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ALSACE-LORRAINE By George Wharton Edwards “Section 2”
Page 36 (Intentionally blank)
Page 37The German Yoke
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Page 39The German Yoke ALSACE-LORRAINE territorially is only about five thousand six hundred miles in extent, say a little larger than the State of Connecticut, and with a population of about one and a half million, who really, it is urged, are, and have been since their enforced annexation and oppression, more French than the Parisians. General Foy said enthusiastically of the Alsatians, “If ever the love of all that is great and generous grows faint in the hearts of the people of France, it will be necessary only for them to pass the Vosges Mountains into Alsace to recover their patriotism and their energy.”
To one statesman who complained to him that the Alsatians spoke a German patois, Napoleon replied with vehemence: “What matters that ?—Though they speak German, they saber in French!”
Admitting that to-day only a scant third of the people habitually use the French tongue, even the most ignorant of the peasantry are conversant with French, while among the more educated and cultivated it is universal, even though after the annexation the offices of public functionaries, such as school teachers, mayors and railroad
Page 40 road officials were appointed by Berlin, which controlled most of the institutions and dominated the press.
The authorities since then have made every endeavor to suppress and discourage the use of the French language in the province. Thus according to a decree publicly announced no school either public or private may use or teach it. Meetings either in public or private were promptly debarred from using the language; even the French theatres were closed to French plays. The ceremonies of the closing of French schools were marked by the most pathetic scenes recorded in the literature of Alsace-Lorraine. The French signs over the shops, even in the smallest towns as well as the larger ones throughout the unhappy land, were forbidden and ordered changed to German by decree publicly posted.
In Strassburg, according to record, a barber was arrested and heavily fined as an example, for refusing to take down his sign, which bore the word “Coiffeur”; but strangely enough he was permitted to use the word “Friseur” instead. A hotel keeper was commanded to paint out the word “Restaurant,” and use instead the German word “Restauration.” The name of Alsace-Lorraine was replaced by Elsass-Lothringen. To use the French phrase “a bientôt” was pronounced treasonable, being deemed by the authorities the expression of a hope that France should again rule Alsace-Lorraine. In fact, all salutations in French rendered the users liable to
Page 41 arrest and fine. Thus the usurpers relied upon the enforced and extended use of the German language in the province to prove irresistibly the essential Teutonism of he people. The book shops were forbidden to have in their possession any of the works of standard French authors; especially the books of Daudet, Erckmann-Chatnan and Edmond About were interdicted. But it may be said that these as well as many others might always be had by those purchasers vouched for by trusted persons.
Soon after the annexation the officials used every sort of trick and intrigue to detect and convict of treason such Alsatians as they wished to rid themselves of. The “Ligue des Patriotes” was formed secretly at Strassburg by loyal Frenchmen who pledged themselves to labor for the salvation of Alsace-Lorraine. The organization had no sooner begun its work than it was betrayed by a housemaid, a German spy, and the members were arrested by the police, who searched the domiciles, found and seized the records and pamphlets, and the leaders were tried by the court, convicted and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, some receiving as much as ten years in prison for their patriotism. In protestation the inhabitants resolved to refuse to recognise or maintain any sort of social relations with the German officials.
The entertainments conducted by the Germans were scrupulously avoided by the loyal people.
Page 42 The German theatres were often forced to play to empty benches, although they were kept open and running by subsidy from the Government, which used every artifice to force their plans of subjugation upon the people. Thus they sometimes selected a known patriot for some small office or honor, but should he accept he was certainly expelled from the league, and ostracised socially.
Should an Alsatian girl so far forget her vows as to espouse a German, henceforth she was disowned by her own people, and considered as one dead. Thus society dealt with the invader in the two inseparable provinces of Alsace-Lorraine.
Then fell the heavy hand of the great German military system upon the people. The larger towns became large military depots, housing thousands of soldiers in the hated uniforms. The streets were filled with marching men, and night and day heavy rumbling army wagons occupied the streets. Officers swaggered along the sidewalks arm in arm, pushing the inhabitants rudely into the gutters; they filled the cafés; they guzzled beer, were noisy, and insolent, seeking quarrels with civilians, who had no redress if attacked or insulted. No young woman was safe from their unwelcome attentions, and some of the recorded acts of these officers are well nigh unbelievable; but the details of these offenses can have no place in these pages.
