ALSACE-LORRAINE and Its Recovery

1870 & 1914 THE ANNEXATION OP ALSACE-LORRAINE and its Recovery WI.1M AN ADDRESS BY MARSHAL JOFFRE THE ANNEXATION OF ALSACE-LORRAINE and its Recovery 1870 & 1914 THE ANNEXATION OF ALSACE=LORRA1NE and its Recovery WITH AN ADDRESS BY MARSHAL JOFFRE PARIS IMPRIMERIE JEAN CUSSAC 40 — RUE DE REUILLY — 40 I9I8 ADDRESS in*" MARSHAL JOFFRE AT THANN « WE HAVE COME BACK FOR GOOD AND ALL : HENCEFORWARD YOU ARE AND EVER WILL BE FRENCH. TOGETHER WITH THOSE LIBERTIES FOR WHICH HER NAME HAS STOOD THROUGHOUT THE AGES, FRANCE BRINGS YOU THE ASSURANCE THAT YOUR OWN LIBERTIES WILL BE RESPECTED : YOUR ALSATIAN LIBER- TIES, TRADITIONS AND WAYS OF LIVING. AS HER REPRESENTATIVE I BRING YOU FRANCE'S MATERNAL EMBRACE. » INTRODUCTION The expression Alsace-Lorraine was devis- ed by the Germans to denote that part of our national territory, the annexation of which Germany imposed upon us by the treaty of Frankfort, in 1871. Alsace and Lorraine were the names of two provinces under our monarchy, but provinces — as such — have ceased to exi$t in France since 1790 ; the country is divided into departments — mere administrative subdivisions under the same national laws and ordi- nances — nor has the most prejudiced historian ever been able to point to the slight- est dissatisfaction with this arrangement on the part of any district in France, from Dunkirk to Perpignan, or from Brest to INTRODUCTION Strasbourg. France affords a perfect exam- ple of the communion of one and all in deep love and reverence for the mother-country ; and the history of the unfortunate departments subjected to the yoke of Prussian militarism since 1871 is the most eloquent and striking confirmation of the justice of France's demand for reparation of the crime then committed by Germany. The territories annexed in 1871 were made up of all or part of four French departments ; In the Moselle department, they constituted the " arrondissements " of Metz, Thionville and Sarreguemines ; In the Meurthe department, those of Sarrebourg and Chateau-Salins ; They comprised the whole of the Bas- Rhin department (with Strasbourg as its chef-lieu) and all the Haut-Rhin department {chef-lieu Colmar) with the exception of the Belfort district, which remained French. Under the old regime, the Moselle and the Meurthe departments were part of Ivorraine : the Haut-Rhin and the Bas-Rhin went to make up Alsace. Our purpose, in the present survey, is to give a summary of the documents whereby is demonstrated — incontrovertibly, in our' opinion —*- the injustice of the German annexation in 1870, and the necessity for the rescindment of that measure and the restitution pi the French departments to the mother-country ; it is our intention, while so doing, to quote liberally from the writings of nputrals, and likewise from a number of German publications that have appeared since the declaration of war on August 4th 1914. FIRST PART THE WAR OF 1870 AND THE GERMAN ANNEXATION CHAPTER I ALSACE AND LORRAINE DOWN TO THE WAR OF 187O It was about the middle of the Sixteenth Cen- tury that the land of Lorraine, became part and parcel of France. In 1551, at- the time of the conflicts brought about in Europe by the pre- tentions of the house of Austria, Maurice de Saxe, in his own name and in the name of the German Princes, recognised the sovereignty of Henry II, King of France, over the city of Metz, and the following year, April 10th 1552, the gates of that fortress were thrown open to the French. There- upon, the Emperor Charles V, at the head of an army of 80.000 men, provided with a force of artillery such as was almost unheard of at the time, laid siege to Metz. The resistance opposed by Frangois de Guise, of the house of Lorraine, 12 THE ANNEXATION OF ALSACE-LORRAINE successfully withstood the attack. ^ After sixty- five days of investment, during forty-five of which open trench operations were in progress, and 15 000 shells were fired at the defenders, Charles V raised the siege, at the end of the year 1552, having had one-third of his troops slain on the field of battle. Metz became French territory from that time forward. In the following century, the treaty of West- phalia, while putting an end to the Thirty Years' War by a general settlement of European affairs, ceded Alsace to France, as a reward for the pro- tection afforded by Richelieu and Mazarin to the Protestant Princes of Germany. The cession, made in 1648, was extended in 1681 to Strasbourg, which was then joined to France. Under the old regime, such transmissions of suzerainty were by no* means contrary to tho Iyaw of Nations* The so-called Holy German Empire was not a modern State ; still less did it constitute a nation. Under a common name, it was just a conglomeration of principalities, bishoprics, electorates and free cities, severally possessed of their own laws, customs and indi- vidual existence. The