IN December, 1918, it was my privilege to be at the side of the eminent and patriotic President of France, M. Raymond Poincaré, for the official entry of the French into the historic capitals of Lorraine and Alsace. These ceremonies left an imperishable memory engraved upon my mind for their exalted spirit of devotion to country. Just as in the face of adverse circumstances, throughout many years, noble restraint had been shown by the French people while separated from these provinces, so it was now that they victoriously re-entered them. There appeared throughout those eventful days of December 8 to 10 great joy and gratitude commingled with sorrow for the losses endured, but never anything approaching the less noble expressions of a mere sense of triumph.
Along with my colleagues of the Diplomatic Corps I had been invited to join the party consisting, besides the President of the Republic, of the Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament, which left Paris in three special trains on the evening of December 7, to arrive in Metz early on the morning of the 8th.
While making the journey to these cities in Alsace and Lorraine, the painful contrast was shown between a country devastated by an invading army and one whose soil had not felt the foot of a hostile soldier upon it.
Along all the distance extending from Meaux to the very eastern boundary of France, and especially after entering the region of Château-Thierry, passing through Châlons, Bar-le-Duc, and Nancy, even from the car windows one might see the ruin wrought upon French towns by German bombs, shells, and charges of dynamite placed methodically. But across the line of the recovered provinces, there was no evidence that the scourge of war had visited the country, apart from the traces in one or two spots where the long-distance guns of the American artillery had hurled shells in the vicinity of Metz.
Sitting at table in the dining-car and viewing this uninvaded territory, with all its towns and farmhouses unmolested, I listened to Paul Deschanel, President of the Chamber of Deputies, as he made bitter comment upon the contrast between the two scenes. With that fine choice of words in which few are his equals, he spoke of the object lesson which it all taught and of "the added infamy which must forever rest upon German methods of warfare." His terms of denunciation might have been well calculated to support the desire for retaliation in kind which possessed no small part of the public sentiment, at the time of the signing of the Armistice.
The demonstrations at Metz and, for that matter, along the road at the smaller towns, brought ocular proof of the loyalty of the population. Enormous crowds thronged the streets and buildings on the line of march, giving the most cordial welcome to the representatives of the French Government.
The capital of Lorraine presented a stirring picture with baskets of flowers scattered everywhere, and garlands, oriflammes, and flags adorning every window when M. Poincaré and M. Clemenceau, accompanied by the Presidents of the Senate and of the Chamber of Deputies, and the members of the Government, set foot on the soil of Lorraine.
Marshal Foci was the one to greet the President of France and the Premier. This ceremony, extremely simple though it was, had a special grandeur because the Generalissimo saluted France in the name of all the Powers of the Entente, represented by their Generals-in-Chief and their Ambassadors.
I noted near me on the Esplanade de la République, as they bowed in a friendly gesture of respect before France, Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig and Lord Derby; General Albricci and M. Bonin-Longare; Generals Pershing, Liggett, and Bullard; General Gillard; General Hailer and many of the great French leaders who for fifty-two months had defended the soil and reconquered the lost provinces, Marshal Joffre, Marshal Pétain, Generals Gouraud, Fayolle, Debeney, Buat, de Castelnau, Anthoine, Mordacq.
But it was the next day at Strasbourg that a veritable fête day had been planned for the party, doubtless largely due to the greater size and population of the Alsatian capital.
As our train drew into the handsome station, we were greeted by vast throngs to do honour to the first party of distinguished Frenchmen who, since the beginning of the war, had been privileged to set foot in that city. High local officials received us, and joyous shouts of "Vive la France! Vive Poincaré! Vive Clemenceau!" came from ten thousand throats of wildly enthusiastic people lining the streets and public places.
After visiting the Hôtel de Ville and the famous Cathedral, we witnessed for more than two hours in steady procession a most remarkable parade----if such it may be called---differing in character from anything I had ever seen before. It had, in fact, a character of its own, as it seemed to partake neither of the French nor of the German kind of manifestation. Besides various military features, there were representatives of many civic bodies and a seemingly endless procession of Alsatian girls. These last were dressed in native costumes, though some represented much earlier times in the history of the country, marching along in distinctive groups each comprising ten or a dozen of these young women. The changing sheens of the great silk bows as the only headgear made a picture which might be the envy of an artist. Designed in various colours, these great bows---some of them having a width of two feet---as they bobbed up and down in the dancing motion of their wearers looked like the most wonderfully hued butterflies. Some were golden, others scarlet red; some blue and others of seemingly every colour of the rainbow. This, added to the quaint picturesque bodices worn by these Alsatian maidens, made a scene of beauty unforgettable for those who were privileged to witness it.
