France abolished the Concordat with the Vatican and Viviani took over the Church property in the name of the State. walked David Starr Jordan through these regions in 1912 and reached the conclusion that the French and German residents were inclined to dwell together in harmony; that both were tired of the German army officers and French politicians making trouble in their midst, and that the demand for home rule for the Provinces as a step towards independent nationhood, was growing upon the part of both races. Norman Hapgood, the former editor of Collier's Weekly, in his letters from Paris, writes that the French wanted Alsace-Lorraine back, but not to the point of going to war about it. Since the war started, he says that the average Frenchman favors continuing the war to deprive Germany of Alsace-Lorraine as a symbol of the defeat of militarism and autocracy. The Socialists both of Germany and France are split on the question. Leading German Socialists protested against the annexation in 1871 as being undemocratic. The recent Congress of French Socialists at Bordeaux protested against the continuance of the war to regain Alsace-Lorraine and favored a referendum. The other Socialist faction sitting in Paris declared that the retaking of the Provinces was essential to convince the German people that the Imperialism of their masters is fruitless. I cite these things to show that many men of Europe know that the Imperial istic solution has failed; and to impress upon Americans that they must consider and define an independent course of action which will tend to eliminate revenge as the moving power of foreign ministers, whether of France or Germany. ECONOMIC NEUTRALIZATION SUGGESTED These proposals will tend to solve the political aspects of the problem. But the economic features of the question must be considered by the Peace Conference. Some of us have lost faith in political neutrality; we do not believe that national economic competitors can become political eunuchs. I suggest that whatever may be the result of the referendum, that the Peace Conference provide for the economic neutralization of these Provinces. By this I mean in a practical way, that the right shall be given to all nations to purchase the ores, phosphates and raw materials of these Provinces on the same basis, and that if export tariffs be levied, that the same rate shall be collected from all. Unless this is done, I am confident that Europe will witness another military contest for the possession of these deposits. Nature seems to have made enormous deposits there in the heart of Europe to tempt mankind into slaughter. Equal treatment to all will diminish that temptation. Economic neutralization has never been tried. Its trial and success in these Provinces, under international agreement, may induce the civilized world to neutralize other areas of raw supply. and end that contest for the ownership of backward peoples and their raw materials, which while feeding modern industrialism, continually incites to war. The hope of the world lies in From the Manifesto of the British Labor Party, December 28, 1917— "The British Labor movement reaffirms its reprobation of the crime against the peace of the world by which Alsace and Lorraine were forcibly torn from France in 1871, a political blunder the effects of which have contributed in no small degree to the continuance of unrest and the growth of mili America securing such a balance of power, and exercising it with such foresight and resolution, that the belligerents of Europe will be compelled to give a Democratic deal to the people of Alsace-Lorraine. tarism in Europe; and, profoundly sympathizing with the unfortunate inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine, who have been subjected to so much repression, asks in accordance with the declarations of the French Socialists that they shall be allowed under the protection of the Super-National Authority, or League of Nations, freely to decide what shall be their future political position." SUGGESTIONS FOR READING ABOUT THE QUESTION OF ALSACE-LORRAINE By CHARLES H. LEVERMORE The best way to begin a study of the Alsace-Lorraine question is to select statements that have been set forth by competent representatives of each of the contending parties. There is no lack of argument in print and much of it is of recent date, but most of it which is available for our reading public is favorable to the French contentions. For an easy introduction to the subject, read any one or all of the three following books: 1. Alsace-Lorraine under German Rule, by C. D. Hazen (Holt, 1917). Dr. Hazen, who has also written a history of Europe since 1815, prefaces his work with a rapid sketch of the history of the Rhineland prior to 1870. 2. Alsace-Lorraine, by Daniel Blumenthal (Putnam, 1917). The author is an Alsatian and reviews the relations between his country and both France and Germany. 