Chapter V: Part 5

"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 Côme," 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 reënter 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 château, 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 château 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 château, 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 reëstablished 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.

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.

* * * * *

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.