The heart of Alsace

Preface

The annexed provinces will have no reason to blush for their half-century of slavery! Those who have failed to keep the compact of silent fidelity are but a handful. The hostages of defeat, Alsatians and Lorraines have courageously accepted the part of the representatives of human dignity protesting against brutal force. The small nations owe them a deep debt of gratitude. Their courageous resistance has had this result: that henceforth the strong will hesitate to treat the weak like a flock of cattle to be driven at will.

Twelve years spent in Alsace have filled the writer of these pages with a respect for that country which it is hard to express in words. The conquerors have flattered, threatened, abused, struck (witness the Saverne affair, in which the odious and the ridiculous vied with each other) ; the Alsatians have opposed the dyke of their good sense to the turbid waters of Pan-Germanism, fortified by their attachment to the traditions of liberty and culture derived from their distant past, and by two centuries of community with France.

Alsace (and if I say nothing of Lorraine it is because I confine myself to things I have actually seen and to some extent experienced) has known only the Germany

V vi PREFACE

puffed up with pride, and infatuated with her science and her victories, who came into the Reichsland to colonize, to " civilize," to preach the whole gospel of Pan-Germanism, the fruit of which, after a rapid and inevitable evolution, has been the most savage of all wars. When we pass in review the methods and practices suddenly revealed to a horrified world, and remember that Alsace was given over, bound hand and foot, to the men responsible for these methods and practices, we can form some idea of the sufferings of the annexed provinces since they were torn .from France.

I said one day to a pedagogue who was dealing out harsh measure in Alsace:

" Can't you put yourself in the place of the Alsatians for a moment? "

With an arrogant gesture, he replied :

" We don't wish to put ourselves in their places. We are here to manifest our strength."

These words give a very exact indication of the spirit which has informed attempts to Germanize the " long-lost brothers." Many of the German officials show indisputable professional virtues; the administration is remarkable for its habits of order, its organizing abilities, its rectitude, qualities which all must admire; but it is no less notable for a want of tact, a determination to break and crush those in subjection to it, a supreme contempt for the feelings of those who had been severed from their fatherland by the sword.

Every noble soul has been impelled to resist.

PREFACE vii

The pages of this book, a record of daily experiences, were dictated to the heart of a Swiss by his love of liberty. They tell the humble commonplace truth concerning simple lives, spent in the quietude of a narrow valley.

Do you remember, friend Bacher? . . . We went at the top of Hartmannswillerkopf, in a trench where the soldiers were watching, their fingers on the trigger of their guns, a dozen yards from the foe. A few paces from us, the Chief Adjutant Antoine had just been killed by a bullet through his forehead. There was an odour of death in the air; the entrails of the mountain were laid bare. We looked alternately through a narrow loop hole at the plain of Alsace, the smoke of Mulhouse, and above all, at the ruins of Cernay and Vieux-Thann at our feet. How many ruined villages we had passed through on the preceding day! How many hundreds of graves we had seen ! And you said suddenly, as if speaking to yourself — you, who gave up all and risked all at the call of honour:

"Poor Alsace! But there is happiness in her suffering! "

How I envied you! And how well I understood what one of my Alsatian pupils, mortally wounded, had said before his death at the age of twenty-three:

" I am very happy ! "

B. V.

OUCHY.

September 1, 1918.

I

WHEN Aunt Emma heard that her nephew was going to Alsace, she remarked unctuously:

" Let us hope he will behave prudently there. It is not his business to fan the flame."

His University studies at Lausanne having come to an end, in token whereof a little old secretary had handed him the customary parchment, Andre Reymond was his own master. Hitherto, when he had been told, "Do this," he had done it; "Read that," he had read it; "Translate this passage," he had translated it to the best of his ability. . . . All at once, the certificated persons who teach one to speak, write, and think, had disappeared, and he stood face to face with life, which one must get through somehow, elbowing one's neighbours, meeting rebuffs with a smile, playing one's part.