What a prophetic fulfilment was brought by this scene, of the solemn declaration made nearly fifty years before by the fathers of these sons and daughters gaily parading before me! On March 1, 1871, upon quitting the National Assembly, then holding sessions at Bordeaux, which had been charged with the grave task of making a forced peace with Germany and had consented to the surrender of Alsace and a part of Lorraine, the Deputies of those provinces had unanimously voiced a protest which is worth repeating. It showed their undying loyalty and devotion to France, and, at the same time, a sublime faith in the coming of the time when they should be as a reunited family:
"We declare once more," these Deputies said, "null and void a pact disposing of us without our consent, the revendication of our rights remains forever open to each and all within the power and limits dictated to us by our conscience. At the time of leaving this room where our dignity forbids our further stay, and despite the bitterness of our grief, the supreme thought deep in our minds is of gratitude towards those who for six months have not ceased to defend us, and of unalterable attachment to the mother country from which we are torn by violence. We shall follow you in our wishes of welfare and shall wait, confident in the future, to see a regenerated France resuming the course of her great destiny.
"Your brothers of Alsace and Lorraine, who are severed for the time being from the common family, will treasure a filial affection for absent France, in anticipation of the day when they shall be brought together again."
If there ever had existed any doubt, in the minds of those who now visited these liberated cities, as to the sentiments of their people toward France after nearly a half-century of enforced separation, the spontaneous enthusiasm and almost frenzied joy of the masses of humanity which packed the streets and public places dispelled the last vestiges of uncertainty. The depth of feeling displayed would be difficult to describe by the use of mere words. Perhaps the mutual joy which is to be found at the reunion of the members of a family long separated might most suitably describe the feelings shown by these people. When President Poincaré in one of his speeches said, " The Plebiscite is an accomplished fact," he gave expression to a truth amply demonstrated in every incident of this historic occasion.
As I stood in my place on the reviewing stand but a few feet away from President Poincaré and Premier Clemenceau, to both of whom almost constant cries of salutation were being addressed by those in the procession, I thought I had never viewed in my life anything so inspiring.
Looking across the line of march, and away beyond the open place so packed with people that the tree-tops were filled with them, rising in the majesty of its splendid proportions to a height of nearly five hundred feet stood the tower-like spire of the Cathedral of Strasbourg, to which its history dating back to medieval times, coupled with its famous clock, have drawn the tourists of the world. As if to give its benign approval to the results which had eventuated in this ceremony, there waved from its very top a great flag in the tricolour of France.
It had been almost fifty years since that flag could have been permitted to display its graceful folds from that temple of worship. It was indeed not a little gratifying to see that, amidst the thousands of the flags of the French Republic which decorated the buildings throughout the city, our own American flag was conspicuous enough to be noticed with great frequency. And well it might, for was it not the brave bearers of that flag from far across the seas who, at the signing of the Armistice, were the ones nearest to the border line of that enemy which had separated these Alsatian people for so long a time from their mother country? Were there not myriads of little mounds marking the last resting-place of many of those same heroes, dotting the hillsides of the Argonne, who had died in their attempt to make possible the consummation of what this day meant?
From such emblems floating everywhere above my head, I was made to feel that in that very hour of triumph these people of Strasbourg and Metz had not forgotten America.
During all the time covering my official, as well as what may be termed personal, acquaintance with President Poincaré, I had never seen him so happy as during the hours of this visit to the cities of Alsace and Lorraine. While amiability and kindliness of manner may be said always to characterize his conduct in meeting others, yet time and again during great functions, whether at the Sorbonne and the Trocadero, with their huge seating capacities, or on the open stand reviewing the passing of troops---and I have seen him not a few times on such occasions---I have noticed expressions of deep sorrow on his face, indicative, I might almost say, of gloom. One could not help but feel that his heart was heavy with the grave responsibilities, the outcome of which at times seemed so much in doubt. But now all had been changed. The regaining of Alsace and Lorraine was, to use his own words, indeed an accomplished fact.
During one of these scenes incidental to the usual speech-making---which was a part of the programme of the day at Strasbourg---the great crowd present was as much surprised as it was moved to see the President, at the conclusion of his remarks, turn round and, pressing the rugged form of Clemenceau to his bosom, kiss him ardently---French fashion---first on one cheek and then on the other. A most audible form of approval went up at this manifestation of what they took to be a genuine reconciliation between two men who before, according to those believed to be in a position to know, had shown mutual distrust and dislike, probably born of old-time antagonisms.
An incident quite as unique as it was unexpected was to close the ceremonies of the day which, be it said to the credit of those having charge of the programme, had been well arranged and quite faithfully carried out. Singularly enough, it appears to have been overlooked in retrospective dealings with this event, although the fact that it was not reported upon in papers at the time is explicable for obvious reasons.
Though the map shows Strasbourg as located on the Rhine, yet, as a matter of fact, it is situated about two miles inland. I think many of the visitors in the Presidential party looked forward to the last item on the programme-that of crossing the big bridge over the Rhine at that point into Germany-as the culminating feature. As the days were rapidly shortening at that season of the year, but little time was left, after the rest of the programme had been finished, to cross the river within the hours of daylight. Rapid progress was therefore made by the procession of automobiles which carried our party from the city to the edge of the great bridge. Here, dismounting, the procession headed by President Poincaré and Premier Clemenceau, walking side by side, followed by the Marshals and a thousand or so of high Army officers and dignitaries, started to cross.
