THE INCIDENT ON THE FRANCO-GERMAN FRONTIER.
THE shooting incident on the Franco-German frontier was
a very ugly one. There is, to begin with, a grand quarrel as to essential facts. The French believe that a few French gentlemen who were on September 24th out at Raon-sur- Plaine, near the frontier, shooting in a wood, were challenged by a party of German game-preservers, but did not hear
the challenge ; and that on their failure to reply, Kaufmann, a German soldier who accompanied the gamekeepers' party, fired three times from a magazine-rifle. One Frenchman, a gentle- man, was so wounded in the leg that amputation is probable ; while another Frenchman, a gamekeeper or beater, died near the spot in terrible agony. The Germans, on the other hand, allege that the French party were, consciously or unconsciously, on Ger- man soil when they received the bullets, though the gamekeeper died upon French ground. This is an irreconcileable difference, and each nationality will believe that the other is bearing false witness. In either case, the offence given is most serious. To kill men like beasts with rifle-bails, on mere suspicion that they are poachers, and before they have committed any act whether of poaching or of resistance to the law, is a cruelty condemned by opinion everywhere outside Germany ; while to kill foreigners on their own soil for such an offence is an outrage, if ever there was one. Granting that the frontier was uncertain, the soldier's act in assuming the truth to be on his own side, showed a regardlessness of all but German laws and feelings which could not fail to be intensely exasperating to Frenchmen, and which suggested instructions of the most defiant kind. It was all the more exasperating because this rigid severity seemed only too much in accordance with the new policy pursued in Alsace-Lorraine. The Germans have decided—or, at all events, the French so believe—that the conquered provinces have been governed too leniently for the past sixteen years, that the unbroken election of Separatists showed the Alsatians to be still rebels at heart, and that, lest they should revolt in war-time, they must feel the full weight of the Imperial hand. Consequently, the officials have received orders to be rigid in exacting obedience, words implying disaffec- tion are rigorously punished, and a watchfulness is kept up under which the freedom of social and even family life has almost disappeared. Claims to exemption from military service are scrutinised with a new rigour, and Alsatians who have elected to be Frenchmen find it more and more imperative to leave. Such a change of policy, authorised in order to punish Lorrainers, who are Frenchmen to the toes, for expressing continued affection for Prance, would be irritating at any time ; but at the present moment, when the fighting spirit is reviving, and there is a chance of a great alliance, and the Army, if not the people, believe the revanche to be at hand, it is positively provocative. Englishmen would feel it to be oppressive and unfriendly, and the French regard it as more than thie, as designedly humiliating. Their governing classes are ready to fight out of pure weariness of what they deem to be affronts ; and although the peasantry are not, experience shows that the initiative in such matters is not always or entirely in their hands. The Government of France would have the greatest difficulty in resisting an angry cry from the Army, or even from the population of Paris; and as it is, is compelled to implore the journalists to deal tenderly with every incident, and not to add fuel to the flame. No charge now injures a Frenchman like that of submissiveness to Bismarck. On the other hand, Germany is fully as susceptible as France, though she shows her temper less by rash speaking ; and the German Government, when dealing with such an incident, has special and embarrassing difficulties of its own. It can, of course, apologise for a breach of international law, whether intentional on the part of its underlings or otherwise, and it will, it cannot be doubted, make its apology hearty and suffi- cient. It does not claim a right to shoot Frenchmen, even for crime, on their own soil, still less for breaking game-laws. It cannot, however, afford to let Alsatians see that it concedes, when France interferes, what it would not concede to its own subjects, and it cannot, therefore, give under foreign pressure a compensation for which its own laws do not provide; and itis said such compensation for a death caused by over-zeal has hitherto been unknown. Nor can it weaken its military system by punishing a soldier for obeying written orders ; and Kauf- mann's orders were, if he challenged poachers without effect, to fire at once. Orders in Germany exonerate all who obey them.
The incident will, of course, be smoothed over in some fashion. Prince Bismarck for the present is marking time, and he will not embark his Emperor in a war which could have been honourably postponed ; but we English underrate in a way not creditable to our powers of observation, the positively frightful elements of the situation on the Continent. One of the most terrible of earthly calamities, a war sure to be European in its range, may burst forth at any moment. Nobody who knows France would guarantee her now for three months against a Boulanger Cabinet, or against a military dictatorship if M. Chivy resigns, or against an outburst of fury in France directed against the foreigner. The
Comte de Paris, in a spirit of the most selfish calculation, has destroyed the cohesion of the conservative elements in the Chamber ; and when that incalculable body meets again, almost anything may happen, the most probable being the accession of a Ministry which Germany will not trust for an hour. They understand the German Court very little who think that it would shrink, if the Republic grew Red, from declaring it a European danger. In Germany itself, all hangs on the life of a man already well past ninety, and who, though wonderfully energetic, is liable at any hour of the day to a severe fall ; while in Russia, a gloomy Emperor, per-. scouted to the death by murderous fanatics, is pressed by the most powerful party in his Empire with arguments which really amount to this,—that the road out for him and for Russia lies through a great war. The prospect would be a gloomy one if the war were to be of the ordinary kind ; but an outbreak now would mean a suspension of civilisation, and all Europe from Boulogne to the Black Sea pitched into the crucible. It would mean a conflict between armies of half's-million strong, armed with magazine. rifles, and contending for the very existence of their States. Soldiers say it could not end quickly, because the fortresses are so strong and so numerous ; and if it did not end quickly, the destruction of human life, and of the elements of national pro- sperity, would exceed all precedent. And when it ended, the resulting treaties would be so oppressive that the human race in Europe would have but one business,—to keep itself so armed and drilled and ready, that the great wrongs done could not be summarily avenged. Talk of frontier incidents being ex- aggerated, and of " war-scares "l—it speaks volumes for the modern fortitude of mankind that the people of Central Europe can sleep at night with clouds so black hanging above them, and approaching visibly nearer to the crisis of discharge. That is too pessimist a view God grant it; but we want to see it proved an unreasonable view. Where is the fact entitled to give us hope ? Does anybody doubt that France is growing more confident, more ready to seize an opportunity, more likely to be stirred to passion by incidental wrong or accidental insult ? Does anybody doubt that Germany expects war, or is drilling her
last man to be in readiness Or does anybody doubt that peace and war are hanging in Russia on the decision of one man, whose word can instantly break down the barriers, and whose direct interest it may ba to-morrow—if, for instance, Bulgaria appeared to defeat him—to break them down ? In such a condition of affairs, we cannot help thinking that though the storm may hold off, and even seem to disperse, there is something of silliness in optimism, and that occurrences on the Continent should be watched with even more of apprehensive vigilance than is at present dis- played. The incessant telegrams bemuse men, and prevent their seeing that although alarm after alarm proves false, sparks are always flying, and no one on earth has the power to flood the magazine. The danger does not arise, as it used to do centuries ago, because individuals are wicked, but because nations are boilihg with suppressed fury,—are so hot with the hope of vengeance that consequences are as nothing in their eyes.
Previous page
