occupation as a result of warlike operations on the part of the French
always terminated in a short time in the restoration of the country upon
the conclusion of peace. During a period of 1048 years France has
possessed the country for not quite 68 years in all. When, on the
occasion of the first Treaty of Paris in 1814, a small portion of the
territory now coveted was retained for France, the population raised the
most energetic opposition and demanded 'reunion with their German
fatherland,' to which they were 'related by language, customs, and
religion.' After an occupation of one year and a quarter, this desire
was taken into account in the second Treaty of Paris in 1815. Since then
the country has remained uninterruptedly attached to Germany, and owes
its economic development to that connection."

The French wanted the coal for the purpose of working the ironfields of
Lorraine, and in the spirit of Bismarck they have taken it. Not
precedent, but the verbal professions of the Allies, have rendered it
indefensible.[38]

(ii.) Upper Silesia, a district without large towns, in which, however,
lies one of the major coalfields of Germany with a production of about
23 per cent of the total German output of hard coal, is, subject to a
plebiscite,[39] to be ceded to Poland. Upper Silesia was never part of
historic Poland; but its population is mixed Polish, German, and
Czecho-Slovakian, the precise proportions of which are disputed.[40]
Economically it is intensely German; the industries of Eastern Germany
depend upon it for their coal; and its loss would be a destructive blow
at the economic structure of the German State.[41]

With the loss of the fields of Upper Silesia and the Saar, the coal
supplies of Germany are diminished by not far short of one-third.