As it had been many years since I had last seen this celebrated waterway of Germany, I looked down from the high level of the bridge on to the swiftly flowing river, with many pleasant reminiscences of my former acquaintance with it. I think it was General Pershing who was near my side at the time.
Suddenly, to the surprise of everybody, at a point in the middle of the bridge, we ran squarely up against a barricade of timbers which had been placed across its entire width. Behind this barricade stood an armed German sentinel. If any of us expected that this sentinel would step aside with that affability and politeness which would have characterized every Frenchman in such a place, in the presence of such distinguished personages as the President of the Republic and the Premier, we were to be quickly disillusioned. Nothing of the kind. With a display of no more politeness than was absolutely necessary, he informed his distinguished interrogators, who asked permission to pass, that while the Armistice had stated that the Allies might enter Germany over specific routes, the Strasbourg bridge had not been specifically mentioned; he flatly refused to heed any of the reasons invoked against this, alleging that he had been instructed by the German Military Authorities to allow no one to proceed across the bridge beyond that point; he must follow his instructions and any violation of them would be in contravention of the terms of the Armistice.
It was evident that only the exhibition of force would enable our party to proceed further. But this was the juncture at which M. Clemenceau, in his rugged and forceful manner, yet, withal, that politeness which seems never to desert a Frenchman, said to the German guard:
"If that be so, we will show you with how much greater respect France treats the inviolability of her agreements than her enemy," and turning upon his heel he left the guard standing alone. He was followed by the entire procession with President Poincaré, the Marshals of France, the Diplomatic Corps, and all the officers and officials, who walked back the three miles to the centre of the town without putting foot on that particular German soil. More than one hundred and fifty men had stood close enough to overhear every word of what had passed. It was an occasion when it was indeed interesting to be behind the censor. But it cannot be denied that the party, as it proceeded back, was not a little disappointed at this sudden change in its plans.
That night, after repairing to its comfortable quarters on the train at the station, the party left for Colmar and Mulhouse, as the noteworthy points of its third and last day in Alsace and Lorraine.
As I reviewed the remarkable scenes which characterized my visit to a country which nearly a half-century before had been exacted as a war tribute by a conquering nation, and then as I remembered how from a hundred rostrums I had heard the most brilliant of French orators proclaim that the return of Alsace and Lorraine to France was the sine qua non which alone would signalize the triumph of her cause, a new significance attached itself to the things I had just seen take place before my very eyes.
Perhaps if there had been any one slogan which was used by French orators, and for that matter by writers in the Press, almost to the exclusion of any other during all the war, it was that which called for the return of Alsace and Lorraine---the righting of the wrong of 1871. And yet, as I recall the early formation of this Article of Faith into a concrete expression, its place as one of the indispensable conditions of the war on the part of France was the result of development.
From this I would not have the reader infer that such a proposition had not from the very beginning been in the minds of the people, but rather its finally accepted status had not then really advanced to the position which it attained as the war progressed.
I remember one occasion when before a great audience, M. Viviani, former president of the Council, in the masterly manner of oratory for which he is noted, boldly proclaimed in effect that the wrong committed by Germany in forcibly taking Alsace and Lorraine should be righted; that until those provinces had again been returned to France his country would fight on-"jusqu'au bout," The memory of that wrong had been kept alive all those years in the minds of every Frenchman; it did not need the mute reminder in the form of the statue representing Strasbourg in the Place de la Concorde to keep it alive : "France Quand Même."
Uttered as were these words of M. Viviani as though in living fire, I could not bring myself to believe that, at the time when they were delivered, there was a universal confidence in their fulfilment. The fortunes of war had not yet turned sufficiently to augur such a result.
It was in answer to this contention on the part of France that the German Government reiterated the oft-repeated claim that, as these provinces had originally belonged to Germany, having been taken by force away from her by French arms under Louis XIV, that wrong had only been righted by the result of the war of '70 to '71. It was insisted upon that the fulfilment of that justice furnished the motive for restoring that territory to its original rightful owner---Germany.
However, a refutation of this claim as dramatic as it was unexpected was furnished in a most unusual manner. Standing in the rostrum before a great audience in the amphitheatre of the Sorbonne,(1) the scene of many demonstrations growing out of the war, M. Pichon, Minister for Foreign Affairs, at the conclusion of a remarkably able speech, took from the table before him a letter, the reading of which furnished a climax which not only moved his great audience but, on the following day, excited widespread comment throughout the Press of France, The Minister held in his hand a copy of a letter which had been written from Versailles by Emperor William I to the Empress Eugénie, then unfortunately a virtual prisoner in Paris. The letter was in the Emperor's own handwriting, in French, and read as follows:
Letter from the King of Prussia to Empress Eugénie.
