Part 10

France not only needed this coal, she had a strong claim to it. The chief French mines, those of Lens and Valenciennes on the Belgian border, had been in German hands for more than four years and had been deliberately flooded and rendered unworkable by the occupying armies. The period of restoration was variously estimated; it has since been fixed by German engineers at eight years at the least, and the total property loss has been estimated at eighty per cent. For this definite reparation in kind could be exacted in the Saar field. But that was not all. Germany had agreed to compensate for all damage done to the civilian population and their property, yet conservative estimates of the bill for general reparation in northern France far exceeded any available means of payment on Germany’s part, even when the payment was spread over a long series of years and thus reduced in actual restorative power. Proposals to take over German enterprises like railroads or factories were impracticable, not only because of the political difficulties of operating them on German territory but because this would interfere with Germany’s ability to earn her annual payments of indemnity. The Saar mines, on the contrary, lay on the outer edge of Germany; they were already linked with the industries of Lorraine, henceforth French; they were, with two exceptions (Frankenholz and Hostenbach), the property of the Prussian and Bavarian states. Always supposing that they were properly credited on the reparation account, no better means of payment could be found for a debt which Germany had agreed to pay.

Accordingly, it was agreed in principle, late in March 1919, that the full ownership of the coal mines of the Saar basin should pass to France, to be credited on her claims against Germany for reparation. With full and unencumbered property in the mines the treaty gave the fullest economic facilities for their exploitation, including the acquisition of all subsidiaries and dependencies, freedom of transportation and sale, exemption from other than local taxes, and full mobility of labor. The mines were placed within the French customs union, and payment in connection with their operation might be made in French money. The elementary justice of this transfer of the mines to France has become increasingly clear in the past few months. Out of the crumbling uncertainties of reparation for war damage, France secures one solid asset, and she secures it in a form absolutely essential for the revival of her wrecked industries. Those who have urged that she ought to have been satisfied with a coal contract instead, a claim for delivery rather than mines to be worked, have been refuted by the decreasing production of coal in Germany and the growing unwillingness of the Germans to make the deliveries of coal to which they obligated themselves in the treaty. A mine in hand is worth many contracts to deliver.

The transfer of the Saar mines and their appurtenances to the French state raised a difficult question of administration. If the German government retained the full power to fix the conditions of exploitation, transportation, and sale, and if German legislation was to be carried out by Prussian officials, the conditions of operation could easily be made impossible, and the ownership of the mines prove nugatory. On the other hand, if the government were handed over, either temporarily or permanently, to France, the inhabitants lost their political rights and were subjected to an alien rule. It was the old question, how to transfer the mines without subjecting the people.

The solution of this conflict of rights and interests was found in the international organization of the League of Nations. Germany agreed to hand over the government of the territory, but not the ultimate sovereignty, to the League of Nations as trustee, and the League is to administer it through an international Governing Commission. This commission consists of five members, one a native inhabitant of the Saar territory, one a Frenchman, the others representing other nations. Sitting in the territory, it has all powers of government hitherto belonging to the German empire, Prussia, and Bavaria, and full power to administer the local public services. It must maintain the existing system of courts and local officials, and must consult an elective assembly with respect to new taxes or legislation. Subject to its control, “the inhabitants will retain their local assemblies, their religious liberties, their schools, and their language.” They keep also their German nationality, their rights under German labor legislation, their pension rights and accrued pensions. They lose only their right to vote for representatives in the Reichstag and the Prussian and Bavarian diets; their participation in self-government is much greater than that of the inhabitants of the District of Columbia! They gain the advantages of a governing body resident in the territory and familiar with its special needs, in place of an administration from Berlin and Munich. They also gain exemption from military service and other than local taxes, and from contribution to the German war indemnities, besides favorable adjustments of customs duties.

This system will have a fifteen years’ trial, at the end of which the people are to be called on to vote, district by district, as to their future political status. The alternatives will be reunion with Germany, union with France, or continuance under the League of Nations with such modifications of the regime as may be necessary to adapt it to permanent use. Voting is open to all of the age of twenty who were resident in the territory at the date of the signature of the treaty of Versailles, and to these only, so that all temptation to colonize voters is thus removed, whether on the French or on the German side. The League of Nations shall take the necessary measures to put these votes into effect, making such decisions as may be necessary to adjust boundaries, etc. In any portion of the territory which votes to return to Germany, the German government shall buy back the mines, so as to remove any danger of friction over their operation. No such purchase is required in territory which may become French or remain under the League.[40]