Sentimental by nature, and with a heart ravaged by an impossible love-affair, Reymond felt an almost physical need to see something of the world before he was caught up into the machinery of routine: the college in the small country town, the bewildered little boys one drags along from a declension to an irregular verb, the petty salary, the petty cares, the petty successes, the eter-

2 THE HE4RT OF ALSACE

nal harking back to beginnings, a kind of narrow worth, of puny dignity, until the day when a colleague in a frock-coat pours out the customary periods on your grave.

To see the world, did I say? When a youth is the eldest of seven brothers and sisters, the youngest of whom is still an infant, and his parents, terrified by the rising prices of provisions, thrusts the elders of the brood resolutely out of the nest, there is not much choice of methods. What a good idea it was of Monsieur Bohler's to engage a tutor for his children! . . . Alsace . . . storks, hop-gardens, old men in red waistcoats, women in caps with large black bows. . . . Alsace, the tragic land where strangers press your hand and murmur: "Long live France! " Thus at least did it suggest itself to Reymond, whose ideas of it were founded on lachrymose lyrics and feuilletons whose heroes, like Hannibal, bound themselves by terrible oaths! His imagination was fired. He left his native town on a warm September morning, accompanied by the good wishes of his family and the moderating counsels of his Aunt Emma.

Farewell, calm waters of Leman, farewell to the optimism of curving bays and sunlit slopes!

At Basle the young man wandered through streets bordered by low houses. On the lofty terrace of the Cathedral of pink sandstone, he lost himself in contemplation of these new horizons. To the right the hills, the distant chaos of the mountains, the blue line of the valleys, the little country districts with their clear rivers, each snugly enclosed in the space allotted to it by Nature, with its acres, fields, flock, and belfry. In front and to the left, the Duchy of Baden, the plain that stretches out between the Vosges and the Black Forest, and then more hills, but without the massive groundwork of rock, hills that undulate gently, like a stormy sea sinking to rest, allowing one to divine beyond them tracts of level groimd, marshes, heaths, rivers with sluggish waters, and the smoke of busy towns.

Reymond's birthplace was a canton from which tragedy is banished. Its inhabitants drink wine. They live without violent passions and mad ambitions. They crack jokes; they have a gentle belief in equality and liberty, but, above all, in happiness. Reymond, parted from these peaceful surroundings for the first time at the age of twenty-two, was moved. His eyes turned again and again to the river. The torrent foams round the surface of the rocks, gathering up the cold waters of the glaciers, hardly abating its turbulence in a lake, amusing itself again by leaping down among the rocks of Schaffhausen, and roaring between the narrow banks; then, suddenly expanding, it turns its back on the land of the mountains; its green waters roll in strength, they slap the abutments of bridges and glide among the reeds with an impulse so unanimous that for an instant, in spite of the vortex of whirlpools, they produce an illusion of perfect immobility.

Reymond strained his ears to catch the rustling movements of this monster with supple scales. Before this mass, sweeping forward irresistibly, his ideas were in upheaval; he conceived of forces that despise, deny, and crush; he felt himself carried away, reduced to nothingness by this green river, going off to conquer the world with the confidence of a violence that grinds and pulverizes.

Resting his hands on the warm stone of the terracewall, Raymond seemed to hear the soft voice of his Aunt Emma, the gentle pacifist: " Be careful, my boy. Don't excite the Alsatians. War is so horrible! " The river flowed on to its fate.

In the central hall of the railway-station was a cosmopolitan mob; persons running, others gesticulating, rows of commissionaires with buckled straps, persons who had subsided, exhausted, on a bench and sat mopping their heated foreheads, all types and all tongues, as seen in a corridor through which every one has to pass. Through a half-open door, people were to be observed, eating with great gravity. A huge advertisement of a special chocolate dominated the hurly-burly of this return after the holidays. It represented a flowerspangled meadow at the foot of violet peaks, in which stood sleek milch cows and a theatrical shepherd, carolling to the sun. Reymond cast a lingering look at these cows. Then, seizing his valise, he followed the crowd.

