After the statement in the Reichstag about the Naval mutiny,
the debate became the occasion of an important speech by Herr von Kuhlmann, the Foreign Secretary. He said that the Belgian question was not the chief one in dispute. The question for which Europe was being turned more and more into a heap of ruins was the future of Alsace-Lorrain. He was informed that Great Britain was pledged to France to continuo the fight for the conquest of Alsace-Lorraine. There is," he continued, " but one answer to the question, Can Germany make any concession with regard to Alsace-Lorraine' That answer is No, never So long as a single German hand can hold a gun, the integrity of the territory handed down to us as a glorious inheritance by our fore- fathers can never be the object of any negotiations or concessions... There is, with this exception, no absolute impediment to peace."
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