The result of the persecution of the French-speaking portion of the population has been a boomerang for Prussia. The Germans of the region, most of whom never cared much for Prussia, are now bitterly hostile to her, and thus it is that all citizens of Alsace, whether French or German, who go into other parts of Germany are under the same police regulations as alien enemies.
In order to permit military relentlessness to proceed smoothly without any opposition, the very members of the local Parliament, the Strassburg Diet, are absolutely muzzled. They have been compelled to promise not to criticise at any time, or in any way, the military control; otherwise their Parliament will be closed. As for the local Councils, they are not allowed to discuss any political questions whatsoever. A representative of the police is present at every meeting to enforce this rule to the letter.
The people do not even get the sugared Reichstag reports, as does the rest of Germany. These are specially re-censored at Mulhouse. The official reports of the General Staff are often days late, and sometimes do not appear at all. In no part of the war zone is there so much ignorance about what is happening at the various fronts as in the two "lost provinces."
Those who do not sympathise with Germany in her career of conquest upon which she so joyfully and ruthlessly embarked in August, 1914, may well point to Alsace-Lorraine as an argument against the probability of other peoples delighting in the rule which she would force upon them.
She has become more intolerant, not less, in the old French provinces. It will be recalled that by the Treaty of Frankfurt, signed in March, 1871, they became a "Reichsland," that is, an Imperial Land, not a self-governing State like Bavaria, Saxony, or Wurttemberg. As Bismarck bluntly and truly said to the Alsatian deputies in the Reichstag: "It is not for your sakes nor in your interests that we conquered you, but in the interests of the Empire."
For more than forty years Prussia has employed every means but kindness to Germanise the conquered territory. But though she has hushed every syllable of French in the elementary schools and forced the children to learn the German language and history only; though freedom of speech, liberty of the Press, rights of public meeting, have been things unknown; though even the little children playing at sand castles have been arrested and fined if in their enthusiasm they raised a tiny French flag, or in the excitement of their mock contest cried "Vive la France!"; though men and women have been fined and thrown into prison for the most trifling manifestations that they had not become enthusiastic for their rulers across the Rhine; and though most of the men filling Government positions—and they are legion—are Prussians, the Alsatians preserve their individuality and remain uncowed.
Having failed in two score of years to absorb them by force, Prussia during the war has sought by scientific methods carried to any extreme to blot out for ever themselves and their spirit.
To do the German credit, I believe that he is sincere when he believes that his rule would be a benefit to others and that he is genuinely perplexed when he discovers that other people do not like his regulations. The attitude which I have found in Germany towards other nationalities was expressed by Treitschke when he said, "We Germans know better what is good for Alsace than the unhappy people themselves."
The German idea of how she should govern other people is an anachronism. This idea, which I have heard voiced all over Germany, was aptly set forth before the war by a speaker on "The Decadence of the British Empire," when he sought to prove such decadence by citing the fact that there was only one British soldier to every 4,000 of the people of India. "Why," he concluded, "Germany has more soldiers in Alsace-Lorraine alone than Great Britain has in all India."
That is a bad spirit for the world, and it is a bad spirit for Germany. She herself will receive one great blessing from the war if it is hammered out of her.