Under the nose of the Etente. The Short Happiness of the Soviet Republic in Alsace and Lorraine
In the last days of the past year 2022, the calendar included not only New Year holidays, but also the centenary of an important historical event - on December 30, 1922, the First All-Union Congress of Soviets was held in Moscow, which approved the declaration on the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in most of the territory of the perished Russian Empire.
However, the “post-Russian space” of those years was not the only place in the world where, in the troubled years after the First World War, councils of “workers', soldiers' and peasants' deputies” arose and issued proclamations about their power. At the turn of the 1910s and 20s of the last century, Soviet republics were established here and there in Europe, even in such unexpected places as Ireland or Luxembourg. And what can we say about Germany plunged into revolutionary chaos or fragments of Austria-Hungary!
On this occasion, "Reedus" begins a series of materials on the little-known European "republics of the Soviets." Leaving behind the scenes the most famous cases of the establishment of "working people's power" in the West, such as the Soviet Bavaria and Hungary, we will pay close attention to attempts to "make it like in Russia" that are more exotic for the domestic reader.
Alsace in dreary November
Modern sedate Strasbourg - the center of French Alsace - is known primarily as the seat of the European Parliament and the European Court of Human Rights. However, many of those who reverently pronounce these names would shudder to learn that more than a century ago, instead of guardians of European values, the most natural Soviet government sat in Strasbourg - no worse than anywhere in Petrograd.
| Alsace-Lorraine in Germany |
By the end of the First World War, Alsace and North Lorraine with the cities of Strasbourg, Metz, Mulhouse (Mulhouse), Colmar and others had been a province of Kaiser Germany for almost half a century. Reclaimed during the war with France in 1870-1871, the Alsatian and Lorraine lands enjoyed a reputation for disloyalty in Berlin - until the end of the century, local residents, although they spoke mostly German, elected mainly separatist and autonomist deputies to the Reichstag. Of the all-German parties, the most popular in Alsace-Lorraine were the Social Democrats, who were also not very friendly with the authorities of the Second Reich.
Flag of the imperial state of Alsace-Lorraine
Apparently, therefore, Berlin was in no hurry to grant autonomy to Alsace-Lorraine, which other principalities and kingdoms as part of Imperial Germany had - only in 1911 did the province have its own land parliament (Landtag).
In any case, by the beginning of the world war it was already too late - the Alsatians strove by hook or by crook to avoid being drafted into the Kaiser's army, expressing their attitude to the conflict with the slogan "Without us". Although about 400 thousand natives of the province nevertheless joined the ranks of the German troops and fleet.
Therefore, when the revolution began in the Second Reich in early November 1918, those Alsatians who nevertheless managed to mobilize became one of its most active participants, creating their political organizations throughout the army: for example, the “Council of Alsatians-Lorraine” acted even with occupying German army in Romania. And soon Alsace-Lorraine was able to join the revolutionary process, so to speak, from the source - local military sailors who participated in the mutiny in the fleet in Kiel began to return home.
We are the power here
On November 8, a train of sailors arrived in Metz - the center of German Lorraine, "self-demobilized" from the bases of the Kaiser fleet in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. They teamed up with the soldiers of the Bavarian regiments, who had just reached the news of the revolutionary uprisings in Munich and the abolition of the local Wittelsbach dynasty. The rebels released the arrested soldiers from the military prison of Metz and raised a red banner, remade from the flag of a recent world war ally - Turkey.
With the support of sailor and soldier bayonets, the Social Democratic trade unions of Metz established a revolutionary council, chaired by Unter Hans-Heinrich Voortmann from Strasbourg, a former locksmith and left-wing activist in civilian life. The imperial civil administration of Lorraine collapsed, the military governor of Metz, Arnold Lecky, was forced to bow to the council.