MADAME,
I have received the letter which Your Majesty was so good as to address to me and which evoked memories of the past which I cannot recall without regrets.
No one deplores more than I the blood shed in this war which Your Majesty well knows was not provoked by me.
Ever since the opening of hostilities, my constant preoccupation has been to make every effort to restore for Europe the benefits of Peace, if the means thereto were afforded me by France. An understanding would have been easy as long as the Emperor Napoleon considered himself authorized to negotiate, and my Government did not refuse to discuss the proposals of Jules Favre offering him the means to restore Peace to France.
When at Ferrières negotiations seemed to be opened in the name of Your Majesty, a warm reception was given them and all facilities were granted to Marshal Bazaine to take contact with Your Majesty, and when General Boyer came here, it was still possible to reach an arrangement, provided the preliminary conditions could be fulfilled without delay, but the time passed without the indispensable guarantees being given for entering into negotiations.
I love my country, Madame, as you love yours, and consequently understand the bitterness which fills the heart of Your Majesty and feel sincere sympathy for you. But after having made immense sacrifices for her defence, Germany wants to be assured that the next war will find her better prepared to repel the aggression upon which we can count as soon as France shall have restored her strength and gained Allies.
It is the said consideration alone, and not the desire to extend our native land whose territory is already large enough, which compels me to insist upon cessions of territory which have no other aim than to move farther away the starting point of a French army which might come to attack us in the future.
I am unable to judge if Your Majesty was authorized to accept in the name of France the conditions demanded by Germany, but I believe that by doing so you would have spared for your country much suffering and would have preserved from anarchy a nation whose Emperor had for twenty years succeeded in developing its prosperity.
Pray believe, Madame, in the sentiments with which I remain,
Your Majesty's good brother,
WILLIAM.Versailles, October 25, 1870.
The electrifying effect of the reading of such a message sent, nearly a half-century before, by one who was in a better position than any other man in the world to be the voice of his country, can well be imagined. Its force lost none of its effect from the powerful manner in which M. Pichon made this exposé of the real purpose of Germany in those fateful days of '70 and '71. It was then not for the purpose of righting a great historic wrong, but of furnishing a military barrier which should be as a protecting buffer from any future wars directed from the west against Germany.
Whether at that time material calculation had also entered into the seizing of these provinces, pre-dating the period of the greatly enhanced value, as a national asset, of deposits of iron, coal, and potash, may be questioned. That long before the beginning of the World War, however, Germany had come to realize the value of the natural resources in that direction which these provinces possessed, had become too apparent to be questioned. In fact, any thought of their possible surrender was taken by the economic writers of Germany as a forerunner of the destruction of her industrial position. The " Never" of Von Kuhlmann had indeed far greater force back of it, for these economic reasons, than even those so frankly expressed by Emperor William I nearly a half-century before.
The story of the procuring of this letter is an interesting one, and I have never seen it in print. M. Hugenschmidt, a gentleman who enjoys the friendship of the aged Empress herself, now residing, as for many years past, in England,(2) and in her ninetieth year, is responsible for the following narrative.
Visiting me at my office one day soon after M. Pichon had in such a sensational manner given publicity to the letter, M. Hugenschmidt handed me a photographic copy of the original and informed me that he had, as a matter of fact, brought its existence to the attention of the French Government, He then related how he had, a short time before, mentioned to M. Clemenceau that the Empress had shown to him an original letter written to her by the German Emperor. Realizing the importance of its publication upon the vital issues then at stake, Premier Clemenceau urged him to see if he could not get the consent of the Empress to this publication. Visiting England soon after, M. Hugenschmidt brought the matter to her attention. At first she declined to allow the use of the letter for publication. When told, however, of the benefit that might result from such action for her country, she said to him, "If that is true, as a lover of France, the letter shall be placed at my country's service." This was done, with the result which I have mentioned.(3)
Few if any stranger things have come out of this war than that at the end of a half-century from the time this letter was written, the world-changing events should by their inexorable decrees bring forth from the very chamber, perhaps, in which that letter was written, a document which should serve to take away again from Germany that protecting barrier which a conquering Emperor had sought to provide for its security.
On one afternoon there came by appointment to the Embassy a delegation made up of a distinguished personnel of Alsatians, carrying with them several volumes, beautifully bound.
This visit had been preceded by a letter dated October 29, 1918, from M. C. Wurtz, Councillor of State, in his capacity as President of the Committee for the Address of the Alsatians and Lorrainers to President Wilson.
