Germany's policy
toward France during these forty-three years has been one of utmost
restraint and forbearance, and has been dictated by the one desire of
making her forget the loss of the two provinces, German until the
seventeenth century and inhabited by German stock, which were won back
from France in 1870. Whether the acquisition of these provinces was a
fortunate thing for Germany may be doubted. The possession of
Alsace-Lorraine has certainly robbed Germany of the undivided sympathy
of the world, which she otherwise would have had. But it is probably
true that from the military point of view Alsace-Lorraine was needed by
Germany as a bulwark against the repetition of the many wanton French
invasions from which Germany has had to suffer since the time of the
Thirty Years' War and the age of Louis XIV.
Sought to Heal the Breach.
However this may be, Germany has done her best during the last four
decades to heal the wounds struck by her to French national pride. She
abetted French colonial expansion in Cochin-China, Madagascar, Tunis.
She yielded to France her own well-founded claims to political influence
in Morocco.
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