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Updated: June 12, 2025
The Commission will assess the value, without appeal or arbitration, of the property and rights ceded under the Armistice, and under the Treaty, roiling-stock, the mercantile marine, river craft, cattle, the Saar mines, the property in ceded territory for which credit is to be given, and so forth. The Commission will provide for the restitution by Germany of property which can be identified.
It was planned to include the Saar Valley under the term "Alsace-Lorraine" because it had been part of Alsace-Lorraine in 1814, though it had been detached in 1815, and was no part of the territory at the close of the Franco-Prussian war. The official French formula for annexing the Saar was to subsume it under "Alsace-Lorraine" meaning the Alsace-Lorraine of 1814-1815.
A typical example is the memorandum presented by the French delegation claiming the annexation of the Saar territory. This is completely German; in the six hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants before the War there were not a hundred French.
A telegraphic order to that effect was dispatched on the evening of July 30th, but the General in command of the Third Army Corps desired to wait for the arrival of the Fourth and its baggage train. In spite of this hesitancy the Second Army was ordered to proceed towards the Saar, where the French were showing much uneasiness.
In any case, when by the absurd system followed in the treaties so many millions of Germans, Magyars, Turks and Bulgarians have been handed over to States like Serbia, whose intemperate behaviour precipitated the War, or to States like Greece, which took only a small and obligatory part in it, when States like Poland have won their unity and independence without making war, when Germany has been dismembered in order to give Poland an access to the sea and the ridiculous situation of Danzig has been created, when the moral paradox of the Saar, which now becomes a German Alsace-Lorraine, has been set up, when so many millions of men have been parcelled out without any criteria, it was particularly invidious to contest so bitterly Italy's claims.
It will be seen from a map that three of the main industrial centres were situated near the west frontier of Germany; and, therefore, one portion of the striking force was based at Ochey, which lies within a few miles of the Saar Basin, within 180 miles of Essen, and within 150 miles of Frankfurt.
The English papers, of this morning, have brought us the news that the Germans are massing at least seven or eight hundred thousand men, along the line from Saar Louis to Spiers. It is evident that they fell back from Saarbruck without any serious resistance.
Now, as we have seen, according to the treaty Germany must furnish for ten years to Belgium, Italy, and France especially quantities of coal, which in the first five years run from 39-1/2 to 42 millions of tons, and in the following five years come to a maximum of about 32 millions. And all this when she has lost the Saar coalfields and is faced with the threatening situation in Upper Silesia.
"This side of the Rhine, too?" "Yes," said Georges, reddening a little; "wait, my friend." "They must have crossed the Saar on the bridges from Saint-Johann, then. I heard that Uhlans had been signalled near the Saar, but I didn't believe it. Uhlans in France? Georges, when are you fellows going to chase them back?" "This morning you're just in time, as usual," said Georges, airily.
With the loss of the fields of Upper Silesia and the Saar, the coal supplies of Germany are diminished by not far short of one-third. This is a reasonable provision if it stood by itself, and one which Germany should be able to fulfil if she were left her other resources to do it with. This amounts in all to an annual average of about 25,000,000 tons.
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