ALSACE-LORRAINE

By George Wharton Edwards

 “Section 16”

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Metz

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One might seek in vain to find a town more distinctly French than Metz, the fortified capital

of Lorraine and before the present war the head­quarters of the 16th army corps, numbering about twenty-six thousand soldiers, and with a population of about seventy thousand, of which about one-half are French.

Approaching the town by rail one sees upon the hori­zon, high above the roofs and towers, two huge squat, green constructions, which seem entirely out of place, and are ugly beyond expression. One turns out to be the great gas tank built by the Germans on "Serpenoise" plain; the other is the roof of the huge railway station, which is quite as ugly, but much more offensive, because it claims to be architecture. Says M. Emile Hinzelin,1 describing it, "On the tower which surmounts this depot an immense block of yellow stone was long an enigma to us. It at length turned out to be Saint George and the Dragon. At least that is what the Germans alleged it to be, adding, insultingly, that it represented the German Empire treading under foot the French Republic. The

1Directeur de "La France de Demain" (Alsace-Lorraine).

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Administration substituted another model for this, without giving an explanation for the change of plan. This model included the figure of Field Marshal Count Hoeseler, a Corps Commander of the army of Metz. Imag­ine," continues he, "a man who at fifty paces resembles a child disguised as a soldier; at twenty, a petty officer; at ten, an ugly old woman! In Hoeseler is incarnated the effigy of the traditional Superior Officer, such as is typified by the grim mask-like face of von Moltke. But what an idea it was to represent Hoeseler as Roland in a buckler and coat of mail! At the same time one should not be astonished at this lack of taste, for is there not sculptured on the doorway of the Cathedral an effigy of the Emperor William '(made on Imperial command) in the costume and with' the attributes of the Prophet Daniel!" One could hardly believe this to be true, but true it is,-the acme of banality! There it stands in the pres­ent west portal. That lovely piece of Gothic work which was sculptured in the eighteenth century by Blondel was demolished by the German administration, who gravely reported that Blondel's style did not agree with or carry out the original plans of the architects of the Cathedral. The removal of this master work of Blondel's was nothing short of a crime. And one is led to believe and accept the explanation of the French archi­tects who protested against the substitution, "That, it

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was really because Blondel was a Frenchman." This original west portal was presented by Louis XV as a votive offering for his recovery from the illness which attacked him during the singing of the "Te Deum" at the celebration of the taking of Chateau-Dauphin by the army of Piedmont. This wretched neo-Gothic construc­tion was inaugurated with much pomp and ceremony in May, 1903. It is a conglomeration the like of which is enough to turn the gorge of any architect or student – and all at once one sees the crowning offence in the figure labeled "Daniel the Prophet," holding in its left hand a scroll to which the right points.

The hooded head is lifted, and from it looks forth tile face of the German Emperor, upturned moustache­confident smile, and all those unmistakable points of visage with which we have become so accustomed in the daily prints. This bizarre portal may be seen at the left hand corner of my drawing faintly sketched-purposely so-because it is so ugly and entirely out of keeping with its surroundings. It should be the duty of the French Ministry of Fine Arts to remove it as soon as the German occupancy is at an end, and I have no doubt this will be done.

The Cathedrals of Metz and Strassburg are in striking contrast. The latter is so tall of tower, so sombre upon the horizon; and this impression is enhanced at closer view. Metz, on the contrary, not lacking a fleche, but

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without a high tower, is more exquisite in style. The people of Metz are most enthusiastic about it. "Have you not seen our magnificent stained glass?" they ask, and then, "Ah, but Monsieur must see it at night from the square outside when it is lighted." The artists call it "The casket filled with roses and breathing incense." The common people speak of it as "the holy lantern." We are told that in this Cathedral are four thousand and seventy-four square metres of painted glass, and that those in the south aisle are of the thirteenth century, while those in the nave, the transept and the choir are of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries respectively.

The slender tower at the side is of exquisite proportion and is finished by a beautiful Beche, a veritable chef d'oeuvre of carving. From its platform one can see Treves to the north, and to the south and west the towers of some of the French towns. In the tower is a great bell, named The Mute, which has an inscription "Je suis la pour crier Justice." It is a matter of record that it rang steadily for two days and nights in October, 1870.

