New-York tribune., 1918-11-16

TNHE ceremony of Sunday, when the
French President, Premier Gle
menceau and Marshal Foch will
enter Metz, will have world wide sig
nifcance. 1t will mark the return to
France Of a city always French torn
from the French forty-seven years ago,
not on any basis of right or justice, but
purely and simply upon the German
argument that it was necessary to the
furtherance Of German military purpose.
Strassburg was in language a German
city. 1t was French by the will of its in
habitants, it was French by the assoca-
ton Of the city's population in the great
Revolution. 1t was French as the French,
Italian and German cantons Of Switzer-
land are Swiss, that is, by the deliberate
desire and will of the whole people. But
the fact that the language of the Alsa-
tians was German, that Alsace had been
in its past a portion of the German
Empire, supplied colorado pretext for
German aggression.
All this was lacking in Metz. Tours,
Orleans, Paris itself, were not more
French. From 1862 Metz had been
part of French national soil; the coun-
tryside in a wide circle was inhabited
then as now by French-spea5ing people.
But because it was the fortress guard
ing the road into the heart of France
the Germans took it,
There is no sadder story than that of
Metz after the annexation. Thousands
of its inhabitants emgrated to France
Some of them opened the family tombs
that the bones of their ancestors might
be removed to French soil. In 1866
Metz had $4,000 people. To-day it has
68,000 but the increase is due entirely
to the German garrison, and the French
speaking population has fallen from
$4,000 to 10000
The saddest city of Europe-this has
long been the distinction of Metz, and
this fact has been expressed in the
statue of Marshal Ney, a native Of
Lorraine, which through the years of
German domination has continued to
look down upon Prussian garrisons and
out over fortress which in the Napo-
leonlc time was not even at the frontier.
On the hills about Metz was enacted
that tragic drama Of 1870 when Bazaine
betrayed France, when he drew back
his great and splendid army from the
battle which should have been de-
cisive victory, and sat down to wait
inevitable surrender, and that surrender
in its turn made the collapse Of France
inescapable. Our own troops marching
to Metz will cross the battlefield of
Mars-la-Tour, will come by the road
along which Bazaine too late sought to
retire when the Prussian net had been
thrown about him.
The strongest fortress in Europe Metz
was and remains. Since the outbreak
Of the war the Germans have multiplied
the defences, and Metz and Thionville, a
small town downstream, have become the
most carefully and intensively fortified
areas in all Of war-swept Europe And
since the great circle of forts and trench
lines has not been assailed, what was two
weeks ago menace to France becomes
again a bulwark against the Northern
invader.
In the larger sense Metz was a per-
feet symbol Of German aggression, of
the Prussian doctrine of force. For
forty-eight years it's people have been
subject to the tyranny and the ntoler-
able harshness of the German regime.
To this regime the people have opposed
passive but unconquerable resistance.