inhabitants did not belong to themselves. They were made over from one master by another by contract, by inheritance, or by, marriage. As a matter of fact, neither under Louis XIV, nor under Louis XV, $id any demonstration take place against the authority of the French Kings. JxtL^Kj V h,j\. Y ^ On the occasion of a solemnity helcL at Stras- bourg University, Jean-Daniel Schoepflin voiced the sentiments of the Alsatians in the following words : « Nature has been bountiful to Alsace ; but of all the benefits showered upon her, the most precious in my opinion is that Alsace, Gallic by her origins, should have reverted to France. » And in confirmation of these words, uttered by the historian of Alsace, we have the most unimpeachable testimony, that of the Prussian Ambassador Schmettau, who wrote in 1701 (27 years after the French marched into Stras- bourg) : « We cannot take back Alsace, because it is a 'Well-established fact that the Alsatians q,re even more French than the Parisians. We must needs, therefore, leave the Alsatians to their beloved v France, or at most deprive her of the land and the revenues, for the only means of capturing their hearts would be a chain two hundred years in length. Even if taken by force, the land of Alsace will remain a smouldering furnace of love fbr France. » In. 1744, when the « Pandours » from beyond the Rhine invaded Alsace ; King Louis XV him- self took command of his troops, declaring that he would not « have his kingdom nibbled away ». The threatened provinces gave him a triumphal reception; the sickness by which the monarch was struck down at Metz cheated as great a i4 THE ANNEXATION OF ALSACE-LORRAINE stir as any national calamity might have caused. In 1781, the city of Strasbourg celebrated the centenary of her Union with France by great solem- nities, in the course of which the chief magistrate gave expression to the grateful attachment of all ranks, and of the private citizens, who for one hundred years had enjoyed a tranquillity and happiness such as their ancestors had never known. A few years later the influence of the principles of liberty and equality set forth by the French philosophers of the Eighteenth Century, Mon- tesquieu, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others, led in France to the Revolution, which proclaimed the rights of individuals and nations in Europe ; Alsace and Iyorraine were among the first to take part in that patriotic movement, nor was their loyalty shaken at any moment during the upheaval caused by internal conflicts and the coalition of Europe against France. The young Republic was never confronted by any separatist tendencies on the part of the Eastern provinces. As early, indeed, as the constitution in 1787, of the Provincial Assemblies — the forerunners of the States-General of 1789 — the Alsatian Commission had recorded in an official document the very charter of modern times : « Everything that belongs to the feudal system is character- ised by a spirit of thraldom that cannot be tole- rated in a properly constituted society. And no later than July yth 1789, the citizens of Stras- AND ITS RECOVERY —• 15 bourg declared that « in the most distant part of the country they shared in the general rejoicing caused by the binding together of the representatives of the French nation in one body full of power and light. » , On July 14th, in Paris, the first man to lead tjie Gardes Frangaises into the Bastille, that sym- bolic stronghold of the arbitrary power of kings, was an Alsatian officer, Elie, of the Queen's Regiment ; though he had set out in civilian garb, h£ presently donned his glittering uniform, boldly proclaiming his quality to the foe as well as to his own party. A week later the popula- tion of Strasbourg rose in their turn ; the old aristocracy left the municipal power in the hands of an administrative body chosen from among every degree of the bourgeoisie. The life of the old regime in Strasbourg was at an end. The very next year the National Assembly abolished that regime in Alsace ; the question of the feudal Princes' rights was settled in accordance with the declaration of Merlin de Douai, proclaiming the statute of the French populations : « The time is no longer when kings could dispose as they listed of what they called their flocks; the Alsatian people, last year, clearly expressed their desire to be united with France, their will alone consummated or legitimised that union, and they became French because « such was their good plea- sure ». J That same year, 1790, the National Guards, 16 THE ANNEXATION OF ALSACE-LORRAINE at Metz, in an address sent by them to the Na- tional Assembly, declared that the new Consti- tution left them nothing to regret, but that on the contrary their fathers would no doubt have envied them, had they been able to witness their felicity.

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