Watching on the Rhine

by Violet R. Markham

From the beauties of nature to the elegances of man was an inevitable step on dropping into Wiesbaden. There seems something very suitable in the French occupation of this attractive city. The French temperament, the French genius, are more at home here than in any other German town I know. Wiesbaden is less “echt Deutsch,” more international in its atmosphere, than what is usual in the Fatherland. It is a fine town with broad boulevards and a good many shops. The large Kur Haus is surrounded by beautiful gardens. German taste frolics, after its usual fashion, within doors where gilt and plush abound and everything is costly, vulgar, and comfortable. But apart from this lapse it is a very attractive town, and the French are fortunate to be housed in it. The Occupation seems to work smoothly, and there were no obvious signs of discontent among the German population.

Diplomatic relations were a trifle strained between the Allies on the occasion of our visit, Frankfurt having been occupied by the French the week before. Over this step the English had shaken their heads. There had been a collision between the French troops and the people in the town; some shooting had taken place. We had neither passes nor permits, but we bluffed our way into Frankfurt on the Sunday afternoon by the simple expedient of going there. It was no one’s business apparently to stop a car in which British officers were driving. We passed through the French sentries without being challenged, and found ourselves in the town. Frankfurt is a large ugly city with wide streets and solid-looking buildings. The population was out promenading in its best Sunday clothes. The streets were crowded, and everything appeared quite normal. French soldiers of course abounded, and here and there a stray Belgian was to be seen, Belgium having sent up a few men as a sign of moral support to France in her enterprise. We were clearly the only English in the place. I wondered if these Frankfurters would take the view that we were the advance guard of an English detachment. However, the attitude of the populace was quite polite. We went to tea at the Carlton Hotel, which sounded homelike. The big hall was filled with Germans who surveyed us with some curiosity. But the waiters and the management tumbled over each other in their anxiety to be civil. We drove round the town before returning to Wiesbaden and paid a pilgrimage to Goethe’s house, which unfortunately was closed. At the Opera House we found a curious state of affairs: French soldiers with machine guns crowding the steps of the main entrance, while people were going into some performance through a side-door.

A feature of the afternoon’s run, and not a pleasant one, was the presence of the French coloured troops in the district. Technically the coloured troops had been withdrawn from the town itself, but they were in force in the suburbs. Frankfurt is a large city, and its outskirts stretch for a long distance into a thickly populated industrial area. A Moroccan battalion in brown jibbahs with red trimming and yellow tarbouches were hardly soldiers whose presence we should have welcomed in Birmingham or Manchester had they been introduced by an occupying enemy power. Large numbers of colonial troops are used by France in her Army of Occupation. That their presence causes great resentment among the Germans is understandable. France’s case is that her population has suffered heavily owing to a war forced upon her by Germany, and that, with a French man-power depleted and weary, a large colonial army is a necessity. Whatever the necessity, it is very unfortunate that coloured troops should be introduced into a country where the complications of black and yellow races are unknown. White men do not take kindly in European towns to being policed by Africans or Asiatics. An occupying army presents moral problems of sufficient difficulty without any gratuitous additions caused by the introduction of Senegalese and Moroccans.

At the same time, so far as outrages are concerned, a great deal of exaggeration has taken place about the French employment of these troops. Undesirable though the presence of black or coloured men in the cities of Central Europe, I have no reason to think that they have been conspicuous for bad or immoral behaviour. Germans have admitted as much to me. They hate the use of the black troops, but the objection is one based on general principle, not on specific crimes. Naturally pressmen and publicists work the black-troops question for all it is worth, and feeling on the subject runs high. The Germans lose no opportunity of exploiting any opening presented by mistakes in Allied policy. But exaggeration is always a boomerang and recoils on the head of those who use it.

