In the case of Alsace-Lorraine, it is of fundamental importance to recognize that sympathy for France or Germany did not follow linguistic lines. While few of the French-speaking population were attracted to Germany, there was a very considerable element among the German-speaking population which favored France. Even German observers found French sympathies far more widespread than the French language. It is a well known fact that the anti-German movements of recent years have been more pronounced in Alsace, especially Upper Alsace, than in Lorraine with its larger French-speaking population. Moreover, language, like race, is a two-edged sword for Germany. If Alsace ought to be part of the empire because it speaks chiefly German, so ought the German-speaking portions of Austria and Switzerland. And if France ought to have given up hope of Alsace because of its German-speaking population, Germany should make no complaint over the parallel renunciation of Prussian Poland or Upper Silesia. Germany cannot ask to apply the principle in the west and reject it in the east. As a matter of history, the linguistic frontier between French and German has rarely coincided with the political frontier. The national lines, so far as national lines have been drawn, have been drawn by other forces. Language is an important element in national life, but it is not the only element, and in Alsace-Lorraine it has been subordinated to other considerations. Alsace, in spite of its German speech, was reasonably contented under French rule. It never became fully reconciled to German rule, in spite of a large measure of community of language. The causes for its aspirations and sympathies lie deeper than dialect. Although surer and clearer than race, language proved an illusory and insufficient basis for solving the problem of Alsace-Lorraine. When we come to the historical tradition and affinities of the district, we find that German writers urge the long membership of Alsace and Lorraine in the mediaeval Empire down to 1648, the place of Alsace in the history of German literature, and its affinities with the German culture of the valley of the Rhine. The French bring out certain connections of Alsace and Lorraine with France before Louis XIV, but they urge especially the transformation of these provinces during the French Revolution into a people profoundly imbued with the French conceptions of liberty and democracy, in contradistinction to the political and social traditions and organization of Germany. Arguments of this sort are by their nature less specific and tangible than those based upon the concrete facts of language and race, and judgments in relation to them are likely to be subjective. At certain points, however, they admit of objective analysis, particularly as regards political affiliations.