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as best they might, “friendly” offices could not brook the on- 
coming tide, and in the summer of 1914 the dogs of war were 
let loose. For four years they were free from their leashes, 
and when they were again under control, not only were Ger- 
many’s colonies gone, her merchant marine lost, her com- 
mercial organization broken, her navy destroyed, but her iron- 
ore region, so necessary to prosperity and commercial ascend- 
ency, was disannexed. The Teutonic industrial entrepreneurs 
who had boastingly exclaimed, “There is no god but business 
and iron is its prophet” now experienced an hegira and saw 
the French flag wave from their former citadel. 
During the very first phase of the war, Germany occupied 
that region in France richest in iron ore, the northeastern 
portion of the country. These were beds, deeper than those 
in Lorraine, found by the French after the loss of that prov- 
ince in 1871. By its occupation it has been estimated that 
France lost 80 per cent of her iron and steel manufactures, 
about 90 per cent of her ore, and approximately 70 per cent 
of her coal resources. If Germany could have permanently 
held this region, what proved to have been but a partial an- 
nexation in 1871 could have been fully made complete. This 
area was occupied for four years, and during this time a 
historian of the war says: 
Iron works, machine works, also, were looted. . . . Mines were 
flooded, the surface plants dynamited, the workmen’s dwellings destroyed. 
It was estimated that altogether four billion dollars’ worth of machinery 
would be needed to replace that destroyed or carried away.*’ 
It was evident that Germany knew the value of coal and 
iron resources and was resolved to maintain her economic 
ascendency. 
The outcome of the war not only restored the occupied area 
to France but also the lost provinces. The greatest supply of 
iron ore in continental Europe was now in possession of 
France. Moreover, Germany under the terms of the Treaty 
of Versailles must^ deliver to France annually seven million 
tons of coal (or its equivalent in coke) for a period of ten 
years. This provision was to compensate France for the 
destruction and damage in her coal flelds. In addition, Ger- 
many surrendered the coal mines of the Saar area — mines 
which yielded in 1913 over thirteen million tons of coal. 
But Germany failed to make these deliveries of coal, and on 
® Carlton J. H. Hayes, A Brief History of the Great War (New York, 1920), 394. 
