Alsace-Lorraine was given to the German Empire unconditionally. The new master could do with the country just as he pleased. If he has not divided it between the members of the Confederation it is because it was difficult to agree on the division of the spoils, and because also Bismarck wished to make a "glacis" which would cement the union of the Germans by continually showing them the danger that threatened in the west. The only thing the Germans did not think of in deciding the fate of Alsace-Lorraine was the interest of the Alsatians themselves. Bismarck did not hesitate to acknowledge this and stated in the Reichstag to the first deputies who protested: "It is not for your interest that we have conquered you, but for the interest of the Empire." And the official paper of Strasbourg, the Strassburger Post, after forty years of German domination, also summarizes the attitude of the German Empire towards the Alsatians in this odious phrase: Oderint dum metuant (Let them hate, so long as they fear). The German Empire, which is composed of twenty-five confederated States, made of the annexed territory a "Reichsland," that is to say, an undivided joint property. This new political entity received the name of Elsass-Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine). German scholars are still arguing today over the legal aspect of this decision. It is certain, as against the German states which possess equal rights, that Alsace-Lorraine is arbitrarily ruled by the Empire without any inherent right. Alsace-Lorraine was always treated as a State when it was a question of meeting certain obligations (contributions, military service, assessments for the expenses of the Empire). The honour was even paid of trusting them with the receipt of custom-house dues for the account of the Empire on their territory. This brought upon the province an unwarranted outlay of more than a million marks a year, representing the excess of the customs above the amount refunded to the Provinces. Alsace-Lorraine possessed only those "rights" which the Empire grudgingly conceded. Whereas Louis XV. accorded to the provinces united to France the enjoyment of their ancient privileges, the German Empire began by treating the Alsatians less liberally than its German subjects. In Germany each state has the constitution it wishes for itself, but Alsace-Lorraine has a constitution imposed upon it by the Empire, and this can be suspended or suppressed at the Imperial will.
The different constitutions that have been granted in the course of forty-two years (the latest went into effect in 1912) to the Reichsland, which had been ruled by a dictatorship as a legal constitution, were alike in this, that the legislative and the executive powers were left completely in the hands of the Kaiser and the King of Prussia. The Kaiser exercises the power of the state (Staatsgewalt) for the account of the Empire. There is a Parliament (Landtag) made up of two Chambers to which the second is given universal suffrage, and the first (of which I had the honour of being a member, elected by the town of Colmar) composed in a way to assure a majority to the Kaiser, who has the right to name as many members as the number of those elected and those holding by right. As there are members not named for life, and as among those who are so by right and by choice there are always a large number who are not independent, the Kaiser can never be in the minority in the Senate. But if by any chance such a thing should happen, it could have no importance because the Kaiser is himself the chief factor in legislation. In order that a law for Alsace-Lorraine may come into force, it must have the consent of the two Chambers and of the Emperor. Under these conditions it is Prussia that rules, and I know that no attempt to pass a law in Alsace-Lorraine can be made without first obtaining a favourable opinion from the Ministry of Prussia. In order never to be thwarted by the passive resistance of the Second Chamber, our constitution, which the Germans characterize as democratic, provides that if Parliament refuses to vote the budget, the government has the right to incur expenditure based on the figures of the preceding budget. The Germans have wished to emphasize as a great concession to the claims of Alsace-Lorraine the fact that in the last constitution given to Reichsland they have been given a voice in the Bundesrat (Federal Council). This Bundesrat is composed of the representatives of the Chief of the States of the Empire. It is this council that with the consent of the Reichstag, which is the representative of the German people, gave universal suffrage and that makes the laws for the Empire. Now, owing to the importance of territory and number of inhabitants, Alsace-Lorraine ought to hold sixth rank among the States of the Empire. She has been given three votes in the Council. But, as it is the Staatshalter (Vice-King) of Alsace-Lorraine who gives the instructions as to how those three votes will be cast, and as the Vice-King is an office-holder subject to recall by the Emperor who is the King of Prussia, there is no danger that those votes will ever operate against Prussia. This dependence on Prussia of the votes of Alsace-Lorraine has been disingenuously marked by a special provision inserted on this occasion in the constitution of the Empire, in which it is said that every time a favourable majority vote for Prussia cannot be polled in the Bundesrat except with the help of the Alsatian vote, those votes will not be counted. Up to this day Alsace-Lorraine has never ceased to be governed by a legislation outside of the common right. Today even, an act is pending in Berlin which provides exceptional measures for the suppression of journals printed in French.
All the efforts of the Germans, the special legislation for Alsace-Lorraine, the activities of the functionaries, chiefly Germans brought from the four corners of the Empire, even the administration of justice, have had the tendency to exterminate and replace by the Deutschtum (German culture) the spirit and the sentiments of the French people.
All this effort and labour were doomed to failure. The Alsatians remained faithful to their ideals and to the policy expressed in their protest. Of course the form of this protest has changed with the current of events. The simple negation which marked the solemn protests of Bordeaux in 1871 and of Berlin in 1874 could not after the lapse of time, and should not now, determine the conduct of the people. The first necessity is to continue to exist, and there were finally organized political parties which fought passionately, as happens in every country in the world. But towards the Germans the real Alsatians were as one man as soon as some particular occasion presented itself, to show their aversion to the Herrenvolk (the dominant people), as it pleased the Germans to call themselves. The demand of self-government for Alsace-Lorraine within the limits of the German Empire was only one way of showing the desire to be distinguished as much as possible from the Germans. It was the maximum that the Alsatians could legally require but the minimum of her real claim which always demanded the absolute return to France, the mother country.
