Alsace-Lorraine: A Study of the Relations of the Two Provinces to France and to Germany and a Presentation of the Just Claims of their People

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Description

by Daniel Blumenthal

INTRODUCTION

The problem of Alsace-Lorraine is in a very real sense an American problem. We entered this war to help crush the Teutonic scheme of world domination and to free the democratic nations of the earth from the menace of militaristic autocracy. Any issue which involves these fundamental causes of American intervention in the great struggle must command the careful attention of every thoughtful American citizen.

Alsace and Lorraine provide just such an issue. In 1871 these provinces were forcibly torn from France and annexed to a militaristic autocracy, despite the bitter protests of the mother country and the impassioned appeals of her unfortunate children. This crime was but one of many incident to the scheme of building up a world empire controlled by a Prussianized Germany; but in a peculiar degree it outraged the democratic sympathies of the world and enhanced the prestige of autocratic militarism in the opinion of the German people. As the most recent and most striking fruit of the Prussian policy of conquest, Alsace-Lorraine is today the visible pledge of the professed efficiency of autocracy and the supposed decadence of democracy.

The vindication of democracy demands the "disannexation" of Alsace-Lorraine and its return to democratic France. The security of the world demands that the Prussian policy of military conquest be discredited and destroyed by depriving the German people of the unholy profits of that policy. Justice to the mother country and to her lost children demands that their combined protests be heard and that the crime of '71 be rectified. Americans are fighting for the vindication of democracy, for the security of the world, and for the triumph of justice. When they fully understand that a peace which should leave Alsace-Lorraine under German control would be a denial of democracy, a peril to civilization, and a travesty on justice, our chivalrous people will refuse to lay down the sword until the lost children of our gallant Ally are restored to their rightful sovereignty.

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