Page 43 Their treatment of civilians was part of the plan of subjugation. Unless young men are surreptitiously sent away into France by their parents, they can get no other education than that imposed upon them in the military training schools maintained by the German system. Thus if they succeed in evading the established rule and leave without registering at headquarters they are outlawed, and treated as deserters from military service, nor can they ever return without suffering heavy penalty and consequent imprisonment. Even in the elementary schools the young boys are formed into military companies under appointed petty officers, and forced to adopt the “goose step.” The sight is ridiculous in the extreme, but woe be to him who ventures to laugh when the hapless children thus pass marching under the watchful eye of the drill-sergeant; this is an offense against the Emperor and is punishable by fine.
In the small Alsatian town of Zabern a poor crippled cobbler watched one day from his shop door a number of officers who were pompously parading the street. One of these was a very young red-faced, yellow-haired fellow, hardly more than a boy, but gorgeously clad in the uniform of a lieutenant, with dangling sword. The sight of this youth moved the poor cripple to hysterical laughter, in which some of the bystanders joined. The lieutenant turned upon him furiously and ran the crippled
Page 44cobbler through the body with his sword. The cobbler died then and there.
The military authorities gravely held court martial and exonerated the lieutenant, praising him for having protected the honor of the uniform and the army. The cobbler, dead, was convicted of “lèse majesté.”
The further details of the “Zabern Incident” are as follows:
In December, 1913, the Alsatians, nowhere patient of German government, had shown what was regarded by the authorities as lack of respect for the garrison troops. A young Prussian lieutenant, Von Forstner, referred to above, thereupon offered a reward of ten marks to any soldier who, if “insulted” by a native of the town, struck the offender and brought him into barracks.
In the harangue he used an insulting term to denote Alsatians; and it is worth observing, in view of what followed, that the definition of what constituted an in-suit was left entirely to the troops.
The nature and language of Lieutenant Von Forstner’s address becoming known, there was an unfriendly demonstration by the townspeople of Zabern outside the officer’s mess, which was dispersed by soldiers with loaded rifles. The lieutenant then “went out shopping,” escorted by four soldiers with fixed bayonets. In the evening the popular excitement increased; where
Page 45upon the colonel of the regiment proclaimed martial law and placed machine guns in the streets. The scene which followed is thus described in the calm pages of the Annual Register: 1
“A fireman who left his supper when he heard the drums of the regiment was arrested at his door; the Judge and counsel of the Civil Court, which had just risen, were also arrested as they were leaving the Court. The Judge was allowed to go home, but all the others (twenty-seven in number) spent the night in the cellars of the barracks, and were only liberated the next day, when they were brought before the Judge for trial. . . . A further aggravation of the scandal was the arrest of a man and his wife at Metz, because the wife laughed at a passing patrol.” Judicial proceedings followed, in which it was proved that “When warned that his unprovoked incitement of the population was likely to lead to bloodshed,” Colonel Von Reuter, who commanded Von Forstner’s regiment, had said that “Bloodshed would be a good thing,” and that civilians had been arrested for “Intending to laugh.” The colonel was finally acquitted on the ground that “he did not know that he acted illegally.” He himself based his action on a Prussian Cabinet order of the year 1820.
It must not be supposed that this example of military
Page 46 zeal was universally approved in Germany. It aroused a storm of controversy, and the Reichstag actually passed a resolution by 293 votes to 54 declaring that it was dissatisfied with the Chancellor’s rather half-hearted defense of the conduct of the garrison. But the protest of the Reichstag and the more independent sections of the public was entirely ineffectual. The Crown Prince had telegraphed to Colonel Von Reuter during his trial, exhorting him (“Immer feste darau”) to “stick to it”; and General Von Falkenhayn, the Prussian Minister of War, had declared in the Reichstag that “What they had to deal with was not the degree of a lieutenant’s offense, but a determined attempt by press agitation and abuse to exercise an unlawful influence upon the decision of the authorities.” Dr. Jagow, the Police President at Berlin, afterwards supported these views of the matter, and telegraphed to Colonel Von Reuter during his trial, “Exercises are acts of sovereignty, and if obstacles are placed in the way of their performance, the obstacles must be removed in the execution of this act of sovereignty,” Dr. Jagow may be supposed, in virtue of the office he held, not to have expressed public opinion on matters of state without some idea whether those opinions were agreeable to the Government. When the pother had died down, his theory that “Military exercises”—such as running lame cobblers through the body, and shopping with fixed bayonets—”are acts of sovereignty”
Page 47 apparently held the field, so far as official Germany was concerned.