The territory of the Saar basin thus created by the treaty of Versailles and governed by the International Commission covers 700 square miles with a population of 650,000--more than the population of Rhode Island, with two-thirds the area. Its boundaries were carefully drawn so that, while following as far as possible the lines of existing administrative divisions, they should include only the region economically dependent on the coal of the basin. It takes in the valley of the Saar from the point below Sarreguemines where its right bank ceases to be French territory to Saarhölzbach, where the narrows of the mountains close in and the workmen’s trains stop. To the north it covers only the area for which coal concessions have been granted and within which local industries live from the coal, the whole being belted by a connecting series of railroad lines. On the east it enters the Palatinate sufficiently to include the coal mines along the border and the railroad junction of Homburg which links up the railroads of the eastern part of the basin. The territory has an economic unity, ignored by its previous administrative organization, but recognized by those familiar with local conditions. Petitions to join the Saar basin have since been made to the League of Nations by inhabitants of Britten, Losheim, Wadern, and Weisskirchen, which adjoin the district on the north in Prussia.

Whether the lot of the Saar territory will appear enviable to other neighboring districts, it is still too soon to say. In spite of the misrepresentation of this chapter of the treaty by German and pro-German writers, an examination of its provisions shows that the rights and interests of the inhabitants have been carefully safeguarded under international guarantees. Indeed their position has so many advantages as compared with their neighbors in France and Germany that there were those at Paris who predicted that the plebiscite of 1935 would declare for the maintenance of an independent status under the League of Nations, free from outside responsibilities, both military and fiscal. Undoubtedly the issues will be economic as well as political, and much of the success of the new regime will depend on the economic and social policy of the Governing Commission. During the delays of ratification and organization the labor legislation of the district necessarily stood still at the point reached at the time of the Armistice, and a considerable task of readjustment and reconstruction falls on the new Commission, in a region inhabited by a concentrated mining and industrial population with a strong local organization of its own. It should be noted that, besides the general obligation to consult a local legislative assembly, it is provided that “in fixing the conditions and hours of labor for men, women, and children, the Governing Commission is to take into consideration the wishes expressed by the local labor organizations, as well as the principles adopted by the League of Nations,”[41] so that a progressive policy is clearly laid down. Moreover, by virtue of its geographical position, the labor of the Saar should be able to secure conditions at least as favorable as in adjoining regions, while, with a plebiscite in view, the French state administration of the mines will have every reason to maintain good relations with the mining population. At the same time neither France nor the Commission will have any reason for holding back the production of coal or the general industrial development of the district in favor of the mines and factories of Westphalia. In any event the people of the Saar will be in a position to decide for themselves, district by district, after actual experience of the new regime; nor are they likely to welcome the proposal of an ardent revisionist of the treaty of Versailles, who, while admitting that the arrangements respecting the Saar should stand for ten years, would take away from the inhabitants all opportunity of voting as to their future.[42] If government by the League of Nations is as “odious” as the German delegates declared at Versailles, then ten years of it is as indefensible in principle as fifteen. But if perchance the League’s Commission should prove less odious than its enemies anticipate, the fact will be worth recording for the sake of the League as well as of the people directly concerned.

The government of the Saar basin by a commission of the League of Nations is a very interesting experiment in international administration. Granted the prompt organization of a League such as the treaty contemplates, this experiment in commission government has a fair chance of success, and while the difficulty has been rendered greater by delay, it is not insoluble. By its success or failure in such matters the League will be in large measure judged in western Europe. There is reason to believe that its effectiveness depends likewise largely upon such permanent activities. Its Assembly will meet rarely, its Council not frequently, only its secretariat and its administrative organs will be constantly at work, and it is their action that will bring the League home to the peoples under its immediate control. Curiously enough, those who were most eager for the programme of an ambitious League were the first to criticise the creation of such commissions and their tasks. But if one of the chief objects of such an organization is to promote world peace, surely the Franco-German frontier is an important point for it to watch. And if the League can ease the strain here by acting as a sort of shock-absorber, protecting at the same time the property rights of France and the personal rights of the inhabitants, it will serve another interest no less important than peace, namely the cause of justice. If the League is not ready for this test, it is certainly not ready to become a super-state. The super-state can wait, but justice and peace are matters of today.

* * * * *

The Saar Commission, the Governing Commission for the occupied territory, the new Central Rhine Commission, all are manifestations of international interest in the Franco-German frontier, and efforts to relieve the strain in this area of high national tension. The demilitarization of the Left Bank and the river and the guarantee of France against unprovoked aggression from the east are likewise plainly in the interest of international peace. Even the most definitely national measure of all, the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine, was called for, according to President Wilson, not only to right the wrong done by Prussia in 1871, but “in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.” The League of Nations in the valley of the Rhine is the symbol of a new order.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The history of the Left Bank is examined from various points of view by the Comité d’Etudes, i: _L’Alsace-Lorraine et la frontière du Nord-est_ (1918). E. Babelon, _Le Rhin dans l’histoire_ (Paris, 1916-17), is the fullest account from the point of view of the Rhine as the historical frontier of France. See also L. Madelin, in the _Revue des deux Mondes_, December 1, 1918; the pamphlets of Babelon, Driault, de Grailly, Milhaud, Stiénon, etc., issued in the same years; and the _enquête_ published by the _Libre Parole_ in February 1919. For a sane French criticism see Pfister, in _Revue historique_, cxxvi, pp. 334-338. A. Schulte, _Frankreich und das linke Rheinufer_ (Stuttgart, 1918), is largely a critique of French writers.

