THE CHILDREN OF FRANCE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16301, 29 November 1918, Page 7

THE CHILDREN OF FRANCE.

Over 40 years of German rule has failed to change the feeling of the people of Alsace and Lorraine. This is shown by tho subjoined statement of facts, which have been mainly compiled from material contained in Al-sace-Lorraine, Past and Present, published. by tho Liguo Patriotique des Alsaciens-Lorrains:—

The two provinces of Alsace and Lorraine were given up to Germany in 1871 as the price of defeat, the result of military defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. Since then the Germans have tried alternately a policy of cajolery and bullying in order to win over the inhabitants'.

At a certain dinner given in Strasbourgh, a German official tried to be very diplomatic by proposing the following toast*—“l drink to Alsace, the daughter of Germany.” The Mayor of Strasbourg!! replied promptly: ‘T do not know if Alsace is the daughter of Germany, but I do know that she is the wife of France, and gives, and will give her, her children.” Now, below the rhetoric, always expected in speeches at dinner, what are the actual, true figures? Figures will prove whether Alsace has given Franco her children or not.

For the last century Alsace and Lorraine have sent their sons to the French Army. From 1702 to 1815 these two provinces furnished one soldier per house and one officer per village. Even a little village like Rhalsbourgli provided 33 generals during that period. So faithful was Alsace that Louis XIV., presenting an Alsatian officer to Madame de Maintenon, remarked : “His family by itself furnishes me with more officers than the -whole of Lower Bretagne.” During the Franco-Prussiar. War over 100,000 Alsatians were fighting for France. After the surrender of Alsace many Alsatians left Alsace so that their sons should not be compelled to servo in the German Army, and thousands of petty German officials entered with the object of “Germanising” the lost provinces. So in Alsace and Lorraine in 1914, out of a population of 1,874,013 inhabitants, over 400,000 were German immigrants.' But oven so, in January 7, 1914, there were in the French Army 171 generals born in these two provinces. To-day (July, 1918) it is calculated that over 100,000 French troops at present serving were born in either Alsace or Lorraine. Of these, the Germans themselves acknowledge that some 30,000 are desertera from the German Army. These deserters, counted “missing” in the German casualty lists, have reappeared' under the French tricolour—“children returned to the father France.” Desertion of this kind in no way means the shirking of military duties, as the Germans have suggested, but rather an abandonment of all property left behind, and the undertaking of fresh risks. For example, one of these deserters bad been a sergeant-major in the German Army, but with 93 other Alsatians ho crossed the •trenches. Later, serving with the tricolour, he rose to the rank of a sons-licutenant, won the Croix do Guerre, and later was killed in action. Another deserter, on arrival in a French front-line trench, pointed out a little farm behind the German lines, in which ho declared a Boche battery was hidden. “How do you know that?” asked the officer. “Because it is my own farm,” replied -the man. “I was able to conceal my German uniform there, and put,on these civilian clothes 'So I saw myself.” Such is the Alsatian character, ready to sacrifice his‘own farm for the common good. It is the result of half a century of German arrogance and persecution.