A French statesman, Mr. Louis Barthou, has summed up the War aims of France in the three words: "Restitution, Reparation, Guarantees."
Restitution means the surrender of all occupied territories, of the territories occupied by force during forty-seven months, as well as the territories occupied by force during forty-seven years. Between the five departments forming Flanders-Argonne and the five departments forming Alsace-Lorraine, France is unable to make any distinction. France wants Metz back on the same ground upon which she wants Lille back. If Germany is to keep Metz she might as well keep Lille. Her claim to Strasbourg is not better than her claim to Cambrai.
And this is a thing which "the man in the street" fails sometimes to understand. He says: "Yes, we know, Alsace-Lorraine was taken from France forty-seven years ago by violence, without the people of the occupied territories being consulted. But how did France acquire Alsace-Lorraine in previous times? Was it not also by force after successful wars? Is it not a fact that Alsace-Lorraine, in days of yore, belonged to Germany, and that, historically, Alsace is a German land?"
No, it is precisely not a fact. It is the contrary of a fact and of truth. And this must be made clear, once for all.
When France demands Alsace-Lorraine, she does not do so because she will have some more departments in her geographical configuration, but because these territories belonged to France during centuries and centuries, because they were taken from France by force forty-seven years ago, because the people of these territories not only were never consulted, but also protested against Prussian domination-because, in a word, it is a question of right.
In a speech, which he delivered on the 24th of January, 1918, before the Reichstag, Count von Hertling, the Imperial German Chancellor, expressed himself as follows:
Alsace-Lorraine comprises, as is known, for the most part purely German regions which by a century long of violence and illegality were severed from the German Empire, until finally in 1779 the French Revolution swallowed up the last remnant. Alsace and Lorraine then became French provinces. When in the war of 1870, we demanded back the district which had been criminally wrested from us, that was not a conquest of foreign territory but, rightly and properly speaking, what today is called disannexation.
It is doubtful that Count von Hertling will ever leave in history the memory of a great Chancellor; but, if he does, it will be no doubt in the History of Ignorance and Falsehood. Never has a statesman in so few words uttered with such impudence so many untruths!
Historically speaking, there are in Alsace-Lorraine three parts: there is Lorraine, there is Alsace, and there is the southern part of Alsace including the town of Mulhouse.
As regards the town of Mulhouse, the question is most simple and clear. The town never, at any time, belonged to Germany or to the Germans. It belonged to Switzerland and, at the end of the 18th century, during the French revolution, the town, after a referendum, decided to become French. A delegation was sent to Paris, to the French Parliament, then called the Conseil des Cinq-Cents, and the delegation expressed publicly, officially, the desire of Mulhouse to be part of the French territory. There was a deliberation, and unanimously the Conseil des Cinq-Cents voted a motion couched in the following terms: "The French Republic accepts the vow of the citizens of Mulhouse."
A few weeks later the French authorities, among scenes of unparalleled enthusiasm, made their entry into the town, and the flag of Mulhouse was wrapped up in a tricolor box bearing the inscription: "The Republic of Mulhouse rests in the bosom of the French Republic."
Alsace-the rest of Alsace-became French in 1648, more than two centuries before the war of 1870. It became French according to a treaty. The treaty was signed by the Austrian Emperor, because Alsace belonged to the Austrian Imperial Family. And it is not without interest to quote an article (article 75) of the treaty:
The Emperor cedes to the King of France forever, in perpetuum, without any reserve, with full jurisdiction and sovereignty, all the Alsatian territory. The Austrian Emperor gives it to the King of France in such a way that no other Emperor, in the future, will ever have any power in any time to affirm any right on these territories.
When today one reads that treaty, one has the impression that more than two centuries ago the Austrian Emperor had already a sort of apprehension that later on another Emperor would interfere in the matter and create mischief!
Fifty-three years after that treaty, the Prussians, who dislike seeing anything in some one's else possession, tried to recover Alsace. Their own ambassador tried to dissuade them, and in 1701 Count Schmettau, ambassador of Prussia in Paris, wrote to his king:
"We cannot take Alsace, because it is well known that her inhabitants are more French than the Parisians...."
Could anything answer better the affirmation that "Alsatians are of German tendency?"
Lorraine became French in 1552, more than three centuries before the war of 1870. Lorraine became French not after a war and as the result of a conquest, but according to a treaty signed by all the Protestant Princes of Germany, in which we find the following sentence, which is really worthy of meditation: "We find just that the King of France, as promptly as possible, takes possession of the towns of Toul, Metz, and Verdun, where the German language has never been used." So that the Germans themselves put on the same line the towns of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and recognized that the town of Metz was not German.
All this is extremely simple and clear. What happened several centuries later is equally clear.
When, in 1871, on February 16th, the deputies of Alsace-Lorraine learned that their provinces would be given up to Germany, they assembled, and in an historical document which was signed by all of them-there were thirty-six-they protested in the following terms:
Alsace and Lorraine cannot be alienated. Today, before the whole world, they proclaim that they want to remain French. Europe cannot allow or ratify the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. Europe cannot allow a people to be seized like a flock of sheep. Europe cannot remain deaf to the protest of a whole population. Therefore, we declare in the name of our population, in the name of our children and of our descendants, that we are considering any treaty which gives us up to a foreign power as a treaty null and void, and we will eternally revindicate the right of disposing of ourselves and of remaining French.
And, three years later, in January, 1874, when for the first time Alsace and Lorraine had to elect deputies, they reiterated the same protest. They elected fifteen new deputies; some were Protestants, some were Catholics, one of them was the Bishop of Strasbourg, but they unanimously signed a declaration which was read at the Tribune of the German Reichstag. The declaration was the following:
In the name of all the people of Alsace-Lorraine, we protest against the abuse of force of which our country is a victim.... Citizens having a soul and an intelligence are not mere goods that may be sold, or with which you may trade.
The contract which annexed us to Germany is null and void. A contract is only valid when the two contractants had an entire freedom to sign it. France was not free when she signed such a contract. Therefore our electors want us to say that we consider ourselves as not bound by such a treaty, and they want us to affirm once more our right of disposing of ourselves.
I beg to call the attention of the reader to two sentences of this protestation:
"Europe cannot allow a people to be seized like a flock of sheep," wrote the deputies of 1871. "People are not mere goods which may be sold or with which you may trade," proclaimed the deputies of 1874. Now you will find, nearly word for word, the same thought expressed in the message of President Wilson to Congress, when he wrote: "No right exists anywhere to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property."
That right does not exist, and it is because that right was outrageously violated in 1871 that France wants Alsace-Lorraine to come back to her. It is because, in 1871, Right has been wronged that today Right must be reinstated.
Some people have spoken of a referendum. Why a referendum? Was there any referendum in 1871? And how could there be a referendum? How could you include in this referendum the hundreds of thousands of Alsatians who have fled from German domination? How could you exclude from this referendum the hundreds of thousands of Germans who have come to Alsace?
The referendum was rendered by Mulhouse in 1798. Will that town be obliged to vote again? And how many times will it be obliged to vote for France? The referendum was rendered by the whole of Alsace and Lorraine in 1871 and 1874, by their elected deputies, when they unanimously protested against the German annexation.
It was rendered twenty years ago by the census which was taken by the Germans themselves in Alsace. According to that census, in 1895, notwithstanding the fact that the teaching of French was prohibited in the public schools, there were 160,000 people in Alsace speaking French. And five years later, in 1900, according to another census there were 200,000 people in Alsace speaking French. And of these 200,000 people, there were more than 52,000 children.
The referendum was also rendered by Alsatians who, before this war, engaged themselves in the French Army, and became officers. According to the official statistics of the French War Department, there were in 1914 in the French Army 20 generals, 145 superior officers, and 400 ordinary officers of Alsatian origin. On the other side, in the German Army in 1914, there were four officers of Alsatian origin.
And finally the referendum was rendered only one year before the present war, in 1913, when Herr von Jagow, then Prefect of Police in Berlin, made the following extraordinary declaration: "We Germans are obliged in Alsace to behave ourselves as if we were in an enemy's country...." What better referendum could you wish than such an admission by a German statesman?
Moreover, the question of Alsace-Lorraine is not only a French question, but also an international question. It is not only France who has sworn to herself to recover Alsace-Lorraine-it is all the Allies who have sworn to France that she should recover it.
"We mean to stand by the French democracy to the death," solemnly declared Mr. Lloyd-George on the 5th of January, 1918, "in the demand they make for a reconsideration of the great wrong of 1871, when, without any regard to the wishes of the population, two French provinces were torn from the side of France and incorporated in the German Empire."
And, three days later, using nearly the same words, President Wilson, in his luminous message to Congress, said: "The wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871, in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all."
All the statesmen who have spoken since the beginning of the war in the name of the Allied Powers have attested that this war is not only a struggle for the liberty of nations and the respect due to nationalities, but also an effort toward definite peace. Their words only appeared fit for stirring up the enthusiasm of the crowds, and fortifying their will of sacrifice, because they gave expression to their feelings and prayers. If they are forgotten by those who uttered them they will be remembered by those who heard and treasured them.