Writing in the name of M. Jules Cambon and asking me to grant them an audience, he went on to recall that in January, 1918 President Wilson had spoken words regarding the future and the rights of Alsace and Lorraine which had deeply moved the hearts of his compatriots. The initiative had therefore been taken, notably, by Mme. Brun and Mme. Lauth-Bossert of Lorraine, who wrote the address of thanks "to the illustrious statesman who has thus asserted the prerogatives of our native land, Alsace and Lorraine." This address, with a Preface by M, Welshinger, Member of the Institute of France, was supplemented by no less than 700,000 signatures of those who sent the expression of the unchangeable will of Alsatians and Lorrainers to have Alsace and Lorraine come back to their mother country. The text of the address was as follows
"The Alsatians and Lorrainers residing in France, in their name and on behalf of their brothers still kept under foreign bondage, unite in an impulse of deep gratitude to thank President Wilson for his intervention in favour of Alsace and Lorraine, so greatly oppressed, and to assert once more their unalterable will to have Alsace and Lorraine come back to the mother country."
M. Wurtz went on to explain that in order to secure as many authentic signatures as possible, comprising Alsatians and Lorrainers having the blood in their veins, that is to say who were born in the Departments annexed by the Germans in 1871 or whose ancestors were born there, hundreds of thousands of forms were printed and sent round. It was these forms, all duly signed, which had been gathered together in a golden book, the first volume bearing a bronze medal representing the twin profiles of Alsace and Lorraine, which was destined for President Wilson and which I was requested to transmit to him.
It was explained to me that this work had been of a strictly private character, no official intervention had been admitted, although the approval of the Government of the French Republic had necessarily been secured. All the signatures had been freely given, anything that could offer even an idea of coercion being carefully avoided. For this reason no forms were sent to reconquered Alsace under the jurisdiction of French officers, where some 35,000 additional signatures could readily have been secured ; nor in the concentration camps where Alsatians and Lorrainers were housed; nor among prisoners of war, figured at some 15,000; nor yet among the 25,000 young men who had left Alsace and Lorraine at the time of the declaration of war and had enlisted in the French Army; nor in the regiments where many officers and soldiers born in Alsace and Lorraine would gladly have given their signatures. All these and others had been deliberately set aside, rather than run the risk of a charge from Germany that one single signer of the address lacked spontaneity.
It clearly appeared from this and innumerable other manifestations that the question of the return of Alsace and Lorraine had its champions not only among the statesmen of France during the sunny as well as stormy days of the war, but had furthermore the ardent support of those who, born in those departments before the Franco-Prussian War, had moved away as young men rather than remain subjects of the conqueror. Their devotion to a cause which was never looked upon by them as lost, bordered on the pathetic. In public meetings, in touching ceremonies made under the most sentimental circumstances, they declared for the restoration to the mother country of the severed provinces.
One of the most prominent of the leaders in this movement was M. Jules Siegfried, member of the Chamber of Deputies from Havre. He had been born eighty-two years before, in the city of Mulhouse, a fact which his residence in France for more than forty years never permitted him to forget. Tall, erect, and as well preserved as any man twenty years his junior, he seemed never to tire in advancing the cause of either his beloved mother province of Alsace or his Protestantism. It was his delight to tell Americans that he had in his early manhood visited the City of Washington and there had accepted the hospitality of President and Mrs. Lincoln at the White House.
Describing this incident, he said to me : "I was naturally very desirous to see the Chief Executive of a great country like America. Having such letters of introduction as permitted me to be received by the President, I was one day ushered into his room where he was at work. Instead of sitting at his desk, he was standing up at a high desk or table on which lay before him the sheets on which he had been writing. Before he had greeted me, in hastily scanning the room I recall seeing something that made a vivid impression on my memory. It was a pair of high boots that would have seemed to be high enough to reach far above the knees of a man of ordinary stature. Coming forward to shake hands with me, President Lincoln made me feel at home very quickly. A few moments later I was privileged to meet Mrs. Lincoln, who was very cordial to me."
Not being satisfied with simply seeing the President of the United States, young Siegfried was fired with the ambition to see a real live American Indian. He was told that he could not gratify his ambition short of going to the North-West as far as Minneapolis. Nothing daunted, he made the trip and told me with great pleasure of how he journeyed down the Mississippi river from that city to an island, where he saw a few specimens of the Red Man in all his native glory.
The distinguished Deputy made his second visit to America exactly forty years after his first, and he now cherishes the hope that he may be permitted to make a third visit in sixty years' time from the date of his first.
Discussing with him on one occasion, during the weeks of the Peace Conference, his views on the future of these provinces, I found him full of faith. Contrary to what might have been expected from one whose home country had suffered so much during so many years, he did not believe that its prosperity would be advanced by using unduly harsh measures toward the German elements of the population. He declared his belief in the nationalizing of those who had married Alsatian women and whose property interests, as well as their inclination, would augur for their loyalty toward the country in which many of them had lived all their lives.
I found this generous as well as optimistic outlook about Alsace and Lorraine to be widespread among those in a position to know conditions there.
A letter from Prefect Mirman,(4) dated from the Préfecture de la République at Metz, April 14, 1919, gave me interesting details.
