The Days of a Ma?t 



C1913 



A study 



in 



conquest 



Gross 

 brutalities 



Guerard gave in The Nineteenth Century and After- 

 zvards, a British magazine, a graphic account of 

 them. In 1916 I pubUshed my own records in some 

 detail in a volume entitled ''Alsace-Lorraine: a 

 Study in Conquest" (Bobbs-Merrill Company), 

 without, however, using the names of informants. 

 In the preface I wrote as follows: 



In his clever analysis of the "German Enigma," Georges 

 Bourdon uses these words: "One must speak of Alsace-Lorraine; 

 it is better to listen while she speaks." ^ 



The present volume is the result of an attempt thus to listen 

 while Alsace-Lorraine spoke for herself. . . . Whatever value 

 the book may now have lies in its being in a sense a historical 

 document, a record of things as they were before the great 

 crash came. In its way it is the "Morituri Salutamus" of our 

 own time — the last word of those "about to die." For what- 

 ever the outcome of the war which now rages in and over Alsace 

 and Lorraine, life in those provinces can never again be what it 

 was in 1913. 



With the advent of war German repression in 

 Alsace, mere "coups d'epingie" (pinpricks) before, 

 developed into a series of gross brutalities. In April, 

 191 7, an Alsatian friend wrote me from Switzerland 

 as follows: 



The actual aspect of the question is now very different from 

 what it was before the war. The sympathies for any kind of 

 autonomy under German rule have entirely gone on account of 

 the evil treatment of the people by the German civil and military 

 officers and the democratic mind of the Alsatians. 



In the end, Alsace and Lorraine, released from their 

 thralldom, turned with emotion and enthusiasm to 

 France. Recently the same correspondent declared 



' // faui parler d' Alsace-Lorraine; il vaut mieux ecouter quand elle barle. 

 ("L'EnigmeAllemande.") 



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