8. Alsace under German Rule, by P. A. Helmer (Unwin, 1915). There is an excellent chapter on Germany in Alsace-Lorraine in Herbert Adams Gibbons' New Map of Europe (The Century Co., 1914), a book which will repay reading for its admirable description of the causes of the great war. The same subjects are discussed from the opposing point of view in a translation of H. G. von Treitschke's lectures, published by Putnam in 1915 under the title Germany, France, Russia and Islam. See also H. von Sybel's Kleine historische Schriften, Vol. 8, for an essay entitled Germany's Right to Elsass and Lothringen. This essay was originally published in pamphlet form at Düsseldorf in 1870 by Julius Buddens together with an essay on The New German Empire, under the general title, "Der Frieden von 1871." Further light on German thought about the Reichsland may be derived from two chapters in Edmund von Mach's Germany's Point of View (McClurg, 1915). The whole subject is discussed with unusual impartiality and detachment in the chapter on France in T. Lothrop Stoddard's Present Day Europe, Its National State of Mind (The Century Co., 1917). The memoirs in which Bismarck's associates recorded that statesman's comments on men and things are of more value as revelations of character than as discussions of policies. Cf. Bismarck, the Man and the Statesman, a translation of his reminiscences and reflections, two vols. (Harper, 1899); Moritz Busch's Bismarck, some secret pages of history, a diary of twenty-five years of service with the Chancellor, two vols. (Macmillan, 1898); and H. von Poschinger's Conversations with Prince Bismarck (Harper, 1900); Cf. also L. E. Hahn's Fürst Bismarck (5 vols., Berlin, 1878-1891); the German biographies of Bismarck by Blum, or Lenz, or Heyck, and the histories of Modern Germany by Lamprecht or Blum. The German historian, K. Jakob, published at Strassburg in 1905, a work entitled "Bismarck und die Erwerbung Elsass-Lothringens, 1870-71." Among the English biographies of Prince Bismarck the reader will be well satisfied with J. W. Headlam's excellent life of the man of “Blood and Iron,” published by Putnam (Heroes of the Nations Series, 1899). The memoirs of Prince Hohenlohe, the coercive governor of Alsace-Lorraine ought to give valuable information, but do contain but little (two vols., Macmillan, 1898). The first governor, Gen. von Manteuffel, tried to be conciliatory. Cf. a biography of Manteuffel by H. H. Kock (Leipzig, 1890), and A. and M. von Puttkamer's "Die Aera Manteuffel" (Stuttgart, 1904). The best histories of Alsace are French: and one of the best is published in a historical series devoted to the old French provinces. It is the eleventh edition of Rodolphe E. Reuss's Histoire d'Alsace (Paris, Boivin & Cie., 1916). Reuss is a thoroughly competent historian, scholarly, broadminded and sympathetic, and he is also the author of a two-volume work on Alsace in the Seventeenth Century. But the reader who must be content with a concise English history of the provinces will be well satisfied with Ruth Putnam's Alsace and Lorraine (Putnam, 1915). This book has good maps, in connection with which the student should compare the maps in Leon Dominian's comprehensive work on the Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe (Holt, 1917). See also the war-maps of this district in Mawson's Geographical Manual and New Atlas (Doubleday, Page and Co., 1917), and in Arnold Toynbee's Nationality and the War (Dent, 1915). To the most important question of allWhat do the people of Alsace-Lorraine want? the French Alsatian's answer is much more audible to the English world than that of the German Alsatian. There is no German "Hansi." This clever artist is about as popular with his late rulers as Raemakers, and he was solemnly put on trial in a German court, although he had escaped to France. His offences are contained in two books, the titles of which are enough to reveal the nature of Hansi's treason: 1. J. J. Waltz: L'Histoire d'Alsace, racontée aux petits enfants d'Alsace et de France par l'oncle Hansi, avec beaucoup de jolies images de Hansi et de Huen. Paris, Floury, 1912. 2. J. J. Waltz: Professeur Knatschké, œuvres choisis du grand savant allemand et de sa fille Elsa. Paris, Floury, 1915. In connection with these books it would be well to read Stoddard's chapter already referred to. There are many French books that claim to speak for Alsace, such as L'epreuve alsacienne, par un alsacien (Lausanne, Payot et Cie., 1916); also Henri and André Lichtenberger's La Guerre européenne et la question d'Alsace-Lorraine (Paris, Chapelot, 1915); and Joseph Delabays' Qu'elle vive! L'Alsace française, 1870-1914 (Paris, Jouve et Cie., 1917). The opinions of alien observers may be found in David Starr Jordan's book describing his tour through the provinces in 1918 (Alsace-Lorraine, a Study in Conquest, 1913, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1916); in Mrs. Betham-Edward's Under the German Ban in Alsace and Lorraine (Dent, 1914); in Y. A. Novikov's L'Alsace-Lorraine, obstacle à l'expansion allemande (Paris, Alcan, 1913); and in one of the series of Oxford University pamphlets, Alsace-Lorraine, by F. Y. Eccles, 1915. Three magazine articles of unusual merit may be mentioned: 1. H. H. Campbell: Why Germany needs Alsace-Lorraine, Engineering Magazine, Vol. 48 (1914), pp. 161-166. 2. Jules Bois: Why Alsace-Lorraine wants to be French, The Bookman, Vol. 45 (1917), pp. 259-264. 8. Ernest Dimnet: The Return of AlsaceLorraine, 19th Century and After, Vol. 82 (1917), pp. 504-529. R By EDWARD L. CONN Special Correspondent of The World Court Magazine at Washington, D. C. USSIA, the colossus of the world, with one foot in Asia and the other in Europe, an empire that for centuries had been the dread of chancelleries the earth over, crumbled in a day. In its stead has risen another colossus, that of the proletariat, whose head is a dreamer-statesman, Nikolai Lenine. He may be swept away, but not before he shall have left an indelible impress upon the Russian State. For he is not a fanatic, nor a lunatic: perhaps no man understands Russia better than he, and certainly he is so far the master mind of the Revolution. On November 1 Premier Kerensky startled the Allies and America with a frank confession of Russia's weariness of the war, tempering it with a poignant note of complaint. He said: "Russia is taking an enormous part in the war. One has only to remember history. Russia began the war for the Allies. While she was already fighting, England was only preparing and America