Outside of Metz is a very picturesque village of small white houses, with delightful red tiled roofs lost here and there among the thick foliage of large trees. But the extraordinary thing about it is the gigantic chain of arcades, in ruins here and there, with immense upstand­ing pillars towering over the small white houses in the

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fields and orchards. These are the remains of a Roman aqueduct which crosses the valley. The little town huddling below is called Jouy-aux-Arches, and is given over to the cultivation of strawberries, of which it, and three other fully as quaint villages named respectively Woippy, Saulny, and Lorry, ship each year something like five hundred thousand kilograms of the berries to market, not to speak of the other fruits grown, such as apricots, cherries, peaches and prunes. On the left bank of the Moselle near Woippy is grown a very delicate and noble grape, which produces a wine of remarkable bouquet. There are also the wines of Scy, of Jussy, of Sainte Ruffine and Rozerieulles, each of which has its admirers. Many of the villages hereabouts retain their French names only in the hearts of the Alsatian people, for following the forcible annexation Thionville became Diedenhoffen; Sarreguemines became Saargmund; Boulay, Bolchen; and so on ad nauseam. Imagine charming little Devant-Ies-ponts masquerading as "Fanttlesspountt"!

Metz itself has had a remarkable history. The Divodurum of the Romans, it was afterwards the chief fortified town of the Gallic tribe called the Mediomatrici. A Bishop was enthroned there in the fourth century, and subsequently it became the capital of the Kingdom of the Austrasians under their first King Theodoric. The remains of his palace are still to be seen in

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the rue Trinitaires, where some fragments and stones are shown. It was a free city until taken by the French in 1552, and was successfully defended by its inhabitants and the French soldiers against Charles, V. Together with Toul and Verdun it was governed as part of France, and so remained until the Germans seized it in 1871. One hardly knows where to begin or where to stop in writing of the history of Metz, so filled with interest and great events are the chronicles.

Let us include a little of the Revolution. In June, 1790, the National Guard of Lorraine, Alsace and Franche-Comte were convoked at Strassburg. The Mayor of Strassburg, Frederic Dietrich, at whose house the "Marseillaise" was first sung by its young author, Rouget de l'Isle, came officially to receive the flag of the nation, the tri-color, which he hoisted on the platform of the Cathedral, saying, "I thus show to Germany that the Empire of Liberty is founded in France." This patriotic ceremony of hoisting the flag was afterwards repeated on the Cathedral at Metz, in the presence of the Guard. Hereafter it was truly the Empire of Liberty – Liberty of action and men.

For the defense of the land there came into existence an army of heroic men among whom the names of Bouchotte, Lasalle, Custine and Richepause are ever wreathed in glory. The people of Alsace-Lorraine were among those who took the Bastille. The tri-color was

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their banner. Its traditions and its glories were theirs. The old citadel, constructed by Marshal Vielleville, in 1562 was reconstructed by Vauban, who made of Metz a splendid fortified town. He conceived the work as a means toward peace, saying, "Fortresses should have no other end than the preservation of life.” Thereafter Asfeld and Cormontaigne carried out the original plans of Vauban in building the other ramparts.

Outside forts were built by the government following Sadowa, at Philippeville, Saint-Quentin, Saint Julian, Saint Privat and Queulen, and this work was carried on up to the war of 1870. When Metz fell into the hands of the Germans they continued and completed this work of defense, but they were animated by a different thought and purpose. It was not simply defense that they thought of, but domination. They made of Metz a great war machine which was to be ever ready against the time when they should be ready to launch against France an irresistible army of invasion. It is shown that up to 1900 the perimeter of plan was not more than twenty five kilometres. When the great war of 1914 broke out, the fortifications embraced seventy five kilometres. . . . All the works between the Rhine and Metz were connected by a series of strategical roads and railways connected by subterranean telephones. They destroyed and obliterated the ancient fortifications as useless for the defence of the town, leaving only Fort Belle­

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croix, which they named Steinmetz. This latter commands the railway. The town became a vast arsenal. Travellers in 1913 returning to France reported that two army corps had been sent to Metz to man the ramparts, and that at Saarbruck was another numbering twenty thousand men. The world gave no heed to these prepa­rations.

