October 25, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
13 
Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhinegold 
By Philippe Millet 
THE world is beginning to realise that the ques- 
tion of Alsace-Lorraine does not concern France alone 
but really dominates the whole war. With the pos- 
sible exception of the restoration of Belgium, all 
the other war aims of the Allies depend more or less upon that 
ane. We can never be sure that there will be no " next time, " 
and the world cannot be safe for democracy unless Prussia is 
compelled to give up what she stole from France in 1871. 
From the point of view of right, this is obvious. It would be 
no use pretending that we stand for the right of the peoples 
to dispose of themselves if we did not begin by liberating the 
two provinces Prussia has conquered and is holding by force. 
But the liberation of Alsace-Lorraine is equally vital from 
an industrial standpoint ; it is, I believe, the key to the 
economic policy we must enforce upon the world if wc want 
to put an end to any sort of aggressive Imperialism. 
I will try to make this clear, first bv showing that the 
possession of Alsace-Lorraine is the economic basis of what 
we call Prussian militarism, and in the second place by out- 
lining the economic changes which will result from the return 
Df Alsace-Lorraine to France. Wagnerites will remember 
that the Prussian worm F'atner derived its power from the 
possession of a certain treasure named the Rhinegold, which 
the German gods, with characteristic Bismarckian un- 
scrupulousness, had stolen from the unfortunate Nibelung. 
Now the Rhinegold actually exists. French Lorraine, with the 
adjoining Sarrc valley, contains, besides an importc^nt coal 
field, the richest deposits of iron ore in Central Europe. Such 
is the treasure Prussia has succeeded in wringing from its 
legitimate possessor. The whole district was F'rench in 1814. 
.\ year after, at the Vienna Congress, Prussia availed herself 
3f Napoleon's second downfall to lay her hands on the Sarre 
valley. Then camg the war of 1870-71. This time Prussia 
took hold of what she thought was th^ whole of the industrial 
wealfh of Lorraine. She would have asked for Briey as well, 
had it been known at the time that Western Lorraine also con- 
tained important deposits. However, by far the best part of 
the Rhinegold has been in her hands for more than forty- 
five years. It is on that basis that she has built up the whole 
of her industrial Imperialism. 1 
Let me quote here some figures. It is impossible to lay 
too much stress upon them : Out of 286 million ions of iron 
ore which Germany extracted from her soil in 1913. 2r millions 
came from Lorraine. Out of 2,800 million tons, representin/: 
the iron deposits of Germany, the German engineers admitted 
that Lorraine alone contained 2,100 millions. 
What is the meaning of these figures ? First of all, it appears 
that the Lorraine treasure has, for the last 45 years, been the 
main source from which German metallurgy has drawn its 
raw materials. But German metallurgy is not only the most 
important of all Gcnnan industries; it is the very key to the 
whole of German industrial development, for it was by using 
their supremacy in steel that the Germans tried to dominate 
and had begun to dominate the markets of the world. Moreover 
Prussia has made of the Lorraine deposits a truly Prussian 
use. Supjiose Lorraine had become British : there is little 
doubt that no efforts would have been spared to develop 
highly the district by opening it to the rest of the worhl. 
The coal deposits of the Sarre and the iron deposits of the 
Moselle being situated some distance from the Rhine, the 
obvious thing to do was to canalise both the Moselle and the 
Sarre and thus provide Lorraine with convenient waterways. 
The French had indeed started canalising the Moselle in 1867, 
and had secured in the Treaty of Frankfort a clause by which 
the Germans undertook to proceed with the canalisation on 
German territory. But Prussia found it more conducive to 
her interest to develop Westphalia at the expense of Lorraine. 
She kept the ore for the use of Westphalian industry, but was 
careful not to dig a single waterway for the benefit of Lorraine, 
in spite of the fact that the cost was a trifling one. 
In the second place, the iron deposits of Lorraine have 
played an even greater part in the prosecution of the war. 
This we know from the Germans themselves. On May 20 th. 
1915, the German manufacturers sent to the German Chancellor 
a secret petition in which they gave all their views about the 
subject. The passage of the memorandum concerning . tlie 
minettc (the name given to the special kind of ore extracted in 
Borraine) is worth quoting at full length ; 
The manufacture of shells requires a quantity of iron and steel 
such as nobody would have thought of before the war. For 
shells in grey cast-iron alone, which are being used, when no 
superior quahty is required, in place of steel shells, quantities 
of pig-iron have been required for the last months which reach 
at Ica.st 4,000 tons a day. No precise figures arc available 
on this point. But it is already certain that if the output in 
iron and steel had not been doubled since the month of August. 
the prosecution of the war would have become impossitjle. 
