Alsace-Lorraine

The problem of Alsace-Lorraine is in a very real sense an American problem. We entered this war to help crush the Teutonic scheme of world domination and to free the democratic nations of the earth from the menace of militaristic autocracy. Any issue which involves these fundamental causes of American intervention in the great struggle must command the careful attention of every thoughtful American citizen.

Alsace and Lorraine provide just such an issue. In 1871 these provinces were forcibly torn from France and annexed to a militaristic autocracy, despite the bitter protests of the mother country and the impassioned appeals of her unfortunate children. This crime was but one of many incident to the scheme of building up a world empire controlled by a Prussianized Germany; but in a peculiar degree it outraged the democratic sympathies of the world and enhanced the prestige of autocratic militarism in the opinion of the German people. As the most recent and most striking fruit of the Prussian policy of conquest, Alsace-Lorraine is today the visible pledge of the professed efficiency of autocracy and the supposed decadence of democracy.

The vindication of democracy demands the "disannexation" of Alsace-Lorraine and its return to democratic France. The security of the world demands that the Prussian policy of military conquest be discredited and destroyed by depriving the German people of the unholy profits of that policy. Justice to the mother country and to her lost children demands that their combined protests be heard and that the crime of '71 be rectified. Americans are fighting for the vindication of democracy, for the security of the world, and for the triumph of justice. When they fully understand that a peace which should leave Alsace-Lorraine under German control would be a denial of democracy, a peril to civilization, and a travesty on justice, our chivalrous people will refuse to lay down the sword until the lost children of our gallant Ally are restored to their rightful sovereignty.

No one is more eminently qualified to bring to the American people the facts in the case of Alsace-Lorraine than is the Honourable Daniel Blumenthal. Himself an Alsatian by birth, he can speak from the heart on behalf of his brothers and sisters. Honoured by his fellow citizens with election to the high office of mayor of the important Alsatian city of Colmar for a period of nine years, he speaks with the authority of one who has the full confidence of those Alsatians who know him best. A member of the German Reichstag and of the Alsace-Lorraine Senate for many years, he speaks with peculiar knowledge of the Imperial Government's treatment of the conquered lands. Condemned to death eight times and carrying sentences aggregating more than five hundred years of penal servitude, all imposed upon him by the Imperial German Government because he escaped from the Empire to tell the world the truth about Alsace-Lorraine, he comes to us with the highest recommendations which the Prussian autocracy has power to give. Americans will read with unusual interest his testimony regarding the lost provinces of France.

DOUGLAS WILSON JOHNSON.

NEW YORK CITY, November 1, 1917.

ALSACE-LORRAINE

[Illustration: Map of Alsace and Lorraine.

The darker shading shows portion of territory ceded to Germany in 1871.]

THE PROBLEM OF ALSACE-LORRAINE

The problem of Alsace-Lorraine began with the Treaty of Frankfort made between the German Empire and the French Republic, May 10, 1871. Beaten by the German armies, France, at the mouth of the cannon, was forced, notwithstanding the solemn protests of the inhabitants, to give up part of her territory.

The Alsace-Lorraine problem has a three-fold character. It concerns Germany, France, and the World.

France not having stipulated in the Treaty of Frankfort any clause as to the treatment of the people of Alsace-Lorraine now become German, the German Empire alone had the formal right to decide their fate, and it is vis-à-vis to Germany that Alsace-Lorraine must make its claims.

The question of the rule of Alsace-Lorraine became a problem of the internal policy of the Empire, and therefore a purely German affair.