In the German Custom-house voices were lowered, as if in deference to the dismal discipline which reigned in the place. The Customs officers, haughtily civil, in belted green tunics, bent over the luggage, felt among it, asked brief questions, entirely absorbed in those professional rites which culminate in the hieroglyphs they trace with chalk. In other countries Customs officers are sceptical, or good-natured, or gallant. Those of Germany have the gravity proper to servants of the Empire. They watch its portals as outpost sentries. Kaiserliche Zollrevision. Kaiserlich! This is the business device, the rallying sign, the mystic word, the secret of success. Kaiserlich! Posts, prisons, policemen, and prefects, all are Kaiserlich. And on the buckles of belts we read: Gott mit uns. The Emperor and God! The two forces, which are but one, proclaim themselves on the very frontier.

Reymond bore himself humbly. His voice sounded muffled. When the man in green declared himself satisfied, he passed unobtrusively into the corridor where the man who punches the tickets submitted to him waits mournfully in a kind of cage. No one would ever think of laughing, whistling, or joking here. The atmosphere was impressive, orderly, decent, heavy.

Presently the train was gliding smoothly over the plain of Alsace, among potato-fields and copses and vine-clad slopes. A dull noise intimated the passage of the train through a station. Then the traveller noted the red cap of the station-master, the man at the level crossing shouldering arms, the policeman with his spiked helmet. And all saluted the passing train.

"Miilhausen!"

Standing on the platform, Reymond was considering which way to go, when a man with a short, bristling moustache touched him on the arm.

" Where do you come from, sir? "

" From Lausanne."

" And you are Swiss? "

" I am."

" You serve in the army? '*

"Yes."

" Infantry? "

"Yes."

" The name of your commanding officer, please? "

"Apotheloz."

" And where are you going? "

"ToFriedensbach."

** Thank you. The train starts in two hours. Down there."

The police-officer in plain clothes moved away, leaving Reymond petrified by this formal interrogatory greeting him as he stepped from the train, this threatening politeness, this steel-grey scrutiny boring into the depths of his eyes,

"Damnable country!" thought the young man. "You were a fool to bind yourself for two years! If they begin to suspect you the very first day, you are likely to have a pleasant time."

Much impressed, he set out to explore Miilhausen, strolling haphazard from street to street, on the watch for a word, a gesture, a scene which should evoke the Alsace of his dreams. The passers-by spoke a guttural patois. There were German inscriptions on the shop-fronts. At the cross-roads stood huge policemen wearing the inevitable spiked helmet. Noticing some persons in front of him who were talking French, Reymond followed them instinctively until the moment when they looked back at him so distrustfully, dropping their voices, that he fell behind.

Not far from some barracks, soldiers were drinking beer on the terrace of a Wirtschaft, If an officer passed, buttoned tightly in his long blue tunic, or a square- jawed non-commissioned officer, these men sprang up, clicking their heels sharply together, holding up their chins, extending their little fingers against the seams of their trousers, as if mesmerized. Falling back into their chairs, they plunged their noses anew into their mugs, ready to jump up again at the warning clink of a sword on the pavement. Reymond, accustomed to a discipline tempered by geniality, was astonished; he looked at the round faces of the soldiers, seeking the imperceptible smile of one who is not a complete dupe, or evidences of weariness, and finding nothing but a kind of intoxication of subservience, a superstitious reverence for the emblems of rank.

In front of the iron gate of the barracks a sentry paced backwards and forwards, pirouetted, counted his steps, pirouetted again and again, like an automaton fully wound up. In the courtyard, a hundred soldiers were stamping on the ground with disconcerting gravity, a kind of sacred fury, at the orders of a non-commissioned officer who might have been in command of a brigade, so loudly did he yell. At a sign from the sentry, Reymond moved away.

A canal bordered by poplar-trees. Barges coming from France or Germany cleft the dead water with their broad breasts. On the decks of these craft barking dogs ran along the flat edges, and then stood motionless, nose to nose, belching forth insults before going their way — irreconcilable creatures with curly coats and beardM chops, giving utterance to things their masters were saying within themselves. These masters, red-haired and placid, fellows with a lively twist of the hips, wearing gaily-coloured handkerchiefs round their throats, leaned on the tiller, looking at each other. And the slow barges crossed each other, their smooth flanks slipping along in opposite directions, some towards a lower, others towards a lighter sky.

