But these puerilities seem insignificant compared to other things to
which the people of Alsace-Lorraine have been subjected, things which
unite them more firmly than ever to the French and the Belgians of the
invaded regions.
The great deportations which have been practiced in France and Belgium
have been repeated in Alsace as recently as January, 1917. The
inhabitants of Muelhausen between the ages of seventeen and sixty years
were assembled in the barracks at that place, whence they were sent
into the interior of Germany.
This proceeding has been practiced on a large scale since the war's
beginning. Preventive imprisonment, called _Schutzhaft_, was applied
to Messin Samain, who was first incarcerated at Cologne and then sent
to the Russian front, where he was killed. It was also applied to M.
Bourson, former correspondent of _Le Matin_, who is interned at
Cannstatt in Wurtemburg. Other citizens, after having been held in
prison for weeks and months, have been exiled finally into Germany.
The Germans themselves have been so demoralized by the regime they
have established that the authorities have had to put a check on
anonymous denunciations, almost all of which were false, by an
official communique published in the _Gazette de Hagenau_ for the
sixth of December, 1916.
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