The work of Germanizing the architecture of the town went on merrily. Near the atrociously Teutonic railway station, they built a huge Post Office, a sort of cross between a jail and a church, covered with bizarre basreliefs and topped with a kind of balloon of iron work. A Frenchman wittily described the ornamentation as looking like "the mud pie work of a child, all gilded by a cook's assistant." In 1906 the ancient picturesque ramparts were leveled. They must have been a remarkable setting for the town, and there was really no need of destroying them, but with that curious blindness of the Germans to what constitutes real beauty and value, they proceeded to remove what were regarded as historical monuments and replaced them with rows of modern (!) houses so fantastic and bizarre as to be almost unbelievable, and of no one recognizable style, but a conglomeration of all. Some of these houses seem to have broken out into a sort of rash of balconies, and are festooned with baroque cast iron work. Others are lined with columns which do not serve to support any part of

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the design. There are tall slender windows and wide squatty ones, in what is termed "Art Nouveau" style (!) There is German Renaissance carried out to the extreme, and there is what they call Gothic, and all is mixed up in a terrible jumble violating every known rule of architecture.

The roofs are of tile in every color of the rainbow, each in its crudest tone, and all entirely out of harmony with everything. In contrast to these offences against taste, one turns to the contemplation and enjoyment of the ancient French facades of the periods of Louis XIV, and XVI, their elegant lines and proportions proving an antidote for the suffering caused by the wretched houses near the station. Some of the ancient towers happily still remain, though just why they were spared when the lust of tearing down took place it is hard to say.

Formerly, it is said, one entered the town passing through the ancient gateway "Porte Serpenoise," called now by the Germans, "Prinz Friedrich Karl Thor." This ancient gateway lost its identity some years ago, being swallowed up by modern walls. To the left, standing alone, is seen a great chocolate colored tower capped by a quaint cone, seeming without either door or windows. This is the famous "camoufle" tower, afterward named for the brave bombardier honored in the chronicles of Metz as one of its defenders. It is now closed to visitors and deserted. I should have liked to

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explore it, but I could find no way to accomplish this.

The gate called Saint-Thiebault is of the eighteenth century. Here were the earliest walls of the town. It is said that there was a great amphitheater here in Roman times, and underneath are vast subterranean passages, some of which are unexplored, and that many fragments of columns and carved stones are there.

In 1445 was erected the ancient gray gateway called the "Porte des Allemands." It is a matter of history that this fortified chateau was constructed during the time of an assault and siege. A tablet inserted in the outer walls bears the name of the architect, Henri de Baconval, and the date of its completion. There are four great machicolated towers, and an interior cloister of unique character. It takes its name from the Teutonic cavaliers, the Hospitaliers of Our Lady. Farther on is the Porte Sainte Barbe, with an inscription in old French, "When we have bread inside, we have peace outside" (Quand nous avons pain dedans, nous avons paix de fors) [de hors]. Here and there about the old town are many picturesque and delightful corners, and on some of the quays are charming ancient facades, and most venerable walls, whose tall windows and delightful hanging balconies all decked with bright blossoms and vines are mirrored in the still waters below, where many weatherbeaten punts are tied to posts and rings in the mossy walls. On some of these balconies one may be

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the amused witness of the manner of the various household economies of the people, all carried on with delightful frankness. The old streets away from the busy centers which are so crowded with soldiers and bustle, are filled with charm and poetry. In some of these are old dark houses with high walls and doorways reached by breakneck stairways, and it is to be remarked that on these old tottering balconies, and in the grimiest of these windows, high and low, are invariably pots of brightest flowers. An immense stone bridge of thirteen arches crosses the river Moselle. It is named curiously the Bridge of Skeletons (Pont-des-Morts), but there is nothing "macabresque" about its present appearance to justify its funereal name. It is said that in the thirteenth century there was a bridge here which was so old that it fell down. In order to build another the town authorities granted to the hospital, in return for a certain sum of money, the right to claim from each patient who died the best shirt or coat he owned. Verily there must have been either a tremendous mortality among the patients, or else their clothing must have been of incredible value. From this bridge there is a fine view of the Cathedral over the trees and the tiled roofs. At the bridge of Sailly, over the narrow stream one had formerly a view of the tanneries, an important industry of Metz. This picture has now disappeared, and in its place is a narrow

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street over the river, on each side of which are tall wooden houses all decked with open floors, as if their walls had tumbled outward, exposing ,dark, noisome in­teriors below, where were vast piles of hides in hideous bundles lying about, among which passed the dim figures of men naked to the waist in seemingly endless proces­sion,-and the smells! – and again the smells!!

Metz has an interesting library containing some valu­able books and various MSS. bearing upon the history of Alsace-Lorraine, and a museum, both in the Bibliothek Strasse. The museum has some Roman antiquities, and a sarcophagus in marble in which, so it is claimed, reposed the remains of Louis-Ie-Debonnaire in the Abbey of Saint Arnulphe. Adjoining the library in the Geisberg Strasse is the Austrasian Palace erected upon the site of an ancient Roman Palace in 1599. Some of the stones used in this building were those forming the outer walls of the earlier structure. The hand of the Teutonic "restorer" is seen in the "ornamentation" of this venerable building, now used as a commissariat depot for the Ger-. man garrison.

North of the town is found the Chambiere Cemetery, in which is an impressive memorial monument erected to the French soldiers who perished at Metz in 1870. What one remembers chiefly about Metz is the vast num­ber of soldiers thronging the streets and filling the restaurants, both humble and pretentious; the street cars

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and omnibuses, and the roads in and out of the town. It is estimated that one out of every three in the town population of seventy thousand is a soldier, but this may be an exaggeration. Nevertheless, fresh arrivals of regiments were reported while we were there. In the night one could hear the tramp, tramp of marching feet, and the rumbling of great vans following the troops. The French people with whom we talked regarded these military movements as ordinary occurrences; they were used to them, and they excited neither comment nor interest. I have heard a great deal about the ill manners of the soldiers, and the unbearable and intolerable insolence of the officers towards the civilian, and also almost unbelievable tales of their behaviour toward women.

I felt bound to investigate the matter for myself, so that in writing of them I should not do these men injustice. I watched and studied their actions, both on the street and in the restaurants and cafes which they frequented. These were the Kaiser-PavilIon on the Esplanade; the Rheinischer Hof, and the beer houses, Germania and the Burgerbrau, Kaiser-Wilhelm Platz. The officers were generally fine looking, well set up men, mustachioed like the Kaiser, and seemingly devoted to the "punctilio." They were jolly of manner and affable among themselves. But here it ended. To the shopmen and towards the civilian their manner was not civil. It was indeed haughty and intolerant to the last degree -

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 indeed, again-it was brusque and masterful. Attention to requests was not asked; it was demanded. If not instantly heeded there was trouble for the offender. But I saw no violence offered at any time, such as I was led to expect after reading of the Zabern affair.

Their attitude towards women was one of extreme gallantry, and, at least so far as I could see, this attitude was not at any time resented by the object of their attentions. I had been told that the officers walking two and three abreast on the pavement in the afternoon promenade, would never step aside to allow a lady to pass; indeed that they would on the contrary push her aside. I saw nothing of this, I am bound to say. It may have been true in individual cases, but it certainly was not their practice in the town of Metz as far as I was able to see. I gathered that the people fondly hoped ... yes, they hoped, that one day-ah! blessed longed-for day ! -that their beloved Alsace-Lorraine would be again in the bosom of the Mother Country. But mean­while ...

M. Emile Hinzelin, Director of "La France de Demain," says, "During the early days of the war, 1914-15, the Germans caused the great bell, the ‘Mute,' in the Cathedral to ring without cessation in honor and celebration of their imaginary victories, but the thundering of the great guns of the approaching French put courage and hope in the hearts of the Messins. On the reverse

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of a photograph of the Place d'Arms of Metz, a correspondent wrote to a friend in Paris under date of November, 1914, 'We hear you, and we await you.'

"General Ferdinand Foch (pronounced Fosh), who was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces on March 29, 1918, while of Basque origin, born at Tarbee in 1851, was raised here at Metz. After the annexation of Lorraine, in 1871, rather than become a German subject he returned to France. Entering the Polytechnic School in Paris under the number 72, he was a rather slow pupil, leaving his class numbered forty-five, which did not offer any hopes of a great or brilliant future. He was noted as a conscientious student and a close applicant. His great passion was the study of strategy of war, particularly the war of 1870, in its most minute details. From his knowledge of the peculiar mentality of the Germans, he counted upon their repeating in future conflicts the manoeuvres in which they had been so successful. He believed, too, that they would inevitably repeat their mistakes. In all his writings and teachings at the Superior War School, he held always to the idea of an inevitable aggression by Germany, sprung with lightning-like rapidity, after long premeditation and most minute preparation - the swift thunderbolt of the opening to develop into a struggle of colossal proportions.... "Foch led the 7th French army at the Battle of the

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Marne, and later the offensive between Armentieres and Arras in the spring of 1915. After these operations he was surpassed in public opinion of the French Army Chiefs by Generals Petain and Nivelle, whose wonderful leadership before Verdun made them famous. When General Petain succeeded Nivelle last May as Commander-in-Chief in the field, General Foch took his place as Chief of Staff in Paris." (N. Y. Times, Mar. 30, '18.) In the April following he was appointed chief of the Allied forces in France.

[End of Section 16]

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