IV

THE TREATY

77

i reunion with their German fatherland/ to whichthey were 1 related by language, customs, and religion/After an occupation of one year and a quarter, thisdesire was taken into account in the second Treatyof Paris in 1815. Since then the country has remaineduninterruptedly attached to Germany , and owes itseconomic development to that connection."

The French wanted the coal for the purpose ofworking the ironfields of Lorraine, and in the spiritof Bismarck they have taken it. Not precedent,but the verbal professions of the Allies , haverendered it indefensible. 1

(ii.) Upper Silesia, a district without large towns,in which, however, lies one of the major coalfields ofGermany with a production of about 23 per cent ofthe total German output of hard coal, is, subject toa plebiscite, 2 to be 'ceded to Poland. Upper Silesia

1 "We take over the ownership of the Sarre mines, and in order not tobe inconvenienced in the exploitation of these coal deposits, we constitutea distinct little estate for the 600,000 Germans who inhabit this coal basin,and in fifteen years we shall endeavour by a plebiscite to bring them todeclare that they want to be French. We know what that means. Duringfifteen years we are going to work on them, to attack them from every point,till we obtain from them a declaration of love. It is evidently a less brutalproceeding than the coup de force which detached from us our Alsatiansand Lorrainers. But if less brutal, it is more hypocritical. We know quitewell between ourselves that it is an attempt to annex these 600,000 Germans. One can understand very well the reasons of an economic nature which haveled Olemenceau to wish to give us these Sarre coal deposits, but in order toacquire them must we give ourselves the appearance of wanting to jugglewith 600,000 Germans in order to make Frenchmen of them in fifteenyears?" (M. Herve in La Fictoire, May 31, 1919).

2 This plebiscite is the most important of the concessions accorded toGermany in the Allies' Final Note, and one for which Mr. Lloyd George , whonever approved the Allies' policy on the Eastern frontiers of Germany , canclaim the chief credit. The vote cannot take place before the sjn'ing of 1920,