I have been in every portion of the Occupied Area and have had various opportunities of studying the temper of the people. Generally speaking, that temper is good in the Rhineland proper, and a visitor is not conscious of any obvious friction. A straightforward military occupation, disagreeable though it may be for the conquered race, is laid down in precise terms. Every one knows what to expect, and the situation is for the most part accepted with philosophy. Very different were matters in the Saar. You could not walk down the main street of Saarbrücken without feeling the atmosphere charged with hostility. The spirit of the town was angry and disgruntled. Every German to whom we spoke seemed on the verge of an outburst. We found ourselves not a little embarrassed by the obvious desire to confide grievances to us about the French—grievances naturally which we had no desire to hear. Hotel waiters are beings who usually float with the times and are not concerned to challenge authority. But without one word of warning a Saarbrücken waiter, who knew England well, broke into words of angry declamation. How should we English like a foreign commission to come and take a piece out of Yorkshire and hand it over to an alien government? Should we accept such a state of affairs without protest: should we be worth anything if we did? I retorted sharply with some remark about Alsace-Lorraine, but I knew the ground was unsound. Until two wrongs make a right, the Saar occupation must lead to many searchings of heart among Allied nations who have any regard for consistency in political professions of faith.
Why has the League of Nations undertaken this task? Thankless tasks the League has no right to shirk; a false position such as this is another matter. The Treaty provides for two Commissions under the League: one a Boundary Commission of which a British officer is Chairman; the other a Governing Commission over which a Frenchman presides. The Boundary Commission has to delimitate the frontiers of the temporary state, and in separating towns and villages, all purely German, one from another to make the economic division between friends and relations as little harsh as possible. It is not desired, for example, that a village should be cut off from its water supply, or that workmen should be forced to cross a frontier in the course of their daily toil. The Commission hears the views of the inhabitants, and has shown them every consideration in its power. Even so, very hard cases are bound to arise owing to the homogeneous character of the country. The frontier line is necessarily arbitrary and artificial. Friends and kinsmen find themselves separated one from another; villages divided from their natural markets by the barrier of a French customs system.
For the whole directing power in the area is France; everything else is camouflage. France supplies the occupying troops, France controls the customs and the railways; a Frenchman is head of the Governing Commission. Though there are practically no Frenchmen in the Saar, French names are being given in some cases to the towns and villages. The mines have been handed over absolutely to France for fifteen years. At the end of fifteen years the Saar inhabitants may decide by plebiscite whether they desire to be French, to be German, or to remain under the League of Nations. If they elect to be German, Germany must repurchase the mines on a gold basis. The whole arrangement is an admirable illustration of the “heads I win, tails you lose” principle. But a few brief years ago we were very insistent that we were fighting for justice and right, and again I ask what is the League of Nations doing in this galley?
The various members of the two Commissions are clearly desirous of dealing justly with the inhabitants, but it hardly seems possible for a body of men, however honourable and well intentioned, to overtake a position so radically unsound in itself. The lines of government for the Saar, laid down by the Peace Treaty, are a premium on friction and intrigue. Also it is very unlikely that this fancy occupation is going to result in a large output of coal. Colliers are kittle cattle, as we all know, and they do not like being irritated. Nothing and no one can make them work unless they choose. The occupation of an enemy country is a military act which a war may render inevitable. But military occupation as a means to economic ends is a clumsy weapon. Effective as a threat in the event of non-fulfilment of contract, as an agent of production it is the worst of instruments. The cussedness of human nature comes into full play, and people who will work hard to avoid an occupation become sulky and inactive when handed over to a conqueror.
The effort to create a Saar state, definitely separated from Germany for a term of years, cannot be justified by any of our own professions during the war. We have yet to reap the full fruits of the mistake. The new conditions have mobilised, of course, the passionate resentment of the inhabitants, and friction exists at every turn. The Germans lose no opportunity of giving all the trouble they can. Whatever grit they can throw into the machine they throw with a will. His words frequently pass between the Governing Commission and the German Government in Berlin. The whole atmosphere is one of moral ca’ canny and obstruction. It is idle to blame the Germans for making the most of the ready-made grievances with which they have been presented. Those to blame are the short-sighted politicians of Versailles who could imagine that such an apple of discord as the Saar could be flung down in Europe without the further embitterment of every passion which it was the first duty of statesmanship to allay.
