THE LOST PROVINCES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1744, 23 October 1917, Page 1

THE LOST PROVINCES.

ALSACE AND LORRAINE ARE. FRENCH. HISTORY'S ANSWER TO GER- . MANY. Overwhelming evidence of the fallacy of German pretensions to Al-sace-Lorraine is advanced in a recent article contributed to the Paris Matin, which recalls the saying of Frederick the Great: “When I have conquered a territory I can always find a pedant to produce documentary evidence that it belongs to me legitimately." The Germans applied this method in 1871. They advanced the claim of “historic rights" to the provinces. But if that claim holds good, then it should also include Basle, Beseaneon, Lyons, Arles, Marseilles, Nice, Genoa, Sardinia, Pisa, Milan, Rome, and Vienna, all of which places belonged at one time or another to the Holy Roman Empire, Metz was declared to be French by the Germans themselves in 1552, nearly 400 years ago. In that year the Protestant princes of Germany signed with Henry IL, King of France, the Treaty of Friedwald, which declared that the French King might justifiably take possession, as promptly as possible, of those towns, once belonging to the Empire, but where the German language was not spoken. Those towns were Toul, in Lorraine, Metz, and Verdun. This German admission that these towns were French was confirmed by the Treaty of CateauCarabresis, which definitely ceded Metz to France, TREATY OF 1048.On October 24th, 1548 —2G9 years ago—the German Emperor signed the Treaty of Westphalia, which ceded to the King of France the overlordship and suzerainty of the Bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, which had then been in French possession for nearly half a century. • Article 75 of the Treaty, which gave Alsace to France, declares that the Emperor and the Empire abandon all claims to the town of Breisaeh, the landgravate of Upper and Lower Alsace, and all the country and other rights whatsoever dependent on those territories. The declaration continues that the cession is made in perpetuum, without reserve, in such a manner that no Emperor can at any time pretend to any right or power in the said territories. From the modern point of view the German claim has even less chance of acceptance. On two occasions, in 1790 and 1871, the Al-sace-Lorrainers solemnly manifested their wish not to become German. . On July 4th, 1790, to celebrate the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, delegates from all the French provinces assembled in the Champ de Mars at Paris. The Al-sace-Lorrainers then solemnly declared that they were French, not by virtue of any Royal decree, but by their own will, freely expressed. On February 17th, 1871, the Alsatian deputy, Keller, read the following protest: “Alsace and Lorraine do not wish to be alienated. Associated with France for more than two centuries, through good and bad fortune, these two provinces, ever exposed to enemy attacks, have always suffered for the national greatness; they have sealed with their blood an indissoluble pact which unites them with France. Confronted to-day with enemy pretensions, they affirm, in the face of all that threatens them, even under the yoke of the invader, their inextinguishable fidelity." The oaths of 1790 and 1871 have never been retracted. The Alsatians have never ceased to proclaim their desire for reunion with France. The present King of Prussia, may make what use he can of “pedants with documentary evidence," but he will never be able to convince the world that Alsace-Lorraine, by all law and justice, should not be re-, stored to France.