As raw materials for the manufacture of these quantities of 
iron and stcei, niinelte is assuming a more and more im- 
portant place, as this kind only of iron ore can be extracted 
in our country in quickly increasing quantities. 
The prodution in other territories has been considerably 
reduced, and the importation by sea even of Swedish iron ore 
has become so difficult that in many regions, even outside 
J^u.xemburg and Lorraine, minetle at the present moment 
co\ers from Oo to 80 per cent, of the manufacture of pig-iron 
and steel. // the output of the minette ivcre to be disturbed, 
the war would be as good as lost. (The italics are mine). 
Here we have a candid confession of the truth. As 
Luxemburg only yields a small quantity of minette, it appears 
from the above memorandum that without the possession of 
Lorraine the German Empire would have been utterly unable 
to stand the industrial strain of the war for more than a few 
months. It is even probable that unless they had had at 
their disposal that enormous natural • reserve of guns and 
shells, the Prussian Government would never have dared to 
go to war at all. One thing at any rate is certain, and ought 
never to be forgotten ; out of every five shells the Germans have 
been strafing us with since the outset of the shoNV four, on 
their own admission, came from the French province which 
they had stolen in 1871. "" 
Militarism's Corner Stone 
In the light of these facts it is only too easy to perceive 
why Herr von Kuhlmann seems so anxious to maintain Alsace- 
Lorraine under the Prussian yoke. There is little doubt 
that rather than surrender the conquest of 1871, he would 
be willing to part with half the territories belonging to Austria- 
Hungary, or even, if things did come to the worst, with 
Schleswig- Holstein. The reason for this is obviotis : 
economically as well as politically, Alsace-Lorraine is the 
corner-stone of Prussian militarism. 
Politically, Alsace-Lorraine has been since 1871 a mere 
tool by meatis of which the Prussian Government has 
managed to enforce both the supremacy of Prussia over the 
rest of Germany and the policy of armaments which led to 
the present war. It was because Alsace-Lorraine could only 
he held by force that the German people allowed the Prussian 
Junker, who has always been and always will be the living 
symbol of militarism, to sway the whole German Empire. 
So long as Alsace-Lorraine remains in German hands, Prussian 
militarism will have to prevail in Germany, whatever in- 
ternational formulas we invent at the Peace Conference in 
order to do away with the plague of armaments. 
The same relations obtain between Alsace-Lorraine and 
Prussian militarism from an economic point of y'ww. It was 
the Rhinegold of Lorraine which encouraged Prussia, to aim 
at dominating the world, first by peaceful penetration, and 
afterwards by force of arms. The famous saying that war 
is with Prussia a national industry finds here a remarkable 
illustration, for modern wars as well as the disguised warfare 
called commercial Imperialism, is really an industry based on 
the possession of iron. Take from Prussia the iron of Lorraine 
she will be utterly unable to face the prospects of another war. 
You cannot manufacture guns and shells with anything but an 
unlimited supply of coal at your disposal. Without the stolen 
Rhinegold, Prussian militarism will be like a tiger withoiit 
claws and teeth. If on the contrary the Allies were weak 
enough to allow Prussia to keep Lorraine or to accept a half 
solution which would enable Prussia to jump 'at the treasure 
and recapture it at any moment, then it may be truly said 
that nothing will ensure the future safety of the world. 
Some' are foolish enough to believe that the granting of a 
constitution to the German People would suffice to destroy 
the thing called Prussian militarism. They are apparently 
not aware that Prussian militarism is not a mere form of 
Government but a deeply rooted social phenomenon which no 
revolution can destroy in one day. .Just as the French Re- 
volution was followed by a reaction which lasted on the whole 
, for more than fifty years, a German Revolution, if a genuine 
one did really occur, would not guarantee us that, say Hinden- 
burg's nephews might not succeed after a few years in setting 
fire again to the whole civilized world. 
It remains now to be seen what will be the economic result 
to the world at large of the return to F~rance of such an immense 
mineral wealth. This question depends upon the .general 
economic policy of France and the Allies. I shall endeavour 
to state what that policy will certainly be if wc are sensible 
enough to think before all else how to maintain the future 
ix^acc of the world. 
(To be continued). 