He said that the extreme and spontaneous joy of the Lorrainers in becoming French once again had not only been pathetic but had even surpassed all the hopes of France. The entire state of public sentiment in Lorraine as well as in Alsace brought a further proof that Germany by entering and reigning as a master there had caused herself to be hated, there being " an absolute incompatibility between her moral sensitiveness and that of our race." Furthermore, during the long years of the war, the Germans seemed to have gone out of their way to irritate the local population by a minuteness of vexatious measures surpassing anything which a healthy imagination was capable of conceiving. He gave two instances as follows:
I recently made the acquaintance of Abbé Etienne, an old white-haired priest from the environs of Metz. On August 1, 1914, he was arrested and thrown into prison at Mayence, together with his old sister who died there. His crime? He confessed it to me, and here it is:
Some little time before the war he had just finished a catechism lesson for Lorraine and German children when, passing through the church, he heard two of them commenting on his words.
The little Lorrainer was saying to the little Boche: 'The curé has just been talking to us about Paradise. Do you know where Paradise is?' The child of Germania replied with assurance: 'It is somewhere in Prussia,' The old curé was indignant, less as a priest than as a Frenchman, I imagine. He exclaimed: ' Paradise in Prussia? Shut up, you little fool ! ' This was a rash protest, a crime of lèse-niajesté. He soon got proof of it. Such a man was judged to be dangerous, and on August 1 he was imprisoned. This is not an invention, my dear Mr. Sharp. It is the exact narrative made to me yesterday, with scornful disdain in his voice, by this aged and holy white-haired priest.
Here is another example: During the war, it was absolutely forbidden to speak French, and the German professors basely quizzed Lorraine pupils, endeavouring to secure admissions of a nature to compromise their parents; and it was forbidden to write any street-sign in French. Emile Dupont the baker, Auguste Durand the carpenter, had to Germanize their Christian names by erasing the painted E. Even before our return, these proscribed letters E reappeared in brand-new condition on the battered old signs. This prohibition even extended to the cemeteries. A mayor in Lorraine told me that having lost his little boy Georges during the war, he was compelled to inscribe the name on the tomb in German, 'Georg.' But the German authorities having observed that he had left enough space to restore the letters ' es ' some day, he was forced to erase the entire inscription and was condemned to two weeks in prison.
There were other instances of the kind which contributed to make the Germans simply hated in their efforts to demonstrate their moral superiority. Lorrainers and Alsatians are of the same race, the same family, the same mind, the same sensitiveness as the French, and the fibres of their heart and soul are the same. When the Boches tried to win them gracefully they disgusted them, when they tried to conquer them by force they exasperated them into resistance."
The political future of Alsace and Lorraine was viewed without apprehension by Prefect Mirman, saying that the numerous German workmen, employees, and artisans who would remain would rapidly fuse with the French population, they would not be interfered with and the only thing asked of them would be to remain peaceful ; as for German "intellectuals," they would be not expelled but repatriated. The commercial and industrial problem was envisaged by him as depending, to a great extent, upon the English and the Americans who before the war, while esteeming France in other domains, had under-estimated her industrial initiative, but had learned better and recognized their error during the war, and whose help and sympathy would thenceforth be needed by France for her recovered provinces as well as for herself.
"Germany," he wrote, "kept her mines intact while systematically destroying a great part of ours. For long years to come we shall be in a condition of inferiority in regard to Germany on most of the markets of the world. Will the ideas superior to the interests of the day, the permanent ideas which are the sole real conquest of honour, the ideas of justice, asserted by the United States as the noblest of champions, be satisfied, if upon those markets mutilated France is treated exactly like the aggressor who deliberately reduced her to a condition of inferiority in production?
For any who had visited devastated France as I had done, there could be but one answer to such a question.
Despite the many changes which have occurred since the days of the Revolution, a sojourner among the French people is made to feel that the great principles which were enunciated at that time are still those by which the conduct of her people is squared. In their behaviour toward each other I have never seen exhibited that pompousness which wealth or social position sometimes begets, and this though it may be some important member of the Government accosted by the humblest labourer on the street. Someone has said that a Spaniard would prefer to have his request for a favour politely refused than rudely granted. As applied to the Frenchman, this might be an extreme illustration; but the manner in which he would ask such a favour would in any event compel a polite answer. Whether one is asked the time of day by some hastily passing errand-boy, the direction to a street desired by the stranger, or the slightest kind of other attention, the feeling of appreciation which invariably is shown in return for its granting is but consistent with that conduct which, like a magnet, irresistibly draws one's sympathy and affection to these people. The desire to please is inborn among them.
It is my belief that the attributes of her people, which have given to France the affection as well as the confidence of all those who sojourn among them, are the outgrowth of their religion. Most certainly, in their greatest crisis, the people of France were unshaken in the principles of their faith. But this faith had existed as a national asset for centuries before. The Great War only tested how firm were its foundations. It has remained for Maurice Barrès, briefly quoted in a previous chapter, to tell how great was the measure of that faith among the soldiers at the Front---and it was one faith, whether of a Marshal Foch, a General de Castelnau, or the humblest poilu.
