Finally, it was only on the ninth of October, 1917, that the Strassburg Neue Zeitung announced the abolition of the special postal control to which the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine were submitted at the front.
It is but just [says the Freie Presse on that occasion] that the exceptional measures taken against the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine be abolished at last. Among these measures we consider the interdiction still in force for a man to return to his native town. And [the same newspaper adds] from the moment that the bravery of our soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine is vaunted everywhere, it is absolutely wrong to reward them with scorn and insults.
In the notice from G. Q. G. for the twenty-fifth of November, 1917, are the details gathered from the Alsatian prisoners themselves of the treatment their compatriots endure in the German Army.
On the twenty-second of last June, all the Alsatians received orders to present themselves at the F. R. D. of their division, where they were received by the Vizé Sergeant, flanked by two guards.
The former said to them:
"What! You have not yet laid aside your accoutrements; traitors, deserters, scoundrels, rascals. Get into the shelter quick where you can put up nine additional supports for the roof and where you can kick the bucket at your ease."
Since some of the Alsatians declared that, having received nothing to eat or to drink, they could not work, a lieutenant, who was summoned by the adjutant, ran up with his riding whip and, making one of them step forward, beat him until he lost consciousness.
Later on another lieutenant ordered the Vizé Sergeant to "train the Alsatians well. They are all robbers and traitors."
All these facts proclaim in an undeniable manner that the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine are not treated like ordinary citizens by the German Army, but like foreigners temporarily under the domination of Germany.