. . . Again the train was gliding across the plain, among heaths where broom and heather mingled and hares and pheasants crouched. The Vosges were nearer. At a narrowing of the valley, prettily grouped about its cathedral with bronzed tiles, appeared an unexpected town: Thann. And the policeman was there on the watch. . . . Then the valley, the river with its white pebbles, the inn near the arched bridge, the villages planted among meadows, and in the valley the little train threading its way, amusing itself by whistling to rouse an echo, hiding itself in a tunnel for fun, acclaimed by washerwomen kneeling before their tubs, shouted at by boys, heralded by barking dogs. And up above, the blue of the Vosges mountains, intersected by the deeper blue of valleys running in every direction, a gay, translucent blue laid upon the roseate earth and yellowing bushes.

Seated opposite to Reymond was a smooth-faced young man with a pale complexion and a bitter mouth, who seemed ready to embark upon a monologue for men only. He started at his solitary fellow-traveller, and began suddenly:

" A fine day."

" Yes, indeed. And the country is charming."

" You are a Frenchman, perhaps? "

" No. I am from French Switzerland."

" Really? And I thought they talked only a German patois in Switzerland! Have you come to spend a few days in this corner of the world? "

"A few years."

"Ah! well met. . . . We shall probably be neighbours at the restaurant-table. . . . The portly Mademoiselle Schmoler, whose voice is as harmonious as her name, has already trumpeted your advent. . . . My name is Coquart, at your service. I am in the chemical department of the factory. . . . You'll find it delightful! . . . Workmen, ofi&cials in green hats, storks. . . . The girls are all some forty kilometres away."

Reymond blushed ingenuously.

" Well, but Alsace ..."

" All gammon ! . . . Books tell you all that, and barrel-organs (the chemist, seizing an imaginary handle, cast his eyes heavenwards and whined : " Alsace-Lorraine . . ."). Commonplaces for the delight of the softhearted. They do very well on the stage, for the apotheosis: music! and the Alsacienne sinks into the arms of the French oflScer. In reality, there are perhaps some few grandpapas who remember us. But as to the majority! . . . Well, in the first place, they speak a lingo ... oh ! I shall never believe that it can mean anything. . . . And the revanche! . . . The place for that is the Deroulede Museum."

There was a silence, broken by Reymond: "But there are the Germans and the Alsatians? " " Certainly. But it's not very easy to distinguish them with the naked eye. . . . It's very difficult to know what people think when you can't understand what they say. In books, of course . . . zim, boom, up with sentiment! In real life profit is the main thing. And then, you know, it is a long time since the annexation. A good deal of water has flowed under the bridges since the war. One must live. You see, I don't blame them. . . . Meanwhile, it is not very lively."

The train stopped. The chemist Coquart jerked his thumb at a little sunny station and a waiting carriage.

"This is Landbach. I suppose you get out here? Your employer's house is nearer here than Friedensbach. Oh! you have plenty of time. The express is in no great hurry. Look, those urchins who are coming forward are your pupils. So long! Delighted to have met you."

The two boys approached shyly, hat in hand. They seemed to be about fourteen and fifteen respectively. Jean, the elder, tall and thin, with a bird-like head, and an attractive expression, touched by the melancholy of a youth growing up in solitude; Rene, the younger, had a more knowing air, nice round cheeks, and a roguish twinkle. They stammered : " Have you had a comfortable journey. Monsieur? "

The coachman, a big ruddy fellow, had already stowed away the luggage. The horses sprang forward, shaking their manes. Master and pupils examined each other stealthily. Rene, dilating his nostrils and pursing up his lips, ventured on a grimace, followed by a laugh.

" That boy," said Reymond to himself, " is a handful. If I don't take the offensive, and attack him with absurdities, my authority will be nipped in the bud."

Then, suddenly:

" You look anaemic, my boy. We shall have to take care of you. And what do you think of the future of metaphysics? "

" Monsieur," replied the bewildered Rene, " I don't know them."

"That's your fault. They go about a good deal. True, you live somewhat off the main lines of communication. And how old is the aunt of the municipal secretary? "

" I don't know. Monsieur."

"Well, is she any better?"

" I don't know her at all, Monsieur."