A very suggestive fact on this subject is that, in the electoral struggles between the natives, the different parties did not hesitate to mutually reproach each other with the desire to lean on the will or the influence of Germany.
The first demonstration against the Germans was the exodus of a part of the population. The annual emigration continued until the War of 1914. Another sign of protest was the considerable number of refractaires (defaulting conscripts) who up to that day had annually left the country by the hundreds to avoid German military service. Their property was seized and they never could return to the country. The greater number entered the Foreign Legion to fight for France.
The French language continued to be spoken in the family, notwithstanding all the governmental precautions to insure its disuse. Families continued to send their children to France to learn French, young girls particularly being placed in French boarding schools to complete their instruction and education. Up to that time commercial books had been published in French; bookkeeping was done in francs, even in those houses where the circumstances made it necessary to use the German language simultaneously. The condemnation of seditious utterances and the wearing of seditious emblems were no longer noticed and never ceased. The public has specially marked the case of conspicuous persons who have been implicated in prosecutions (the Samain brothers, Hausi and Zislin, the caricaturists, the Abbé Wétterlie), but alongside of these cases, thousands of obscure soldiers of the Alsace-Lorraine cause, victims of their attachment to France, have paid their tribute to their country. For shouting "Vive la France!", for singing of the Marseillaise, for showing a tri-colour ribbon, innumerable sentences, in some cases running into years of imprisonment, have been pronounced. When, in 1887, the situation in France, under the influence of the Boulanger movement, disclosed the possibility of a conflict at arms with Germany, the election of the Reichstag for that year resulted in sending to Berlin a protesting deputation, notwithstanding the tremendous governmental pressure put upon the electors. That was the signal for increased persecutions in Alsace-Lorraine. Student societies, singing classes, athletic associations, people suspected of cultivating French sympathies, newspapers showing French tendencies, all of these were suppressed and the members of the League of Patriots were betrayed and condemned for high treason. Bismarck introduced the régime of passports to cut off all relations between Alsace-Lorraine and France. The Statthalter of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, at that moment governor of Alsace-Lorraine, has said in his Mémoires that he had the impression that Bismarck wished to drive the population to insurrection. This plan fell through, thanks to the wisdom of the people who knew how to resist such a provocation. The result was simply to strengthen French patriotism. The rising generation which had gone through the German schools and German army fooled the German statesmen who had counted on them for the assimilation of German Kultur. On the contrary, these young people were most ardent in manifesting their devotion to France. Better prepared for the struggle than their elders, knowing the German language perfectly, familiarized by their studies with the Teuton dialects, they became most formidable adversaries. My comrade in combat, Jacques Preiss, killed during this war, a victim of German persecutions, has very well described the character and rôle of the youth in a discourse given in the Reichstag in 1894. He said: "We young fellows, we are not of the generation of 1870 whom choice and emigration have deprived of elements which are the firmest and most unresisting. If you do not introduce a more liberal régime, you will find by experience that this new generation is much more energetically opposed to fusion than has been the case since 1870."
In fact, not only has Germanization made no progress, but the Alsatians become each day more impatient of the German yoke. The two populations, the native and immigrant, have never had social intercourse. The native societies or clubs have always been closed to the immigrant. On the National Fête, July 14th, the Alsatians will cross the frontier by tens of thousands to partake communion under the religion of their own land and with their brothers of France. They return with the tri-colour ribbon in their buttonholes, and this creates each year a number of unpleasant incidents. In vain Germany wished to change the appearance of things by trying to win the masses, by means of a lower chamber elected by general suffrage. We have shown the factitious value of this concession, which as a consequence only increased opposition. The affair of Grafenstaden, and the trouble at Saverne caused by the attempt to cover up the exactions of a young lieutenant, brought indignation to a climax. The military authorities arrested haphazard the civilian natives and even the German immigrants, instituting in the midst of peace, a military dictatorship and aroused the irreconcilable antagonism between the German mentality and that of Alsace-Lorraine. After some slight attempts of independence on the part of the Alsace-Lorraine government and the Reichstag vis-à-vis the military, the whole German world fell upon the obstinate and hard-headed Alsatians who, according to them, were the cause of all the trouble because they refused to admire the beauty of the German Kultur. The Saverne affair resulted in the dismissal of the government of Alsace-Lorraine which had among its officials two won-over Alsatians, and the replacing this by a group of Prussians of rank.
The Minister of War, General von Falkenhayn, announced to the Reichstag: "We want to uproot from the people's mind the feeling that has been manifested up to this time and which has provoked the Saverne incident." And this feeling is none other than the French democratic, republican spirit of the Alsatians, incompatible with Prussian militarism.
On the same occasion, Deputy von Calker, unfortunate candidate from Strasbourg, but elected in a Prussian district, and an exceptionally friendly immigrant, confessed in the following fashion the defeat of Germanization in Alsace-Lorraine, shouting aloud in the Reichstag: "I cry out in anguish. For sixteen years I have worked to wipe out misunderstanding and to reconcile the natives and the immigrants, and now we have arrived at the point where we can say, It all again amounts to nothing (Kaput)." The conservatives very wisely answered this undeceived elector that if it was merely the Saverne incident that had caused this failure, it was evident that the desired harmony had rested on a very slender foundation.