The gifted Barrès has seen as few others the workings of that faith through the many letters of soldiers written from the trenches. I should like all my readers to possess this little book, The Faith of France, an autographed copy of which was presented to me by the author, with its scores of letters penned in some instances to give the last messages of soldiers, and all indicative of the deep spiritual grip of their nature. But it was the expression of a religion higher than any one denomination, sect, or creed.
The wonderful spirit that pervaded France was of course due first of all to devotion to country, but secondly to the Church. When saying the Church I mean all religion but more particularly the Roman Catholic Church of which more than ninety-seven per cent. of the people of France are members.(5) Consequently, the Church of Rome exercised a great influence on the victory of France and of the Allies. The various French Cardinals at Rheims and elsewhere, as well as the Archbishops and Bishops, were of constant service to the soldiers. More than twenty-five thousand of the French Roman Catholic Clergy served as soldiers on the battle-line.(6)
I have seen Cardinal Amette before a great concourse of people, whether at Notre Dame or the Madeleine, give utterance to truths as patriotic as they were statesmanlike. On one occasion at Notre Dame, when all my diplomatic colleagues had been invited, in conjunction with Cardinal Luçon, the martyr of Rheims, he discussed the momentous questions concerning the nations in such a manner as to reflect the greatest credit upon his country and his Church. At the Church of the Oratoire, I have heard the eloquent preacher and my good friend, Pastor Wagner, express in no less forceful manner the allegiance of the Protestants to the great cause. The death of Wagner, in the midst of his usefulness, was a personal loss to me, as I had learned to know and to love him through his world-famous book, The Simple Life.
One of the last functions of a public character in which I participated and spoke, reading at the time the greetings of President Wilson, was before an immense audience at the Trocadero, given under the auspices of the Protestant Churches of France. One of the many touching farewells which came to me on my leave-taking of my mission was one signed by those who had been most active in the cause of Protestantism.
It was indeed the important part which the Church--- and I again speak of all denominations---played in crystallizing and unifying the forces of the French nation in the prosecution of the war that caused me, in one of my dispatches to the Department, to give special prominence to this factor. I had been asked by the Department of State to give my views at that particular time upon the relative strength of certain political elements in France. I had prefaced, in my dispatch, a consideration of the different phases of that subject by giving an outline of some of the factors which, in my judgment, must exert a powerful influence upon the strength and purpose of those different elements.
Twenty years ago, as the result of the crystallization of a sentiment which had existed in powerful political circles for many years, the Church was separated from the State, and its property confiscated. Certainly no event has occurred since that period which has done so much to soften the hostility toward the Church as the lessons of the war. The visit to Rome of Cardinals Amette and Luçon has been the sequel. The sacrifice and patriotism of those devoted to its service have disarmed its critics in the high as well as the low places of public influence. One might well have asked if, out of it all, a representative of the Vatican would not be again received by the French Foreign Office.(7)
But there was another feature in French life to which I also called attention in my dispatch to the Department. I am sure that next to the proverbial politeness of manner, the evidence of goodwill and desire to please, to which I have referred, the quality of the French people which most impresses the stranger is that of their intellectual acumen,
Ambassador Sharp to the State Department.
Paris, September 14, 1918.
THE HONORABLE
THE SECRETARY OF STATE,
Washington.SIR:
One cannot but be impressed, in traveling throughout France, with the thought that all her people have a joint proprietary interest in her prosperity---in her very soil. This feeling of a sort of co-ownership and common responsibility permeates the people, from the industrious little shopkeeper and the tireless worker on the small fields up to the most important men at the head of the big enterprises of the country. There has never been the tramp nuisance such as we know it in America. Such a people will not lightly destroy the pillars which support their own temples. These self-interests, so diversified in their nature, must account in no little measure for that love of country and patriotism which have so distinguished France in this war.
But it cannot be denied that there exists a kind of provincialism which has kept them from commingling with and settling among other peoples of the world---certainly to a degree unknown by any other European nation. It was M. Cambon who said to me one day, when I spoke of the remarkable thrift and economy of the French people, that he feared that for the proper development of his country there was too much of it; that contentment came with too little achievement, and that the big things in a people's development I were lost sight of in too much fixedness of purpose in attaining the small things.