In September, 1914, Winston Churchill said: "We want this war to remodel the map of Europe according to the principle of nationalities, and the real wish of the people living in the contested territories. After so much bloodshed we wish for a peace which will free races, and restore the integrity of nations.... Let us have done with the armaments, the fear of strain, intrigues, and the perpetual threat of the horrible present crisis. Let us make the regulation of European conflicts just and natural." The French republic, of one mind with the Allies, proclaimed through its authorized representatives that this war is a war of deliverance. "France," said Mr. Stephen Pichon, Foreign Minister, "will not lay down arms before having shattered Prussian militarism, so as to be able to rebuild on a basis of justice a regenerated Europe." And Mr. Paul Deschanel, the President of the Chamber, continued: "The French are not only defending their soil, their homes, the tombs of their ancestors, their sacred memories, their ideal works of art and faith and all the graceful, just, and beautiful things their genius has lavished forth: they are defending, too, the respect of treaties, the independence of Europe, and human freedom. We want to know if all the effort of conscience during centuries will lead to its slavery, if millions of men are to be taken, given up, herded at the other side of a frontier and condemned to fight for their conquerors and masters against their country, their families, and their brothers.... The world wishes to live at last, Europe to breathe, and the nations mean to dispose freely of themselves."
These engagements will be kept. But they will have been kept only when Alsace-Lorraine-the Belgium of 1871, as Rabbi Stephen Wise has called it-has been returned to France. Then, and only then, will there be real peace. Then, and only then, will the "Testament" of Paul Derouléde have been executed:
When our war victorious is o'er,
And our country has won back its rank,
Then with the evils war brings in its train
Will disappear the hatred the conqueror trails.
Then our great France, full of love without spite
Sowing fresh springing-corn 'neath her new-born laurels,
Will welcome Work, father of Fortune,
And sing Peace, mother of lengthy deeds.
Then will come Peace, calm, serene, and awful,
Crushing down arms, but upholding intellect;
For we shall stand out as just-hearted conquerors,
Only taking back what was robbed from us.
And our nation, weary of mourning,
Will soothe the living while praising the dead,
And nevermore will we hear the name of battle
And our children shall learn to unlearn hate.
Just as France will not accept peace without restitution, she will not accept peace without reparation.
Germany can never make reparation for all the ruin, all the destruction, all the sacrilege she has wrought. There can be no reparation for the Cathedral of Rheims, for the Hotel de Ville at Arras, for the deaths of thousands of innocent beings, for the slaughter of women and children.
But there can be reparation for the damage done to machinery. The treasures of art which, contrary to all law and right, Germany has taken into her own country, can be returned. They can return the funds illegally stolen from the vaults of municipalities, banks and public societies. They can pay off the receipts which they themselves have signed for the objects they have compelled the owners to hand over to them.
Every chateau in the north of France, places such as those of the Prince of Monaco, of Mr. Balny d'Avricourt, that of Coucy, have been looted and pillaged. Antique furniture, paintings by the great masters, sculptures, historic pieces of tapestry have been carried off into Germany. Tapestries, sculptures, furniture and paintings must come back from Germany. The museums at St. Quentin and Lille have seen their collections of value to art and science carried off; these collections must come back. Factories have been robbed of their pumps, of their equipment, of their trucks; other pumps, other equipment, other trucks must be put in their place. Otherwise, nothing will prevent that in the future other expeditions will come to ransack other countries. A bold move towards Venice allowed base hands to be laid on the most beautiful works of art humanity had produced. A fortunate descent on the shores of Long Island or of New Jersey would allow the Metropolitan Museum to be looted.
At Ham, in the Somme district, the Grand Duke of Hesse, the former Empress of Russia's brother, one morning entered the shop of an antiquarian and picked out a number of ancient bibelots and vases, ordering that they be sent to his quarters. The owner thought it would be wise to state the price of the lot:
"The price," exclaimed the Grand Duke, "there's nothing for me to pay for! Everything here belongs to me."
But the owner protested, since, as he said, he did own the goods.
"Here," said the Grand Duke, "this will pay you for them."
And he handed the man his card with the words "good for so many francs" written on it; also his signature.
The number of francs mentioned on the Grand Duke of Hesse's card will have to be paid in full after the war. So will the thousands of requisitions signed by persons of less importance-governors, generals, colonels, majors, men who thought they could ransack all Belgium and the north of France with impunity, giving in exchange mere scraps of paper.
The great cities of Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing, Laon and Mezières have been compelled to pay exorbitant levies for war purposes, which have amounted to billions of francs. This was contrary to all international law and to the Hague Tribunal's regulations. The funds thus illegally extorted will have to be repaid in full. No indemnities-that is understood and is perfectly just. It is precisely because there will not have to be any indemnities that the indemnities already extorted will have to be made good.
* * *
Finally, just as France cannot make peace without receiving restitution and reparation, she cannot make peace without receiving certain guarantees.
Here we approach one of the most complex and difficult aspects of the entire problem, because we find ourselves in the presence of the famous League of Nations. President Wilson, one of the most noble and generous spirits, one of the greatest figures that has appeared in the entire war, launched if not the idea at least the first definite statement thereof.... And this statement has awakened in all hearts, tired of carnage and slaughter, the same infinite hope that words of goodness, liberty and fraternity always awaken, which evoke the thought of the supreme end towards which humanity tends. The statement has done better than merely move men's emotions, it has moved men's thoughts. It has kindled in them a ray of hope which tends to shine more brightly every day in that they know that the civilized world will be truly a civilized world only when it is formed and fashioned in the likeness of a civilized nation. In a civilized nation no one has the right to kill another man, to obtain justice by using force, to commit murder, nor to raise armed bands to shoot, blow up or kill with poisoned gas other men. Tribunals exist to appease differences and to prevent fighting; every citizen is associated with every other citizen in the common cause of security and progress.
In a civilized world no nation has the right to massacre, no nation ought to have the right to resort to the use of force to obtain justice, no nation ought to have the right to attack, harm, or destroy another nation. There ought to be tribunals to appease the differences of peoples as well as those of individuals; every nation ought to be associated with every other nation to assure the progress of the entire world.
This theory is not only appealing, it is irrefutable. But it is a law for this earth that the most profoundly just and true theories, those which have been most scientifically demonstrated, encounter, when put into practice, obstacles which have not been surmounted and are often insurmountable.
President Wilson, who is not only a great jurist and a noble idealist, but who also has that genius for realization which is a characteristic of all America, has not failed to appreciate the difficulties which the League of Nations would encounter were it put into practice. And if, in his messages, he has insisted with a force that is every day more eloquent on the necessity of tackling the problem; he has never given a detailed solution for it.
He has done better than that, for he has swept aside certain factors which would have made it absolutely impossible. On the second, of April, 1917, in his immortal declaration of war, he formally declared that "no autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within a partnership of nations or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one, would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only a free people can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end, and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own."
These are admirable words of truth and of philosophic depth, words which deserve to be graven in stone. No autocracy, then, in the League of Nations, no German militarism nor Austrian imperialism in it. No universal league of nations, even, but a limited society, a society of democracies!
Certain hasty critics have observed neither the same prudence nor logic as President Wilson. They have been farther from the truth, much farther from the truth. They have falsified his text, as do all commentators. They have desired to build complete in all details the League of Nations, which only existed in outline. They have succeeded in showing how difficult the construction would be, and they have only been able to set up a house of cards which the first breath of wind would knock down.
For example, this is how one of the most eminent French socialists, M. Albert Thomas, a man who has given abundant proof of his practical experience and actual talents, formerly the French Minister of Munitions, depicts the League of Nations:
Let us suppose [he wrote on the twenty-fifth of December, 1917], as the mathematicians say, that the problem is solved. Let us suppose that the society of nations, made up of all the nations, had been created by common accord about the year 1910 or 1912. What would it have accomplished? After the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Hague Tribunal, or perhaps the Washington Tribunal, would have made inquiry into the conditions of the murder. It would have taken certain steps. And if Austria, still dissatisfied, had invaded Serbia for the sake of revenge or to give scope to her ambitious designs, if Germany had joined with her in this, then all the other allied nations, in the performance of their duty, would have entered into a war against the central powers in order to force them to respect the liberties and the integrity of little Serbia. For there can be no rule without sanction therefore. No international law is possible if there does not exist at the service of this law the "organized force that is superior to that of any nation or to that of any alliance of nations" of which President Wilson speaks.
If the society of nations had existed in 1914 and if Germany had violated its laws, the entire world would have taken military action against Germany by means of war, economic action by means of blockade and of depriving her of the necessities of life. The entire world would have been at war with her and her allies. And in order that the league of nations might continue to exist, in order that the rule of justice, scarcely outlined, could have continued to exist, the victory of the entente powers would have been as necessary as it is today. Mr. Lloyd-George and President Wilson would have said, as they say today, "No league of nations without victory."
The difference is that in 1914 a verdict in the case would have been handed down by the common tribunal of the nations, and that there would have been no possible discussion of the violations of right committed by Germany nor on the responsibility for having caused the war.
The difference would have been that in place of seeing the neutral nations hesitating, frightened by German force, disturbed by German lies, rallying only under the protection of one of the Entente armies, at the moment when they had seen on which side lay right, they would all, at the very beginning, have entered into the battle in fulfillment of their obligations not only on account of their moral responsibility but on account of their clearly understood interests.
Finally the difference is that, the rights of the peoples having been defined clearly, there would have been no moment's uncertainty nor hesitation concerning the ends of the war.
And it is impossible to doubt that the present situation of the war would have been decidedly different from what it is today.
