"It carried on the war against France with an inflexible and altogether unnecessary severity, and it tore from that State Elsass-Lothringen."
The attempt is certainly made to justify this by the fact that both these provinces formerly belonged to Germany, and that it was an absolute necessity for Germany to acquire a military guarantee against a fresh attack on the part of France.
Kamarowski shows both these grounds to be untenable. If nations should continually look back to the past, and strive to renew the old conditions, they never could found a more durable or righteous state of things in the present.
What ought to be decisive is, that in these unhappy provinces the sympathy of the great part of the population is completely on the side of France.
The possession of Strasburg and Metz has not only failed to give Germany the anticipated security; it has, on the other hand, compelled the Germans to live since 1871 in perpetual unrest; to keep on foot an immense army, and to expend their last resources in building fortresses. Besides, this possession cripples German activity in both internal and external political questions. The situation of France is equally unenviable; constantly kept in suspense, and with the feeling of having been unjustly treated, and longing for revenge. Is it possible, with this deadly hatred between two of Europe's most civilized states, to think of a lasting peace?
And what can the Governments of these nations do with respect to this evil, unless they set themselves to eradicate it?
Kamarowski proposes three different solutions of the question of Elsass-Lothringen. A European congress might arrange the destiny of these provinces, by dividing them, for example, so that Elsass should remain united to Germany, and Lothringen to France; or by forming them into two or more cantons united to Switzerland; or lastly, by letting them become an independent State with a self-chosen mode of government, but with the sine quâ non that they shall be neutralized, and placed under the guarantee of combined Europe.
It would be almost immaterial to Europe which of these three expedients were chosen; therefore the choice might be left to the inhabitants of Elsass-Lothringen themselves; and the opportunity might be given them of expressing themselves by a plebiscite, uncontrolled by any influence from either the French or German side.
This naturally affects Danish South Jutland in an equal degree, which Germany wrenched from Denmark by a gross breach of international law. That the writer does not adduce this instance may be simply because he does not regard it as involving any danger of war.
Kamarowski finds this to be much more pronounced with regard to the Eastern Question.