ALSATIAN LOYALTY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16051, 8 February 1918, Page 7

ALSATIAN LOYALTY.

GERMAN LIES MET. ‘haLSACE IS FRENCH TO THE HEART TO-DAY.” In an interview with Wallace Irwin, published in the Now York Times and issued through the Committee on Public information, Daniel Blumenthal, the ex-Mayor of Colmar, Alsace, who escaped the clutches of the Germans when the city was occupied by the advancing army gives his views of the' proposition made by certain pacifists that the future status of AlsaceLorraine he decided by a plebiscite of the inhabitants. “A German-made plebiscite would bo pretty tp see,” he observed to Mr. Irwin with a smile. ‘‘Alsace could vote with scraps jof paper, but never by fair election! Why? Because she is French to the heart to-day, and since 1871 she has never forgotten her loyalty to tho free republic to which her soul belongs. German editors write editorials full of learning to -show that the children of Alsace-Lorraine to-day arc different from yesterday, because they speak the language which Berlin has forced upon them. 30,000 ALSATIANS IN FRENCH ARMY. ‘‘Eli bcin! Do you know how many Alsace-Lorraiuers deserted from the German army when war broke out and arc now fighting with France? Thirty thousand. It is an honour to say that they are the bravest among the French; but that is so. Because, if they are caught as prisoners, what then ? Pouff! M. le Kaiser is not famous for his kindness to deserters. Tho poor Alsatian may change his name and pretend to "be French. You can tell an Alsatian by the opening of the mouth when ho speaks. It is as different from French as the patois of the Scotch. “Therefore you can see how much those 30,000 love tho Germans. ‘Stay in the rear where you will bo safe,’ say the kind French commanders. ‘No, Monsieur—put Us in front whore wo can shoot 1’ say the Alsace-Lorrainers. Perhaps that is loyalty to Berlin. •- “Gorman papers will tell you that because wo speak tho language that has been forced down our throats wo are content. That is the thinking of Prussia. But can tho Prussian toll us why, while we were a pant of France, we"never spoke bitterly of the G'-vcrn-meiit? Why under that kind < r German rule wo have protested by our representatives at'the Reichstag? Why our young men have emigrated to escape military duty, while our citizens innumerable have gone to imprisonment for expressing their affection for France P PROVINCES OVERWHELMINGLY FRENCH. “Despite the mills of industrious Knltur, which strive forever to pour everything into a. hideous German mould, Alsace-Lorraine is to-day overwhelmingly French. If you wish I will recite some figures. Our population is 1,900,000 altogether. Of these 1,500,000 are natives, almost without exception totally French. There are 400,000 German immigrants or descendants of immigrants. There is no difference whatever between those who speak French, in Lorraine, for instance, and those in Alsace, who speak a patois mixed with Goman, but which the Germans cannot understand.

“German logic is able to think both ways, like a donkey with two heads. She has well learned the speech. ‘What is yours belongs to mo and what is mine is my own.’ Since the beginning of tho present war the German generals have made nq hesitation about declaring that they consider AlsaceLorraine an enemy country. How much better than Belgians have wo been, in the sight of Prussia? Look at tho thousands of Alsace-Lorrainers who have been deported to slavery and answer for yourself. We have been told we speak the French language in a provoking manner. Therefore it is taken out of bur mouths, so that wo may worship tho Kaiser in his own swcot words. Tho prisons are full of my people who wore arrested during those first awful days of the war.

' “When they are candid—which happens seldom—tho Germans admit that they hnye no faith in the loyalty of Alsace-Lorraine. They mistrust us because we do not admire tho goose step, do not regard the sign ‘Verboten’ as more beautiful than our mountain scenery. Thus it is that Germany longs for Der Tag when we shall bo dragged by the hair of our heads into further despotism. Endlessly her papers discuss our future and what they will do to dismember us and what constitution wo shall have as a monarchic and autonomous State of the empire. We are uncomfortable to her, like a little stone in the big military hoot. ' “Monsieur, loyalty and love are not bought without price; that you know. The martial courts have sought to silence us with frightful grimaces. We have spoken our love for France at the cost of our lives. Executions have been many ,and thousands of years of imprisonment have been ordered by their councils of par. And it is not alone a matter of language, this loyalty for the Alsatians of tho Upper Rhino, who ■speak the dialect, have -suffered no less terribly than the others.” THE MAYOR’S NARROW ESCAPE. After describing the stupidity of the German military authorities, who, having arrested him after they entered Colmar, permitted him to join a company of Swiss women on their way to the Swiss frontier, M. Blumenthal recalls his narrow escape on the threshold of fieedom. “I had one foot on German territory,” ho says, “the other on Swiss, when a great clown of an Alsatian soldier, one who knew mo at home, began saluting very politely. „

‘Ah Herr Lieutenant,’ he says, intending to pay mo a greajb compliment, ‘you are letting pass a very great man —the Mayor of Colmar.’

“I awaited no more courtesies, hut descended the stairs into Switzerland by leaping nine steps. Norn d’un chien, hut it was—what you call it?—a very slender escape.”