" You seem to know no one. I thought you would have a wider circle of acquaintances."

Rene, completely quelled, was reduced to silence. The coachman, whose finger-tips emerged from sleeves too long for him, drew up before a closed iron gate, and cracked his whip to bring the lodge-keeper out. The man hurried forward, readily subservient. The carriage, somewhat shy of conveying its cushions through this scene of labour, bumped over the uneven slag, passing diagonally across the courtyard of the factory, which was enclosed by low synometrical buildings with pointed roofs. Behind the window-panes gleamed the sudden light of a reviving fire and naked torsoes; elsewhere heads were seen bent over ledgers; on every side there was the slap of transmission -belts, the whir of machinery, a smell of oil and sweat, and, above all this, a plume of smoke, resolving itself slowly into a fine black rain. Finally, the master's house, with a very simple fagade, disfigured by a marquise due to the skill of some local craftsman.

After the questions usually put to a traveller, the party sat down to dinner. It was evident that Monsieur Bohler disliked chatter. Sitting very erect, in a coat buttoned up to the cravat, he confined himself to a few brief phrases, as if his business cares pursued him even in the family circle. The square forehead enframed in short white hair, the masterful clean-cut features, the clear, authoritative look, the abrupt gestures, inspired fear and respect. He seemed the natural centre of the group. Madame Bohler sat facing him, fair and slender, gay, yet with a touch of gravity that gave an extraordinary charm to her pretty face; she looked very young beside her big sons, to whom she spoke chiefly by smiles.

To keep himself in countenance Reymond contemplated the decanters, which sparkled in the lamplight. Embarrassed by this speechless reception, he systematically refused to help himself a second time, in spite of the mute insistence of an old servant, who pressed the dishes upon him, breathing hard into his ear. He thought to himself: " We might be in the crypt of a cathedral. ... I wonder if they dislike me. ... I cannot begin to tell stories. . . . One is evidently expected to hold one's tongue."

" What a splendid sunset there was this evening," said Madame Bohler, unexpectedly. " The Drumont was ablaze."

The young tutor did not know the Drumont yet. Rene promised to show it to him the following morning from the schoolroom window.

They went into the drawing-room. Reymond held back to let Monsieur Bohler pass.

" Please go first. You are my guest."

" I'm afraid we shall never get on together," thought Reymond. He felt very lonely, very far from all he loved.

They sat down. A drawing-room not in everyday use is as dismal as a family vault. Statuettes stood dully on brackets. The Discobolus seemed to have lost heart, and to have given up the idea of hurling his missile. There were corners where the candelabra shed but a feeble glimmer. On the walls hung some uninteresting pictures. But a violoncello near the open piano spoke of life here.

Madame Bohler questioned Reymond. Had he any brothers and sisters? . . . Seven! There was a moment of stupefaction. Did he live on the shores of Lake Geneva?

At nine o'clock exactly, Monsieur Bohler frowned.

" Come, boys."

They were pinching each other's calves on a corner of the sofa. At these words, which were repeated every evening, they rose, embraced their parents, shook hands with their tutor, and wished him good-night. From the corridor came the sound of laughter and of resounding slaps.

" Let us go into the smoking-room."

Suddenly, Monsieur Bohler became a new man. He offered Reymond a cigar. He himself, stretched out in an arm-chair, lit his pipe, puffed out a cloud of smoke, smiled benevolently, and began to talk with much animation. It was one of those metamorphoses often to be seen in those who are a prey to crushing responsibilities; they have their hours of expansion, all the more attractive for being rare.

Reymond was to learn to know those manufacturers of the small^ towns scattered among the Vosges valleys, who rise at six every day of their lives, and go to work more punctually than the meanest employe, severe to others and also to themselves, a part of the machinery they have set up, the slaves of that machinery. At noon they escape for an hour. And in the evening, when the hooter sounds and the workmen have trooped out through the iron gates with a clatter of sabots, they scan the prices of wool or cotton, run through the letters of the last post, read the petition of the man dismissed for drunkenness, sign a hundred papers — the soul of the great enterprise which gives bread to hundreds of families.

If they relax their grasp the whole machine creaks. The last lamp to be extinguished is theirs. Meals are a matter of business which must be despatched expeditiously, like all the rest. And looking out of the window as they fold their table-napkin, they see the courtyard where the rails of the Decauvilles gleam, the roofs and chimneys of the factory which never suffers them to forget it for a moment. On Sundays, however, they call their dogs. Gaitered and clad in heather-mixtures, pipe in mouth and gun on shoulder, they take the road that leads to the forest. When these men, whom the people call in their patois the Barons of the Chimney-stacks, return to their homes, they are not expansive. The windows of the ofi&ce are already beckoning to them.

Their women spend much time alone; while their husbands are hunting the hare or playing auction-bridge at their clubs, their horses trot along the road that winds like a ribbon along the valley; they pay visits to each other, and as the little towns are far enough apart to prevent them from seeing each other frequently, yet near enough to permit of weekly intercourse, they have many subjects to discuss over a cup of tea. They talk of the last play published by U Illustration, which they hope to see in Paris in the spring, of the novel just begun in the review. Meantime the children play in the garden, climbing trees and dabbling in the basin of the fountain.

Then another slow week begins to the eternal rhythm of the machines. There are a thousand household tasks: the cleaning days, the washing days, the making of Kougelhopfs, for the Alsatian housewife is her cook's collaborator, and is not afraid of the heat of the stove. But she also plays her part in civic matters: the creche, the orphan school, the infirmary, the domestic training school, the old women with coughs. Returning from her perambulations, she sits down to her piano. And still the machines rumble on.

It is a life of austere charm, very simple, very real — a solid life in which every one contributes his daily effort imostentatiously. And thus the dyke is built up which the enemy cannot pierce.

All this Monsieur Bohler explained to his boys' tutor in his concise speech.

"We are counting a good deal on you. ... I am afraid I am a poor kind of father. It is a serious matter, I know. The Socialist gentry, of course, think we all have a good time. As a fact, we are slaves. We have to struggle unceasingly. . . . Competition, overproduction. . , . And Alsace is so out-of-the-way, so far from ports and coalfields. Then we have so many other drawbacks. . . . The political situation. ... It is an arduous game. One has to be always on the spot . . . and one's family suffers. ... On the other hand, we can hold no intercourse with the officials and professors . . . and the result is isolation. Each man shuts himself up in his shell. We have to be self-sufficing. The education of our sons is a problem for us. There are, of course, the official schools, which are good, and even excellent up to a certain point, but they destroy individuality. And, besides, Alsatians are fed on lies in them. You see, you will have to be a great deal to our boys."

" I will do my best," replied Reymond. " I am already interested in them. Rene has a scientific and sporting bent, I should say. Jean is more dreamy, more literary."

Both father and mother smiled, touched and pleased.

"Oh! " said Madame Bohler, "Rene is still a child. He is barely fourteen. For the moment he is all for athleticism. He talks of nothing but matches and records. He knows the names of all the boxers in the world. But he has a good heart. Only he must be handled the right way, firmly. . . . Jean is thoughtful. He is fond of music, a bit sentimental, philosophical . . ."

" In short," interrupted Monsieur Bohler, " they are two boys much like other boys, not ill-disposed, not unintelligent, who must be made into men."

"You might tell Monsieur Reymond about his other pupils . on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. You must know, monsieur, that a French tutor is a rara avis among us. Everybody wants him."

" Yes, it's true. Twice a week you will have a little class. You must not boast of this, for it will rather exceed the educational regulations. Our masters dread the diffusion of the French language in Alsace above all things. The number of pupils authorized to take a course not given in the German language is strictly limited. So your lessons will take the form of walks together, if you are willing. Besides our two boys, you will have Emile Zumbach, Andre Berger, and Charles Weiss, my godson, the son of my agent. You will certainly meet Monsieur Weiss presently. He will teach you to know and love the Vosges. He is a delightful person, somewhat of a dilettante, a great collector of mushrooms, raiser of poultry and rabbits, a nursery gardener, a horticulturist, a manufacturer, and I know not what besides. The moving spirit of our Valley. A born optimist. And yet he has had a great grief. Two years ago his eldest son died at Munich during his term of military service."