On March 14, 1910, Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg announced to the Reichstag that the Government was preparing a constitution for Alsace-Lorraine which would give the autonomy so long and so vigorously demanded. But he had in his mind, not a real solution of the question, but some sort of a compromise, which would satisfy the confederated states, and mollify the agitators of the Reichsland, but at the same time preserve the Prussian domination in Alsace-Lorraine. In June, Herr Delbrück, Secretary of State for the Interior, was sent to Strasbourg to confer with the local authorities and representatives of the people concerning the projected constitution. It was during this visit that the Alsatians were disillusioned. A dinner, now famous or notorious, whichever you like, was given by the Statthalter, to which representative (!) members of the Landesausschuss were invited. At this dinner the real leaders of the country, such as Wetterlé, Preiss, Blumenthal, Weber, Bucher, and Theodor—the very men who had made the demand for autonomy so insistent that the Government could no longer refuse to entertain it—were conspicuous by their absence. Those bidden to confer with Herr Delbrück in no way represented, but were on the other hand hostile to, the wishes of the people.
We cannot go into the involved story of the fight in the Reichstag over the new Constitution. The Delbrück project was approved by the Bundesrath on December 16, 1910, and debated in the following spring session of the Reichstag. Despite the warnings of the deputies from the Reichsland, and the brilliant opposition of the Socialists, the Constitution given to Alsace-Lorraine, on May 31st, was a pure farce. In no sense was it what the people of the Reichsland had wanted, although representation in the Bundesrath was seemingly given to them. The new Constitution preserved the united sovereignty of the confederated states, and its delegation to the Emperor, who still had the power to appoint and recall at will the Statthalter, and to initiate legislation in local matters. A Landtag took the place of the Landesausschuss. The Upper Chamber of the Landtag consists of thirty-six members, representing the religious confessions, the University and other bodies, the supreme court of Colmar, and the municipalities and chambers of commerce of Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Metz, and Colmar, to the number of eighteen; and the other eighteen chosen by the Emperor. The Lower Chamber has sixty members, elected by direct universal suffrage, with secret ballot. Electors over thirty-five possess two votes, and over forty-five three votes.
By forcing this Constitution upon Alsace-Lorraine, the interests of Prussia and of the House of Hohenzollern were considered to the detriment of the interests of the German Empire. A glorious opportunity for reconciliation and assimilation was lost. The Emperor would not listen to the admission of Alsace-Lorraine to the Bundesrath in the only logical way, by the creation of a new dynasty or a republican form of government, so that the Alsatian votes would represent a sovereign state. Prussia in her dealings with Alsace-Lorraine, has always been afraid, on the one hand, of the addition of Bundesrath votes to the seventeen of Bavaria, Saxony, Baden, and Wurtemberg, and on the other hand, of the repercussion upon her internal suffrage and other problems with the Socialists.
Since 1911, the eyes of many Alsatians have been directed once more towards France as the only—if forlorn—hope of justice and peace. What words could be found strong enough to condemn the suicidal folly of the German statesmen who allowed the disappointment over the Constitution to be followed by a series of incidents which have been like rubbing salt into a raw wound?
The first Landtag, in conformity to the Constitution of 1911, was elected in October. It brought into life a new political party, called "The National Union," led by Blumenthal, Wetterlé, and Preiss, who united for the purpose of demanding what the Constitution had not given them—the autonomy of Alsace and Lorraine. This party was badly beaten in this first election. But its defeat was not really a defeat for the principles of autonomy, as the German press stated at the time. The membership of the new Landtag was composed, in majority, of men who had been supporters of the demand for autonomy, but who had not joined the new party for reasons of local politics. Herr Delbrück had given universal suffrage (a privilege the Prussian electorate had never been able to gain in spite of its reiterated demands) to the Reichsland in the hope that the Socialists would prevent the Nationalists from controlling the Alsatian Landtag. Many Socialists, however, during the elections at Colmar and elsewhere, did not hesitate to cry in French, "Vive la France! A bas la Prusse!"
The Prussian expectations were bitterly deceived. The Landtag promptly showed that it was merely the Landesausschuss under another name. The nationalist struggle was revived; the same old questions came up again. The Government's appropriation "for purposes of state" was reduced one-third, and it was provided that the Landtag receive communication of the purposes for which the money was spent. The Statthalter's expenses were cut in half, and a bill, which had always been approved in previous years, providing for the payment of the expense of the Emperor's hunting trips in the Reichsland, failed to pass.
In the spring of 1912, the Prussians showed their disapproval of the actions of the new Landtag by withdrawing the orders for locomotives for the Prussian railways from the old Alsatian factory of Grafenstaden near Strasbourg. This was done absolutely without any provocation, and aroused a violent denunciation, not only among the purely German employés of the factory and in the newspapers, but also in the Landtag, which adopted an order of the day condemning most severely the attitude of the Imperial Government towards Alsace-Lorraine, of which this boycott measure was a petty and mean illustration.
The indignation was at its height when Emperor Wilhelm arrived in Strasbourg on May 13th. Instead of acting in a tactful manner and promising to set right this wrong done to the industrial life of Strasbourg, the Emperor addressed the following words to the Mayor:
"Listen. Up to here you have known only the good side of me; it is possible that you will learn the other side of me. Things cannot continue as they are: if this situation lasts, we shall suppress your Constitution and annex you to Prussia."
This typically Prussian speech, which in a few lines reveals the hopelessly unsuccessful tactics of the German Government towards the peoples whom it has tried to assimilate the world over, only served to increase the indignation of the inhabitants of the Reichsland; in fact, the repercussion throughout all Germany was very serious.
The arbitrary threat of the Emperor was badly received in the other federated states, whose newspapers pointed out that he had exceeded his authority. It gave the Socialists an opportunity to attack Emperor Wilhelm on the floor of the Reichstag. Four days after this threat was made, an orator of the Socialist party declared
"We salute the imperial words as the confession, full of weight and coming from a competent source, that annexation to Prussia is the heaviest punishment that one can threaten to impose upon a people for its resistance against Germany. It is a punishment like hard labour in the penitentiary with loss of civil rights."
This speech caused the Chancellor to leave the room with all the Ministry. On May 22d, the attack upon Emperor Wilhelm for his words at Strasbourg was renewed by another deputy, who declared that if such a thing had happened in England, "the English would shut up such a King at Balmoral or find for him some peaceful castle, such as that of Stemberg or the Villa Allatini at Salonika."
The answer of the Landtag to Emperor Wilhelm's threat was the passing of two unanimous votes: one demanding that hereafter the Constitution could not be modified except by the law of the country and not by the law of the Empire, and the other demanding for Alsace-Lorraine a national flag.
One could easily fill many pages with illustrations of senseless persecutions, most of them of the pettiest character, but some more serious in nature, which Alsace and Lorraine have had to endure since the granting of the Constitution. Newspapers, illustrated journals, clubs and organizations of all kinds have been annoyed constantly by police interference. Their editors, artists, and managers have been brought frequently into court. Zislin and Hansi, celebrated caricaturists, have found themselves provoked to bolder and bolder defiances by successive condemnations, and have endured imprisonment as well as fines. Hansi was sentenced to a year's imprisonment by the High