The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-10-05 00:00:00

THE "OPTION" IN ALSACE-LORRAINE.

Monday was • mournful day for Alsace-Lorraine.
By a dawn in the Treaty of Frankfort of December,
1871, it was settled that all the native inhabitants
of those two Provinces who by midnight had
net transferred their domicile to France or else-
where should be considered and dealt with as
German subjects. The consequence has been an
emigration from those unfortunate listrictB amount-
ing to almost depopulation. Eye-witnesses tell
us of hundreds of thousands of people of all
ranks and ages for several weeks, and especially
on Sundays, crowdieg every station if the ma ti
railway lines to Paris from the Rhine and the Saar to
the new frontier. A correspondent says that at Ilitsch-
wilier, a manufacturing place, eight mills had been
shut up, and of the population, which in 1561 num-
bered 3,212, as many as 2,00 had quitted their homes.
Metz was reduced to 30,000 out of the 56 888 it I
mustered ten years ago, and with the exception of
5, all the magistrates of the Provinces, reckoned at
200, had thrown up their offices. Were we to be-
lieve these statements, an 1 to apply the same pro-
portions to the whole ceded territory, we should have to
conclude that of the 1,500,000 Aleatian-Lorrainers to
whom the option between leaving their country and
becoming German was offered at least one-third had
chosen expatriation (remarks The Times, from whom
we are quoting). We do not know how far we should
have to look for another instance of so widespread a
calamity, or bra similar evidence of strong patriotic
attachment.
Indeed, the cam of Alsace-Lorraine seems calculated
to upset all our theories about the undying instincts of
nation and race. "Not a few of the young emigrants
in the third-class carriages," we are told, "are en-
tirely unacquainted with the French language ;" yet
the intensity of their love for France and of their
hatred for their new masters, whose blood and lan-
guage, however, they share, seems almost proportionate
to the depth of their ignorance. But it must not
be forgotten that their new German masters were
their enemies of yesterday, and their old French
masters have been, in their estimation, their
benefactors for two centuries. The Abstaining
raid Lorrainers have long been taught to be
proud of being citizene of France. It might well be
considered good fortune, two hundred years ago, for
them, severed members of theillmordant and shattered
" sacred Roman Empire," to be aggregated •4 a com-
pact "Grand Nation," and to run with it a wild career
iif noisy, however illusory, liberty, and of dazzling,
however evanescent, glory. Wlth many of the educated
classes these were deep-mated feelings ; with the mass
iif the population they were, in a great measure, matter
of blind instinct upon which all the skill of political
agitators has been brought to bear lt was
natural that France should cling to Alsace Lorraine,
natural that she should wish the Alsatian-Lorrainers
to cling to her. . . . .
We heartily wished that the transition of that un-
fortunate population from French to German alle-
giance had been effected with the most fastidious
regard to their interests and their feelings. But we
also think that the extreme difficulties the German
Government have had to contend with should be taken
into account. It would have been impossible for them
to allow the Alsatian-Lerrainersto be both French and ,
German at the same time. The people must make
their choice and take the consequences. . . . But we
to not see how the Aleatian-Lorrainers can be,
corns Germans without being treated as Germans,
but no doubt the incessant agitation which im.
provident French patriots have kept up in the
ceded l'rocinces has compelled the German Go-
vernment, in the very interests of order and peace, to
hasten the termination of that provisional state which,
while it created endless embarrassments for the new
rulers of the territory, could not in any way mitigate
the cruel fate of its inhabitants. For not a little of
their sufferings the Anation-Lorraineni —those who
have chosen French as well as those who have accepted
German nationality—may consider themselves in-
debted to the French sympathizers who, unable to
wrest their lost territory from the :lorman conqueror,
fancied that they were gaining something by turning it
into • desert, and that they were freeing the people by
bringing them over in a state of homeless and helpless
deetitution to France.

On the subject of the " Option " a Correspondent
writes a long letter to The Times from which the fol-
lowing is an extract:—
But it is the anomalous position of minors which Is the
most painfully felt, anti it is the one winch more titan any
other affecta the future happiness of the natives of the an-
nexed Provinces. . .