For the important period 1794-1814 the best German accounts are C. T. Perthes, _Politische Zustände und Personen in Deutschland zur Zeit der französichen Herrschaft_ (Bonn, 1862); and J. Hashagen, _Das Rheinland und die französische Herrschaft_ (Bonn, 1908). An excellent French monograph is Ph. Sagnac, _Le Rhin français pendant la Révolution et l’Empire_ (Paris, 1917). On Landau and Saarlouis, see Aulard, in _Revue de Paris_, March 15, 1919. J. Hansen (ed.), _Die Rheinprovinz 1815-1915_ (Bonn, 1917), is a comprehensive treatment of the Prussian period, with brief bibliographies. For a sketch of economic conditions, see Yves Guyot, _La province rhénane et la Westphalie_ (Paris, 1915). On the Palatinate, see H. Schreibmüller, _Bayern und die Pfalz, 1816-1916_ (Kaiserslautern, 1916).

The French side of the negotiations respecting the ‘guarantees’ on the Left Bank is given by A. Tardieu, in _L’Illustration_, February 14, 1920. Nothing has as yet been published by the British or American negotiators.

The commerce of the Rhine is well studied by E. J. Clapp, _The Navigable Rhine_ (Boston, 1911). Cf. P. Vidal de la Blache, _La France de l’Est_ (Paris, 1917); and the studies of de Martonne and Gallois in the volume of the _Comité d’Etudes_. For a Swiss view of the problem, see V. S. Rualens-Marlier, _Le Rhin libre_ (Paris and Neuchâtel, 1916).

* * * * *

In the Saar valley the events of 1814-15 are narrated by A. Ruppersberg, _Geschichte der Stadt Saarbrücken_ (Saarbrücken, 1913). Böcking’s correspondence will be found, with other important material, in A. Krohn, _Beiträge zur Geschichte der Saargegend_, in _Mitteilungen des historischen Vereins für die Saargegend_, viii (1901). Cf. F. Engerand, _L’Allemagne et le fer_ (Paris, 1916), ch. 2. For a general sketch, see E. Babelon, _Sarrelouis et Sarrebruck_ (Paris, 1918). Of the German literature touching this part of the treaty examples are F. Meinecke, _Geschichte der linksrheinischen Gebietsfragen_, with maps; and the articles in _Die Woche_, March 8, 1919.

On the Saar coal field, see _The Coal Resources of the World_ (Toronto, 1913); the _Atlas of Mineral Resources_ published by the U. S. Geological Survey; the study of Gallois, in _Travaux du Comité d’Etudes_, i, and _Annales de géographie_, July 15, 1919; E. de Margerie, in _Enquête sur les richesses minérales du Nord-est de la France et des régions voisines_, with maps (Paris, 1918); Friedrich A. Schmidt, _Der Saarkohlenbergbau in Lothringen_ (Strasburg diss., 1914); and the local geological surveys and mining reports. On the growth of manufactures, see J. Kollmann, _Die Grossindustrie des Saargebiets_ (Stuttgart, 1911).

* * * * *

An admirable presentation of the historical geography of the Left Bank will be found in the _Geschichtlicher Atlas der Rheinprovinz_ (Bonn, 1898-). For the frontiers of 1814 and 1815, see the _Atlas_ of the Comité d’Etudes.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Dietrich Schäfer, “Die deutsch-französische Sprachgrenze,” in _Internationale Wochenschrift_, vii, p. 19 (1912).

[32] Articles 354-362.

[33] Article 65.

[34] Articles 358-360.

[35] E. Denis, in _Travaux du Comité d’études_, i, p. 414.

[36] Articles 428-432.

[37] These treaties, the American one not yet ratified, and the agreements concerning occupation of the Rhine will be found in the _Supplement to the American Journal of International Law_, xiii, pp. 404-416.

[38] Facsimiles in _Atlas_ of the Comité d’Etudes.

[39] “Landau et Sarrelouis villes françaises,” in _Revue de Paris_, March 15, 1919.

[40] Articles 42-50 and annex, with official map.

[41] Annex to the Saar section of the treaty, § 23.

