The Mayor of Broque, a commune where French is spoken, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for having spoken French to his councilors.
In Alsace this campaign against the French language is carried even into the girls' boarding schools, which have always been the principal centers for the study of French.
An order from the Statthalter, dated March tenth, 1915, forbade French conversations in the schools.
A German pastor of the Lutheran Church named Curtius, who had opposed suppressing the old parish of Saint Nicholas at Strassburg, was removed. His successor, who was better disciplined, gave in to the measure that was demanded.
The war against the French language has been marked by the suppression of all French newspapers since the war's beginning, the Journal d'Alsace-Lorraine, the Messin, the Nouvelliste d'Alsace-Lorraine. But nothing shows better the necessity of having organs of public opinion in French than the establishment at Metz of the Gazette d'Alsace-Lorraine by the government, which served as a model for the Gazette des Ardennes, founded later on at Mezières, to demoralize the inhabitants of the invaded districts in the north and west of France.
The Treatment of the Soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine
The soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine, whose loyalty was proclaimed at the war's beginning, have, as a matter of fact, been treated like spies and embryo deserters.
In August, 1915, at the opening of the Alsatian parliament, the Statthalter denounced the anti-patriotism of a part of the population and stigmatized the "traitors" who had "gone over to the enemy."
In fact, no less than fourteen thousand Alsatians, in the face of manifold perils and difficulties, had rejoined the colors of their true country. All the newspapers of Alsace-Lorraine still publish the lists of them as citizens and of their belongings as "refractory individuals."
The movement has never stopped. During the thirty-second month of the war, on the fourteenth of March, 1917, General von Nassner, commandant for the district of Saarbruck, published the following extraordinary order: