The Chameleon that is Alsace

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 16, 30 October 1931, Page 7

The Chameleon that is Alsace

By

GORDON S.

TROUP

AtSACE-LORRAINE might almost be characterised as the flint from which sparks have flown in the past to set fire to the tinder of Europe. What has been might be again. Situated between France and Ger many, it occupies akey position. Inthe present delicate state of international affairs, this position is of outstanding interest and moment, and the account given by Mr. Gordon S. Troup in his talk will illuminate the psychology of its inhabitants and the geographical importance of the country. Mr. Troup, a son of the former Mayor of Wellington, was stationed in Paris for some time in a responsible position.

4 B’ whatever way you approach it, Alsace . gives the impression of a natural entity, self-contained and self-sufficient, with clearly-marked frontiers. Coming from Switzerland, you career down the mountain barriers; ceming from Germany you cross the "heroic stream of the Rhine" which rushes deep and turbulent, and till recent times changed its bed with disconcerting suddenness; coming from any region of France you have to clamber over the Vosges Mountains which form a natural boundary on the west. As we arte to-night travelling on that most easy and rapid medium known as an ether wave direct from 3YA, we can soar over all these barriers easily, and take in the lie of the land in a bird’s-eye view. It will be well if we put an atlas open in front of us, however, so as to pick out the main features we see, for that region has not yet got the nameplates printed on it large enough for the convenience of Radio Broadcast Limited tourists. _ What we now see is a broad plain stretching due north from the edge of Switzerland, for a hundred miles, flanked by the Rhine on the right and the Vosges mountains ranging from foothills to 3000 feet on the left, and watered down the centre by the Ill, a tributary of the Rhine. The plains and rolling hills are fertile; grain, grapes and hops keep _ the many mills, wine-presses and breweries working hard, and the mountain valleys are covered with forests, while the many streams supply abundant water-power. An abundant rainfall makes it good © cow-country, though the winters are very severe; and altogether the first inspection of Alsace strengthens the first impression of a country able to live on itself and by itself, and accustomed to doing so. HEN we come nearer to earth, we get a glimpse of steep-roofed hguses with wooden beams criss-crossed on their high gables, each having a: strongly-marked individuality. If we could peep inside, we should see some wonderful rafters and furnishings in the central hall or "Stube," and the invariable porcelain stove on one side blinking at a grandfather clock opposite. But from our airy viewpoint we shall have a better chance of seeing the stork’s nest on the roof, and noticing how closely the houses group themselves together, in spite of their apparent independence. This is markedly different from the rest of France, where the houses are more

uniform, but, except in the towns, more widely scattered, as a rule. In Alsace you travel several miles without passing a house, then you meet a compact village, usually with a name ending in "-heim" or "__hause," meaning home, and thus keeping alive the old feudal practice of grouping the tenants round the lord or squire. Feudal days still live in the quaint streets, and architectural and artistic beauties of towns like Munster, Mulhouse and Colmar, but it is farther down the Il River-or farther up on the map-that we find the queen of them all, Strasbourg. President Poincare expresses his admiration for this city in these moving words: "A book is too short to describe her; a month is too short acquaintance with her; a lifetime is too (Concluded on page 8.)

. The Chameleon that ' as Alsace

(Continued from page 7.) short for loving her." From far away the noble Gothic cathedral takes the eye, and at close quarters it is still inspiring. Strasbourg was a swamp in the days when it was built, and yet those mediaeval architects managed to stay their vast stone creation upon floating piles. When one huge spire was sent up over 450 feet, however, it was seen that the piles would not stand a second one, so the cathedral remains unique, with its single finger pointing upward, and the stump on which the mate to it has never grown. Inside the cathedral the harmony and beauty are even enhanced. It is indeed, as Poincare says, "a place to lead unbelievers to meditation and believers to prayer." The oldest part of the city, as of Paris, is on an island in the middle of the river. There one finds the most curious survivals in overhanging gables, quaint bridges, and tortuous. Picturesque streets. Some of the names that have survived have a delicious ancient flavour, eg., St. Peter-the-Old’s Church, the Old Wine-Mar-ket Square, Broglie Square, Tisherman’s Quay, St. Nicholas Quay, Suck-ling-Pigs’-Market Place, and _ Little France. . Down at the river’s edge are innumerable washing-shelters for the washerwomen of Strasbourg, who get right into their tubs in this part of the world. They are fully clothed, I would have you believe, for the tubs contain nothing but straw to cushion their laborious knees. They kneel in the tubs and lean over the edge to wash their laundry in the running water. But Strasbourg is not all made up of old-fashioned survivals. Its name shows that it was the city known for its paved ‘streets, when the rest of the country was bog. It is a most thriving port; for by the Rhone-and-Rhine canal it communicates with the Mediterranean and the North Sea, while other waterways link it up with the capital and the Bay of Biscay ports. It is in the strategic centre for roads and railways from all parts of France and Germany and beyond, and has always been a vital centre for exchange and commerce of all sorts and for military op erations. ae

There is a splendid new rebar standing in spacious grounds of i own, built by the Germans during occupation, and far outshining the other universities of France in its modernity and completeness. Racial Characteristics. LSATIAN people have a most interesting and complicated psychology, due partly to their situation, and partly to their history, but mainly to their racial characteristics. They are in the main purely Celtic, and the natural barriers of the province enabled them to develop for long centuries independent, or practically independent, of all the outside world. More recent times have seen the barricading power of her natural defences seriously reduced: the Rhine has been tamed, canals dug, and the ranges pierced. As a result, this Celtic people feels that its old-time liberty has been stolen from it, and nurses a natural grievance. Now the results of

natural grievance concerning the liberty of a Celtie people are well known to us. We have had the same recipe in Ireland. And the Alsatian, With his glorification of the past, his satirical despair over the present, and his spontaneous opposition to all governments, has a good deal of "Irish" in him, as the following story will show :- A few years after the war, a train on the State-owned railways of Alsace was held up at a small station. A carviage full of Alsatian passengers began to grumble more and more as the delay continued. "Under the Germans," they said, "the railways were well run. The trains were hardly ever late. It is awful now that these Frenchmen are in charge." Just then the guard came in, and they asked him what the matter was, and what the stationmaster was doing. "Oh," replied the guard, "the stationmaster is a Boche whom the French have kept

rr rr i it i i th tie in his position." And immediately they all shouted with one accord: "What! A Boche here as _ stationmaster! He ought to be kicked out!" Patriotic Fervour. HIS. is a different tone from the patriotic fervour of Alsace at the time of the Great Revolution, when the Marseillaise was written at Strasbourg; or the feverish delight of the days following the Armistice, when French and Alsatians talked affectionately of "deliverance" and "the restoring of broken unity." There is an active and influential autonomous party, or "Sinn Fein" party, as we should call it, clamouring for nothing short of complete independence from France. And during the last few national celebrations of the taking of the Bastille, on the unforgettable July 14, Strasbourg, the birthplace of the Marseillaise, has almost ignored the national holiday; for the

mayor and corporation are in the main Communists, who have espoused the , autonomist cause, and have joined forces with the Catholic party for this purpose. There are two sides to the question, and it is necessary to understand them both sympathetically. The French certainly give the ever-ready critical powers of the Alsatians plenty of scope and enecouragement. The French administration is over-centralised and muddled to a degree unbelievable to those who have not suffered under them, Alsace has been used to German government, which, if repressive, was efficient, and gave a remarkable amount of local government to Alsatians, which did not prevent them from sending members to the Réichstag to obstruct and object in season and out of season. Then, the religious question plays an important part in the problem. France has taken a strong anti-clerid turn since 1871, when she lost Alsate. One result is that the churches of France were disestablished about 1900. But Alsace kept her established church under German rule, and now, back under French rule, is keenly anxious to retain it still, She has a much larger proportion of practising Protestants than the average of France as a whole, and the practising Catholies are also more numerous. These communities do not want to be swamped by free-thinking France. At the root of it all, perhaps, is the question of language. Alsatian Dialect. The Alsatians have always spoken ‘; a South German dialect of their own, > which suffices for their ordinary needs, but has no literary nor artistic possibilities. Nearly all the newspapers are printed in standard German, for instance, and sermons are preached in that language. But the language of the schools and officialdom is now French, although people still living can remember having had to change over forcibly from French to German in 1871, and back again to French in 1918, while all those twenty years of age or over have had one such change. The result is that instead of being able to speak or think freely in French, or in standard German, or in Alsatian dialect, they keep different sets of ideas in different language compartments, and when it comes to expression they fall between the [1wo, or worse, still, between three stwols. They have suffered an average of tree invasions, by French or Germans. vTevy hundred years. They have changed nationality so often that they are apt to be sceptical about the whole idea of nationality. There are, however, a certain number of enlightened Alsatians, who ralise that their small country is fitted to play a vital part in solving one of the most difficult Buropean problems, the Franco-German one, By historical and geographical endowment; as by language and culture, they are clearly marked out to be the best interpreters of Germany to France and of France to Germany. , Let us hope that increasingly the / hands of farsighted people will be strengthened, and that their dream of a contented Alsace, with more local self-government within the French Republic, mediating between France and Germany, and showing them the way to co-operate effectively, may soon be realised. *