- Innumerable question, questions have arisen with regard to minors
under the care of their parents, or who, their parents being
dead, are under the direction of a guardian. Difficulties also
have arisen as to minors who, to borrow a French expres-
sion, have become emancipated, such emancipation occur-
ring when by a formal proceeding a minor in freed and made
legally responsible for Ms own acts. The German Govern-
ment has refined to recognize the rhglit of emancipation.
flu these as well 55 00 other points, unfortunately, subordi-
nate German officials are constantly giving their own version
of the Treaty, which a few daya later is disowned by their
superiors.
Many children will be compelled by circumstances to adopt
a nationality different from that of their parents but I will I
mention one or two cues which have come under my own
notice where no consideration will induce them to separate.
The first is that of a young man, the only son of a widow.
He is not yet quite of age, but his guardian has allowed him
to adopt French nationality. The parents of minors who
thus leave the country have been threatened with
: fine, varying front 00 to I,oto thalers. The poor widow,
therefore, feels compelled to leave her form to the
:are of a brother who has no sons and to (mit the
I country, and she will remain away for ever, or until more
humane measures prevail. The son, who will be entitled to
a little property, Insists that he would rather pay 3,000 f.
than leave Ms mother subject to any annoyance. Another
case is that of a farmer arid his wife, who have three sons,
one of whom Is in the French army, and the two others
are not yet of age. If they remain here, as soon as they at-
tain the age of seventeen they will be called on to serve in
the German army. Thus the brothers would be in the ranks
of rival armies. The whole family has, therefore, deter-
mined to migrate Into France. These are not isolated case.,
but the same thing Is occurring throughout the whole of the
annexed Province., and I could furnith the names of a
number of villages In which there is not a single able-
bodied man who has not declared for French nationality,
and those who are liable to serve in the german army, if
they have not already gone away, will do so in a few days.
• • .

. --
Nor is the emigration confined to the youths who refuse
at any price to serve in the German army, or their families,
who fear the consequences to themselves If they remain.
The vast exodus which is going on knows no distinction of
age, se; or rank, throughout the whale of the annexed pro-
vinces Few persons will stay behind except those who can
dc ii, and yet preserve their nationality, and those whose
circumstances compel them to live as strangers lathe land
of their birth. As I write I do not know a chateau within
many miles which in a week from this time will be occupied
by its owners, nor a village from which the youth will not
have fled. The sentiment& of many a father of a family are
well expressed in a letter now before me, and which Is written
by An intelligent blacksmith from the home he has chosen
in France to one of his late employers
-

" It was with a sad heart that I left my pretty valley, the
cradle of my family, which is Id Eden in comparison to the
place whore I em; but theeity I owe to the country for
whose service l wish to educate my children compelled me
to resign the comfort and happiness which I enjoyed. It
would be impossible for me to bring up my children for the
benefit of a cruel enemy that God hae raised up for the chas-
tisement of our unfortunate country. God grant that our
exile may not be eternal !"
-• • - -

The annexation of Alsace-Lorraine Is an accomplished fact,
which it is not my purpose to criticize: but. In describing
how the feelings of the people in these provinces are being
ignored, I must venture to express my belief that had they
been treated with more tact and magnanimity, though
thousands might have emigrated, contentment would in time
have been produced in the minds of those who remained.
Especially ought the males to have been exempted fur • few
years from the German Conscription. A true man cannot !
change his nationality with his coat.
France has been conquered; yet, will any one who knows
anything of this gallant, but unfortunate, nation believe
that Alsace and Lorraine will send her sons into the ranks of
that army which brought about her defeat and humilia-
tion I Can any one think that boy, whose brothers are in
the French army will consent to remain here, when at the
age of 17 they will be called upon to wear the uniform of
an enemy I History has, indeed, been strmgely misread
if such are the conclusion, to which it has led. I feel no
hesitation In affirming that ills the inevitable repugnance
which the inhabitants feel towards the German conscription
which is depopulating the annexed provinces hundreds of
families prefer to .acrince everything they possen and flee
from homes round which their hearts dearest affections are
entwined, rather than allow sons and brother. to swell the
ranks of that army which lately trampled them down as it
riseeed onward to other triumphs.
A German also writes to The Times :