I have cited the passage at length in order to give the critic's argument its widest scope. But, alas, who does not see the argument's fallacy? Who does not perceive that this re?nforced skyscraper is a cardboard column liable to fall with the first push that is given it?
Moreover, from the very beginning, the originator of the idea of the society of nations admits the hypothesis of a war and presupposes all the nations in the league are making war against another nation. Even with the society of nations there will still be wars. Even with the society of nations there will be no guarantee of absolute peace.
So we are shown the spectacle, in case of war, of all the nations making war at once, without the least hesitation, without delay, without any discussion, against the people that disturbs the peace of the world. Is it a certainty that this unanimity would result? Is it a certainty that there would be no falling away, no delay? And, granting that there would be none of this, is it a certainty that irremediable catastrophes could be avoided? To consider once more M. Thomas' example of the war of 1914, let us suppose that there had been at that time a society of nations, that England had had an army, that the United States had had an army, and that the Anglo-American army had not lost a day nor an hour. Is it a certainty that they would have prevented the Germans from being at the gates of Liège on the seventh of August, in Brussels on the nineteenth of August, and before Paris on the second of September? And if today France, England, America, Italy, Japan and four-fifths of the civilized world, in spite of the treasure of heroism and effort that has been expended, have not been able to prevent the present result, is it possible that this would have been obtained with the assistance of Switzerland, the Scandinavian nations, Holland and Spain?
"The difference," continues M. Thomas, "is that there would not have been the possibility of any discussion of the violation of rights committed by Germany, nor upon what nation rests the responsibility for causing the war." But is that so sure? How was there any discussion in 1914 of the violation of Belgium by Germany? Did not Germany herself, in the teeth of all the world, hurl the avowal of this violation when von Bethmann-Hollweg, in the Reichstag, cynically declared: "We have just invaded Belgium.... Yes, we know that it is contrary to international law; but we were compelled by necessity. And necessity knows no law." What international tribunal's verdict could have the force of this avowal from the lips of the guilty man? However, the world has not moved, the world has not trembled, the world is not now up in arms. And who would guarantee that another time when the case will be perhaps less flagrant, the crime more obscure, the aggressor less cynical, the world will tremble and rise in arms?
Moreover, is it always possible to determine the responsibility for war's origin? Is it always possible, before an international tribunal of arbitration, to throw the proper light and all the light on the course events have taken? Will the judges always be unanimous?
Take the case of the last Balkan War in 1912. Is it possible today, from a six years' perspective, to establish with any degree of certitude the reasons for its outbreak and determine without hesitation the responsibility for it? Can you affirm with any degree of certainty that a court composed of American, European and Asiatic jurists would be unanimous in condemning Turkey and exonerating Bulgaria? And tomorrow, if the Ukraine should suddenly hurl itself against the Republic of the Don, or if Finland invaded Great Russia, with your international court would you be really in a way to pronounce a verdict within five days? And if Sweden took Finland's part and Germany took Great Russia's, could you guarantee that Argentina, Japan, Australia and even France would consent to mobilize their fleets and their armies to settle the question of a frontier on the banks of the Neva? Can you guarantee that every war of every Slav republic would have for a correlative the mobilization of the entire world?
And then are you certain that the idea of a society of nations is exactly a new one? Are you certain that there did not exist a society of nations before the outbreak of the present war? Have you never heard that, on the fifteenth of June, 1907, at The Hague, forty-four nations of the civilized world (and Germany was one of the number) assembled and met together to form such a league? Have you never heard of the treaty that was signed then which, according to the wording at the treaty's head, had for its object "fixing the laws and usages at war on the land"? Have you never read the terms of this convention, have you never glanced through the sixty-odd articles which today, in the presence of the nameless horrors in which we lend a hand, offer a prodigious interest to actuality?
Glance over these articles-and let us see how they have been applied:
Article 4 provides that "prisoners of war must be humanely treated. All their personal belongings, except arms, horses, and military papers, remain their property." Now all the prisoners held by Germany have, without exception, been spoiled of their money, of their portfolios, of their rings, of their jewels, of their eyeglasses.
Article 6 says that "the state may employ as workmen the prisoners of war," but it is careful in stipulating "that the work must not be excessive and must have nothing whatever to do with operations of war." Article 7 says that "prisoners of war shall be treated as regards board, lodging, and clothing on the same footing as the troops of the Government who captured them." Each of these two articles has been violated since the beginning of the war by the Germans. After the Battle of the Marne, when the advancing French troops of Joffre arrived on the Aisne they found French civilians captured by the Germans and compelled by them to work in the trenches. Moreover, an official report emanating from Mr. Gustave Ador, President of the International Red Cross, now member of the Swiss Federal Council, called the attention of the belligerents as soon as October, 1914, to the bad treatment of the French prisoners in Germany. Each French officer had, as prisoner, a salary of one hundred marks per month, which was not even half of the pay of an under-officer.
Articles 23, 25, 27, and 28 are so interesting that they must be quoted in extenso:
Article 23. In addition to the prohibitions provided by special conventions, it is especially forbidden:
(a) To employ poison or poisoned weapons.
(c) To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer means of defense, has surrendered at discretion.
(d) To declare that no quarter will be given.
(e) To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.
(f) To make improper use of a flag of truce, of the national flag, or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy, as well as the distinctive badges of the Geneva Convention.
(g) To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war.
(h) A belligerent is likewise forbidden to compel the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, even if they were in the belligerent's service before the commencement of the war.
Article 25. The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.
Article 27. In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes.
Article 28. The pillage of a town or place, even when taken by assault, is prohibited.
It seems that the men of The Hague, when they wrote those articles, had a sort of prescience of the future cruelties of war and that they wanted to avoid them. Let us see how far they have succeeded.
It was forbidden to employ poison or poisoned weapons. No later than last spring when the Germans evacuated certain parts of the north of France instructions emanating from the German general headquarters were found in the pocket of many German prisoners or on the dead, and those instructions indicated how the water of the wells was to be poisoned: "Such and such a soldier," ran instructions, "will be in charge of the wells, will throw in each one a sufficient quantity of poison or creosote, or, lacking these, all available filth."
It was forbidden to declare that no quarter would be given. And here is the order of the day issued on August 25, 1914, by General Stenger, commanding the Fifty-eighth German Brigade, to his troops: "After today no more prisoners will be taken. All prisoners are to be killed. Wounded, with or without arms, are to be killed. Even prisoners already grouped in convoys are to be killed. Let not a single living enemy remain behind us."
It was forbidden to pillage a town or locality, even when taken by assault. And on the corpse of the German private Handschumacher (of the Eleventh Battalion of J?gers, Reserve) in the very earliest days of the war, was found the following diary: "August 8, 1914. Gouvy (Belgium). There, as the Belgians had fired on the German soldiers, we at once pillaged the goods station. Some cases, eggs, shirts, and all eatables were seized. The safe was gutted and the money divided among the men. All securities were torn up."
In fact, pillage and robberies went on on such a high scale during the first months of the war that considerable sums of money were sent from France and Belgium to Germany. A German newspaper, the Berlin Tageblatt, of November 26, 1914, implicitly avowed it when, in a technical article on the military treasury ("Der Zahlmeister im Felde"), it wrote: "It is curious to note that far more money-orders are sent from the theater of operations to the interior of the country than vice versa."
Article 50 of this Hague Convention states that "no general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible." Side by side with this article, it is interesting to reproduce an extract from a proclamation of General von Bülow, posted up at Liège on August 22, 1914: "The inhabitants of the town of Andenne, after having protested their peaceful intentions, treacherously surprised our troops. It is with my full consent that the general in command had the whole place burned, and about a hundred people were shot." Moreover, here is an extract from a proclamation of Major-Commander Dieckmann, posted up at Grivegnée on September 8, 1914: "Every one who does not obey at once the word of command, 'Hands up,' is guilty of the penalty of death." And finally here is an extract from a proclamation of Marshal Baron von der Goltz, posted up in Brussels on October 5, 1914: "In future all places near the spot where such acts have taken place [destruction of railway lines or telegraph wires]-no matter whether guilty or not-shall be punished without mercy. With this end in view, hostages have been brought from all places near railway lines exposed to such attacks, and at the first attempt to destroy railway lines, telegraph or telephone lines, they will be immediately shot."
Article 56 of the Hague Convention provides that "the property of municipalities, that of institutions dedicated to religion, charity, and education, to the arts and sciences, even when state property, shall be treated as private property. All seizure of, destruction, or willful damage done to institutions of this character, historical monuments, works of art and science, is forbidden, and should be made the subject of legal proceedings."
Four names, which will be eternally remembered, are here sufficient to answer: there is Rheims and its Cathedral, Louvain and its library, Arras and its Town Hall, Ypres and its bell tower.
In the course of this war, Germany has disavowed her signature any number of times and has broken her pledges just as often as she has made them. Germany is a proven perjurer not only in the eyes of the nations at war with her, but also in the regard of the forty-four countries signatory of the Hague Convention. However, we have never heard that a single one of these nations lodged a protest against her actions. The Hague Convention has been torn into shreds, and not one of its signers has entered the slightest protest.
Is the next society of nations to be modeled on the same principles? Is the next society of nations going to draw up articles of the same kind as the Hague society? Is the future society of nations to accept among its members the same Empire of Germany which in 1914 declared bankruptcy? Will the future act of the society of nations be a simple scrap of paper, like the last act of 1907?
