The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-05

suhool-books, in historical aud geographical
works, in novels; il has been openly advo-
Gated by the greatest statesmen of France,
like Theirs, who reproaches Louis Napoleon,
not for seeking to extend the French frontier,
but for beginning the war before being suf
ficiently prepared
OF late, Louis Napoleon was the FIRST to re-
cognize the nationality principle as one
which has right to be recognized in the in
terDRtional politics of Europe He encou-
ragged the Italian people when they claimed
the right to expel all their princes save one,
and to make all the Italian speaking territory
into one nation. He went further, and advo-
Gated reconstruction of the map OF
Europe on the basis of this principle. The
first nation that wished to avail itself of the
application of this principle was the German.
They demanded a consolidation of all the
German States into one German empire. No
inch of French territory was demanded; only
for the territory known as German union was
to be substituted for disunion. The first at
tempts to establish this union were signal
failures, but the final goal was steadily kept
in view. If Louis Napoleon had been in ear
nest in sanctoning the nationality principle,
he could not have withheld his sympathy from
the national movements IN Germany.
His actual policy toward Germany has been
the direct reverse of his professed principles
More than any Government since 1919, he
has many times tried to fire the French heart
by denouncing the infamous treaties of
1915, and by intimatipg the necessity of
change of the French German frontier.
Every international complication in which
Germany was involved has been used by him
as q fit occasion to obtain, by means of dip
lomatic strategy, a new slice of German
territory, while the Paris papers which were
his special organs openly declared that
France would never be satisfied with her
eastern frontier until she would be allowed
to annex all the German territory west of the
Rhine This territory embraces the larger
portion of the Prussian Rhine province, the
whole of the Bavsrian palatinate, of the pro-
vince of Rhine-Hesse, belonging to the Grand
Duchy of Hesse-D Darmstadt, and of the prin-
cipality of Birkenfeld, belonging TO the Grand
Duke of Oldenburg, a territory containing a
population of nearly four million inhabitants,
of whom, as mentioned before, only 10000
speak the French language.
That even the annexation OF this territory
to France would not satisfy the thirst of the
great nation for glory and more
land has, after many former proofs, been
irrefutably established by the secret treaty
proposed in Berlin by Benedetti, whose au-
thenticity now, when millions of photo
eraphed copies of the famous documents, in
NJ. Benedettis own handwriting, have been
circulated, Will no longer be denied by any
historian. Belgium and Luxemburg have of
late been rs much the aim of French ambi-
ton as the German territory west of the
Rhine, and if Prussia had been short-sghted
enough TO believe the assurances of Napoleon
and allowed him to absorb Belgium and Lux
emburg he would have, for the present, So
lemnly abjured all aggressive intentions
against German territory. These two coun-
tries together contain a population of about
1880, 600 inhabitants, of whom fully ,, $780,
600, or a majority, are Germans
Thus France, which at this day contains q
German-speaking population of 1900, 900,
has harbored the outspoken design to con-
quer new German territory with population
Of over six millions If Napoleon had been
successful in this war, he would not have
failed to carry out, at least in part, the tradi-
! tional policy of France, and annexed at least
part of German territory. Germany, even
/ if compelled to make cession of territory to
France, would never have abandoned the
hope of soon recovering it. Thus a change
of the frontier in favor of France would have
been the germ of another desperate war be-
tween the two nations.
1t is now generally expected that the Ger
mans, if victorious will demand back part
or the whole of the territory which still is in
habited by German-speaking people.
/ Whether this is the wisest course they might
pursue under the circumstances may be dis
puted but no one, in view of the facts above
enumerated, will dare to maintain that any
territorial change the Germans may make
will be so glaringly unjust as the one which
the war party in France has been demanding
ever since 1915.
The following table gives the number of
Germans in the RhiGe and Belgian pro-
vinces:-