AMUSING BUT VEXATIOUS

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14713, 30 July 1921, Page 5

AMUSING BUT VEXATIOUS

A NATIONALITY QUESTION. FRENCH WOMEN MADE GERMAN. (Australian and N.Z. Cable Assn.) LONDON, July 29. An amusing eccentricity of the Peace Treaty is now for the first time made dear, and has sent a wave of consternation throughout Alsace-Lorraine. An obscure section in the schedule of the treaty provides that where a woman of German, Belgian, Italian and even French origin marri.ed a resident of Alsace-Lorraine prior to the armistice she became and remains German, unless she claimed French nationality before January 15, 1921. In ignorance of this provision, thousands of women failed to comply, with the result that between 7000 and 8000 French husbands have been suddenly amazed to find that their wives are German. Even a French woman who married a German in 1913 now finds that she is the German wife of a Frenchman. Indignant wives do not intend to allow this stale of affairs, which is unlikely to be conducive to domestic bliss, to continue. They want the international problem cleared up without delay, and are arranging to hold a monster demonstration in Strassburg to demand the extension of the treaty provision till January, 1923.