The very mild sentence of forty-three days’ detention passed on Lieutenant Von Forstner was quashed by a higher military court, and (as we have seen) Colonel Von Reuter was decorated with a Prussian Order at the beginning of the new year. It would hardly have been possible to demonstrate more clearly that in the eyes of the German government there is one law for the army and another for civilians, and that civil must yield to military rights whenever they conflict. “One is often pained and overcome with longing” (writes a modern German professor), “as one thinks of the German of a hundred years ago. He was poor, he was impotent, he was despised, ridiculed and defrauded. He was the uncomplaining slave of others; his fields were their battleground, and the goods which he had inherited from his fathers were trodden under foot and dispersed. He never troubled when the riches of the outside world were divided without regard for him. He sat in his little bare room under the roof in simple coat and clumsy shoes; but his heart was full of sweet dreams, and uplifted by the chords of Beethoven to a rapture which threatened to rend his breast. He wept with Werther and Jean Paul in joyous pain, he smiled with the childish innocence of his naïve poets, the happiness of his longing consumed him, and as he listened to Schubert’s song his
Page 48 soul became one with the soul of the universe. Let us think no more of it—it is useless !“ 1
Germany claims that Alsace-Lorraine was German territory that was justly restored to her; that “in taking back the provinces she accomplished an act of supreme national and historic justice”; such is the utterance of the official publication of the Emperor, the Nord -Deutsche Algemeine Zeitung.
Is this so? In the first place, the people of AlsaceLorraine are not all as thoroughly German as is claimed by the Zeitzzng, but those of the province who are have certainly purer German blood flowing in their veins than the pseudo-Germans—-those from beyond the Elbe and the Rhine—who are certainly of a very mixed race, indeed, authorities say, somewhat more than sixty per cent. Slav. German lust for Alsace-Lorraine was very evident even in the days of Julius Caesar. In his “Commentaries” one may read of the Teutonic covetousness for the lands of the Sequanians, who occupied what is now Alsace-Lorraine.
“Ariovistus, the king of the Germans, had settled in their territory, and had seized upon one third of it, the best land in the whole of Gaul; and now he demanded that the natives should vacate another third, because a few months previously twenty four thousand Harndes
Page 49 had joined him, and he had to find homestead lands for them. Within a few years the entire population of Gaul would be expatriated, and the Germans would all cross the Rhine; for there was no comparison between the land of the Germans and that of the Sequanians, or between the standard of living among the former and that of the latter.
Other and much more odious characteristics than those of covetousness of their neighbors’ lands seem to unite the Germans of that remote day with those of to-day.
“Ariovistus had wrapped himself in so much haughtiness,” says Caesar, “that he had become unbearable. These wild barbarians had become enamored of the lands and refinements and abundance of the Gauls, and more were brought over until about one hundred and twenty thousand of them were in Gaul.” Caesar attacked, put them to flight, and drove them back beyond the Rhine.
The people were thus Gallo-Romans, and not Teuton. The hegemony which the German kings obtained over a great part of Europe was obtained by them as Roman emperors and not as monarchs of Germany. These two titles should not be confused. Lorraine formed part of the Holy Roman Empire, but not of Germany. But leaving out altogether the period of the Middle Ages, and coming down to more modern times, we find that when Prussia seized Alsace-Lorraine in 1871 these two provinces had been French possessions since 1648; that is to
Page 50 say, for a period of 233 years. But apart from any consideration of priority of the length of time of possession, there is a very important question involved. The Rhine now and always has marked the natural division between Germany and France, and not until the invader has been driven back across this permanent division will this cause be abandoned. Then there is the even stronger consideration—the moral right which the French have to Alsace-Lorraine. By their civilization, which they inherit from their beloved France—by their ardent affection—by their never-dying hope to belong once more to France, these patriotic people proclaim to the world that they are not Germans, and that the yoke imposed upon them is insufferable.
The patriot Jonas Lippman relates how in afflicted Alsace the Teuton conquerors have repeatedly stopped the performance of French musical comedies and even expelled French actors from the province, threatening them with imprisonment should they dare to return without written permission.