But let us cease asking these questions. There is no gain in asking certain questions to gain certain replies. There is no gain in examining certain problems to make the difficulties of the solution more apparent.
There is no doubt that the society of nations will exist some day. For the honor of humanity we must hope that it will exist. But it is not one day's work, nor the speaking of a single discourse nor the writing of one article that will build it. In M. Clemenceau's words, right can not be firmly established as long as the world is based on might. To bring about the rule of Right, Might must be destroyed and driven out as the very first move in the campaign for ultimate liberty.
German Might will not be destroyed by international compacts to which Germany will be party. Recall the treaty guaranteeing Belgium's integrity, which was one that Germany signed. Recall the Hague Conventions, signed by this same Germany. The men are fools who will not recall these things, who will not profit by them as examples. German might will only be destroyed by international agreements to which Germany is not a party, and which shall place German might beyond the regions in which it can play a dangerous part.
Now we are not building this upon sand, but upon a foundation of solid rock.
Germany needs two things to continue her national existence. She must import from other countries certain products necessary to her existence. For example, there is wool, of which she was obliged to import 1,888,481 metric quintals in order to manufacture her sixteen thousand grades of woolen fabrics. There is copper, of which Germany imported 250,000 tons in 1913 (200,000 tons came from America), in order to sell the merchandise she finds has a good market in foreign countries. Considering all Germany's exports for the period from 1903-1913, we find that their total has passed from 6,400 millions to 12,600 millions, an increase of nearly one hundred per cent.
There lies the best, the true, indeed the only means whereby the Allies can compel Germany to disarm. We do not demand that the economic war shall continue after the actual warfare is at an end, but we can demand that the Allies shall not lay aside their economic arms when the Germans shall have laid aside their fighting arms. In other words, we can demand that the Allies do not give Germany wool, copper and money if they know that this wool, money and copper are to feed the war machine. This war machine cost the German Empire nearly four hundred millions of dollars according to the budget of 1914. Suppose the Allies said to Germany, "As long as you have a military and naval budget of four hundred millions of dollars, we regret that we shall be unable to sell you wool and copper. We regret that we shall be unable to buy anything from you. But, if you reduce this budget by half, we are willing to give you one million metric quintals of wool and 125,000 tons of copper. Likewise, we are disposed to make purchases in your market totalling one billion dollars. If your military and naval budgets fall to nothing, we are willing to go much farther and buy and sell everything with you in unlimited quantities." Suppose the Allies make these proposals to Germany. Suppose they are put into effect. Will they not be a better guarantee of universal peace than all the Conventions and all the courts of arbitration in the world?
Then let no one disturb the peace of the world for his selfish purposes. Left to themselves, the little Balkan States and Slav States will not start great, long wars, just as the lone robber posted at the edge of a woods will not endanger a province's communications for very long. The formidable thing is the great country that is arranged and planned along the lines of war, where everything is organized with a view to war; just as the formidable thing for a city is the small band of malefactors who are able to terrify half the citizens by the use of highly perfected arms.
There will be no lasting peace until the most terrible war machine the world has ever known shall have been destroyed, reduced to an impotent state of non-existence. Ideals will not destroy this machine, but practical means and getting down to the facts of the case will do so. Pasteur did not overcome hydrophobia by writing treatises and dissertations. He met poison with poison, he injected the healing serum into the veins of the maddened dog. Now Germany is the mad dog, and Germany must be inoculated. After that there will be time to pass hygienic measures for the regiment of the entire world. Today Germany must be killed or cured. Germany is the cancer that must be cut out, lest it eat up the world.
It has been a matter of life and death for Liberty and Civilization. Both of them have been sick unto death. Clutched foully by the throat, they have heard their own death rattle; they themselves thought they might not survive. Now they stand on their feet, so weak, so pale, and so feeble that their life might still be despaired of. If we do not obtain definite guarantees against the monster who has barely failed to strangle them and to force the entire world back into the darkness of slavery, we shall have failed in our task, and the blood shed in the fight for Liberty will have been shed in vain.
* * *
APPENDICES
The following irrefutable documents, selected from among thousands of others which history will record, prove better than any other means how the Germans understand war and peace. They deserve a place in this volume because they demonstrate why and against what France is fighting.
* * *
APPENDIX I
HOW GERMANS FORCED WAR ON FRANCE
Answering to the Pope, in September, 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm II declared "that he had always regarded it as his principal and most sacred duty to preserve the blessing of Peace for the German people and the world." More recently, driving through the battlefield of Cambrai, the Kaiser, according to the war correspondent of the Berlin Lokalanzeiger, exclaimed: "God knows what I have not done to prevent such a war!"
A document made public by M. Stephen Pichon, French Foreign Minister, shows exactly how, in the last days of July, 1914, the Kaiser tried "to preserve the blessings of Peace for the German people and the world" and what he did "to prevent such a war."
Speaking at the Sorbonne, in Paris, on March 1, 1918, M. Pichon said:
I will establish by documents that the day the Germans deliberately rendered inevitable the most frightful of wars they tried to dishonor us by the most cowardly complicity in the ambush into which they drew Europe. I will establish it in the revelation of a document which the German Chancellor, after having drawn it up, preserved carefully, and you will see why, in the most profound mystery of the most secret archives.
We have known only recently of its authenticity, and it defies any sort of attempt to disprove it. It bears the signature of Bethmann Hollweg (German Imperial Chancellor at the outbreak of the war) and the date July 31, 1914. On that day Von Schoen (German Ambassador to France) was charged by a telegram from his Chancellor to notify us of a state of danger of war with Russia and to ask us to remain neutral, giving us eighteen hours in which to reply.
What was unknown until today was that the telegram of the German Chancellor containing these instructions ended with these words:
If the French Government declares it will remain neutral your Excellency will be good enough to declare that we must, as a guarantee of its neutrality, require the handing over of the fortresses of Toul and Verdun; that we will occupy them and will restore them after the end of the war with Russia. A reply to this last question must reach here before Saturday afternoon at 4 o'clock.
That is how Germany wanted peace at the moment when she declared war! That is how sincere she was in pretending that we obliged her to take up arms for her defense! That is the price she intended to make us pay for our baseness if we had the infamy to repudiate our signature as Prussia repudiated hers by tearing up the treaty that guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium!
It was explained that the above document has not previously been published, because the code could not be deciphered: the French Foreign Office succeeded only a few days before in decodifying the document.
Moreover, Herr von Bethmann Hollweg, on March 18, 1918, acknowledged the accuracy of M. Pichon's quotation and contented himself to declare that "his instructions to Von Schoen were justified."
* * *
APPENDIX II
HOW GERMANS TREAT AN AMBASSADOR
This document is quoted from the French "Yellow Book," page 152:
From Copenhagen
French Yellow Book No. 155
M. Bapst, French Minister at Copenhagen, to
M. Doumergue, Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Copenhagen, August 6, 1914.
The French Ambassador at Berlin, M. Jules Cambon, asks me to communicate to your Excellency the following telegram:
I have been sent to Denmark by the German Government. I have just arrived at Copenhagen. I am accompanied by all the staff of the Embassy and the Russian Chargé d'Affaires at Darmstadt with his family. The treatment which we have received is of such a nature that I have thought it desirable to make a complete report on it to your Excellency by telegram.
On the morning of Monday, the 3rd of August, after I had, in accordance with your instructions, addressed to Herr von Jagow a protest against the acts of aggression committed on French territory by German troops, the Secretary of State came to see me. Herr von Jagow came to complain of acts of aggression which he alleged had been committed in Germany, especially at Nuremberg and Coblenz by French aviators, who according to his statement "had come from Belgium." I answered that I had not the slightest information as to the facts to which he attached so much importance and the improbability of which seemed to me obvious; on my part I asked him if he had read the note which I had addressed to him with regard to the invasion of our territory by detachments of the German army. As the Secretary of State said that he had not yet read this note I explained its contents to him. I called his attention to the act committed by the officer commanding one of the detachments who had advanced to the French village of Joncherey, ten kilometers within our frontier, and had blown out the brains of a French soldier whom he had met there. After having given my opinion of this act I added:
"You will admit that under no circumstances could there be any comparison between this and the flight of an aeroplane over foreign territory carried out by private persons animated by that spirit of individual courage by which aviators are distinguished.
"An act of aggression committed on the territory of a neighbor by detachments of regular troops commanded by officers assumes an importance of quite a different nature."
Herr von Jagow explained to me that he had no knowledge of the facts of which I was speaking to him, and he added that it was difficult for events of this kind not to take place when two armies filled with the feelings which animated our troops found themselves face to face on either side of the frontier.
At this moment the crowds which thronged the Pariser Platz in front of the Embassy and whom we could see through the window of my study, which was half open, uttered shouts against France. I asked the Secretary of State when all this would come to an end.
"The Government has not yet come to a decision," Herr von Jagow answered. "It is probable that Herr von Schoen will receive orders today to ask for his passports and then you will receive yours." The Secretary of State assured me that I need not have any anxiety with regard to my departure, and that all the proprieties would be observed with regard to me as well as my staff. We were not to see one another any more and we took leave of one another after an interview which had been courteous and could not make me anticipate what was in store for me.
