The loss of the frontier of 1814 to Prussia remained a sore point with France until it was swallowed up in the greater loss of 1871. When the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine in 1918 revived the question of their former boundaries, it was natural to inquire what the intervening century had brought forth. In the region of Landau there has been little change. A town of 5000 in 1815, it had grown only to 18,000 in 1910. The surrounding region of farm and forest had likewise altered little. The Saar valley, on the other hand, had shared the industrial development of the most prosperous parts of the Rheinprovinz. Its coal mines, and those of the neighboring villages of the Palatinate, had come to produce eight per cent of the huge output of the German empire. About this supply of fuel had grown up numerous industrial establishments—pottery and glassware to some extent, but especially blast furnaces and great iron and steel plants at Dillingen, Völklingen, Burbach, and Neunkirchen, busy on tasks of war as well as on those of peace. Great names in the German iron and steel industry stand out as the proprietors—Böcking, Röchling, Mannesmann, Stumm. Saarbrücken, a town of perhaps 5000 in 1815, had a population of 105,000 in 1910. To the north and to the west the lines of industrial towns were almost unbroken. 355,000 people now lived between the Saar frontiers of 1814 and 1815; and as many more in the adjoining regions which depended on the valley’s coal and manufactures. The Prussian railroad system threw its network over the basin. Prussian legislation provided houses and schools and social insurance for the workmen. Save perhaps for the beautiful state forests which ran to the edge of the towns and the mines, the whole character of the country recalled the great industrial region of the lower Rhine. Over the border of the Palatinate matters moved a bit more slowly, after the Bavarian fashion. The towns were not quite so spick-and-span, the model dwellings were not so much in evidence, the local capital, Zweibrücken, preserved the flavor of a Residenzstadt of the old regime. But the flavor was German not French. In the western part of the valley French names could still be found, notably in Saarlouis, which kept much of the appearance of an old French town, with its hôtel de ville, its great public square, and along the river front the remains of its fortifications built by Vauban. And there were those who had not wholly forgotten that Saarlouis was the birthplace of Marshal Ney.
In France, at least, there were many who had not forgotten. The demand for the frontier of 1814 was noticeably greater than that for other parts of the Left Bank. It was partly historic, a desire to reclaim what had once been French and had played its part in the great deeds of French history. This was not confined to partisans of the old regime: Aulard, historian and upholder of the Revolution, urged the return of Saarlouis and Landau on the ground that they had sworn the great revolutionary covenant of 1790 and had been torn from France by violence in 1815, as were Alsace and Lorraine half a century later.[39] Popular interest would have been greater if the frontier of 1814 had been a real line separating peoples for a term of years, instead of a provision on paper. And the historic frontier of 1792, the actual boundary during the eighteenth century, had become impossible; no one asked for that. The best historic argument for the frontier of 1814 was that it had then been considered a just and practical equivalent for the line of 1792; in that sense it represented the peace of justice, while the line of 1815 was clearly the peace of violence.
Stronger than the historic argument was the economic: France, a country poor in coal, had been forcibly despoiled of the Saar mines in 1814; she needed them back; and her need was now much greater since the wanton and systematic destruction of her mines in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais by the Germans. The two arguments did not entirely coincide, so far as the Saar was concerned. The historic argument was strongest in respect to the district of Saarlouis, where there was little coal. Saarbrücken, the centre of the coal field, had been French only for a brief period, 1793-1815. Moreover, the frontier of 1814 did not cover the whole of the mining area, perhaps a third of which lay to the north toward Ottweiler and to the east in the Palatinate, and its reëstablishment would have disrupted the economic life of the region.
Many Frenchmen were genuinely opposed to any annexations of territory beyond the Alsace-Lorraine of 1871, as contrary to the principles on which the war had been fought. They had not, they said, been fighting for the Rhine or the Saar. This was the Socialist contention, and it was shared by many Republicans who were not Socialists. All, however, who looked facts in the face felt the need of the coal. “If we could only get the coal without the people,” said a distinguished Socialist early in the winter. “We must have the coal, and we must find some arrangement to get it without annexing the population,” a great historian said a little later.
The people were overwhelmingly German. A considerable directing element of capitalists, engineers, and officials had come from other parts of the empire, but the great majority were natives of the region. The mining population of 56,000 included surprisingly few foreigners or even Germans from a distance. Many had their cottages with a plot of ground about, going to and fro daily on workmen’s trains or returning home for the week-end. The ruling element was strongly Prussian, a part of the great administrative machine directed from Berlin. The regular local administration existed, but only as a part of the Rheinprovinz and of a Regierungsbezirk administered from Trier. The adjoining portions of the Palatinate were governed from Munich and Speier. The economic unity of the region had no corresponding political organization, as was admitted by German officials. The mass of the people were particularly interested in their labor organizations and in their rights under German labor legislation. If they had been consulted, they would doubtless have voted to remain with Germany. But it was at least debatable whether they had a right at the same time to vote to Germany the mines which she had taken in 1815 without consulting anybody. The control of key deposits of minerals by the small population which happens to live over them is not a necessary part of the principle of self-determination, particularly when this population forms part of a state which has been destroying the mines of others. The separation of mines from people may sometimes be governed by international considerations.
The coal field of the Saar is the northern outcrop of a considerable deposit which extends in a southwesterly direction across Lorraine to the Moselle in the neighborhood of Pont-à-Mousson. Toward the southwest, however, the strata dip so deep as to be unworkable. The practicable part of the field is in the Saar valley, partly on the edge of annexed Lorraine, chiefly in Rhenish Prussia, with a small strip in the adjoining part of the Palatinate. The total output in 1913 was seventeen and a half million tons, of which two-thirds was mined between the frontiers of 1814 and 1815. It was understood, however, that production had been artificially restricted in the interest of the Westphalian field, and the proportion of the actual coal reserve was much greater. Any estimates of reserves are necessarily approximate, but in 1913 it was calculated that the Saar field contained seventeen billion tons, equal to 22% of the total German reserve, and more than the whole known supply of France, a country relatively poor in coal. No wonder the French found it hard to forget the loss of 1815! Moreover, all the mines in operation lay within a dozen miles of the new French frontier in Lorraine.
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.