The Humiliation | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 14, 1871

The Humiliation.

THE German army has bivouacked in the streets of Paris. The treaty of peace has been signed, and France, helpless, accepts the rigorous terms of a relentless conqueror. Kaiser William may be sternly just, but he is not magnanimous.

Alsace, Lorraine, and the municipality of Metz with its strong fortifications, and $1,000,000,000 are the price France pays for the war, to say nothing of her desolated fields, her paralyzed industry, her thousands of slain, and $2,000,000,000 probably expended during the conflict. The first Napoleon gave Kaiser William the example. What France measured out is now measured back to her. The burden is not the less heavy for that.

How France will bear her misfortunes remains to be seen. Her recovery will depend much, both on the government that is constituted, and on the temper of the people. The enormous burden the war has laid upon her can probably be borne, if order shall be maintained, and a wise system of finance be adopted. Just here lies a good deal of the difficulty. There will doubtless be a party of agitation—a revenge party—and inflammable material to work with—who will acquiesce in nothing that is not hostile to the terms of peace. It is doubtful, also, if the country at large is capable of understanding, and therefore submitting cheerfully to a financial system by which all departments of industry and trade may be revived.

Poor France! Ten months ago a proud nation, foremost among the European powers! To-day the heel of conquest grinds her in the dust, her glory gone, and an hereditary foe her master. So the balances rise and fall. She dug a pit, and she has fallen into it. We pity her, nevertheless. We hope for her, but not without misgivings. She is little fitted to be a republic. A constitutional monarchy, strong enough to terrify the terrorists, would probably be a blessing to her. Even a monarchy will have hard problems to solve. But hard things have been accomplished in history. Time is sometimes a great sponge, slowly wiping a people out of existence. It is as frequently a healer of disorders, a harmonizer of conflicting forces, a messenger bringing good tidings.

The question of territory none need trouble themselves about. It is really a side issue. There are twenty questions more important. The Germans of Alsace and the French of Lorraine may care a good deal about it, and national pride may magnify the question. France has a period of recuperation to go through, before she need to care much about a province or even the fortifications behind which the Germans entrench themselves. The map of Europe may experience serious changes, before her “opportunity” will come again.

Up to Sedan the sympathy of the world was with Germany; since that time, and for the future—if she behaves herself—with mutilated, despoiled, and humiliated France—“eating the fruit of her own ways and filled with her own devices,” but none the less, somehow, identified with the glory of our day.—Interior.