New Ulm review., 1922-01-11
A Glance at the French Occupation

In an old ground of European CT
vilization ,one of the most beautiful
in the world, and a famous centre OF
order and industry about 100000
men, alien to it's soil and culture, lie
luxuriously encamped. They live on on
the fat of that fertile, land. They
are the best housed, the best paid, the
best dressed, and the best amused of the
population. Exhibition to the outer
eye the busy idleness of the perfect
parasite, their true business is not to
do work but to hinder it. For the
most part they live either in complete
detachment from the will of the in
habitants, or in defiance of it. Their
foot is on every political liberty that
men cherish. They forbid free writ
ing, free speech, and even free song.
Their ordinances and their officials
overlay the civil government of the
country, dismiss it's representatives,
and load them with invidious, oppres-
sive, and immoral acquisitions. A
small wing of this encamped host, the
British and American, has no politi-
cal object. The French, and by far
the greater part, armed with
guns, rifles, bayonets, aeroplanes, a
gainst country where no German
arm or soldier or flying machine ever
appears, or with still deadlier paper
asses, is a weapon forged and, main
tanned to destroy the political and
cultural unity of the German Reich.
1t prints and circulates on it's soil the
journals which preach the separation
of the Rhineland, as its agents promp-
ted and shielded the German adven-
turer who proclaimed it.. Through a
hundred rills-schools, lectures, con-
certs, art exhibitions-it conducts
the stream of French sweetness and
light that flows through the wastes Of
Mainz and Wiesbaden. French
travellers and merchants, with French
sample fairs &C their back, with a
rather shy reserve of German "Schie-
bers' and s1nugglers, look after un-
wanted French imports, while the
bugles and flies of their African mer-
cenaries assail the deaf ears of the
statue Of William the Silent before
the old Schloss of the Dukes of Mas
sau, and correct old-fashioned pre-
judices in favor of German military
music. Thus France "'penetrates'
Germany.
| Let me particularize a little. The
general test Of the occupation is, as I
! have said, it's parasite character. To
! look at, it is thing OF pride and osten-
tajon, airing it's dandyism, its gay ap-
panage Of military swagger and Paris
ian coquetry, in the mids6 of people
dressed in well-worn clothes and long
scanted living. Examined critically,
| it is sink of waste. When the chief
| Allied powers took into account the
cost Of the occupation they virtually
pledged themselves Subject to Ger
many fulfilling certain conditions) to
a yearly budget of about 240 million
marks. The grand total expense of
the combined military and civil estab"
lishments in the Rhineland, with their
dependents, was presented at the end
of last Marcia period of about
tWenty-six months-as 936,954,542
gold marks. Today, of course, the
bill is far heavier. Of the various de-
tachments the American Army is in
proportion to it's numbers much the
most costly, owing to the high pay of
the soldier and his pleasure-loving, lu-
xurious standard of life.
Again, there was an understanding
that the standard of strength for the
Allied occupation should be that Of
the old German garrison in the Rhine
land. This was about 10000 troops.
But the French contingent alone ex-
ceeds this figure, and far outnumbers
all the other c0ntingents put together.
OF the total France contributes 3d.
900 men, Belgium, her satellite, 15,-
900, America, 10000, and England
1000. The French Army is Of a dual
character. To it's white troops must
be added about 10000 colored mer-
cenaries-Algerians, Tuhisians, Nor
oceans, with sprinkling of Madagas-
cans and Annamites, and an unknown
number Of coiored recruits. !, This
mixed force is in constant activity,
marched and drilled, paraded night
and day, exercised through the busi-
ness streets of great cities or in the
envirous Of quiet watering places,
and held, in the midst Of, disarmed
and helpless nation, as for imminent
war. Not only apartments but whole
hotels usually the. best in the town.,
theatres, cinemas, tennis courts,
mansions, clubs, schools fly open at
its command. Leading toWnsmen
vacate their houses at short notice
and ,o,,et Mo no q r l+hn d;cnoca1 nf +boeo