Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-11-21
WHEN SAVERNE WAS ZABERN
4 MEMORY OF ALSACE
By Christopher Morley

TNHE French War Office reported on No.
into Saverne under command of General
Gerard was made amid great enthusiasm
at 80 o'clock in the afternoon"
I can imagine that no town in Alsace-
Lorraine greets the French reoccupation
with more heartfelt joy than Savernc,
which happily one need no longer call
Zabern. Every one has heard of Stras.
bours and Metz, but to my mind beautiful
little Saverne. in the northern spurs Of
the Eosges hills, twenty miles northwest
of Strasbourg, is a type and symbol of all
that the subject provinces have had to
endure. 1t is a town that shall always
remember, for there I saw an incident that
explained to me much that has since hap
pened.
saverne has been a point OF strategic
value ever since Roman times. 1t com
mands the narrow valley of the Zorn and
the Marne-Rhine canal, the only practica.
BILE east and west deflle cutting the Vosges
range. That deflle points straight at Toul
and Paris. 1t was a Roman outpost. at a
crossroads where there were three inns
for the Roman legionaries to quench their
thirst. These public houses gave the place
it's name: Tres Tabernae, carelessly pro-
nounced soon boils down to Saverne or
Zabern, according as your tongue is Gaul
or Teuton.
ON SUNDAY, the 4th of August, 1912, I
~ bicycled into Saverne just at noon as
the populace was streaming out of church.
I was streaming, too, with perspiration;
the weather was torrd and I had been
pounding up severe grades. AS I halted
in the street before the church I was the
object o. curious stares, but the vagabond
wayfarer soon grows Injured to that
All through Alsace and Lorraine that
summer I was aware that the Prussianism
was only q veneer There could be no
doubt that the country was really French
at heart In the little inns where 1 ate
used to study the registers, and I noticed
that all the commercial travellers came
from across the border mostly from Nancy
Evidently the Alsatian shopkeepers did
not care to do business with German firms.
I used to test the popular heart by my salu.
tation to civilians I met on the road.
would alternate my greeting: to one
would say "Guten morgen, ana was al
ways met by a sullen or serious "Morgen."
But when said, Bon jour!" the passer's
ewes would sparkle. the face light up, there
would be an enthusiastic gesture and
"Bon. Jour- bon jour, monsieur"
IT is sometimes said that Prussia took
mains to obliterate all traces Of former
French possession. l do not quite indorse
that. I think the Germans were careful
TO leave some tokens of it to increase the
humiliation of the conquered. Under the
sign HauptstrdsSe the old faded Rue dW
Eaubourq would still be legible. On the
town hall, the Rathdus, the inscription
Hotel dc vale was often carefully allowed
to crumble away.
CIAyTRNE was garrison town Of the
- German Ninety ninth Infantry, and the
schlossplatz, where sat down to rest, was
full of soldiers. 1t was the hour Of the
after church promenade, before the citi-
| zens go home to Sunday dinner. One side
! OF the big square was full OF the towns
people pacing to and fro: men in black
| froclS coats women and girls In crisp, chic
| summer dresses all with the prosperous