“It has been,” he says, “my bad fortune to see at Strassburg a performance of ‘La Fille du Regiment’ stopped by the police. The German excuse was that when the ‘Daughter of the Regiment’ displays the French flag this constitutes a seditious manifestation! At another time an advertised performance of ‘Faust’ was prohibited because of the well known chorus ‘Gloire
Page 51Immortelle de nos aieux,’ ‘which,’ so read the report of he police authorities, ‘was an attempt to recall to an Alsatian audience the glory of their French ancestors.'"
Another instance of persecution was the expulsion from Alsace of the great French comedian the elder Coquelin, who came to play in Moliere’s “Precieuses Ridicules.” No official reason was given for that expulsion. He was given two hours to leave Strassburg. Coquelin was an intimate friend of the great Gambetta, and that was enough!
“On the thirtieth day of September, 1870,” continues M. Lippman, “we inhabitants of Strassburg heard for the last time the French ‘Clairon,’ and for the first time the Prussian trumpet. Napoleon III had declared war on Prussia on the 15th of July; four weeks after that the enemy surrounded Strassburg and closed it to the world. On the 13th of August the first shell was fired on the city, at 1 o’clock, and from that time on till the 28th of September a continuous bombardment was kept up. The word continuous is here used in its most exact meaning. Not once did the Prussian batteries relent in their deadly work. The inhabitants took refuge in their cellars, the dampness of which increased the already high mortality. We lived there in disagreeable promiscuity, all the tenants of the house forming a congregation, as it were, of suffering humanity. Men, women, and children, old and young, patricians and plebeians, Catholics and Jews,
Page 52 Protestants and infidels, a vivid illustration showing that misery loves company. And what a weird company! A University professor tête-a-tête with a plumber; a silk merchant having as vis-a-vis a mail carrier; a piano manufacturer fraternizing with an undertaker—and so on. The women fared no better. Separated from the men by a rude sort of curtain, if I may so call it, they had troubles of their own in taking care of the children. There were enough of them to form a kindergarten. In ordinary times the noise of so many youngsters would have been unbearable, but at this time no one paid any attention to it. The fearful crashing and exploding of shells over our roofs, followed by a rain of debris which made the streets impossible, rendered us at times speechless, but did not in the least disturb the children. Occasionally we would hear the cries above, ‘Au feu! Au feu!’ when a nearby building caught fire. In normal times when one heard that cry he would summon the nearest post of firemen, who with their old fashioned equipment—a few yards of hose and a hand pump— would trot leisurely to the burning building followed by a crowd yelling, ‘Au feu! Au feu!’ But during such a bombardment the cry found no echo—no one ventured to cross the street, as it meant sure death. Besides, the men who composed the Fire Department were on duty on the ramparts, and their places had been taken by amateur volunteers who were unwilling to risk their lives without
Page 53 benefit to their fellow citizens, for the Teutons invariably concentrated the fire of their batteries upon that particular spot, so as to prevent any help.
“The office of public announcer or town crier during these days was not a sinecure. In the towns of Alsace-Lorraine the crier (crieur publique) appears at certain hours of the day to read at each street corner announcements which the authorities wish to impart officially to the citizens. The crier beats loudly upon a drum for a few moments to collect a crowd, to whom he then reads his document in a loud sing-song voice. During the bombardment of 1870 there was considerable danger in the performance of that duty. For us residents of the cellars the beating of the official drum (he says) created a diversion. Our curiosity was quickly aroused. We crawled out of our caverns, walked up to the front door, but did not dare to venture further. The announcement consisted usually of a communication from the Mayor, or from the Military Governor of Strassburg, informing the inhabitants ‘that they would soon be relieved, that a French army was battering its way to succor them, and recommending them to keep up courage.’ Some of us on hearing the communication felt encouraged, others shook their heads; but no one dared to hint at surrender. We returned to our damp holes, optimists and pessimists, awaiting events.
“On the 8th day of September—Thursday—the public
Page 54 crier pounded more heavily than usual upon his drum. We took up our vantage points and were startled when, in a deep trembling voice, the old man (did I tell you that he was an old man?) read as follows:
“‘Dear fellow citizens: The French Army, after a brilliant battle lasting two days, outnumbered five to one, has suffered defeat at Sedan. Napoleon III has surrendered his sword to the King of Prussia before his troops. The Emperor is a prisoner of war. A Republic has been proclaimed at Paris. The Empress has fled to England. A Provisional Government has been formed to prosecute the war. People of Strassburg, the Imperial régime has ceased, but France remains. Vive la France.