Indeed, the system of "dots" in the nature of dowries, which each young woman is supposed to possess before her marriage, has had the effect from time almost immemorial of stimulating the desire to have the size of that "dot" as large as possible. The result has been, in part due to this system, the limitation of the size of families, a misfortune far-reaching in every phase of national life, social, economic, and even military. Then, too, the large licence fee which I understand the Government imposes for the marriage ceremony only adds to this burden. Even within the past few months a Society embracing some of the members of the Chamber of Deputies has been formed to bring about conditions which will have for their purpose to call the attention of the people of France to this deplorable condition.(8)
But thrift and an inborn desire to save are qualities no more characteristic of the French than is their appreciation of knowledge. One of the first impressions that must come to a sojourner in France is the degree of respect shown to men of learning, and the high places accorded them in the popular mind. While accounts of those who would come under the head in America of "Captains of Industry," men of great achievement in the industrial and financial world, are given but scant space in the books, magazines, and press, stories of the scientist, of the man of letters, and of the idealist fill pages. Since the days of the Revolution, idealism has not lost its hold upon the French mind. It has never been stronger than to-day, nor perhaps, withal, more rational. However, it may still lack something of the Anglo-Saxon staidness.
In no other country is the daily paper more widely read than in France. With its 2,500,000 readers, the Petit Parisien has probably a larger circulation than that of all the big New York dailies combined. Nearly a score of other daily Parisian papers also enjoy a large circulation. Magazines, brochures, pamphlets, are issued in great numbers. Indeed, I believe that this wide dissemination of knowledge among the masses has inevitably tended to a rationalism in the advocacy of principles and in the very conception of ideals themselves. Such a condition is bound to exert a marked influence upon any future popular actions, and will differentiate them from the extreme radicalism of past revolutionary movements. It is a force worth taking into consideration in seeking properly to gauge the position which the country will take, in meeting the grave problems attending the settlement of the war.
More perhaps as influencing after-war conditions than as shaping war and peace policies which must go before, should be mentioned the place which religion and the Church occupy in the life and politics of France. The student of history of thirty years ago, as it concerns the agitation of the State against the Church, and, later, the radical measures adopted in forcing their separation, might well be frankly astounded at the exhibition of patriotism and devotion to country on the part of the leading exponents of the Church. The distress of France, the perils of her exalted principles, her very freedom as a nation, have brought into a common melting-pot the patriotic devotion of the clerical and anti-clerical. Old religious prejudices promise to become but the discarded dross in such a fiery process.
The devout Catholic and heroic General de Castelnau, who played such a conspicuous part in beating back the Bavarians in their attempt to join other German invaders at the Valley of the Marne, has lost three sons in the cause. The aged patriarch Denys Cochin, Catholic member of a former War Ministry and prominent Churchman, has given two of his three sons to the same cause, and so on down the long list. Marshal Foch goes to early morning prayer in his church before each day's battle.
To-day, it is an eloquent Protestant preacher, in the presence of the President of the Republic and high officials of the Government, preaching a war funeral sermon over the body of the Swiss Counsellor of the Legation, killed by a German shell; to-morrow one attends a great meeting in Notre Dame, where ten thousand people gather to hear the exhortations of the eminent Cardinal Amette and the heroic Luçon---the devoted Cardinal of Rheims---to undying allegiance to France and her cause.
A thousand churches and ancient cathedrals erected by the zeal of the priesthood in the times of Catholic France daily shelter multitudes of worshippers, among whom are a great number of soldiers returning for a brief respite from the front, From Marseilles to Havre, from Lorraine to the west coast of Brittany, I have seen this manifestation of faith by the people in a Higher Power, which is as moving as it is prophetic of the triumph of the principles to which they have given such allegiance. Prophetic, too, not only of a deeper religious national life, but of a more tolerant spirit among men to follow after the close of this horrible war drama. The best blood of the brave sons of Royalists also has been poured in this Holy Grail of sacrifice. To-day the masses speak and think in but the terms of the Republic.
I believe, too, that the mass of French people are longing for the time to come, growing out of the conclusion of the war, when there can be established a super-national authority as justiciar between the peoples. Everybody recognizes that treaties as heretofore made and observed between nations have proved a failure to prevent the recurrence of war. Radical innovations must be made in the method of dealing with international disputes. Some central authority, super-national in character, must be created by the consent of the Powers willing to recognize its decrees. Naturally, a police power must be given to that authority.
As an individual citizen of a country must surrender some of his natural liberties---those only to be used in a state of savagery---for the common good of society, that the weak may not be the prey of the strong, so nations themselves must abandon that kind of natural liberty (so championed by the doctrines of a Bernhardi and exemplified in this war by the militarists of Germany), for the future peace and security of the world.
Such, I believe, is the conviction that has come to the war-weary people of France, and on the very awfulness of this war, in its horrors and atrocities, they base their hope of realization for a permanent peace on some such plan, invoking the power of a super-national authority for its success.
The most casual observer must realize that this war has indissolubly linked together the future aspirations of France and America. The ties that bind are peculiarly strong, and I do not recall, in the reading of history, where just such a relation between nations has before existed. The sojourn in France of our own boys in such numbers for so long a time, and their intimate contact with the people, will bring France much nearer to our shores. It is my hope and belief that the example set by the peoples of the two Republics will become the leaven which will permeate all Europe with the desire for greater national freedom and the attainment of higher ideals of human government.
I have the honor to be, Sir ,
Your obedient servant,
WM. G. SHARP.