In drawing the new frontier they included
for purely strategic reasons a small portion of western Lorraine, round the
fortress of Metz, which was admittedly as French as Champagne or Picardy.
From 1871 till 1911, Alsace-Lorraine was governed as a direct appanage of
the Imperial Crown; in the latter year it received a constitution,
but nothing even remotely resembling self-government. Contrary to the
expectation of most Germans, the two provinces have not become German in
sentiment; indeed the unconciliatory methods of Prussia have steadily
increased their estrangement, despite their share in the commercial
prosperity of the Empire. Those who know intimately the undercurrents of
feeling in Alsace-Lorraine are unanimous in asserting that if before last
July an impartial plebiscite, without fear of the consequences, could have
been taken among the inhabitants, an overwhelming majority would have voted
for reunion with France. But having once been the battleground of the two
nations and living in permanent dread of a repetition of the tragedy, the
leaders of political thought in Alsace and Lorraine favoured a less drastic
solution. They knew that Germany would not relinquish her hold nor France
renounce her aspirations without another armed struggle; but they believed
that the grant of real autonomy within the Empire, such as would place them
on an equal footing with Wuertemberg or Baden, would render their position
tolerable, and by removing the chief source of friction between France
and Germany, create the groundwork for more cordial and lasting relations
between Germany and the two Western Powers.[1] Now that the nightmare of
war has once more fallen upon them, the situation has radically changed,
and there can be no question that in the event of a French victory the
provinces would elect to return to France. The fact that several of their
leading politicians have fled to France and identified themselves with the
French cause, is symptomatic, though doubtless not conclusive. That the
government of the Republic, if victorious, will make the retrocession of
Alsace-Lorraine its prime condition of peace, is as certain as anything can
be certain in the seething pot to which triumphant militarism has reduced
unhappy Europe. It may, then, seem merely pedantic to refer to an
alternative solution; and yet there is unquestionably a great deal to be
said in favour of forming the two provinces into an independent State, or
better sti