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her last position on the river. Another half-century saw the 
tables turned ; France again was keeping watch on the Rhine. 
This emphatic change which occurred in the century following 
the Congress of Vienna was due to the World War. Alsace 
with Lorraine again are under the sovereignty of France. 
The entire Rhineland north of this annexed area which 
Prussia had governed for one hundred years was occupied by 
the armies of the Allies. Not only the left bank was occupied, 
but also the bridgeheads and adjacent territory on the right 
bank. Moreover, this area and a strip thirty miles wide east 
of the Rhine was demilitarized. The territory occupied by the 
Allied armies is governed by an Interallied Rhineland Com- 
mission. Before the war France was not represented on the 
committee that regulated the traffic on the Rhine. Today she 
has four representatives. When the eighth landmark in the 
history of Lothair's kingdom was set up, France was again a 
power on the Rhine. 
This situation, next to the temporary organization under 
Napoleon, is a near approach to the Rhine frontier of Roman 
days. It is the arrangement of the Peace of Versailles which 
went into effect in January, 1920. It is not what France 
wanted. “The Rhine must be the western frontier of the Ger- 
man peoples”, said the French. They had been invaded twice 
in fifty years ; it must not happen again. Western democracy 
must be saved by making the Rhine the frontier of freedom. 
The Rhineland, as an independent or autonomous state oc- 
cupied by allied troops, would serve as barrier and buffer be- 
tween Germany and France. France felt that all this was 
necessary to guarantee her security against another German 
invasion. 
She was compelled to accept, however, in lieu of this, the de- 
militarization of the district, the protection of the untried 
League of Nations, and the promise of a treaty with Britain 
and the United States by the terms of which these nations 
would immediately come to her rescue in the event of a Ger- 
man attack. The treaty was never consummated. In the 
meantime, Germany failed to make the reparation payments, 
and France with her military forces occupied the Ruhr. 
France now sits astride the Rhine as Prussia did in 1815. 
Who will dislodge her? 
It is now a little over a thousand years since Lothair's 
middle kingdom was formed. It has been a battleground of 