Before leaving Herr von Jagow I expressed to him my wish to make a personal call on the Chancellor, as that would be the last opportunity that I should have of seeing him.
Herr von Jagow said that he did not advise me to carry out this intention as the interview would serve no purpose and could not fail to be painful.
At 6 o'clock in the evening Herr von Langwerth brought me my passports. In the name of his Government he refused to agree to the wish which I expressed to him that I should be permitted to travel by Holland or Belgium. He suggested to me that I should go either by way of Copenhagen, although he could not assure me a free passage by sea, or through Switzerland via Constance.
I accepted this last route; Herr von Langwerth having asked me to leave as soon as I possibly could it was agreed, in consideration of the necessity I was under of making arrangements with the Spanish Ambassador, who was undertaking the charge of our interests, that I should leave on the next day, the 4th August, at 10 o'clock at night.
At 7 o'clock, an hour after Herr von Langwerth had left, Herr von Lancken, formerly Councilor of the Embassy at Paris, came from the Minister for Foreign Affairs to tell me to request the staff of my Embassy to cease taking meals in the restaurants. This order was so strict that on the next day, Tuesday, I had to have recourse to the authority of the Wilhelmstrasse to get the H?tel Bristol to send our meals to the Embassy.
At 11 o'clock on the same evening, Monday, Herr von Langwerth came back to tell me that his Government would not allow our return by way of Switzerland under the pretext that it would take three days and three nights to take me to Constance. He announced that I should be sent by way of Vienna. I only agreed to this alteration under reserve, and during the night I wrote the following letter to Herr von Langwerth:
"Berlin, August 3rd, 1914.
"M. le Baron;
"I have been thinking over the route for my return to my country about which you came to speak to me this evening. You propose that I shall travel by Vienna. I run the risk of finding myself detained in that town, if not by the action of the Austrian Government, at least owing to the mobilization which creates great difficulties similar to those existing in Germany as to the movements of trains.
"Under these circumstances I must ask the German Government for a promise made on their honor that the Austrian Government will send me to Switzerland, and that the Swiss Government will not close its frontier either to me or to the persons by whom I am accompanied, as I am told that that frontier has been firmly closed to foreigners.
"I cannot then accept the proposal that you have made to me unless I have the security which I ask for, and unless I am assured that I shall not be detained for some months outside my country.
"Jules Cambon."
In answer to this letter on the next morning, Tuesday the 4th August, Herr von Langwerth gave me in writing an assurance that the Austrian and Swiss authorities had received communications to this effect.
At the same time M. Miladowski, attached to the Consulate at Berlin, as well as other Frenchmen, was arrested in his own house while in bed. M. Miladowski, for whom a diplomatic passport had been requested, was released after four hours.
I was prepared to leave for Vienna when, at a quarter to five, Herr von Langwerth came back to inform me that I would have to leave with the persons accompanying me at 10 o'clock in the evening, but that I should be taken to Denmark. On this new requirement I asked if I should be confined in a fortress supposing I did not comply. Herr von Langwerth simply answered that he would return to receive my answer in half an hour. I did not wish to give the German Government the pretext for saying that I had refused to depart from Germany. I therefore told Herr von Langwerth when he came back that I would submit to the order which had been given to me but "that I protested."
I at once wrote to Herr von Jagow a letter of which the following is a copy:
Berlin, August 4, 1914.
"Sir:
"More than once your Excellency has said to me that the Imperial Government, in accordance with the usages of international courtesy, would facilitate my return to my own country, and would give me every means of getting back to it quickly.
"Yesterday, however, Baron von Langwerth, after refusing me access to Belgium and Holland, informed me that I should travel to Switzerland via Constance. During the night I was informed that I should be sent to Austria, a country which is taking part in the present war on the side of Germany. As I had no knowledge of the intentions of Austria towards me, since on Austrian soil I am nothing but an ordinary private individual, I wrote to Baron von Langwerth that I requested the Imperial Government to give me a promise that the Imperial and Royal Austrian authorities would give me all possible facilities for continuing my journey and that Switzerland would not be closed to me. Herr von Langwerth has been good enough to answer me in writing that I could be assured of an easy journey and that the Austrian authorities would do all that was necessary.
"It is nearly five o'clock, and Baron von Langwerth has just announced to me that I shall be sent to Denmark. In view of the present situation, there is no security that I shall find a ship to take me to England and it is this consideration which made me reject this proposal with the approval of Herr von Langwerth.
"In truth no liberty is left me and I am treated almost as a prisoner. I am obliged to submit, having no means of obtaining that the rules of international courtesy should be observed towards me, but I hasten to protest to your Excellency against the manner in which I am being treated.
"Jules Cambon."
Whilst my letter was being delivered I was told that the journey would not be made direct but by way of Schleswig. At 10 o'clock in the evening, I left the Embassy with my staff in the middle of a great assembly of foot and mounted police.
At the station the Ministry for Foreign Affairs was only represented by an officer of inferior rank.
The journey took place with extreme slowness. We took more than twenty-four hours to reach the frontier. It seemed that at every station they had to wait for orders to proceed. I was accompanied by Major von Rheinbaben of the Alessandra Regiment of the Guard and by a police officer. In the neighborhood of the Kiel Canal the soldiers entered our carriages. The windows were shut and the curtains of the carriages drawn down; each of us had to remain isolated in his compartment and was forbidden to get up or to touch his luggage. A soldier stood in the corridor of the carriage before the door of each of our compartments which were kept open, revolver in hand and finger on the trigger. The Russian Chargé d'Affaires, the women and children and everyone were subjected to the same treatment.
At the last German station about 11 o'clock at night, Major von Rheinbaben came to take leave of me. I handed to him the following letter to Herr von Jagow.
"Wednesday Evening, August 5, 1914.
"Sir:
"Yesterday before leaving Berlin, I protested in writing to your Excellency against the repeated change of route which was imposed upon me by the Imperial Government on my journey from Germany.
"Today as the train in which I was passed over the Kiel Canal an attempt was made to search all our luggage as if we might have hidden some instrument of destruction. Thanks to the interference of Major von Rheinbaben, we were spared this insult. But they went further.
"They obliged us to remain each in his own compartment, the windows and blinds having been closed. During this time, in the corridors of the carriages at the door of each compartment and facing each one of us, stood a soldier, revolver in hand, finger on the trigger, for nearly half an hour.
"I consider it my duty to protest against this threat of violence to the Ambassador of the Republic and the staff of his Embassy, violence which nothing could even have made me anticipate.
"Yesterday I had the honor of writing to your Excellency that I was being treated almost as a prisoner. Today I am being treated as a dangerous prisoner. Also I must record that during our journey which from Berlin to Denmark has taken twenty-four hours, no food has been prepared nor provided for me nor for the persons who were traveling with me to the frontier.
"Jules Cambon."
I thought that our troubles had finished, when shortly afterwards Major von Rheinbaben came, rather embarrassed, to inform me that the train would not proceed to the Danish frontier if I did not pay the cost of this train. I expressed my astonishment that I had not been made to pay at Berlin and that at any rate I had not been forewarned of this. I offered to pay by a cheque on one of the largest Berlin banks. This facility was refused me. With the help of my companions I was able to collect, in gold, the sum which was required from me at once, and which amounted to 3,611 marks, 75 pfennig. This is about 5,000 francs in accordance with the present rate of exchange.
After this last incident, I thought it necessary to ask Major von Rheinbaben for his word of honor as an officer and a gentleman that we should be taken to the Danish frontier. He gave it to me, and I required that the policeman who was with us should accompany us.
In this way we arrived at the first Danish station, where the Danish Government had had a train made ready to take us to Copenhagen.
I am assured that my British colleague and the Belgian Minister, although they left Berlin after I did, traveled by the direct route to Holland. I am struck by this difference of treatment, and as Denmark and Norway are, at this moment, infested with spies, if I succeed in embarking in Norway, there is danger that I may be arrested at sea with the officials who accompany me.
I do not wish to conclude this dispatch without notifying your Excellency of the energy and devotion of which the whole staff of the Embassy has given unceasing proof during the course of this crisis. I shall be glad that account should be taken of the services which on this occasion have been rendered to the Government of the Republic, in particular by the Secretaries of the Embassy and by the Military and Naval Attachés.
Jules Cambon.
* * *
APPENDIX III
HOW GERMANS ARE WAGING WAR
The French Government, as soon as it heard of the first German atrocities, instituted a Commission of inquiry composed of three high French magistrates: Mr. Georges Payelle, President of the Cour des Comptes, Mr. Georges Maringer, Councilor of State, and Mr. Edmond Paillot, Councilor of the Cour of Cassation. That Commission proceeded to the spot where the atrocities had been perpetrated and heard witnesses, who deposed under oath.
All evidence and proceedings have been printed and fill up ten heavy volumes.
Among many depositions, the following one, taken the twenty-third of October, 1915, at Paris, will give an idea of the horrors to which the invaded regions of France were submitted.
* * *
Duren Virginie, wife of Berard Durem, 29 years of age, inhabitant of Jarny in the Department of Meurthe et Moselle, a refugee at Levallois-Perret:
I swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.