“‘Yes, Vive la France!’ shouted the University Professor—’and also Vive la République!’ ‘So then,’ commented the cave dwellers, ‘that is what Napoleon III has done for us! Unprepared, unequipped, he declared war upon Prussia, and to-day we are at the mercy of a cruel enemy! The Imperial Régime left no regrets in Republican Alsace. . . .‘ Paris and Strassburg were compelled to surrender by starvation.
“In 1870 we lacked milk for our babies. Leading citizens signed a petition begging General Von Werder, the Commander of the invading Prussian forces, to ‘please let us have milk for our wounded, for our aged, for our babies.’ He answered, ‘Ergibt euch wenn Ihr milch
Page 55 wollt.’ (Surrender if you want milk.) In those days substitutes for milk were not known, so that hundreds of our babies died of starvation. No Alsatian has forgotten it.
“The situation became more acute,” (continues M. Lippman); “besides the lack of food, the bombardment became unbearable. Prussian batteries did not confine their shots to the ramparts or the fortifications. Nothing was sacred to them. Entire streets of Strassburg— residential sections—were burned; public buildings, churches, monuments became the prey of Prussian vandalism. The Theatre, the Museum, the Prefecture, the Protestant Church called the Temple Neuf with its great Library containing treasures of Latin MSS., the roof of the world famous Cathedral—all these monuments became smoking, smoldering ruins under Prussian shells. We were wondering what the end would be when, on September 28th, the cannon stopped. It was five o’clock in the afternoon. The silence, strange as it may seem, became uncomfortable. We ventured out on the street, walked over the debris, tobogganing would better express it, and met a little group of people craning their necks up at the Cathedral tower. We saw that the Tricolor had been hauled down. In its place a white cloth was hanging. I was too young at the time to realize what it all meant. My father, who had me by the hand, was shaking like a leaf. I asked him the cause of the
Page 56excitement and he replied: ‘You see “Ce chiffon blanc” (that white rag)? It is the flag of dishonor—of shame—of humiliation! It means that to-morrow the Prussians will be our masters.’ And to-morrow came. Whoever has not seen a city surrendered to the enemy —and what an enemy !—cannot grasp what it mean~ No Zola, no De Maupassant—no Daudet can adequately describe the thousand and one emotions that electrify one as one sees his beloved ones lined up in a public square prepared to go into captivity, while at the same time he hears in the distance the strains of military bands preceding the victorious troops entering the beloved town. The vandals robbed us of our Strassburg by sheer brutal force. No Alsatian has forgiven, or ever will forgive, that Prussian Crime!“
Written all over the plains, hills, and valleys of Alsace-Lorraine in ancient ruins, prehistoric monuments and stone piles, is the epic of the land already old when Caesar came. The remains of Druid temples still stand even to-day beside the crumbling stones marking the site of walls built by the Romans. On Mount Ste. Odile is the beginning of a colossal bulk of uncemented blocks of great stones stretching across leagues of hill and valley. The ancient annals are scanty and often incoherent, but enough can be gathered to prove that the Germans gradually occupied the territory by what is called “peaceful
Page 57 penetration,” which later became domination and Teutonified “Alsace” into “Ellsass.” Then followed the towns of Metz, Altkirch, and Strassburg, which the Germans point to as proof that the Teuton was the dominant force in both Alsace and Lorraine. But the governing power was settled very definitely at, and by, the treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843 and attested manually by the Sons of Charlemagne. Of the three sons signatory to this document, Lothaire received and became proprietor of Alsace, Lorraine, Burgundy, Provence, and some territory in Italy. This became the Kingdom of Lothaire (Lotharii regnum) Lorraine in French, Lothringen in German.
Upon the death of Lothaire, Charles the Bold took Alsace, and Lorraine was seized by Louis the German, as set forth in the curious documents ratifying these seizures and written in both French and German. Under an agreement twenty-seven years later by the brothers, Alsace was ceded by Charles the Bold to Louis the German, and thus the Vosges became the boundary between Germany and France.
