Is Alsace German or French? - Part 5

It is not race: cast your eyes upon Europe and you will clearly see that people are almost never defined by primitive origins.  Geographical features, political or commercial interests are what defined populations and formed states.  Each nation was thus gradually formed, each country defined itself without anyone concerning themselves with the ethnic factors that you wish to make fashionable.  If nations correspond to races, Belgium would be French, Portugal, Spanish, the Netherlands, Prussian; for that matter, Scotland would detach itself from England, to which she has been so closely linked for a century and a half, Russia and Austria would each divide themselves into three or four parts, Switzerland would split in two, and Posen would assuredly separate from Berlin.  Your racial theory is contrary to all existing states in Europe.  If it were to prevail, the whole world would have to remake itself.

Neither is language the characteristic sign of nationality.  We speak five languages in France, however, no one has thought of doubting our national unity.  They speak three languages in Switzerland; is Switzerland any less one nation, and will you say she lacks patriotism?  On the other hand, they speak English in the United States; do you see the United States wishing to reestablish the national link that once united them to England?  You emphasize that they speak German in Strasbourg; is it any the less true that it is in Strasbourg that they sang our Marseillaise for the first time?

It is neither race nor language that distinguishes nations.  Men feel in their hearts that they are of the same people when they have a community of interests, ideas, affections, memories, and hopes.  That is what makes a country.  That is why men march together, work together, fight together, live or die for each other.  One's country is what one loves.  It could be that Alsace is German by race and language; but by nationality and patriotic feeling, she is French.  And do you know what made her French?  It was not Louis XIV, it was our revolution of 1789.  From that moment on, Alsace followed our destiny; she has lived our life.  All that we thought, she thought; all that we felt, she felt.  She shared our victories and our losses, our glory and our faults, all our joys, and all our sufferings.  She has nothing in common with you.  Country, for her, is France.  Foreign soil, for her, is Germany.