Alsace–Lorraine

Alsace–Lorraine (German: ''Elsaß–Lothringen''), officially the Imperial Territory of Alsace–Lorraine (), was a territory of the German Empire, located in modern-day France. It was established in 1871 by the German Empire after it had occupied the region during the Franco-Prussian War. The region was officially ceded to the German Empire in the Treaty of Frankfurt. French resentment about the loss of the territory was one of the contributing factors to World War I. Alsace–Lorraine was formally ceded back to France in 1920 as part of the Treaty of Versailles following Germany's defeat in the war, but already annexed in practice at the war's end in 1918.

Geographically, Alsace–Lorraine encompassed most of Alsace and the Moselle department of Lorraine. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River, east of the Vosges Mountains; the section initially in Lorraine was in the upper Moselle valley to the north of the Vosges. Politically, it was the only subdivision of the German Empire dubbed an "Imperial Territory"; as such, it was under the direct administration of the Imperial German state, rather than a quasi-sovereign constituent of the federal Empire, though it was granted a legislature and limited internal autonomy in 1911.

The territory encompassed almost all of Alsace (93%) and over a quarter of Lorraine (26%), while the rest of these regions remained parts of France. For historical reasons, specific legal dispositions are still applied in the territory in the form of a " local law in Alsace–Moselle". Due to its special legal status since reversion to France, the territory has been referred to administratively as Alsace–Moselle. (; or ).

Since 2016, the historical territory has been part of the French administrative region of Grand Est.

Geography

Alsace–Lorraine had a land area of . Its capital was Straßburg. It was divided into three districts ( in German):
* Oberelsaß (Upper Alsace), whose capital was Kolmar, had a land area of and corresponds precisely to the current department of Haut-Rhin
* Unterelsaß, (Lower Alsace), whose capital was Strassburg, had a land area of and corresponds precisely to the current department of Bas-Rhin
* Bezirk Lothringen, (Lorraine), whose capital was Metz, had a land area of and corresponded precisely to the current department of Moselle

Towns and cities

The largest urban areas in Alsace–Lorraine at the 1910 census were:
* Strassburg: (now ''Strasbourg''): 220,883 inhabitants
* Mülhausen: (''Mulhouse''): 128,190 inhabitants
* Metz: 102,787 inhabitants
* Diedenhofen: (''Thionville''): 69,693 inhabitants
* Colmar: 44,942 inhabitants

History

Background

The modern history of Alsace–Lorraine was primarily influenced by the rivalry between French and German nationalism.

France long sought to attain and then preserve what it considered to be its "natural boundaries", which is regarded as the Pyrenees to the southwest, the Alps to the southeast, and the Rhine to the northeast. These strategic claims led to annexing territories west of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire. What is now known as Alsace was progressively conquered by France under and in the 17th century, while Lorraine was incorporated from the 16th century under Henry II to the 18th century under (in the case of the Three Bishoprics, as early as 1552). These border changes at the time meant more or less that one ruler (the local princes and city governments, with some remaining power of the Holy Roman Emperor) was exchanged for another (the King of France).

German nationalism, on the other hand, which in its 19th century form originated as a reaction against the French occupation of large areas of Germany under Napoleon, sought to unify all the German-speaking populations of the former Holy Roman Empire into a single nation-state. As various German dialects were spoken by most of the population of Alsace and Moselle (northern Lorraine), these regions were viewed by German nationalists to be rightfully part of a hoped-for united Germany in the future, despite what the French parts of their population wanted.

From annexation to World War I

Annexation considerations

In 1871, the newly created German Empire's demand for Alsace from France after its victory in the Franco-Prussian War was not simply a punitive measure. The transfer was controversial even among the Germans: The German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, was initially opposed to it, as he thought (correctly) that it would engender permanent French hostility toward Germany. Some German industrialists did not want the competition from Alsatian industries, such as the cloth makers who would be exposed to competition from the sizeable industry in Mulhouse. Karl Marx also warned his fellow Germans:
: "If Alsace and Lorraine are taken, then France will later make war on Germany in conjunction with Russia. It is unnecessary to go into the unholy consequences."

Bismarck and the South German industrialists proposed to have Alsace ceded to Switzerland, while Switzerland would compensate Germany with another territory. The Swiss rejected the proposal, preferring to remain neutral between the French and Germans.

The German Emperor, Wilhelm I, eventually sided with army commander Helmuth von Moltke, other Prussian generals and other officials who argued that a westward shift in the French border was necessary for strategic military and ethnographic reasons. From a linguistic perspective, the transfer involved people who for the most part spoke Alemannic German dialects. At the time, ethnic identity was often based primarily on language, unlike today's more multifaceted approach focusing on self-identification. From a military perspective, by early 1870s standards, shifting the frontier away from the Rhine would give the Germans a strategic buffer against feared future French attacks. Due to the annexation, the Germans gained control of the fortifications of Metz and Strasbourg (Strassburg) on the left bank of the Rhine and most of the iron resources of Lorraine.

The possibility of granting Alsace–Lorraine the status of a constituent state of the German Empire with its own sovereign and constitution was not considered, in part because Prussia was convinced that the population of the territory would first have to be Germanized, i.e., accustomed to the new German-Prussian form of government. The Imperial Territory () created on 28 June 1871 was therefore treated initially as an occupied territory and administered directly by an imperial governor () appointed by Wilhelm I. Although it was not technically part of the Kingdom of Prussia, in practical terms, it amounted to the same thing since the emperor was also king of Prussia and the chancellor its minister-president.

Memory of the Napoleonic Wars was still alive in the 1870s. Wilhelm I himself had had to flee with the Prussian royal family to East Prussia as a nine-year-old in 1806 and had served in the Battle of Waterloo. Until the Franco-Prussian War, the French had maintained a long-standing desire to establish their entire eastern frontier on the Rhine. Thus, most 19th-century Germans viewed them as aggressive and acquisitive people. In the years before 1870, the Germans feared the French more than the French feared the Germans. Many Germans at the time thought that the unification of Germany as the new Empire would in itself be enough to earn permanent French enmity and thus desired a defensible border with their long-standing enemy. Any additional hostility earned from territorial concessions was downplayed as marginal and insignificant in the scheme.

Area annexed

The annexed area consisted of the northern part of Lorraine and Alsace.
* The area around the town of Belfort (now the French Territoire de Belfort