Chapter 11

_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.

It seems, furthermore, that if the sales of land and the exploitation of farm lands have ended rapidly, it was because colonization societies, called "black bands," have overtly bought up or had bought up the properties by their agents, in the hope that their plans would be realized after the war. In industrial matters, there was recently founded in Berlin a German syndicate which proposes to buy up the actions.

For the textile industry in particular, it is a question of a veritable trust against which is arrayed "a syndicate of Alsatian manufacturers who have felt the need of defending themselves."

The entire scope of recent German policies with regard to Alsace-Lorraine shows that this land which von Hertling said was "allied to Germanism by more and more intimate bonds" has been, as a matter of fact, to treat it like a foreign land, kept by force under imperial domination and submitted, like the occupied portions of France and Belgium, to a veritable reign of terror.

APPENDIX VI

HOW GERMANS UNDERSTAND FUTURE PEACE

If an account is desired of the manner in which the Germans understand a future peace, this letter suffices. It was addressed to the _Berliner Lokalanzeiger_ by Herr Walter Rathenau. He was in charge of the direction of all industrial establishments in Germany:

We commenced war a year too soon. When we shall have obtained a German peace, reorganization on a broader and more solid basis than ever before must commence immediately. The establishments which produce raw materials must not only continue their work, but they must also redouble their energies and thus form the foundation of Germany's economical preparation for the next war.

On the lessons taught by actual war we must figure out carefully what our country lacks in raw materials and accumulate great stores of these which shall never be utilized until _Der Tag_ of the future. We must organize the industrial mobilization as perfectly as the military mobilization. Every man of technical training or partial technical training, whether or not he is enrolled in the list of men who can be mobilized, must have received authority by official order to take over the direction of industrial establishments on the second day which shall follow the next declaration of war.

Every establishment which manufactures for commercial purposes ought to be mobilized and to know officially that the third day after the declaration of war it must make use of all its facilities in satisfying the needs of the Army.

The quantity of merchandise which each one of these establishments can furnish to the Army in a given time and the nature thereof ought to be determined in advance. Every establishment also ought to furnish an exact and complete list of the workmen with whose services it can dispense, and those men alone can be mobilized for military services.

Finally commercial arrangements will be made necessary with nations outside Europe through which we will give them sufficient advantages, specified in detail, so that it would be directly advantageous to their commercial interests to carry on commerce with none of the belligerents and not to sell them munitions.

We can accept such obligations for ourselves without any fear and finally, when the next war shall come, it cannot come a year too soon.

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Transcriber's Notes

Pg. 6, Sunday, August third, left as original as it's uncertain which day the author meant. Sunday was actually August 2, Monday was August 3; and the context from the beginning of the chapter was that the declaration of war was delivered late afternoon Monday, August 3. (Mobilization had commenced the previous evening. To be exact, it was on Sunday, August third, at midnight.)

Pg. 7, unforgetable changed to unforgettable. (It recalled the unforgettable scenes.)

Pg. 14, thirteenth changed to thirtieth, per context (when Sunday the thirtieth of August came).

Pg. 14, week changed to weeks. (For several weeks our troops)

Pg. 54, beseiged and beseiger left as original, as author quoted from another book. (in a beseiged city can hasten the place's fall; in consequence it would be very foolish of the beseiger to renounce)

Pg. 88, removed ending double quotes. (I feel better for it.')

Pg. 90, mobolization changed to mobilization (priests who went off at the beginning of the mobilization).

Pg. 100, sum of artillery kilos do not equal Total kilos. Left as original.

Pg. 108, tetragon changed to tarragon (16,900 tarragon plants).

Pg. 162, catastrophies changed to catastrophes (irremediable catastrophes could be avoided?).

Pgs. 163, 206, Bethmann-Hollweg, hyphenation inconsistent with Pgs. 180, 182, Bethmann Hollweg. Kept as in original.

Pg. 167, ARTICLE 23 has no (b) paragraph.

Pg. 193, protect changed to protest to reflect the actual letter (I consider it my duty to protest against this threat of violence to the Ambassador).

Pg. 219, correstionnelle changed to correctionelle ("_chambre correctionnelle_ at Kolmar).

Pg. 229, Appendix VI, added HOW to title to match Table of Contents and make it consistent with rest of Appendices.