There was a growing disposition to recognize that the problem of Alsace-Lorraine concerned not merely France and Germany and the inhabitants of the territory itself, but the world at large. The settlement of this question became of international moment partly as it affected the military and economic balance of power between France on the one hand and a Germany dangerous to international peace on the other; partly as a vindication of international right, violated by the forcible annexation of the two provinces in 1871 in defiance of the express protests of the population; partly in order to eliminate, in the interests of permanent international order, an issue which had “unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years.” Whatever the solution, international interests had to be guarded. Of the arguments which have been brought forward in support of the respective points of view, that of race is the least significant. It is true that most German writers have urged that the people of Alsace-Lorraine are of Germanic race, akin to the other peoples of the German empire; but this view lacks support from the anthropologist. Neither the tall, fair-haired Teuton nor the short, round-headed Alpine type dominates Alsace-Lorraine. The population is clearly mixed, with racial affinities reaching in both directions and resulting from the survival of an original Gallo-Roman substratum in the uplands along with a considerable infiltration of Teutonic invaders in the valleys. Whatever the exact percentage of the two races in Alsace-Lorraine, the fact has no demonstrable historical or political importance. Both Germany and France are, racially considered, strongly mixed peoples, all three races being well represented in France, and the non-Teutonic type in Germany being marked in the southwest and also in the Slavic regions of the east. To argue from race on either side proves either too much or too little--too much, if all people of Teutonic type (as in England, Scandinavia, and northern France) are claimed for the German empire; too little, if either Germany or France were to be limited to the regions where the Teutonic or the Alpine type respectively predominates. The question of language is more difficult. It is the German view that Alsace and Lorraine (at least that larger part of Lorraine which speaks German), as German-speaking countries, ought to belong to Germany. The French point out that this theory breaks down in principle in the French-speaking districts of Lorraine; they emphasize the importance of the French-speaking minority in Alsace as a leading force and the strong pro-French feeling in a large part of the German-speaking population; and they deny that language is the proper test of political allegiance.