In the centuries that passed, Alsace, so fair and fertile, and Lorraine, so rich in its mines, grew rapidly in renown, attracting workmen from other less favored localities, so that soon towns and villages sprang up as if by magic. These led to the foundation of the great feudal
Page 58 systems, and jealously guarded communities overlorded by Bishops, Prefects, and both Dukes and Archdukes.
These built their castles on the shaggy crests of the Vosges, and the ruins are still pointed out to the tourist.
It is said that the name Hapsburg was derived from one of these strongholds. The story is that the brother of the Bishop of Strassburg, out hunting one day with his hawk or falcon, followed it to a part of the country which seemed to him so beautiful that he built a castle there and named it for his falcon—”habicht”—Habichtsburg. This, in time, became Hapsburg. This house ruled Alsace until 1679, when all its rights and titles in the province were transferred to Louis XIV of France.
Wars, both great and small, swept over the provinces, and often the peasants, starving and desperate, rose against their lords. All over this fair land the ruins of the great medieval castles are surrounded by the unmarked graves of millions of unfortunate peasants whose ill-paid labor erected these huge piles of masonry over which tourists now marvel.
Even in the middle ages Alsace-Lorraine suffered from and was torn by complications which arose among the rulers. Besides the numberless seigneuries, certain of the towns claimed the right of self administration, and formed themselves into independent states, under the protection of an official called “Landvogt,” a sort
Page 59of Grand Bailiff appointed by the King of Germany.
Ten of these towns in the year 1353 grouped themselves into a league or confederation for mutual defense, and styled themselves the Décapole (from two Greek words signifying ten towns). Running from north to south these were: Landau, Wissembourg, Haguenau, Rosheim, Obernai, Schl estadt, Kaysersberg, Colmar, Türckheim, and Munster.
The town of Landau, reunited to France in 1648 in the “Palatinat,” was ceded to Bavaria after the “cent jours,” by the second treaty of Paris, in 1815.
Wissembourg, situated on the river Lauter, freed herself, after a long and weary struggle, from the domination of the Abbey, and gladly joined the league.
Haguenau, near the great forest, at the end of the fifteenth century was one of the most important of the cities of the Province of Alsace-Lorraine. It had a great château on an island in the river Moder, in which dwelt Frederic Barberousse with his knights, and it was famous for its great and beautiful Church of Saint Georges, as well as for its celebrated master printers, who produced works which are still unrivaled.
Rosheim, which possessed one of the most remarkable Roman churches throughout the country, constructed in the eleventh century, was renowned for the character and integrity of its inhabitants.
Obernai (Oberehnheim) boasted of the beauty of its
Page 60 mansions situated on the river Elm, most of which dated from the fifteenth century.
Schlestadt was famed for its colleges and its learned men. It boasted of more than eleven hundred students in the sixteenth century, under such masters as Dringenberg, Beatus Rhenanus, and Jacob Wimpferling. The great library of Schlestadt contained more precious MSS. than any other, so it is said.
Kaysersberg, famed for its great château, where Geiicr, the celebrated preacher at the Cathedral of Strassburg, passed the days of his childhood.
Colmar, the painters’ town, renowned for the number of celebrated artists born within its walls.
Türekheim, on the borders of the beautiful river Fecht, and renowned the land over for its noble wine, the town nestling behind great stone walls topped by quaint towers.
And lastly: Munster, at the end of the valley at the foot of the Schlucht.
Each of these towns had and enjoyed its own constitution, and named the magistrates charged with their government, some elected for life, and others for certain periods only. These magistrates were chosen from among both the nobles and the ‘‘bourgeoisie’s” or citizens class. The population was formed of a number of “tribes”; those called “Zünfte,” which were very numerous, and were divided into clans, and the “Stubé” (poêle). Each of these had its own place.
Page 61 The “Stubés” were celebrated for the family fetes, such as marriages, christenings, etc. These two tribes elected their own head men, and a sort of major domo whom they called “Obristzunftmeister,” and who was consulted in all important matters relating to the well being of the tribes.
These magistrates were charged with the overseeing of the fortifications, the upkeep of arms and ordnance; the care of the streets, and the order and peace of the town. They levied the town taxes and collected them, and upon occasion acted as petty judges. The “bourgeoisie” formed the committees which governed the hospitals, the orphan asylums, and the schools. Thus they prospered and flourished in the enjoyment of liberty.