[42] Keynes, _The Economic Consequences of the Peace_, p. 263.

V

POLAND

Among all the results of the War and of the Peace Treaties, there is, perhaps, none which would have caused our forefathers greater joy or greater astonishment than the resurrection of Poland. It is heartening to dwell for a moment on the moral significance of this great event, and to recall what the name of Poland stood for down to the time when Bismarck banished sentiment from politics and attempted to exorcise the idea of an ‘immanent justice’ in history.

To every generation of the nineteenth century, down to 1870 at least, Poland furnished the supreme example both of what people then called ‘the crimes of despotism,’ and of a liberty-loving nation struggling with unsurpassed heroism against wellnigh insuperable odds. The restoration of Poland signified something more than the mere revival of a vanished state: it stood for the triumphant righting of the greatest political wrong that Europe had witnessed, the vindication of the principles of justice in international relations, a decisive victory for the cause of universal liberty. Hence the Polish cause called forth a unanimity of sympathy from all civilized nations which no other similar movement, not even the Italian one, was able to command. In England, France, and Italy, liberals, conservatives, and clericals alike--men of such diverse opinions as Gladstone and Disraeli, Montalembert and Victor Hugo, Mazzini and Pius IX--were very much of one mind with respect to Poland. In France particularly every success or reverse of the Polish cause was greeted as if it were a triumph or a defeat for France herself. It is said that after the fall of Warsaw in 1831 the gloom and consternation at Paris were greater than after Waterloo. Even in Germany Bismarck felt bound to reproach his compatriots of the 1848 period for being more concerned about the liberty of Poland than about their own national problem. There too people sang of Poland:

“Dein Sieg is ein Völkersieg, Dein Krieg ist ein heiliger Krieg.”

And from America also one might cite many expressions of such sentiments. Jefferson denounced the partition of Poland as a “baneful precedent,” a “crime,” and an “atrocity.” Henry Wharton called it “the most flagrant violation of natural justice and international law which has occurred since Europe first emerged from barbarism.”

But unanimous as was the opinion of the public regarding the justice of the Polish cause, among statesmen and politicians the idea was scarcely less general that from a practical standpoint that cause was hopeless. Lord Salisbury in a famous essay attempted to prove that the restoration of an independent Poland was “a mere chimera.” Guizot in his Memoirs demonstrated in his most magistral fashion that the difficulties in the way of the Polish patriots were incomparably greater than those that beset any other national movement: for here it was a question of liberating a people, not from one foreign oppressor, but from three, and those three the strongest military monarchies in Europe, permanently united by their common interest in keeping their victim enchained. No other power in Europe was strong enough to liberate Poland, and it was doubtful whether all the other powers together were strong enough to do so. At all events, the thing could not be done without a general war, involving the entire continent and upsetting the whole existing political system. And as time wore on, as one insurrection after another failed and one hope of foreign intervention after another proved delusive, the Poles themselves came to pin their faith chiefly to some such catastrophic solution. Sixty or seventy years before it came about, their poets began to prophesy a day of conflict such as the world had never yet seen, and in that day should Poland rise again and triumph. Mickiewicz, in that “Litany of the Polish Pilgrim” which is the most poignant expression both of the sufferings and of the undying hopes of his people, inserts the prayer:

“For a universal war for the freedom of the nations, We beseech Thee, O Lord.”

“The great far-off divine event,” thus dimly forecast, has been realized before our eyes. And however obdurate fate might hitherto have been to the Poles, it must be admitted that during the World War all things have worked together marvellously to serve the cause of Poland. By an irony of fortune, the Partitioning Powers themselves were the first to proclaim the principle of the restoration of Poland, although in half-hearted and ambiguous fashion. The Russian Revolution removed the great obstacle to an honest treatment of the Polish question by the Entente. Through President Wilson’s efforts, the principle of the restoration of a united and independent Poland was definitively and unequivocally inscribed among the war aims of the Allies; and the collapse of the Central Powers afforded the possibility of carrying out this principle with a completeness which two years ago few friends of Poland could have believed possible.

But granted that Poland was to be restored, what was Poland? What territory should it include, and what were its proper boundaries? As to such questions it may be doubted whether any Allied statesman or the public in any of the Allied countries two years ago had any very definite ideas. Italia Irredenta, Greater Greece, Greater Roumania, Yugo-Slavia, even Czecho-Slovakia--those were concepts simple and familiar in comparison with that of Poland reincarnate. For Poland had been erased from the map so long that it had come to be regarded as a name, a memory, a cause, rather than a country. Poland was a ghost roaming around in the Sarmatian plain, somewhere between Germany and Russia. But what were the limits of its habitat few persons knew, nor what this disembodied spirit would look like if clothed again in flesh and blood.