Friction With France

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6992, 19 August 1929, Page 10

Friction With France

A few weeks ago I was discussing the Alsatian questian with one of the highest French officials writes Count Carlo Sforza, formerly Italian Ambassador to France, in the New York Herald Tribune, "Quo voulcz-vous, dear count?” he said in a dangerously modest tone. "-We wanted to show our superiority to Germany, even in Alsace. The Germans tried in vain for 40 years to Germanise Alsace. How much moro clever we have been .... we have Germanised it in just a few years.” Is Alsace really "Germanised?” Or to speak more correctly, is the dissatisfaction there really so serious? And what are the faults and tho responsibilities of the French regime, in comparison with what was probably fatal and unavoidable? When the tourist passes the pre-war frontier, and, leaving old France behind, enters Alsace, it is not only tho landscape that takes on a different flafour. The thing that strikes one on entering Alsace is not the German language or dialect, it is this—the common French trait has disappeared; everything in Alsace is typsically South German. In spite of that, Alsace’s loyalty to France in 1870 was deep and sincere. And when, 48 years later, at tho end of tho World War, tho French again entered their old province, the spontaneous and unmanufactured outburst of enthusiasm which greeted the French army with an authentic proof of tho feelings and the sympathies of the Alsatiaus.

French Lack of Insight. It is generally forgotten—and therefore -worth, mentioning—that the German statesmen of 1870 never had an.\ illusion of the force in favour of Germany of the Teutonic essence of tho Alsatian population. Hardly two years before the FrancoFrussian war, Bismarck wrote the following prophetic lines: "After all, if Prussia were to gain the victory over France, what would .bo the result? Supposing -wo did win Alsace; we should liavo to maintain our conquest and keep Strassburg perpetually occupied.” One might add that even after 1870, Bismarck never boasted of Alsace as being really "German.” To indulge in useless consideration as to whether the Alsatians are French or German or mere Alsatians (neither French nor Germans) would bo beside the question. The cause of the mutual disappointment, ' the most centralised people in Europe, have been slow to understand that it was impossible to consider Alsace, after half a century of separation, as a new couple of departments; while, on the other hand, the Alsatians had grown accustomed to a widely decentralised administration.

Whatever may have been the enthusiastic sentiments of Alsace when her liberation came in 1918, she was no longer what she had been 48 years before. Up to 1870, Alsaco bad been divided into two French departments—the Haut-Rhin and the Bas-Rhin, two departments like all tho others in France. In 1918 she was, or at least she had been for half a century, a united "Reichsland,” and as such, she had fought for autonomy, and had secured a great deal of it. It is true that the Alsatians had demanded from the German Government an even wider home rule; but if Berlin did not give them all they asked for, at least they got a Diet and a certain amount of autonomy in 1911. It was much moro than they now have as a part of France.

Religion and Language. Another cause of friction is the religious question. Alsace is a deeply Catholic country, so was the whole of Franco until 1870, as far as official appearance was concerned. The new France, Alsace discovered, was a France whioh has been living £or the last 25 years under laws strictly separating Church and State. But the worst element of irritation has probably been one which, theoretically, should be far less important; but small daily events are, after all, what matters in life. Nothing has irritated the Alsatians so deeply as the tactless ways of tho new French officials. The officials arrived in Alsace naively believing that they were going to be adored by the freres delivres. On the contrary, the invasion of thousands of French appointees gave the false impression that France was treating them a 3 inferiors, as if their country were a, colony. The Alsatians —the masses, I mean — accustomed as they had been to autonomy, stared with terror at the invasion of officials of every grade in all the branches of public service, at officers of the gendarmerie and police not belonging to their own people. Wrongly or rightly they complained not only of overcentralisation, but also of neglect—a neglect which originated with tho disillusion felt by the new French officials when they discovered that so many Alsatians did not understand French.

Franco-German Synthesis. When French was made the only official language—the only language taught in schools and colleges, the only language permitted in tho Courts, in the Governments —tho Alsatians felt that the Paris Government was going to repeat some of tho worst mistakes of the Germans. And, after all, the German Government had an easier task, for Alsatian, a German dialect had always been the spoken language of the wholo people. German now is being taught a few hours a week as a foreign language. The result, after a few years, is that many children hardly understand their parents, who are able to speak only the native dialect. Yet at the bottom of the present crisis of mutual incomprehension between Alsatians and France there is nothing essential, nothing incurable. Renan used to say that it was an immense advantage for France to have within her borders a people of German language, whose culture was both German and French. It is certain that the great majority of the Alsatians are deeply'loyal to France and do not even dream of wishing to join the Reich again. But the best among them, just because they feel themselves lying be-

tween two great countries and two great civilisations, are anxious to preserve not only their old attachments to France, but also their clement of German culture. They feel and hope that by doing this they might create, with Alsace a link of friendship between Franco and Germany.

Is the dream too high, too unreal? Perhaps practically speaking. But nobody can dare to say that Alsace will never become a rendezvous of the spiritual values of France and Germany.