_ ore is no longer shared between France and Germany, it is
monopolized by France. If France had Germany’s coal, she might try to
establish an economic supremacy as great as that possessed by Germany
at the outbreak of the war. Late in 1918 one began to hear suggestions
for some sort of _condominium_ in Lorraine, or for a guarantee of
German participation in its mine and furnaces; but such proposals found
no favor with the French government. No such arrangements had been made
for the benefit of France in 1871, and she saw no reason for making
them now. And if other great powers had pointed out the danger of so
great a monopoly in the world, the French might have replied that they
had little coal, less oil, and no copper. After all, the nub of the
situation is that France needs coal and Germany needs iron, and sooner
or later it will be necessary to exchange one for the other. The sooner
this natural necessity is recognized in a _modus vivendi_, the better
for all concerned. If the compelling forces of trade are not allowed to
assert themselves with reasonable freedom, the matter may well cause
grave international difficulty.
Nor did the conference concern itself with other internal matters which
had been much discussed before the armistice. During the forty-seven
years of separation, France and the Reichsland had necessarily diverged
in many matters of institutions, legislation, and social conditions,
so that several difficult problems of readjustment were presented. The
law of the new German civil code of 1900, the German organization of
local government, the German systems of taxation and social legislation
were well established in Alsace-Lorraine, and could not immediately
be rooted up, if indeed their abolition was always desirable. Perhaps
the most striking point of divergence was to be found in the relations
of church and state. The Reichsland had preserved the system of the
Concordat of 1801 and analogous measures for the Protestant and
Jewish religious bodies, so that the government maintained religion
from public funds and exercised direct authority over the appointment
of the clergy. In France the Separation Laws of 1905 and 1907 had
carried through the complete separation of church and state, so
that the state relinquished the nomination of the higher clergy and
discontinued the payment of clerical salaries, at the same time taking
over ecclesiastical property. France had also suppressed the teaching
religious orders and put all education into lay hands in so-called
‘neutral schools.’ These measures were viewed with grave disapproval in
Alsace-Lorraine, a deeply religious country where the great majority
of the schools are under the control of religious bodies and much of
the lower education is still in the hands of nuns. Serious difficulty
would be encountered in extending the French system to Alsace-Lorraine,
and in this, as in other fields, some measure of local independence is
required, at least for the present.
In adjusting their relations with the restored provinces the French
will need an uncommon measure of tact, sympathetic understanding,
and breadth of view, and any mistakes will be viewed critically in
the country itself and magnified beyond the Rhine. Nevertheless, the
questions are not now international, and it is earnestly to be hoped
that they may not become international. They may best be left in the
hands of those directly concerned, the people of France, including
henceforth, for this as for all other purposes, the three departments
of the Haut-Rhin, the Bas-Rhin, and the Moselle, which were once known
as Alsace-Lorraine.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The best history of Alsace is R. Reuss, _Histoire d’Alsace_ (11th
edition, Paris, 1916). There is no analogous work for Lorraine; see
C. Pfister, _La Lorraine, le Barrois, et les Trois Evêchés_ (Paris,
1912). A good recent book in German is lacking; see Lorenz and
Scherer, _Geschichte des Elsass_ (Berlin, 1886). For the seventeenth
century, see R. Reuss, _L’Alsace au xviiᵉ siècle_ (Paris, 1897-98).
On the cession of 1871, see G. May, _Le traité de Francfort_
(Paris, 1909); and for the fixing of the frontier, A. Laussedat,
_La délimitation de la frontière franco-allemande_ (Paris, 1901),
with facsimile of the original map showing the changes between the
preliminaries of Versailles and the final treaty.