The following day in dripping rain we motored through Mainz to Bingen, and then across the slate mountains of the Hunsrück and the Hochwald to Trier and the valley of the Mosel. The fine Roman remains, especially the Porta Nigra, lend great dignity and character to latter-day Trier. The cathedral, one of the oldest churches in Germany, has succumbed to the common disease, fatal to its type, of “a thorough restoration.” Its interior presents the ordinary bathroom appearance, with concrete walls painted to represent stones, plus vile modern frescoes, which is the hard latter-day lot of many fine old Romanesque churches throughout the Rhineland. One could weep over the destruction of these ancient monuments and the clumsy unseeing hands which have been laid on them at such obvious expenditure, not only of money, but of a most misguided care.

After Trier our troubles began. We were making our way to Metz via Saarbrücken. Crossing the hills into the Saar basin our car developed trouble with a bearing, and at Mettlach, some miles from Saarbrücken, it was clear our journey was temporarily at an end. Saarbrücken is not an ideal spot in which to be marooned for several days. But all situations have their compensations, and to this accident, irritating as it was, I owe my acquaintance with the Saar valley and the peculiar state of affairs existing there.

The situation in the Saar raises in concrete form certain general criticisms of the Peace Treaty of which I have spoken more in detail in a later chapter. The Saar provisions of the Treaty[1] gave rise to a good deal of misgiving at the time among some of the most staunch supporters of Allied policy. Such misgivings are not likely to be dissipated by any visit to the area itself. The wicked destruction of the French coal mines is regarded, and regarded rightly, as a demonstration of Prussian militarism at its worst. Particularly infamous were the efforts of the German military authorities during the last weeks of the war. Surface destruction of the mines was inevitable owing to the colliery area lying across the line of battle. But the worst damage was done in a spirit of pure wantonness and without any military justification during the retreat of the German Army in the autumn of 1918. It was the last kick of the militarists, and they did their work thoroughly.

I am glad to think that I heard Herr Sollman, a Socialist leader in Cologne, denounce this action in the strongest possible terms amid the applause of a large audience. But the havoc done cannot be made good by words of regret, however genuine. That France has the right to exact the very fullest material compensation from Germany for damage done during the war, especially in this matter of coal, is a proposition so self-evident as hardly to require statement. Not only the mind of the Allies but the moral opinion of the whole world was ranged behind the claim. The German Social Democrats are equally prepared to admit the claim. Herr Sollman, in the speech delivered after the Spa Conference to which I have referred above, stated that in view of the wanton destruction of the French mines, Germany should regard it as a debt of honour to deliver all the coal she could spare to France.

A Peace, however, which was aiming, not merely at exacting punishment—punishment which must necessarily fall on shoulders quite different from those responsible for the original crime—but at the ultimate amelioration of racial and national animosities, would have kept two principles steadily in mind. First, that reparation though adequate should be as prompt as circumstances allowed; secondly, that reparation should have as few ragged and irritating edges as possible—that it should be organised strictly on business lines and not on lines calculated to exasperate and inflame national feeling. The end in view should be adequate material payments. If, however, reparation is to be used as an instrument of punishment and diverted from economic to political ends, general confusion is bound to result. What punishes does not pay; payment means to a large extent the waiving of punishment. It is impossible to have it both ways.

The Saar situation throws both of these principles in relief. In order to meet the just claims of France, was it necessary to annex a purely German district for fifteen years, to set up a separate government wholly alien to the wishes and spirit of the people, and then to call in the League of Nations to bless the sorry business? Are these provisions of the Peace Treaty likely to further the ostensible end in view, namely, the delivery of so many tons of coal annually from the Saar to France? On the other hand, if the occupation of the Saar is intended to punish Germany for her sins, has France any reason to think, after her own experience in Alsace-Lorraine, that provinces governed against their will are likely to be a source of comfort and pleasure to the power in possession? The Saar has been a solid German block for centuries. The district is strongly German in feeling and sentiment. A less encouraging centre for an experiment in alien government could not well have been found. With a mixed population the dubious game of playing off one element against another can at least be attempted. Even that consolation is lacking in the Saar. Out of a population of over 600,000, the French element is practically nil. Further, as a method of popularising the League of Nations with the Germans, the mutual introduction via the Saar hardly seems a happy one.