ALSACE-LORRAINE

New Zealand Tablet, 22 January 1920, Page 9

ALSACE -LORRAINE

(By T. O'Heulihy, CM., in the Catholic Bulletin.) "

The Alsace-Lorraine problem is in the foreground of Politics and War. It is likely to prove a stormy petrel in European hegemony for many a day. For a decade, after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, it was a node of fiery passions until it settled down in the complaisant ]aissez-fairezS7?t of the French anti-clerical and sans-patrie politician. The world-war has stirred amd let loose many passions; innumerable feuds have revived which it would take years of disinterested diplomacy to restrain and satisfy. Ambitions for righting wrongs are running high. The Czecho-Slovacs. are to have their ancestry made out, their territory mapped, and facilities given them for legitimate racial expansion. Very much to the fore in the map reconstruction process which must come after the war is the allegiance of Alsace-Lorraine. A good deal of discussion . has arisen around this knotty question. Arguments have/ Been put forward from the German side and from the French. As the latter have become more resolute in pursuing the war, the demand of- the Allies for the restitution of AlsaceLorraine has become the more imperative. A duel has been going on between English and German politicians, with occasional interjections from the French, regarding this restoration. Germany's Foreign Secretary, Herr von Kuhl-. mann, asks the question, "Can Germany in any form make any concessions with regard to Alsace-Lorraine?" The answer is: "No, never! So long as a single German hand can hold a gun, the integrity of the territory handed down to us as a glorious inheritance by our forefathers can never be the object of any negotiations or concessions. I am sure that, whether on the Right or the Left, you will stand for that with equal resoluteness and equal selfsacrifice." * Mr. Asquith quoted the above in his speech at Leeds a few days later, and asked what is this "glorious inheritance"? . > "It is," he replies, "territory which had been for long years part of France, which was' French in sympathy and sentiment, which was filched from France less than 50 years ago, against the protest, so far, at any rate, as Lorraine was concerned, of the greatest of German statesmen,- without any consultation of or regard for the opinions ""Br wishes of the inhabitants, to be held not merely as the price of German victory, but as the symbol of French humiliation. It is, as I pointed out the other day, this act of crude and short-sighted spoliation which was the root and source of the unrest, of the unstable equilibrium, of the competition in armaments, which have afflicted Europe during the lifetime of two generations, and which have culminated in the most terrible war in history. t In 1870 England's views were different. Then she was at the other side of the barricade, for her own interests were not vitally concerned. Her intervention then in favor of France' might have prevented the "spoliation" which she now deplores. As a guardian of right, it would have become her duty to do so and thus prevent the many sad issues "which have culminated in the most terrible war in history." . . In the light of modern diplomacy, mainly consisting of bullying and wielding of the big stick, between nations, the accusation of "spoliation" of territory after a victorious war does not cast a very great slur on the nation concerned, neither does it destroy its right to the territory acquired. The callous we victi's was the passing sneer for those who were sold into bondage. All this was the lot of the peoples of Alsace and Lorraine, but, if the ethos of these peoples is now in its proper setting 'as forming portion of the German Confederation, it is not to be wondered at that they should shrink from a change that would inevitably bring disasters. "V . The argument that these two provinces in the main belonged to France before 1870 is not very convincing in supporting the French claim, for cannot it be asserted that during a considerably longer period their allegiance was turned eastward from the Rhine? If traditional and uninterrupted ownership and occupation be necessary to assert a just claim to territory when the post-bellum map is cast, there shall be a nice medley and if the fact that

* Times, October 11, 1917. . *.'; t Times, October 12, 1917. Lloyd George's speech, of January 5, 1918, would seem to mark a climb-down on the part of the Allies. He seems to think that Germany may be prepared to return the more French portions to France, while retaining the more German portions of Alsace-Lorraine. , '/ „ M^