On the 25th of August, 1914, the sixty-sixth and sixty-eighth Bavarian regiments were quartered together at Jarny. I was ordered to bring water for the soldiers, so went in search of a large number of water pails. At three o'clock in the afternoon an officer, who met me, told me I had carried enough water and ordered me to go back to my house. As the Germans were firing on our house with mitrailleuses, I took refuge in the cellar with my two sons, Jean, aged six, and Maurice, aged two, and also my daughter Jeanne, nine years of age. The Aufiero family was also there. Soon petrol was poured over the house; it got into the cellar through the air-hole, and we were surrounded by flames. I saved myself, carrying my two little boys in my arms, while my daughter and little Beatrice Aufiero ran along holding on to my skirt. As we were crossing the Rougeval brook, which runs near my house, the Bavarians fired on us. My little Jean, whom I was carrying, was struck by three bullets, one in the right thigh, one in the ankle, and one in the chest. The thigh was almost shot away, and from the place where the bullet through his chest came out the lung projected. The poor child said, "Oh, Mother, I have a pain," and in a moment he was dead. At the same time little Beatrice had her arm broken so badly that it was attached to her shoulder only by a piece of flesh, and Angele Aufiero, a boy of nine years, who followed a short distance behind us, was wounded in the calf of the leg. Little Beatrice suffered cruelly and wept bitterly, but she did not fall down, continuing to go along with me.
While these things were taking place, the Perignon family, which lived next door to us, was massacred.
When they were no longer shooting at us, I tried to wash my baby, who was covered with blood, in the brook; but a soldier prevented me, shouting, "Get away from there."
Finally we got to the road. Meanwhile they were driving M. Aufiero out of the cellar. The Germans, who spoke French after a fashion, said to his wife, "Come see your husband get shot." The poor man, on his knees, asked for mercy, and as his wife shrieked "My poor C?me," the soldiers said to her, "Shut your mouth." His execution took place very near us.
The Bavarians sent me, my children, Mme. Aufiero and her daughter to a meadow near the Pont-de-l'Etang. A general ordered that we be shot, but I threw myself at his feet, begging him to be merciful. He consented. At this moment an officer, wearing a great gray cloak with a red collar, said, as he pointed to the dead body of my child, "There is one who will not grow up to fight our men."
The next day, in my flight to Barrière Zeller, an officer came up and told me that the body of my dead child smelled badly and that I must get rid of it. Since I could find no one to make a coffin, I found in the canteen two rabbit hutches. I fastened one of these to the other, and there I laid the little body. It was buried in my garden by two soldiers, and I had to dig the grave myself.
* * *
APPENDIX IV
HOW GERMANS OCCUPY THE TERRITORY OF AN ENEMY
In the first days of April, 1916, the following notice, bearing the signature of the German commander, was posted on all the walls of Lille, the great town in the north of France which has been occupied by the Germans since the beginning of the war.
All the inhabitants of the town, except the children under fourteen years of age, their mothers, and the old men, must prepare to be transported within an hour and a half.
An officer will decide definitely which persons shall be conducted to the camps of assembly. For this purpose, all the inhabitants must assemble in front of their homes, in case of bad weather they shall be permitted to stay in the lobbies. The doors of the houses must be left open. All complaints will be unavailing. No inhabitant of a house, even those who are not to be transported, can leave the house before eight o'clock in the morning (German time).
Each person may take thirty kilograms of baggage with him. Should there be any excess over this amount, all that person's baggage will be refused regardless of everything. Separate packages must be made up by each person, and a visibly written, firmly secured address must be on each package. The address must bear the person's name, surname, and the number of his identification card.
It is very necessary for each person to provide himself with utensils for eating and drinking, also with a woolen blanket and some good shoes and some linen. Each person must have on his person his identification card. Whoever shall attempt to evade deportation shall be punished without mercy.
Etappen-Kommandantur
The threat contained in the notice cited here was carried out to the letter. Here is an account of it from the communication addressed by M. D--, formerly the receveur particulier of Lille, to M. Cambon, formerly the French Ambassador to Berlin:
On Good Friday night at three o'clock the troops who were going to occupy the designated section, Fives, came through our houses. It was dreadful. An officer passed by, pointing out the men and women whom he chose, leaving them a space of time amounting to an hour in some cases and ten minutes in others, to prepare themselves for their journey.
Antoine D. ... and his sister, twenty-two years of age, were taken away. The Germans did not want to leave behind the younger daughter in the family, who was not fourteen. Their grandmother, ill with sorrow and terror, had to be cared for at once. Finally they met the young daughter coming back. In one case an old man and two infirm persons could not keep the daughter who was their sole support. And everywhere the enemy sneered, adding vexatious annoyance to their hateful task. In the house of the doctor, who is B.'s uncle, they gave his wife the choice between two maids. She preferred the elder and they said, "Well, then she is the one we are going to take." Mlle. L., the young one who has just got over typhoid and bronchitis, saw the non-commissioned officer who took away her nurse coming up to her. "What a sad task they are making us do." "More than sad, sir, it could be called barbarous." "That is a hard word, are you not afraid that I will sell you?" As a matter of fact the wretch denounced her. They allowed her seven minutes and took her away bare-headed, just as she was, to the Colonel who commanded this noble battle and who also ordered her to go, against the advice of a physician. Only on account of her tireless energy and the sense of decency of one who was less ferocious than the rest, did she obtain permission, at five o'clock in the afternoon, to be discharged, after a day which had been a veritable Calvary. The poor wretches at whose door a sentry watched, were collected together at some place or other, a Church or a school. Then the mob of all sorts and conditions of people, or all grades of social standing, respectable young girls and women of the street, was driven to the station escorted by soldiers marching at the head of the procession. From there they were taken off in the evening without knowing where they were going or for what work they were destined.
And in the face of all this our people evidenced restraint and admirable dignity, although they were provoked that day by seeing the automobiles going around which were taking away these unfortunate people. They all went away shouting "Vive la France. Vive la Liberté!" and singing the Marseillaise. They cheered up those who remained; their poor mothers who were weeping, and the children. With voices almost strangled with tears, and pale with suffering, they told them not to cry as they themselves would not; but bore themselves proudly in the presence of their executioners.
Another document shows better than all this talking the treatment the French have been receiving from the Germans for over thirty months. This document is a German notice which was found at Holnon, northwest of St. Quentin. The document bore the official seal of the German commander.
Holnon, 20th July, 1915.
All workmen, women and children over fifteen years of age must work in the fields every day, also on Sunday, from four o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock at night, French time. For rest they shall have a half-hour in the morning, an hour at noon and a half-hour in the afternoon. Failure to obey this order will be punished in the following manner:-
1.-The men who are lazy will be collected for the period of the harvest in a company of workmen under the inspection of German corporals. After the harvest the lazy will be imprisoned for six months and every third day their nourishment shall be only bread and water.
2.-Lazy women shall be exiled to Holnon to work. After the harvest the women will be imprisoned six months.
3.-The children who do not work shall be punished with blows from a club.
Furthermore, the commandant reserves the right to punish men who do not work with twenty blows from a club daily.
Workmen in the Commune of Verdelles have been punished severely.
(Signed) Glose,
Colonel and Commandant.
* * *
APPENDIX V
HOW GERMANS TREAT ALSACE-LORRAINE
Von Bethmann-Hollweg, Count von Hertling and Herr von Kuhlmann state that Alsace-Lorraine is a province of the German Empire by right and by fact, and that it is firmly attached to Germany.
The following picture shows how this German province is treated by Germany:
Treatment of the Civilian Population
The Government has established for the duration of the war an insurmountable barrier between Alsace-Lorraine, which is called a territory of the Empire, and the rest of the German states. Briefly, Alsace-Lorraine is treated as a suspect.
An inhabitant of Alsace-Lorraine can not mail his letters in Germany. For example, Wissembourg is on the border of the Palatinate. There is a great temptation for the citizens of this town to assure a rapid delivery of their letters and their escape from annoying censorship by making use of the German mail system. A music teacher, Mlle. Lina Sch-- was sentenced to pay a fine of one hundred marks in March, 1917, for an infraction of this sort. The war council at Saarbruck, which pronounced this sentence, had already, in June, 1916, sentenced for like cause, the Spanish Consul, to the payment of a fine of eighty marks because he had allowed a citizen of Sarreguimine to have letters to his sons, who were refugees at Lausanne, addressed to the Spanish Consulate.
In addition, German hostility to the Alsatians is shown by a number of childish measures against Alsatian uniforms and costumes, in proportion as they resemble the French.
In all seriousness the question arose of forbidding the Catholic Clergy to wear the soutane, as it was the custom in the Latin countries. It was given up; but steps were taken in the case of the firemen.
The Nouvelle Gazette of Strassburg published an official notice, dated the ninth of December, 1915, which emphasized an order suppressing the uniforms worn by the Alsatian firemen because the cut was French, as was the cap, and complained that this order was not everywhere observed:
Recently, in the course of a fire which broke out near Molsheim, it is an established fact that the firemen wore their old Alsatian uniforms, and that the fire alarm was sounded by means of the old clarions of the type in use in France. The Kreisdirection finds itself obliged to insist that the suppressed uniforms disappear, and that the clarions do likewise; and to ask that it be informed of contraventions that happen in the future.
Other societies and associations, such as the singing societies which frequently still wear uniforms recalling those of the French collegians, ought to lay aside the forbidden garments, which are to be entrusted to the guard of the police.
But these puerilities seem insignificant compared to other things to which the people of Alsace-Lorraine have been subjected, things which unite them more firmly than ever to the French and the Belgians of the invaded regions.
