The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1899-10-28
GERMANY AND ENGLAND

GERMANY AND ENGLAND :
To the Editor of The Herald:
In tie Tuesday number of your valued
paper was an article under the caption OF
| German Jealousy of England" Which
shows such ignorance OF history in making
| Germany appear in the role of a land-grab-
Der that the writer, who is of German birth,
begs leave to correct a wrong done to the
cid country, Which he loves nearly as well
as this This adopted country. The article in
question first takes the German press to
task for sympathlzing with lae Beers as
it is said to have sympatnized with
Spain in its brief war with our country.
Now, this sympathy is always awarded by
all true men to the weak in their struggle
against the strong. And who could laelp
sympauhizlng Bih tae Beers. who Lave
| given up their old lnonies three times and
have treked or moved into the wilderness
| in order to be free from British dominion?
When they finally made their home in the
mountainous Wilderness of The Transvaal
/ they felt sure that aaey would oe safe from
Brl-i@ta aggression, but unfortunately they
| did not know that They had located on some
| reef OF gold-bearing strata. When that fact
| became known, the Uit.ander, and cspeci-
ally the English Uftiander, followed them
| to establish extensive goid-miRing. Now,
the Udttander, if he were bona fide
| pirant for citizenship would be source OF
| strength to his adopted country. and would
| be willing to defend Its independence: but
| the English Ufbiander in the Transyaal has
| shown by the Jameson raid, etc., that he
! only wants TO turn the country over ito
Great Britain. Why is 1t that the Dutch,
Scandinavians and Germans in the Trans
| vaal, who are Unitlanders also, are taking
| up the cause of their alleged oppressors
| against England? 1t seems that they would
| rather be oppressed by 'lTe Beers than be
liberated by tl1e English!
Inc article further on states that Eng
lish greed has no easy task to excel Ger
manys record of the last forty years. II
| cites as such record that Germany fought
| little Denmark for land and sluggish Aus
| .tria and unprepared France. Now, as a
| matter of fact, in the wars of Germany
against Denmark and France, both these
| latter countries were the aggressors, and
| Germany had to defend itself against for
| eign greed for German territory. When
Denmark saw that, according to the Salic
| law, which prevails with German peoples,
| 1T would lose the duchies of Schleswig and
| Holstein on the succession of the female
| line to the throne of Denmark, 1t proclaim
| ed in 1864 the incorpora ton of Schleswig
| into the Kingdom of Denmark after it had
| been for years trying to force the Danish
| language upon the German inhabitants of
| that duchy. Then Holstein, as a member
| of the German confederacy, asked Germany
| to defend her against this Danish agrees
| sion. The consequence was the liberation
| of Sehies wig Holstein from Danish rule
! When 1t is remembered that the over
| whelming majority of the people of these
| duchies are Saxons. Angles and Frisftns
| by blood, and German by language and
| feeling. then every lover of liberty must re-
| joiee that they have at last come into their
| own. The reason that they ever owed al
| legiance to the king of Denmark is be-
cause in the fifteenth century the Danish
| people chose the duke of Holstein to be
| their king.
| AS to the war against sluggish Austria,
| taat was nternecine strife between
Catholic Austria and progressive Protest.
| art Prussia for the supreme power in Ger
| man affairs. Prussia Won and the result
was the retirement of Austria from Ger
man control and the loss, instead Of gain,
| of 100000 Austrian Germans.
| The war between unprepared France and
| Germany was declared by France without
| cause or reason almost and was simply un-
dertaken by the totteGing Napoleonic
| dynasty to secure itslelf in power and to
gain prestige through grabbing, the left
banks of the Rhine. The consequence was
that Germany took back the old German
provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, which
had been in the seventeenth century in
vaded by France in times of profound peace
and contrary to all laws of nations, just
because the mother country was right after
the thirty years war too weak to -rotect
its own children. Look at map of Alsace-
Lorraine with such names of cities as
Strassburg, Muhlhansen (the home of ORGY
fus) and Metz and you will understand that
that country always was and by right
should be German. And the German in
habitants thereof may congratulate them
selves that they have ceased to belong to a
rotten borough like France Yours for
truth, IL. SCHOEL.