CHAPTEE II. 



THE EEGION OF THE VOSGES. 



(Alsace and German Lorraine.)* 



General Aspects, Mountains, Riyeks, and Climate, 



LSACE and a portion of Lorraine have recently become German by 

 right of conquest, and contrary to the wishes of the vast majority 

 of the inhabitants of these countries. These provinces now form 

 an " imperial land," or Reichsland, the boundaries of which have 

 been drawn by the sword. And yet these two provinces, if only 

 they were permitted to form a truly independent state, might they not act as 

 mediators between the two nations, morally equally culpable, the one for having 

 risked their loss without the power of defending them, the other for having taken 

 them as booty of war ? 



Alsace has well-defined boundaries, for it embraces the eastern slope of the 

 Vosges and the plain extending along the left bank of the Rhine. Much elongated 

 in proportion to its width, its ancient division into a Suuchjau and Nortgau 

 (southern and northern countr}"), now represented by Upper and Lower Alsace, 

 was an appropriate one. German Lorraine, on the other hand, does not form a 

 geographical province, for it includes the western slopes of the Vosges to the north 

 of the gap of Zabern (Saverne), together with the hilly country which stretches 

 westward to the Ardennes. It is divided into distinct sections by the valleys of 

 the Saar, the Nied, and the Moselle, which traverse it from north to south. 

 Lorraine not only differs from Alsace in these geographical features, but also by 

 its history and the origin of a majority of its inhabitants. Fortifications, however, 

 have converted both countries into one huge entrenched camp, and, as they are 

 now politically united, we shall consider them conjointly.f 



* In German Elsass and Lotlirbijeii, Latinised into Alsatia and Lotharingia. 