The great deportations which have been practiced in France and Belgium have been repeated in Alsace as recently as January, 1917. The inhabitants of Mülhausen between the ages of seventeen and sixty years were assembled in the barracks at that place, whence they were sent into the interior of Germany.
This proceeding has been practiced on a large scale since the war's beginning. Preventive imprisonment, called Schutzhaft, was applied to Messin Samain, who was first incarcerated at Cologne and then sent to the Russian front, where he was killed. It was also applied to M. Bourson, former correspondent of Le Matin, who is interned at Cannstatt in Wurtemburg. Other citizens, after having been held in prison for weeks and months, have been exiled finally into Germany.
The Germans themselves have been so demoralized by the régime they have established that the authorities have had to put a check on anonymous denunciations, almost all of which were false, by an official communiqué published in the Gazette de Hagenau for the sixth of December, 1916.
The story of how the civilian population has been treated will only be known in its entirety later on. The government has, as a matter of fact, forbidden the press to publish accounts of the war councils' debates because the population, far from being terrified by them, would find in them laughing matter.
It is estimated that the people of Alsace-Lorraine have served in actual hours more than five thousand years in prison. Here are some crimes committed by them:
M. Giessmann, an old man seventy years old, saluted French prisoners in a Strassburg street: Sentence, six weeks in prison.
Guillaume Kohler, an infantry soldier from Saverne, during a journey in Germany, censured the inhuman manner in which certain German officers treated their men at the front. The council at Saarbruck sentenced him to two years in prison.
Emilie Zimmerle, a cook at Kolmar, sang an anti-German song as she washed out her pots. Thirty marks fine.
Mlle. Stern, the daughter of a pastor at Mulhouse, spoke against the violation of Belgium. One month in prison.
Abbe Théophile Selier, curé at Levencourt, for the same offense, six weeks in prison.
Even children and young girls have been punished for peccadillos that were absolutely untrue.
The Metz Zeitung for the twenty-second of October mentions the sentences pronounced against Juliette F. de Vigy, eighteen years old, a pupil in the commercial school, and Georgette S--, twenty-three years old, a shop girl, dwellers at Mouilly. Having gone one morning to the station at Metz, they saw some French prisoners in a train to whom they spoke and at whom they "made eyes."
Juliette F--, the more guilty of the two, was sentenced to pay a fine of eighty marks, and Georgette S-- to pay one of forty marks, because "acting this way to prisoners of war exercises a particularly disturbing effect on them."
Two little girls of Kolmar, named Grass and Broly, were arrested for "having answered, by waving their hands, kisses French prisoners threw to them."
A boy fifteen years old, pupil in the upper school at Mulhouse, named Jean Ingold, who, in the classroom tore down the portrait of the Emperor and painted French flags on the wall with the inscription "Vive la France," was condemned to a month in prison. The War Council saw an aggravating circumstance in the fact that Jean's father "occupies a very lucrative position as a German functionary."
On the thirtieth of March, 1916, two sisters from Guebwiller-Sister Edwina, née Bach, Mother Superior, and Sister Emertine, née Eckert, were charged with anti-German manifestations for having treated as lies the figures regarding French and Russian prisoners sent out in the German communiqués, for having protested against the bombardment of Rheims Cathedral, for having treated as false the German victories that had been announced, and for having said on the subject of the German invasion of Belgium, "How can they attack a country that asked for nothing?"
The result was that they got six months' imprisonment.
The case of Mme. Berthe Judlin, in the faith Sister Valentine, is more tragic.
The Mulhouse newspapers have published the account of the proceedings in the case of this Sister before the War Council. It appears that she has been the victim of monstrous calumnies, and that her fate can well be compared to that of Miss Edith Cavell.
She was accused of having, from the ninth to the fourteenth of August when she was assigned to the convent of the Redemptorists at Riedishiem, favored the French wounded at the expense of the German wounded. These accusations, which specified in particular, that she had taken various objects away from one wounded man (a charge the prosecution withdrew) and that she hid the cartridges of the French wounded in the attic, were contested by Sister Valentine. After the testimony of the witnesses, nine for the prosecution and fourteen for the defendant, the government commissioner asked that she be punished with a sentence of fifteen years at hard labor and ten years of deprivation of civil rights. Her lawyer asked for her acquittal. The War Council on the fourteenth of December, 1915, after an hour and a quarter's deliberation, decided that "Sister Valentine has done harm to the German Army" and has hidden the cartridges. It condemned Sister Valentine to "five years of hard labor and five years' deprivation of civil rights."
The War on the French Language
The Germans never cease recalling and von Hertling has just repeated the fact that eighty-seven per cent of the Alsatians speak German. It is strange, then, that the German reign of terror has manifested itself in one particular against the use of French, even in the region where French is the language universally spoken.
The fact that a person speaks French has become a special offense, that of "provocation." And this offense appears to be a frequent one.
On the twenty-second of February, 1916, the sous-prefect of Boulay gave the following warning to the mayors of his arrondissement:
The use in public of French will be considered a "provocation" when used by persons who know enough German to make themselves understood or who can have recourse to persons who understand German as intermediaries.
The War Council Extraordinary at Metz, in consequence handed down a decision condemning two women to fourteen days in prison because, in a manner that gave "provocation," they spoke French in a trolley car in spite of the warnings of the conductress.
In addition, the War Council Extraordinary at Strassburg fined a salesman who "not only let a French label remain on his packages, but had put a French label on a package addressed to a customer who understood German."
A little girl from Bourg-Bruche who, although she spoke German, used the French language in spite of repeated warnings, had a sentence of detention inflicted on her by the same tribunal.
The Mulhouse Tageblatt for the twenty-third of September, 1917, announced that women who had conversed to one another in French in public had been condemned to from two to three weeks imprisonment by the War Council at Thionville.
Another person who had made a usage of the French language that gave grounds for "provocation," was condemned to pay a fine of fifty marks or serve ten days in prison.
The Oberelsaessische Landeszeitung for the twelfth and twenty-sixth of October published the following sentences: "Fines of twenty and ten marks to the venders A. Nemarg and M. Cahen for having spoken to a convoy of French officers in the station at Thionville."
Twenty and thirty marks fine to Amélie Bany and Catherine Jacques of Knutange "for having spoken French although they understood German."
The Mayor of Broque, a commune where French is spoken, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for having spoken French to his councilors.
In Alsace this campaign against the French language is carried even into the girls' boarding schools, which have always been the principal centers for the study of French.
An order from the Statthalter, dated March tenth, 1915, forbade French conversations in the schools.
A German pastor of the Lutheran Church named Curtius, who had opposed suppressing the old parish of Saint Nicholas at Strassburg, was removed. His successor, who was better disciplined, gave in to the measure that was demanded.
The war against the French language has been marked by the suppression of all French newspapers since the war's beginning, the Journal d'Alsace-Lorraine, the Messin, the Nouvelliste d'Alsace-Lorraine. But nothing shows better the necessity of having organs of public opinion in French than the establishment at Metz of the Gazette d'Alsace-Lorraine by the government, which served as a model for the Gazette des Ardennes, founded later on at Mezières, to demoralize the inhabitants of the invaded districts in the north and west of France.
The Treatment of the Soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine
The soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine, whose loyalty was proclaimed at the war's beginning, have, as a matter of fact, been treated like spies and embryo deserters.
In August, 1915, at the opening of the Alsatian parliament, the Statthalter denounced the anti-patriotism of a part of the population and stigmatized the "traitors" who had "gone over to the enemy."
In fact, no less than fourteen thousand Alsatians, in the face of manifold perils and difficulties, had rejoined the colors of their true country. All the newspapers of Alsace-Lorraine still publish the lists of them as citizens and of their belongings as "refractory individuals."
The movement has never stopped. During the thirty-second month of the war, on the fourteenth of March, 1917, General von Nassner, commandant for the district of Saarbruck, published the following extraordinary order:
"Whoever, after due examination, has reason to believe that a soldier or a man on reprieve proposes to desert and who can still prevent the execution of this crime, must without delay give notice of this fact to the nearest military or police authority."
The Strassburg Neueste Nachrichten for the twenty-seventh of September announced that the "chambre correctionnelle at Kolmar had condemned by default one hundred and ninety men from the arrondissements of Guebwiller and Ribeauville to fines of six hundred marks or forty days in prison for having failed to perform their military obligations."
The Oberelsaessische Landeszeitung for the eleventh of October, 1917, announced sentences of fines of three thousand marks or three hundred days in prison for the same reason against seven persons.
The Haguenauer Zeitung from the eleventh to the twentieth of October published the names of seventeen soldiers, some of them deserters, the others guilty of rebellion in favor of the enemy or of treason.
On the twenty-fifth of October there was another list of deserters, nineteen of whom were natives of Strassburg.
In his book, "The Martyrs of Alsace and Lorraine," M. André Fribourg has fifteen pages taken from the lists of the debates of the German war councils. These pages are made up of the names of young Alsatians who have left their country rather than fight against France.
Besides, far from treating the Alsatians enrolled in the German Army like Germans, the government has accorded them a distinctly different treatment.
