There might have been one other means—­and one which the inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine favored—­of founding there a neutral territory similar to Belgium and Switzerland.  There would then have been a chain of neutral states from the North Sea to the Swiss Alps, which would have made it impossible for us to attack France by land, because we are accustomed to respect treaties and neutrality, and because we should have been separated from France by this strip of land between us.  France would have received a protecting armor against us, but nothing would have prevented her from occasionally sending her fleet with troops to our coast—­a plan she had under consideration during the last war, although she did not execute it—­or from landing her armies with her allies, and entering Germany from there.  France would have received a protecting armor against us, but we should have been without protection by sea, as long as our navy did not equal the French.  This was one objection, although one of only secondary importance.  The chief reason was that neutrality can only be maintained when the inhabitants are determined to preserve an independent and neutral position, and to defend it by force of arms, if need be.  That is what both Belgium and Switzerland have done.  As far as we were concerned in the last war no action on their part would have been necessary, but it is a fact that both these countries maintained their neutrality.  Both are determined to remain neutral commonwealths.  This supposition would not have been true, in the immediate future, for the neutrality newly to be established in Alsace and Lorraine.  On the contrary, it is to be expected that the strong French elements, which are going to survive in the country for a long while, and whose interests, sympathies, and memories are connected with France, would have induced the people to unite with France in the case of another Franco-German war, no matter who their sovereign might be.  The neutrality of Alsace-Lorraine, therefore, would have been merely a sham, harmful to us and helpful to France.  Nothing was left, therefore, but to bring both these countries with their strong fortresses completely under German control.  It was our purpose to establish them as a powerful glacis in Germany’s defence against France, and to move the starting point of a possible French attack several days’ marches farther back, if France, having regained her strength or won allies, should again throw down the gauntlet to us.

The chief obstacle to the realization of this idea, which was to satisfy the incontestable demands of our safety, was found in the opposition of the inhabitants themselves, who did not wish to be separated from France.  It is not my duty here to inquire into the causes which made it possible for a thoroughly German community to become so deeply attached to a country speaking a different tongue and possessing a government which was not always kind and considerate.  To a great extent this may have been due to the fact