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The desire for the Saar responded, according to Clemenceau, to a need of moral reparation. On this point, too, the extreme French claim was modified. The Saar mines were given to France, not provisionally as a matter of reparations, but permanently with full right of possession and full guarantees for their working.
The IIId Corps advanced on Völklingen, the Vth on Saargemünd, the IId on Saarbrücken. The Germans evacuated Saarbrücken after a gallant defence and repeated sorties, but the French did not cross the Saar. They may have convinced themselves that they had wasted their strength by hitting in the air, and had gained no information as to the resources and position of the enemy.
"Watch Saarbrück," muttered Georges between his teeth. The slow seconds crept into minutes, the minutes into hours, as they waited there, fascinated. Already the sharper rattle of musketry broke out on the hills south of the Saar, and the projectiles fell fast in the little river, beyond which the single spire of Saarbrück rose, capped with the smoke of exploding shells.
This officer, about the middle of June, advanced into Champaigne, passed the Noire, the Maese, the Moselle, and the Saar, and retired to Traerbach with a rich booty and a great number of hostages, after having extorted contributions as far as the gates of Metz, ravaged the country, and reduced a great number of villages and towns to ashes.
It is necessary to mix Westphalian coal with Saar coal to obtain a good furnace coke. The entire dependence of all the Lorraine iron and steel works upon Germany for fuel supplies "places them," says the Report, "in a very unenviable position." Arts. 264, 265, 266, and 267. These provisions can only be extended beyond five years by the Council of the League of Nations.
Here the Italians and Rumanians chimed in, reminding their kinsmen that it was the same American statesmen who in the peace conditions first presented to Count Brockdorff-Rantzau made over the German population of the Saar Valley to France at the end of fifteen years as the fair equivalent of a sum of money payable in gold, and that France at any rate had raised no objection to the barter nor to the principle at the root of it.
The confederate army passed the Moselle and the Saar in the beginning of June, and encamped at Elft in sight of the enemy, who retired with great precipitation, and intrenched themselves in the neighbourhood of Coningsmarcheren.
The emperor had some reason to believe that the Saar was weakly held. But his own generals showed him that his plan was impossible.
Debonair and genial, excessively practical, he was the "troubleman" of the Conference: when difficulties arose over the Saar, or Fiume, or reparations, Tardieu was called in to work with a special committee and find a compromise.
Then Minna and her sister retired, followed by Herr Pastor; and after a considerable number of more bottles of Blume de Saar had met their fate we formed a procession and escorted the happy Eckenstein to the Rheinischer Hof where he was to sleep. Next morning by eleven, we had all reassembled in the second saal of the Hagen.
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