Since writing the above impressions of the Saar in April 1920, there has been serious trouble in that area. A dispute arose at the end of July between the Governing Commission and the German permanent officials, as to the conditions of service under which these officials should be taken over. Security of tenure is a matter of jealous concern to the Germans, for it is no secret that France is very anxious to see the last of some of the existing Prussian officials. The latter are no less determined to resist any doors being opened through which foreigners might enter. In the opinion of the officials, the new regulations rendered their position much less secure than formerly and offered wider scope for dismissal on other grounds than those of efficiency. The right of combination was also restricted. Further, they were required to take an oath of fidelity.
The officials objected to these provisions, and demanded that they should be confirmed in all rights and privileges in which they were possessed on November 11, 1918. No satisfactory settlement of the dispute was forthcoming, and the officials went on strike. Railways, posts, telegraphs were paralysed throughout the area. This action was followed by a general strike of the whole community. The French hurried up troops. Saarbrücken was patrolled by cavalry, infantry, machine guns, and tanks. House-to-house searchings took place. Many people were arrested, others left the district. The Governing Commission in a proclamation openly accused the Berlin Government of inciting the whole trouble, and of spending large sums of money for purposes of disloyal agitation. The Berlin Government retorted by a Note no less acrimonious. Each side charged the other with intrigue and breaches of the Peace Treaty. It must always be remembered the Governing Commission represents the League of Nations and that the League is involved in these proceedings. The strike dragged on for a time and then came to an end.
The position as I write is obscure. The censorship in the Saar is very severe. English papers publish little or no news from the area. A silence on the subject no less profound envelops periodically the German Press. It is difficult, therefore, to form any judgment as to the rights and wrongs of the dispute in view of the limited material available. But the strike itself is a symptom of the ugly spirit ruling in the Saar district, the dangers of which were obvious when we were in Saarbrücken. Probably both sides are right in their charges of mutual intrigue. It is clear that each Government has only one desire, namely, to exasperate and hinder the other. Germany protests loudly against the French attempt to change the German character of the district. France retorts that perfidy and bad faith are the true hall-marks of the Prussian. All this is inherent in the situation actually created, and if it causes surprise to the creators of that situation they must be simple-minded folk. The plan evolved is one that not only asks for but demands trouble, and the trouble is there.
Practical administration becomes a nightmare under such conditions, and that this particular nightmare should persist for the fifteen years contemplated by the Peace Treaty is a prospect sufficiently dismal for all who have to face the waking realities.
CHAPTER XI
FROM METZ TO VERDUN
There is something grim and forbidding about the name of Metz. The tragedy of shame and defeat with which it was connected during the Franco-Prussian War hangs round it like a sombre garment. I for one associated it always in my thoughts with a dark menacing fortress, the very stones of which cried aloud the tale of France’s humiliation and the ruthless might of her conquering foe. Historical events have the power of lending their own colour to the names of localities where great dramas have played themselves out. Sometimes the very nature of a place—I take three at random, Mycenae, Blois, Glencoe—harmonises completely with the sense of tragedy. No one could associate the shores of Lake Trasimene with the idea of trippers on the beach, or the plains of Borodino with swings and roundabouts. Yet to this rule, if it be a rule, Metz is a complete exception. Instead of a gloomy fortress it is a delightful French town, ideally situated in the basin of the Mosel. The Mosel breaks up at this point into several channels, and Metz disposes of itself in somewhat Venetian fashion among the various branches. The main portion of the town is situated on a low crest overlooking the stream. The crest falls away to the river below, gardens, houses, and terraces clinging to the slopes. To the west across the plain rises a range of hills. From the vantage point of the Esplanade—the beautiful public gardens on the terraces above the Mosel—the view of the surrounding country is very fine. The fortifications of Metz, being of the latest type, are naturally not in evidence. But the distant hills which rise in such calm beauty from the plain are honeycombed with everything that is deadly in modern military equipment. Villages and vineyards may be on their surface, but the hand of man has been concerned there with other matters than those of the plough or winepress. No traveller surely can look at the hills beyond Metz without a catch in the throat? For through them runs the road to Gravelotte and Mars-la-Tour, and so beyond to a place of glory and endurance greater than theirs—Verdun, shattered and destroyed, but inviolate and unconquered in the midst of her ruins.
Few districts in Europe are so important in military history as the country which lies in the neighbourhood of Metz. We came by train from Saarbrücken, our car being under repair, and nearly every mile of the way had been a path of destiny for France in 1870. A French customs official, not a genial specimen of his kind, charged us roundly with having contraband concealed under the maps spread about the carriage. We assured him our business at the moment was concerned with history and geography and not illicit trading, and after shaking the offending sheets he disappeared with an unfriendly grunt.
The heights of Spicheren are within sight of Saarbrücken. Here on August 6, 1870, was fought one of the early battles in the Franco-Prussian War—an indecisive action which was to prove, however, a strand in the great coil spread round the French armies. To the east of Metz lies the fateful battlefield of August 14, when after a desperate struggle centring in particular round Colombey and Nouilly, the French were forced to give way and the German pincers began to close in on the doomed city. The history of the 1870 war, that tale of heroism and mismanagement, is painful beyond bearing to read. It moves with the precision and inevitableness of a Greek tragedy—France, so sound at heart, yet superficially so rotten, matched against the supreme technical skill of a painstaking people guided by the wholly non-moral purpose of a Bismarck. From the conflict, as it was then, of the iron with the earthenware pot, only one end could result. Yet
“Nor kind nor coinage buys
Aught above its rate.”