Dundee Advertiser, 11 October 1870
(Letter written Oct 11 1870)
A brief letter arguing that the people of Alsace and Lorraine are German by race and language, and so by rights should be part of Germany.
Unfortunately, the British Newspaper Archive is missing all issues of the Dundee Advertiser for 1870. The text below has been reproduced from “Evolutionary concepts in the Nineteenth Century: Natural Selection and Patrick Matthew” (Dempster 1996).
Sir,— Can any claim of national property be stronger than this? Louis the XIV in an unjust war tore Alsace and Lorraine from Germany. In an unjust war declared against them by the French the Germans have taken the territory back. The people are of German race, speaking the German language. The French right was that of unjust conquest only. The German right is that of just reconquest. Which right preponderates in national law.
Patrick Matthew
Gourdiehill, Errol.
PMP 