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In October 1879 they gained local representative institutions, but under the strict control of the Governor, Marshal von Manteuffel. The Prussian Government nominates seventeen members; Bavaria six; Saxony and Würtemburg and Alsace-Lorraine four each; and so on. The Bundesrath is presided over by the Imperial Chancellor.
The ravisher of Silesia, of Schleswig-Holstein, of Alsace-Lorraine, the murderer of Poland, she has never expanded except at the expense of her neighbours. She has corrupted the German soul; she has been the mainstay of reaction and militarism in Central Europe.
On the day of the first French occupation of Muelhausen France declared war against Austria in consequence of the arrival of two Austrian army corps on the Rhine to assist the main German army. After the French occupation of Muelhausen a large German army was sent to the front in Alsace-Lorraine and succeeded in dislodging the French from that city, but not without severe fighting.
The possession by the Belgian Government of this great mass of German currency, in addition to an amount of nearly two thousand million marks held by the French Government which they similarly exchanged for the benefit of the population of the invaded areas and of Alsace-Lorraine, is a serious aggravation of the exchange position of the mark.
The invasion of Belgium as her first move in the war game may have had an ulterior purpose in the acquisition of that country, one likely to be as distasteful to France as the taking over of Alsace-Lorraine. Perhaps the neutral position taken by Holland, with her seeming inclination in favor of Germany, may have had more than racial relations behind it.
The whole situation may be put in a diagram as follows: You have the Allied line in an angle, ABC. You have opposed to it the much larger German forces in a corresponding angle, DEF. Farther east you have a continuation of the French line, more or less immovable, on the fortified frontier of Alsace-Lorraine at M, opposed by a greater immovable German force at N. At P you have coming up as far as Amiens large German bodies operating in the west, and at Q a small newly-formed French body, the 6th French Army, supporting the exposed flank of the British contingent at A, near Noyon.
On the other hand, if the Allies win, the Allies are to divide the German colonies, the French are to regain Alsace-Lorraine, and, as the jingoes add, they are to take the whole of the German provinces on the left bank of the Rhine, and even territory beyond it.
"He's for war; he's for Alsace-Lorraine, that's what he's for; and above all, he's for nothing else. Ah, that's all there is to it! The Boches have got to disappear off the earth, else it'll be us. Ah, when they talk politics to me, I ask 'em, 'Are you for Déroulède, yes or no? That's enough!
The strategical position of modern Germany is embarrassed because each of these four corners must be saved by the armies. 1 is Belgium before the war indifferent to Germany, but now destined to be vital to her position 2 is East Prussia, 3 is Alsace-Lorraine, 4 is Silesia, and the German commanders, as well as the German Government, must remain to the last moment if once they are thrown on the defensive in grave indecision as to which of the four can best be spared when invasion threatens; or else, as is more probable, they must disperse their forces in the attempt to hold all four at once.
Fortunately the task required but a fraction of the military strength which Germany needed to hold Alsace-Lorraine in time of peace, and long before the end Great Britain received from her dominions fourfold the help in Europe that she had to lend them overseas.
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