In the sixteenth century certain of the towns, for instance, Munster, Landau and Wissembourg, were converted to Protestantism, but Colmar was favorable to both Catholic and Protestant, giving them equal rights. Finally, after some dissension in the first named towns, they united in the faith of the ancient church, and thus have remained.
The Alsatian towns for many years managed to keep free from entanglements, while busied with the unsettled conditions due to the Thirty Years’ religious war and the occupation by Sweden. The protection of France was gladly welcomed, and the people became so wholeheartedly French that upon the dawn of the Revolution
Page 62 they entered into it body and soul, furnishing both statesmen and soldiers. They remained, however, cold to the advances of Napoleon III, whose ambitions they distrusted. . . . Then came the defeats of Wissembourg and Woerth; the bombardment of Strassburg; the Prussian occupation; the eloquent declarations of the deputies of Alsace-Lorraine in the assembly at Bordeaux—their protestation after the vote for the preliminaries of peace—the treaty of Frankfort, signed on May 10th, 1871. when the larger part of Alsace and a portion of Lorraine were separated from the Mother Country and designated by the hated German name of “Elsass-Lothringen.” which Frenchmen cannot and will not use. Belfort and Delle remained to France.
Alsace-Lorraine then, by what the French term “Un bizarre statut,” became by the law of June 9, 1871, the collective property of the German States Confederation, a part of the Empire (Reichsland) and under the domination and government of the princes of Ruess and Schwarzburg. It was proclaimed by these princes that Alsace-Lorraine, thus violated, was simply German territory reclaimed, that in thought and sentiment the people were Germans, and that only the interests of the people were sought and considered by the German Empire. In refutation of this specious argument it is necessary to chronicle here some of the persecutions inflicted upon these helpless people, the interdiction of the French language
Page 63 in the schools; the fines and punishment for displaying or even having in one’s possession the French colors; the odious measures regarding passports at the French frontier; the surveillance of the police, furnished with power of domiciliary visits at any and all hours of the day or night; the insolence of the Germans sent into the country as settlers; the outrage of (Zabern) Saverne by the military. Indeed, fresh evidence of the German campaign of terrorization of the Province comes to hand every day. Since the beginning of hostilities (August, 1914,) German courts martial, sitting in the annexed provinces, have inflicted sentences totaling five thousand years’ imprisonment on citizens of Alsace and Lorraine, whose sole offence has been the expression of opinions favorable to France. In this all classes and all districts have suffered.
According to carefully gathered statistics, from the day Alsace-Lorraine was annexed by Germany in 1871 until the outbreak of the World War, no fewer than five hundred thousand of the inhabitants of the provinces, out of a population of 1,600,000, have migrated to France. Of these nearly fifty thousand have joined the French army, and are fighting under the Tri-color. So the wall which the Teutons erected on the frontier in 1871 is a monument to the fidelity of the Alsatians. In words of Jaures, “They (the Teutons) have erected a monument in the depths of the forest, among the great trees whose
Page 64 roots are deep in French soil, and whose branches reach to the skies. The forest is typical of our soul. The monument shall never fall until the lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine are re-united to our beloved France, and the Tri-color waves in Strassburg on the Rhine.”
The Alsatian dialect is very peculiar and most difficult for a foreigner to learn. This song 1 will give a good idea of its characteristics.
I Das Elsass unser Landel Das isch meineidig scheen; Mer hewa’s fescht am Bändel, Un lehn’s, bigott, mit gehn I uhé! Mer lehn’s, bigott, mit gehn.
II Es sott’s nur einer wage Un sott’es grifan an, Men halta fescht zusamme Un schlaga mann für man I uhé! Un schlaga mann für mann.
III Im Elsass isch güat lawa, Das wissen alle Leut, Das giebt es Feld und Rewa, Was eim das Herz erfreut I uhé! Was eim das Herz erfreut.
Page 65 IV Steigt man auf hohe Berge Sehaut ab in’s tiefe Thal, Da seeht man Gottes Werke Un Lander iwerall I uhé! Un Lander iwerall.
V Drum liâwa mi’ r under Ländel Mir alle Elsässer Seehn, Und halta’s fescht am Bändel Un lehn’s, bigott, nit gehn, I uhé! Un lehn’s, bigott, nit gehn.
[End of Section 2]
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