Could not the coal to which France has a clear right be obtained under simpler and better conditions than those of temporary annexation, however much disguised? Would France herself not have benefited by more coal and less friction? When the Boundary Commission has done its work there will be only one British representative left in the Saar, and there are no British permanent officials. The country is penned in between Lorraine and French occupied territory. Censorship of news is strict, and the inhabitants are wholly in the hands of the Governing Commission. Unless members of the League of Nations bestir themselves so that the control of the League shall not be an empty phrase, a great deal may go on in this remote district which if realized would be highly distasteful to the best mind of the Allies themselves.
Our personal experiences in Saarbrücken were quite pleasant. During our troubles with the car we received a good deal of helpfulness from a variety of stray people. The erring machine had been put on a truck at Mettlach and was to come by train to Saarbrücken. We met the train in due course, but there was no car. We met other trains, but nothing happened. At 10 P.M. we invaded the signalman’s box and unfolded our tale of woe. I can never say enough for the real courtesy and kindness shown us by the operator in charge. For two solid hours till midnight he telephoned up and down the line trying to discover the whereabouts of the truck. One station after another was rung up. “I have here an English colonel whose motor car broke down at Mettlach and who arranged for it to come on by the evening train.” Over and over again the opening phrase was repeated till I knew it by heart. In intervals of ringing up the various stations our new friend conversed with us amiably. He was a demobilized sailor, had been in the Scarborough and Hartlepool raids and had fought at Jutland. He spoke regretfully of the pleasant times in old days spent with the British Navy, especially at Kiel, just before the outbreak of war. “You met them in different fashion at Jutland, did you not?” I suggested. He raised his shoulders deprecatingly. He told us that during the Scarborough raid the attacking ships had been saved by the fog. He had also fought in a U-boat, but was not to be drawn on that subject, of which he was clearly shy. “We had to do our duty,” he said briefly. In between our conversations the telephone bell tinkled gaily, but the night was going on and there was still no trace of the missing truck. Then at last a satisfied “So” from the telephone raised our spirits. A train had just come in. The car was in the goods yard; we could get it in the morning. We parted from our good Samaritan with real gratitude. Railway servants are not an overpaid class in Germany, but not one penny would he accept for the pains and trouble taken on our account. He was a true gentleman, our Saarbrücken signalman, and when Germany rears a few more of his type and kind she will have less trouble with her neighbors and find life more pleasant for herself. At the motor repair shop the men worked with a will and repaired the car in what seemed a surprisingly short time. Whatever the German upper classes may be, the German working-man is a very decent fellow, civil, well educated, hard working. Over and over again the same moral is driven home. There are good and bad elements in Germany. What has the Peace Treaty done to reinforce the better elements?
The Saar basin in the upper waters is highly industrialized. The manufacturing areas lie near the source, a fact which is uncommon in the case of most rivers. The lower waters, as they approach their junction with the Mosel near Trier, flow through a hilly and beautiful country purely agricultural in character. Saargemünd, Saarbrücken, Saarlouis are all manufacturing and colliery centers. Saarbrücken itself, a dirty, unattractive town of one hundred thousand inhabitants, is the centre of the coal area, which before the war had an annual output of eleven million tons. Crossing the hills from Trier and journeying up stream to Saarbrücken, all the grimy apparatus of mines, furnaces, slag heaps, etc., make their appearance from Saarlouis onwards. Even so, the small collieries, towns, and villages compared favorably with our own. They are not overcrowded, and open spaces, fields, and even orchards are to be found breaking up the sordid paraphernalia of dumps and pitheads. The natural features of the river valley are beautiful, and even on the upper waters have not been wholly destroyed. Woods are preserved at many points. Here, as elsewhere in Germany, industrial life has not been allowed to get thoroughly out of hand.
One feature at least of the Saar valley impressed us painfully as we motored back to Trier—the miserable condition of the children and the appalling proportion of bandy legs. As I have said elsewhere, the effects of underfeeding during the war are distributed very unevenly throughout Germany. Some districts seem to have suffered little or none at all. Not so the Saar, where, judging by that unfailing test, the children, the population must have gone through very hard times. I heard of an innocent inquiry of an English child made in the Saar area: “Mother, why do the children’s feet here turn in the wrong way?” In the answer to that question lies the tragedy which has overtaken the child life of our enemies.