The next day, November 9, a republic was proclaimed in Berlin, and Emperor Wilhelm II left his headquarters in the Belgian Spa and went to the neighboring Netherlands, where he announced his abdication. And in Alsace-Lorraine, as well as throughout Germany, a wave of formation of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies began - in total, about thirty of them arose in various cities of the province. Demonstrators with red banners and soldiers with red cockades and armbands somewhat enlivened the landscapes of medieval Alsatian gingerbread towns.
On the morning of November 9, it began in Strasbourg itself. A telegram arrived in the city announcing the arrival of two echelons of revolutionary Balts. Detachments of sailors, united at the Strasbourg railway station, staged a rally that evening, forming their own council. Sensing that they now had bayonets on their side, the city's trade union leaders Laurent Meyer, Charles Riel and Gustave Schulenburg summoned workers' deputies. The mayor of Strasbourg, Schwander, loyal to Germany, left his post, and in return, the Social Democrat Jacques Peyrot was approved as the head of the city.
In addition, the deputies of the Alsace-Lorraine Landtag, after the deposition of Wilhelm, proclaimed themselves the "National Council" - the government of the entire region under the leadership of Eugene Riklin. So more than a century ago there were no fewer organs of power in revolutionary Strasbourg than now. On November 10, a mass rally took place in the central square of Kleber, at which the secretary of the brewers' union, Johannes Rebholz, proclaimed the power of the workers on the Rhine:
“The old regime has been defeated and the people have taken power into their own hands <…> From now on, power is in the hands of the workers.”
November 10 rally. In a cap above the crowd - Johannes Rebholz.
Neither Germans nor French?
Classical dual power reigned in Strasbourg for almost two weeks. On the one hand, the executive committee of the Soviets, headed by Rebholz, dug in in the Palace of Justice, and replaced the bust of Kaiser Wilhelm there with a plaster Marx, threw out the slogan “No Germans, no French, no neutrals ! Long live the world revolution!” and raised the red flag over Strasbourg Cathedral.
The provinces also had their own "bourgeois" flag - a red and white flag with a yellow Lorraine cross, approved even before the war, in 1912.
On the other hand, municipal authorities and the National Council, led by legitimate deputies of the Landtag, operated in the city. Under them, an administrative commission arose that supervised the work of officials, organized the supply of cities, the return of refugees and demobilized to their homes.
It should be noted that the Soviet of Deputies and the National Council got along quite peacefully and not without difficulty, but they reached agreements on the most important issues - for example, on the conditions for ending the strike of railway workers. This was largely achieved because the executive committee was not one-party and radical - the Communist Party, which in Russia by November 1918 had already subjugated the Soviets, had not even been founded in Germany yet. It represented not only the socialists, but even the nationalist faction, led by Captain Reinartz.
An amnesty was declared in Alsace-Lorraine, complete freedom of the press was proclaimed. In response to the demands of the strikers, the local Soviet government decreed higher wages. It seemed that the life of the western outskirts of Germany was confidently entering a new direction.
“Most people go to Sunday services peacefully, as if there had never been a revolution <…> Soldiers strive to give themselves a formidable appearance, but the public does not take them seriously,” wrote Karl Spindler, a Strasbourg philistine, in his diary.
But the life of the November "Soviet Strasbourg" was far from idyllic. First of all, it was spoiled by the growth of crime, which is not surprising in a city where crowds of demobilized people scurried uncontrollably. The military depots were mercilessly plundered, and the soldiers' council decided to shoot at the marauders without warning! And the Civil Guard, convened by the new revolutionary police chief Jules Levy, kept an eye on Captain Reinartz's Freikorps.
In another large city - Metz - also not without excesses. On November 9, German soldiers, forgetting all the stereotypes about their iron discipline, looted several food stores and tore off the insignia from the officers. At the same time, no one touched the monuments to prominent figures of the overthrown house of Hohenzollern.
