THE NEW EUROPE
ALSACE-LORRAINE
made that observation for itself at the time of the Zabern affair, and could endorse Friedrich Naumann's verdict: "Prussia took compulsion in one hand and material prosperity in the other, and demanded loyalty in exchange. She brought about much good, but found no way to the heart of the people."[1]
Before the war broke out the situation of Alsace-Lorraine presented three aspects: the French, the German, and the internal. For many years after 1871 the French aspect was that of revanche. "It remained," says Professor Guérard, "the cardinal principle of French national life — the thought left unuttered, but ever-present, according to the dictum of Gambetta, 'Let us think of it always but never speak of it.' Even Victor Hugo, the prophet of peace and of the universal republic had to confess, 'Another war, alas! Yes, it is necessary'; and of all leaders of French thought, perhaps Renan alone was strong enough to breast the tide of popular passion. But la revanche had to be postponed; the country had to recuperate, a permanent government had to be established, the army must be reorganised. ... Ten years went by; the clash of parties had begun to undermine the singlemindedness of the nation; an aggressive colonial policy was embarked upon by a few energetic statesmen; and gradually it was realised that France had resumed her normal life, that she was prosperous, expanding — and still unavenged." When he saw what was happening Déroulède broke into a furious campaign, in the course of which he coined the famous phrase in a taunt flung at Jules Ferry: "Moi, j'ai perdu deux enfants: et vous, vous m'offrez vingt domestiques." But greater forces than an attractive colonial policy were at work against Déroulède and his Nationalist ideal. From the day of its foundation in 1870 to the end of the Dreyfus case in 1906 the Third Republic was almost wholly pre-occupied with the task of entrenching itself against the attacks of its domestic enemies, and was, therefore, at no time during that period free to take up the challenge of la revanche. Indeed, it was usually the case that the revanchards were the allies of its domestic enemies, Royalist and Clerical; and thus the more earnestly the average Frenchman espoused the cause of the Republic the less he liked the doctrine of revenge, for it seemed to
1 "Central Europe," by F. Naumann, p. 79. (Eng. Trans.)
131
- ↑ 1