was only observing. Russia at the beginning bore the whole brunt of the fighting, thereby saving Great Britain and France. People who say she is out of the war have short memories. We have fought since the beginning, and they must now take the heaviest part of the burden on their shoulders. . . . Russia is worn out. She has been fighting one and a half years longer than England." Lenine's hour had struck. He had already paved his way by dominating the Petrograd Council of Soldiers' and Workmens' Delegates with Bolsheviki, his followers, or rather his disciples, for Lenine in the eyes of his supporters is Russia's Messiah. On November 7 the Soviet, or Council, supplied an armed demonstration, overthrew the Kerensky Government, arrested several members of the Ministry, and established an administration under the name of the Revolutionary Military Committee. Kerensky was permitted to, or did, escape. He was discredited now throughout Russia. A fugitive, he was harmless; a prisoner, he might be an embarrassment. He resolved himself back into the element of Russia's mighty population, a cipher. Then sounded Lenine's call to the war-weary people, the masses who desired peace in order that they might eat of the fruits of the Revolution. It read: "To the Army Committees of the Active Army, and to all the Soviets of the Soldiers' Delegates: "The garrison and proletariat of Petrograd have deposed the Government of Kerensky, which rose against the Revolution and the people. The change which resulted in the deposition of the Provisional Government was accomplished without bloodshed. "The Petrograd Soviet of the Soldiers' and Workmens' Delegates solemnly welcomes the accomplished change and proclaims the authority of the Military Revolutionary Committee until the creation of a Government of Soviets. "In announcing this to the Army at the front the Revolutionary Committee calls upon the revolutionary soldiers to watch closely the conduct of the men in command. Officers who do not join the accomplished revolution immediately and openly must be arrested at once as enemies. "The Petrograd Soviet considers as the program of the new authority: "1. The offer of an immediate democratic peace. "2. An immediate handing over of the large proprietorial lands to the peasants. 8. The transmission of all authority to the Soviets. "4. An honest convocation of the Constituent Assembly. "The National Revolutionary Army must not permit uncertain military detachments to leave the front for Petrograd. "Use persuasion, but where this fails oppose any such action on the part of these detachments by force without mercy. "The actual order must be read immediately to all military detachments of all arms. The concealment of this order from the rank and file by the Army organization is equivalent to a great crime against the Revolution, and will be punished by all the strength of the Revolutionary law. "Soldiers! For Peace, for Bread, for Land, for the Power of the People! "(Signed) The Military Revolutionary Committee." Leon Trotzky, the lieutenant of Lenine, working with the masses, personifying the spirit of the genius of the Bolsheviki, while that genius itself in the mind of Lenine labors in seclusion, magnifying his control over the imagination of the people while at the same time assuring his safety from the assassin-Trotzky, called up from nothingness to influence the destinies of Russia and to be the spokesman for Russia to the world and the intermediary between Lenine and both Russia and the world, the so-called Foreign Minister of the Bolshevist Government, displayed immediately after Kerensky's overthrow that decision, that self-confidence and will to succeed which Kerensky never exercized. Kerensky was for compromise and for accommodation. He would have accommodated the Bolsheviki and compromised with the Constitutional Democrats-the strongest bourgeoisie party-at the same time. Korniloff, who as com mander-in-chief of the Army defied Kerensky and was captured, was protected through Kerensky's leanings toward clemency, thus further alienating the Maximalists. Dukhonin, who as commander-in-chief defied the Bolsheviki, was killed. Trotzky had barely realized the coup d'etat when he issued a compelling proclamation, suited to his new rôle, in which he said, in part: "The soldiers, sailors, and workmen of Petrograd know how to impose, and will impose, with arms in their hands, their will and the power of democracy. The bourgeoisie has endeavored to separate the Army from the Revolution. Kerensky has attempted to break it by the violence of Cossackdom. Both efforts have failed. The workmens' and peasants' great conception of the supremacy of democracy has united the ranks of the Army and has steeled its will. The whole country will see that the authority of the Soviets is not a passing phase, but is an unchangeable fact, denoting the supremacy of the workmen, soldiers, and peasants. "The opposition to Kerensky is opposition to the landlords, the bourgeoisie, and the Korniloffs. The opposition to Kerensky is also the affirmation of the people's right to peace, a free life, the land, bread, and power." Shortly before the sensational rise of the Bolsheviki to power, the writer, in news dispatches, published in the daily press, foretold Russia's move for peace. Both the State Department and the Russian Embassy in Washington denounced the story as unfounded and false. He was informed by the latter that not even the Bolsheviki desired a separate peace, as though Russia could obtain any other kind before Germany is so reduced as to cease to be a menace to liberty and to civilization!. Half the shock of the Bolshevik action was caused by the incomprehensible determination of Governments to keep |