Herbert Adams Gibbons
The New Map of Europe (1911-1914)
The Story of the Recent European Diplomatic Crises and Wars and of Europe's Present Catastrophe
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664590176
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I GERMANY IN ALSACE AND LORRAINE
CHAPTER II THE "WELTPOLITIK" OF GERMANY
CHAPTER IV ALGECIRAS AND AGADIR
CHAPTER V THE PASSING OF PERSIA
CHAPTER VI THE PARTITIONERS AND THEIR POLES[*]
CHAPTER VIII THE DANUBE AND THE DARDANELLES
CHAPTER IX AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND HER SOUTH SLAVS
CHAPTER X RACIAL RIVALRIES IN MACEDONIA
CHAPTER XI THE YOUNG TURK RÉGIME IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
CHAPTER XII CRETE AND EUROPEAN DIPLOMACY
CHAPTER XIII THE WAR BETWEEN ITALY AND TURKEY
CHAPTER XIV THE WAR BETWEEN THE BALKAN STATES AND TURKEY
CHAPTER XV THE RUPTURE BETWEEN THE ALLIES
CHAPTER XVI THE WAR BETWEEN THE BALKAN ALLIES
CHAPTER XVII THE TREATY OF BUKAREST
CHAPTER XVIII THE ALBANIAN FIASCO
CHAPTER XIX THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN ULTIMATUM TO SERVIA
CHAPTER XX GERMANY FORCES WAR UPON RUSSIA AND FRANCE
CHAPTER XXI GREAT BRITAIN ENTERS THE WAR
CHAPTER I
GERMANY IN ALSACE AND LORRAINE
The war of 1870 added to the German Confederation Alsace and a large portion of Lorraine, both of which the Germans had always considered theirs historically and by the blood of the inhabitants. In annexing Alsace and Lorraine, the thought of Bismarck and von Moltke was not only to bring back into the German Confederation territories which had formerly been a part of it, but also to secure the newly formed Germany against the possibility of French invasion in the future. For this it was necessary to have undisputed possession of the valley of the Rhine and the crests of the Vosges.
From the academic and military point of view, the German thesis was not indefensible. But those who imposed upon a conquered people the Treaty of Frankfort forgot to take into account the sentiments of the population of the annexed territory. Germany annexed land. That was possible by the right of the strongest. She tried for over forty years to annex the population, but never succeeded. The makers of modern Germany were not alarmed at the persistent refusal of the Alsatians to become loyal German subjects. They knew that this would take time. They looked forward to the dying out of the party of protest when the next generation grew up—a generation educated in German schools and formed in the German mould by the discipline of military service.
That there was still an Alsace-Lorraine "question" after forty years is a sad commentary either on the justice of the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany or on the ability of Germany to assimilate that territory which she felt was historically, geographically, and racially a part of the Teutonic Empire. In 1887, when "protesting deputies" were returned to the Reichstag in overwhelming numbers, despite the governmental weapons of intimidation, disenfranchisement, and North German immigration, Bismarck was face to face with the one great failure of his career. He consoled himself with the firm belief that all would be changed when the second generation, which knew nothing of France and to which the war was only a memory, peopled the unhappy provinces.
But that second generation came. Those who participated in the war of 1870, or who suffered by it, were few and far between. The hotheads and extreme francophiles left the country long ago, and their place was taken by immigrants who were supposed to be loyal sons of the Vaterland. Those of the younger indigenous brood, whose parents had brought them up as irreconcilables, ran away to serve in the French foreign legion, or went into exile, and became naturalized Frenchmen before their time of military service arrived. And yet the unrest continued. Strasbourg, Metz, Mulhouse, and Colmar were centres of political agitation, which an autocratic government and Berlin police methods were powerless to suppress.
The year 1910 marked the beginning of a new period of violent protest against Prussian rule. Not since 1888 was there such a continuous agitation and such a continuous persecution. The days when the Prussian police forbade the use of the French language on tombstones were revived, and the number of petty police persecutions recorded in the local press was equalled only by the number of public demonstrations on the part of the people, whose hatred of everything Prussian once more came to a fever-heat.
Let me cite a few incidents which I have taken haphazard from the journals of Strasbourg and Metz during the first seven months of 1910. The Turnverein of Robertsau held a gymnastic exhibition in which two French societies, those of Belfort and Giromagny, were invited to participate. The police refused to allow the French societies to march to the hall in procession, as was their custom, or to display their flags. Their two presidents were threatened with arrest. A similar incident was reported from Colmar. At Noisseville and Wissembourg the fortieth annual commemoration services held by the French veterans were considered treasonable, and they were informed that they would never again be allowed to hold services in the cemetery. At Mulhouse the French veterans were insulted by the police and not allowed to display their flags even in