It has sent them to the Russian front and employed them at the most dangerous posts, as this secret order, from the Prussian Minister of War to the temporary commander of the Fourteenth Army Corps, proves:
All men from Alsace-Lorraine employed as secretaries, ordnance officers, etc., must be relieved of their duties and sent to the battle front. In the future, all the men from Alsace-Lorraine will be sent to the "General Kommando," who will send them at once to the units on the Eastern Front. This order to go into effect before the first of April, 1916.
For the Stellvert, General Kommando
Radecke, Major.
Finally, it was only on the ninth of October, 1917, that the Strassburg Neue Zeitung announced the abolition of the special postal control to which the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine were submitted at the front.
It is but just [says the Freie Presse on that occasion] that the exceptional measures taken against the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine be abolished at last. Among these measures we consider the interdiction still in force for a man to return to his native town. And [the same newspaper adds] from the moment that the bravery of our soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine is vaunted everywhere, it is absolutely wrong to reward them with scorn and insults.
In the notice from G. Q. G. for the twenty-fifth of November, 1917, are the details gathered from the Alsatian prisoners themselves of the treatment their compatriots endure in the German Army.
On the twenty-second of last June, all the Alsatians received orders to present themselves at the F. R. D. of their division, where they were received by the Vizé Sergeant, flanked by two guards.
The former said to them:
"What! You have not yet laid aside your accoutrements; traitors, deserters, scoundrels, rascals. Get into the shelter quick where you can put up nine additional supports for the roof and where you can kick the bucket at your ease."
Since some of the Alsatians declared that, having received nothing to eat or to drink, they could not work, a lieutenant, who was summoned by the adjutant, ran up with his riding whip and, making one of them step forward, beat him until he lost consciousness.
Later on another lieutenant ordered the Vizé Sergeant to "train the Alsatians well. They are all robbers and traitors."
All these facts proclaim in an undeniable manner that the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine are not treated like ordinary citizens by the German Army, but like foreigners temporarily under the domination of Germany.
The Sequestration of Property
For a "German" country, Alsace-Lorraine seems to have a great number of landowners who are French, if one is to judge by the sequestrations and confiscations with which the authorities have been so desperately busy for three years.
In fact the local newspapers contain lists of sequestrations that are almost as long as the lists of deserters.
And these confiscations apply not only to the landowners who live in France. A large number have been pronounced against inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine who live abroad. Orders were given them to re?nter the German Empire, orders they had no possible chance of obeying, but which gave the imperial government an easy pretext for pronouncing their denationalization and the confiscation of their property.
Also, the sequestrations followed by sales under the hammer, of French and Alsatian properties were extremely numerous. Among these properties there are a certain number of considerable importance.
On the twenty-fourth of August, 1916, Les Dernières Nouvelles de Strasbourg, advertised the sale under the hammer of the properties of Prince de Tonnay-Charente, situated at Hambourg and consisting of a splendid chateau, furnished in Louis Fourteenth style, Gobelin tapestries of great value, family portraits, green houses, outhouses, ponds, farms, etc., etc.
The Strassburg Post for the twenty-ninth of October announced the liquidation sale of Cité Hof, belonging to the heirs of Paul de Geiger, including "forty-two hectares of fine arable land, fine dwelling houses, barns and stables, a very fine park, summer houses, a coach house, etc." ... "of the Villa Huber, with a fine park, servants' quarters, garden, surrounded by twenty-eight hectares of fields."
The same paper for the fourth of October announces the sale of the famous chateau of Robertsau, the property of Mme. Loys-Chandieu, née Pourtalès, with two hundred and thirty hectares of farm land and one hundred and thirty hectares of forest.
The Metzer Zeitung for the twentieth of October announced the liquidation of twenty properties in the Moyeuvre Grande district, and of eleven in that of Sierek.
Many people have obviously been covetous of these French possessions.
On this subject curious letters and unceasing polemics appeared in the Alsatian newspapers.
Certain interested persons complained (Strassburger Post for the third of November) that the time was so short that only the inhabitants of the country and their immediate neighbors had any opportunity of profiting by these occasions. They remarked with all justice that to get the highest prices for these sales there ought to be a large number of bidders.
For the farm lands, the neighbors would suffice to bring up the bids to a high enough sum, but when it was a matter of a magnificent chateau, like that at Osthofen, with a garden and a park, bidders for this luxury would scarcely be found among the peasants. The speculators alone would step in and would acquire for a mere nothing properties of great value. And the plaintiffs added, "Is that desirable?"
The following considerations advanced by one of the plaintiffs are not without interest. "Sufficient means of communication still remain between France and Germany. Do you not see the danger of feigned sales, to third persons, who will buy in the goods at small cost and will hand them over later on to their former proprietors? In this way the French influence over the ownership of the land will be re?stablished in the future."
To these complaints and wrongs the Strassburger Post for the eighth of November replied in detail.
It assured that the list of goods to be disposed of had not only been placed by the authorities in the several states of the empire, to give buyers time to take advantage of possible bargains, but also a catalogue of stationary objects had been published in fifteen hundred copies by Schultz & Co. of Strassburg.
This catalogue was quickly used up and the demand for it continued to come in, which proved that the buyers were informed in time.
The newspaper adds that the things to be sold have been visited by buyers coming from old Germany as well as from Alsace-Lorraine, and sales propositions have been made before the publication of notices in the newspapers.
It seems, furthermore, that if the sales of land and the exploitation of farm lands have ended rapidly, it was because colonization societies, called "black bands," have overtly bought up or had bought up the properties by their agents, in the hope that their plans would be realized after the war. In industrial matters, there was recently founded in Berlin a German syndicate which proposes to buy up the actions.
For the textile industry in particular, it is a question of a veritable trust against which is arrayed "a syndicate of Alsatian manufacturers who have felt the need of defending themselves."
The entire scope of recent German policies with regard to Alsace-Lorraine shows that this land which von Hertling said was "allied to Germanism by more and more intimate bonds" has been, as a matter of fact, to treat it like a foreign land, kept by force under imperial domination and submitted, like the occupied portions of France and Belgium, to a veritable reign of terror.
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APPENDIX VI
HOW GERMANS UNDERSTAND FUTURE PEACE
If an account is desired of the manner in which the Germans understand a future peace, this letter suffices. It was addressed to the Berliner Lokalanzeiger by Herr Walter Rathenau. He was in charge of the direction of all industrial establishments in Germany:
We commenced war a year too soon. When we shall have obtained a German peace, reorganization on a broader and more solid basis than ever before must commence immediately. The establishments which produce raw materials must not only continue their work, but they must also redouble their energies and thus form the foundation of Germany's economical preparation for the next war.
On the lessons taught by actual war we must figure out carefully what our country lacks in raw materials and accumulate great stores of these which shall never be utilized until Der Tag of the future. We must organize the industrial mobilization as perfectly as the military mobilization. Every man of technical training or partial technical training, whether or not he is enrolled in the list of men who can be mobilized, must have received authority by official order to take over the direction of industrial establishments on the second day which shall follow the next declaration of war.
Every establishment which manufactures for commercial purposes ought to be mobilized and to know officially that the third day after the declaration of war it must make use of all its facilities in satisfying the needs of the Army.
The quantity of merchandise which each one of these establishments can furnish to the Army in a given time and the nature thereof ought to be determined in advance. Every establishment also ought to furnish an exact and complete list of the workmen with whose services it can dispense, and those men alone can be mobilized for military services.
Finally commercial arrangements will be made necessary with nations outside Europe through which we will give them sufficient advantages, specified in detail, so that it would be directly advantageous to their commercial interests to carry on commerce with none of the belligerents and not to sell them munitions.
We can accept such obligations for ourselves without any fear and finally, when the next war shall come, it cannot come a year too soon.
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Transcriber's Notes
Pg. 6, Sunday, August third, left as original as it's uncertain which day the author meant. Sunday was actually August 2, Monday was August 3; and the context from the beginning of the chapter was that the declaration of war was delivered late afternoon Monday, August 3. (Mobilization had commenced the previous evening. To be exact, it was on Sunday, August third, at midnight.)
Pg. 7, unforgetable changed to unforgettable. (It recalled the unforgettable scenes.)
Pg. 14, thirteenth changed to thirtieth, per context (when Sunday the thirtieth of August came).
Pg. 14, week changed to weeks. (For several weeks our troops)
Pg. 54, beseiged and beseiger left as original, as author quoted from another book. (in a beseiged city can hasten the place's fall; in consequence it would be very foolish of the beseiger to renounce)
Pg. 88, removed ending double quotes. (I feel better for it.')
Pg. 90, mobolization changed to mobilization (priests who went off at the beginning of the mobilization).
Pg. 100, sum of artillery kilos do not equal Total kilos. Left as original.
Pg. 108, tetragon changed to tarragon (16,900 tarragon plants).
Pg. 162, catastrophies changed to catastrophes (irremediable catastrophes could be avoided?).
Pgs. 163, 206, Bethmann-Hollweg, hyphenation inconsistent with
Pgs. 180, 182, Bethmann Hollweg. Kept as in original.
Pg. 167, ARTICLE 23 has no (b) paragraph.
Pg. 193, protect changed to protest to reflect the actual letter (I consider it my duty to protest against this threat of violence to the Ambassador).
Pg. 219, correstionnelle changed to correctionelle ("_chambre correctionnelle_ at Kolmar).
Pg. 229, Appendix VI, added HOW to title to match Table of Contents and make it consistent with rest of Appendices.