Nor did Alsace-Lorraine have real autonomy in internal affairs. The executive power was vested in a Statthalter, appointed by the Emperor, and supported by a foreign bureaucracy and a foreign police force. Before the Constitution of 1911, there was a local Parliament, called the Landesausschuss, which amounted to nothing, as the imperial Parliament had the privilege of initiating and enacting for the Reichsland any law it saw fit. Then, too, the delegates to the Landesausschuss were chosen by such a complicated form of suffrage that they represented the Statthalter rather than the people. And the Statthalter represented the Emperor!
In the first decade after the annexation, Prussian brutality and an unseemly haste to impose military service upon the conquered people led to an emigration of all who could afford to go, or who, even at the expense of material interest, were too high-spirited to allow their children to grow up as Germans. This emigration was welcomed and made easy, just as Austria-Hungary encouraged the emigration of Moslems from Bosnia and Herzegovina. For it enabled Bismarck to introduce a strong Prussian and Westphalian element into the Reichsland by settling immigrants on the vacant properties. But most of these immigrants, instead of prussianizing Alsace, have become Alsatians themselves. Some of the most insistent opponents of the Government, some of the most intractable among the agitators, have been those early immigrants or their children. This is quite natural, when we consider that they have cast their lot definitely with the country, and are just as much interested in its welfare as the indigenous element.
The revival of the agitation against Prussian Government in 1910 was a movement for autonomy on internal affairs, and for representation in the Bundesrath. The Alsatians wanted to be on a footing of constitutional equality with the other German States. One marvels at the Prussian mentality which could not see—either with the Poles or with the Alsatians—that fair play and justice would have solved the problems and put an end to the agitation which has been, during these past few years especially, a menace on the east and west to the existence of the Empire.
Something had to be done in the Reichsland. The anomalous position of almost two million German subjects, fighting for their political rights, and forming a compact mass upon the borders of France, was a question which compelled the interest of German statesmen, not only on account of its international aspect, but also because of the growing German public sentiment for social and political justice. The Reichstag was full of champions of the claims of the Alsatians,—champions who were not personally interested either in Alsace-Lorraine or in the influence of the agitation in the Reichsland upon France, but who looked upon the Alsace-Lorraine question as a wrong to twentieth-century civilization.
On March 14, 1910, Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg announced to the Reichstag that the Government was preparing a constitution for Alsace-Lorraine which would give the autonomy so long and so vigorously demanded. But he had in his mind, not a real solution of the question, but some sort of a compromise, which would satisfy the confederated states, and mollify the agitators of the Reichsland, but at the same time preserve the Prussian domination in Alsace-Lorraine. In June, Herr Delbrück, Secretary of State for the Interior, was sent to Strasbourg to confer with the local authorities and representatives of the people concerning the projected constitution. It was during this visit that the Alsatians were disillusioned. A dinner, now famous or notorious, whichever you like, was given by the Statthalter, to which representative (!) members of the Landesausschuss were invited. At this dinner the real leaders of the country, such as Wetterlé, Preiss, Blumenthal, Weber, Bucher, and Theodor,—the very men who had made the demand for autonomy so insistent that the Government could no longer refuse to entertain it—were conspicuous by their absence. Those bidden to confer with Herr Delbrück in no way represented, but were on the other hand hostile to, the wishes of the people.
We cannot go into the involved story of the fight in the Reichstag over the new Constitution. The Delbrück project was approved by the Bundesrath on December 16, 1910, and debated in the following spring session of the Reichstag. Despite the warnings of the deputies from the Reichsland, and the brilliant opposition of the Socialists, the Constitution given to Alsace-Lorraine, on May 31st, was a pure farce. In no sense was it what the people of the Reichsland had wanted, although representation in the Bundesrath was seemingly given to them. The new Constitution preserved the united sovereignty of the confederated states, and its delegation to the Emperor, who still had the power to appoint and recall at will the Statthalter, and to initiate legislation in local matters. A Landtag took the place of the Landesausschuss. The Upper Chamber of the Landtag consists of thirty-six members, representing the religious confessions, the University and other bodies, the supreme court of Colmar, and the municipalities and chambers of commerce of Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Metz, and Colmar, to the number of eighteen; and the other eighteen chosen by the Emperor. The Lower Chamber has sixty members, elected by direct universal suffrage, with secret ballot. Electors over thirty-five possess two votes, and over forty-five three votes.
By forcing this Constitution upon Alsace-Lorraine, the interests of Prussia and of the House of Hohenzollern were considered to the detriment of the interests of the German Empire. A glorious opportunity for reconciliation and assimilation was lost. The Emperor would not listen to the admission of Alsace-Lorraine to the Bundesrath in the only logical way, by the creation of a new dynasty or a republican form of government, so that the Alsatian votes would represent a sovereign state. Prussia in her dealings with Alsace-Lorraine, has always been afraid, on the one hand, of the addition of Bundesrath votes to the seventeen of Bavaria, Saxony, Baden, and Wurtemberg, and on the other hand, of the repercussion upon her internal suffrage and other problems with the Socialists.
Since 1911, the eyes of many Alsatians have been directed once more towards France as the only—if forlorn—hope of justice and peace. What words could be found strong enough to condemn the suicidal folly of the German statesmen who allowed the disappointment over the Constitution to be followed by a series of incidents which have been like rubbing salt into a raw wound?
The first Landtag, in conformity to the Constitution of 1911, was elected in October. It brought into life a new political party, called "The National Union," led by Blumenthal, Wetterlé, and Preiss, who united for the purpose of demanding what the Constitution had not given them—the autonomy of Alsace and Lorraine. This party was badly beaten in this first election. But its defeat was not really a defeat for the principles of autonomy, as the German press stated at the time. The membership of the new Landtag was composed, in majority, of men who had been supporters of the demand for autonomy, but who had not joined the new party for reasons of local politics. Herr Delbrück had given universal suffrage (a privilege the Prussian electorate had never been able to gain in spite of its reiterated demands) to the Reichsland in the hope that the Socialists would prevent the Nationalists from controlling the Alsatian Landtag. Many Socialists, however, during the elections at Colmar and elsewhere, did not hesitate to cry in French, "Vive la France! A bas la Prusse!"
The Prussian expectations were bitterly deceived. The Landtag promptly showed that it was merely the Landesausschuss under another name. The nationalist struggle was revived; the same old questions came up again. The Government's appropriation "for purposes of state" was reduced one-third, and it was provided that the Landtag receive communication of the purposes for which the money was spent. The Statthalter's expenses were cut in half, and a bill, which had always been approved in previous years, providing for the payment of the expense of the Emperor's hunting trips in the Reichsland, failed to pass.