For twenty years only had the Left Bank belonged to France, from 1794 to 1814. These years, however, were a period of rapid and far-reaching change. In place of the ninety-seven petty principalities four French departments had been organized and then incorporated into France, in many instances upon the petitions of the inhabitants themselves. Feudalism and ecclesiasticism had given way to democracy, the local laws had been superseded by the Code Napoléon, which survived on the Rhine till 1900. The younger generation learned French and looked toward France. The Prussians in 1814 were by no means generally welcomed. Small wonder that, when a new victory opened the way to the Rhine, the memories of a French Rhineland should suggest that the work of 1794 might be repeated and the new generation taught once more to turn to France. Small wonder that there were French who forgot, not only how quickly the French traditions had faded out after 1815, but also how the great industrial development of the nineteenth century had bound the Left Bank to the Right by bands of steel which only military force could destroy. Such force some were willing to apply, but others trusted still to the influence of the French language and the popularity and adaptability of a French occupation. They needed to ponder the prudent words of a French historian: “If it is well for public men to know a bit of history, this should be only on condition that they do not allow themselves to be dominated by their recollections of the past.”[35] He is a wise man indeed who can always distinguish between things as they are and things as he wishes them to be.
In the French projects respecting the Left Bank there was of course something more than sentiment, and there was also something more than mere imperialism, whether economic or political. It was in this region that France must needs seek something of that reparation for the devastation of war which Germany seemed unable to furnish elsewhere. And it was here that France would also seek means of defence and guarantees against a new German invasion. For any particular plan more than one of these reasons might be urged, and it was not always possible to distinguish what was imperialistic by nature from what was necessary to the restoration and protection of France. It was not the least of the services performed for France by that shrewd old man, Georges Clémenceau, that he refused to be swept on by the extremists and limited his ultimate demands to the substantial results which the treaty secured.
Comparatively few Frenchmen demanded the outright annexation of the Left Bank, nor was the number large of those who wished to prepare for it by an indefinitely prolonged military occupation. Nevertheless, the annexationist group was much in evidence, and conducted an active campaign. It was a Conservative and Nationalist body, whose opinion was expressed by journals like the Echo de Paris and the Libre Parole. It had also strong support in high military quarters, which desired a long military occupation of the country, particularly of the Rhine itself and its bridges. It was urged that, however the historical question might lie, the Rhine was the obvious military frontier of France, the one advanced line which could not be turned and which guaranteed France against invasion. It was even maintained that this was the real frontier of all the Allies, the front line that must be held at all cost against Germany. It need not even be held in force, for Allied control of the nine great Rhine bridges would suffice to prevent invasion. Germany must lose her springboard for jumping into France!
As to the intervening territory, a favorite French solution was that of an independent buffer state under French protection. And since such a state, in spite of its great resources, would not be large enough to maintain its economic independence, it was thought preferable that it should lie within the French customs zone. The political status of such a state was variously viewed as one of entire independence, as a French or Allied protectorate, or as a federal state of the German empire entirely detached from Prussia. At one time there were even signs of a movement toward separation, for the Catholic Rhineland was inclined to resist the programme of the Majority Socialists, and there were French Catholics who would have welcomed its affiliation to France. Separatist tendencies were not, however, encouraged by England and the United States, and they never reached serious proportions. The most notable example of such a movement was in the Palatinate, where French troops were in possession. Moreover an economic protectorate recalled too directly the history of the German Zollverein, and even certain economic aims of Germany during the world war. The only definite advance which France made in this direction was the severance of Luxemburg from the German customs union by the treaty, and its subsequent entry into the French customs union by popular vote of its inhabitants the following September.
However little sympathy might be felt with the various projects for the military or economic aggrandizement of France on the Left Bank, there was one French argument that was unanswerable: the Left Bank and the Rhine must not be made the basis of a new attack against France and thus against the world’s peace. Here Prussian militarism had used its opportunities to the full. The Rhine valley was covered with munition factories, with forts and garrisons and parade grounds, with bridges and strategic railroads, furnished with long detraining platforms in the open country or great camps like Elsenborn on the Belgian frontier. And the campaign of 1914 had shown to what use all this could be put in sudden attack. “Not another German soldier on the Rhine,” was a common form of the French demand. The demilitarization of the Left Bank was an elementary demand of national, and international, security.
The clauses to this effect in the treaty are brief but full of meaning:
Article 42.
Germany is forbidden to maintain or construct any fortifications either on the left bank of the Rhine or on the right bank to the west of a line drawn 50 kilometres to the East of the Rhine.
Article 43.
In the area defined above the maintenance and the assembly of armed forces, either permanently or temporarily, and military manoeuvres of any kind, as well as the upkeep of all permanent works for mobilization, are in the same way forbidden.