Imperial Province of Elsass-Lothringen (497 Kb)

Alsace-Lorraine (French: Alsace-Lorraine; German: Elsaß-Lothringen) was the territory ceded by France to the newly-unified Germany under the 1871 Treaty of Frankfurt (which ended the Franco-Prussian War) and restored to France after World War I by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. Its legal name is Alsace-Moselle. Area 14,522 km² population 1,815,000 (1905).

Lorraine was part of the German Holy Roman Empire since the division of the empire of Charlemagne at the Treaty of Verdun in the 9th century, and was acquired by France bit by bit in the 16th and 17th centuries, with formal takeover of the remaining autonomous duchy of Lorraine in 1766 (which was in fact administered by French admnistration for a half-century already). However, some parts of Lorraine, such as the hometown of Joan of Arc, had always remained French despite the Treaty of Verdun. In 1871, Bismark carved out the eastern part of Lorraine, where people were native West Middle German dialect speakers (speaking various Frankish dialects of West Middle German), and annexed it along with Alsace. Alsace was also a part of the German Holy Roman Empire since the Treaty of Verdun, and was conquered by French king Louis XIV in the late 17th century. People here were native Upper German dialect speakers, speaking Alsatian, a dialect of Alemannic (a sub-branch of Upper German). Bismark annexed Alsace with the exception of the town of Belfort and the area around it, now making the French département of Territoire de Belfort, because the inhabitants there were native French speakers unlike in the rest of Alsace.

The transferred area corresponded to the French départements of Bas-Rhin (in its entirety) and Haut-Rhin (except the area of Belfort), which made up Alsace, and the départements of Moselle (almost all of it), the northeast of Meurthe, and a small part of Vosges, which were the eastern part of Lorraine. The remaining département of Meurthe was joined with the westernmost part of Moselle which had escaped German annexation to form the new département of Meurthe-et-Moselle. This département was maintained even after France recovered Alsace-Lorraine in 1919. The area of Belfort became a special status area and was not reintegrated into Haut-Rhin in 1919 but instead was made a full-status département in 1922 under the name Territoire de Belfort.

French desire to recover the provinces was a one of the causes of the tragic alliance system that led to World War I.

Under the German Empire of 1871-1918, the territory constituted the Reichsland or Imperial Province of Elsaß-Lothringen. The area was administered directly by the imperial government in Berlin, and was granted some measure of autonomy only in 1911. When the area was restored to France, the region reverted to the centralized French system and lost its recently acquired autonomy. However, even today, the territory enjoys laws in certain areas that are significantly different from the rest of France - see the statute of Alsace-Moselle.

The area was again under German administration in 1940-45 during World War II.

Under both periods of German rule, an intense and often harsh policy of Germanization was pursued, with the names of towns and streets being changed and the use of the French language severely restricted. Ethnic Germans were also encouraged to settle in the region, and all inhabitants of military age were subject to concription into the German army. Those latter policies resulted in some tensions between Alsace-Lorraine and some other parts of France, after Alsace-Lorraine inhabitants conscripted into the German forces were made to engage in repression against French citizens during the Second World War (see for instance the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane). Young men from Alsace-Lorraine forced to serve in the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War are known as "les Malgré-nous" ("the Against-our-will") in France.

de:Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen fr:Alsace-Lorraine ja:アルザス・ロレーヌ no:Alsace-Lorraine