General Guro's steps
It is not known how long the Alsatian-Lorraine dual power would have lasted and whether it would have ended in armed confrontation - as it will happen soon in Berlin and Munich - but here global pan-European processes intervened in the history of the province. While socialists, autonomists and monarchists shared power in Strasbourg, in Compiègne on November 11, the "Central Powers" concluded a truce with the Entente. Under its terms, among other things, Germany was obliged to withdraw its troops from Alsace and Lorraine within two weeks.
Many Alsatians - even those who speak German - have long been waiting for a return to France, and even in the conditions of 1918, the establishment of French power began to seem to the respectable bourgeois of the region a chance for salvation from the revolutionary chaos into which Germany was gradually slipping. The same Spindler noted on November 6 that white, blue and red ribbons - the national colors of the enemy - were in great demand in Alsace.
“Sympathy for France and disgust for the Germans penetrated monstrously deep into the circles of the petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry,” wrote Philip Husser, an eyewitness to the November Revolution in the provinces.
Among the leaders of the French party was the new burgomaster of Strasbourg, Jacques Peyrot, who appealed to Prime Minister Clemenceau in Paris with a request to speed up the entry of French troops into the newly-minted "Republic of Soviets" to curb the " communist infection." The National Council of Alsace-Lorraine was also determined to "return to its native harbour." On November 13, he tried to read out a declaration in favor of joining France, but this caused violent protests not only from the nationalists of Reinartz, but also from the left wing of the Soviet of Deputies.
“We have 5,000 invincible German soldiers with us, armed to the teeth, armed with machine guns and hand grenades. If the National Council wants to avoid a massacre, it must remove the French flags and emblems so as not to disturb the soldiers, ”the statement of the revolutionaries read.
Due to such incidents, claims can be found on the French segment of the Web that the "Soviet Revolution" in Alsace and Lorraine was actually the result of a cunning government intrigue to keep what was won back in 1871. Among the contemporaries of the events , this view was also widespread.
“The revolution is not given much importance and is considered a Machiavellian maneuver invented to evade a truce,” Spindler argued.
However, with the beginning of the French offensive under the command of Generals Gouraud and Fayol on November 15, the workers' and soldiers' Soviets, which found themselves in the path of the Gallic army, disbanded themselves without resistance. One of the demands of the recent revolution was an end to the war, and after four years in the trenches the soldiers did not smile at fighting the French again. Metz was occupied on November 15, and by November 20, Fayol's units completely cleared Lorraine of the dispersing Kaiser's army, reaching the modern border of Franc
The triumphal entry of the French into Strasbourg
In the south of the region, in Alsace, General Gouraud led the offensive. On November 17, his army captured Mulhouse, on November 18 - Colmar, Celeste, Obernay and Ribeauville. On November 21, the French were already in Strasbourg, coveted for almost fifty years, finally washing away the shame of the Franco-Prussian war.
The French command did not recognize the authority of the Council and ordered the troops to surround the Palace of Justice. After some hesitation, the comrades from the Strasbourg Soviet of Deputies announced that in the present conditions they considered their task completed, and resigned their powers.
Johannes Rebholz was expelled from Alsace, as his parents were not natives but arrived from Germany. Subsequently, he continued to work in the ranks of the SPD, under the Nazis he was arrested more than once by the Gestapo, was mobilized at the end of World War II and was captured by the Americans, and after his release he headed Frankfurt am Main for several months.
On 5 December, the National Council of Alsace-Lorraine finally voted unanimously in favor of a resolution in favor of joining France. Soon President Poincaré and Prime Minister Clemenceau arrived in Strasbourg on an official visit. And their local supporters continued their political careers already in the French Republic. The same Jacques Peyrot kept the post of mayor of Strasbourg for ten years.
So, the history of the Soviet Alsace ended, having lasted only two weeks. But in Western and Central Europe he was by no means alone. The power of the Soviets, to some extent corresponding to the Russian model, will still arise here and there on the ruins of the pre-war world.