The fight over Alsace-Lorraine

Through out history, Alsace-Lorraine has been an iconic symbol of the conflict between France and Germany.

Alsace, originally part of the Holy Roman Empire, was conquered by Louis XIV in the 17th century. Lorraine later became part of France during the 18th century due to the French Revolution and a vacuum in the Holy Roman Empire's leadership. There continued to be constant wars between France and Germany in these areas for more than 100 years after that.

During Napoleon's occupation of Germany, German nationalism quickly rose and sought to unify many of the populations that were part of the previous Holy Roman Empire into one Germany. Considering, many of the people in Alsace and the northern part of Lorraine (Moselle) spoke German, the nationalists hope that those regions would become part of Germany again.

After Germany's victory in the Franco-Prussian war, they annexed Alsace and the northern part of Lorraine. The new French and German border mainly followed the linguistic divide between the German and French speaking populations.

For a while, outrage over Alsace and Lorraine decreased due to major political changes occurring in France. However; when World War 1 started, the return of Alsace and Lorraine became a priority in French politics. With Germany and France both desiring Alsace and Lorraine, it resulted in huge amounts of political unrest. Germans living in France were arrested and the Germans forced "hostile" people that were living in Alsace and Lorraine into submission.

The most notorious example of this is the Zabern Affair. In Zabern, there were two Prussian battalions and their Second Lieutenant von Forstner made a very derogatory statement against the local population.  He told his soldiers "if you are attacked, then make use of your weapon; if you stab such a Wackes in the process, then you'll get ten marks from me." The phrase "Wackes" was so insulting to Alsatians that German military regulations banned it. Two local newspapers informed the public of what he had said and this led to popular unrest. During a public protest in front of the barracks, the soldiers threatened the people with the force of arms and arrested many people illegally. Later von Frostner struck down a shoe maker for laughing at him and gave him severe head injuries.

The situation continued to escalate and in 1915 the Germans made German the only official language in the region. They prohibited the use of French in public and just one French word could lead to a fine.

France eventually annexed Alsace-Lorraine in 1918 due to the expiring of the German Empire and the political instability in the region due to the development of soviet councils.

Even after the Fall of France during World War 2, Germany failed to formally annex Alsace and the northern part of Lorraine due to the terms of the armistice. However; Hitler secretly planned on annexing the region and the people living there were forced to become German citizens and thus part of the draft. During the war, over 100,000 Alsatians and 30,000 Mosellans fought for Germany.

Operation Nordwind (1944-1945) occurred in this region and was was the last major German offensive of World War II. The operation seeked to break through the lines of the U.S. Seventh Army and French 1st Army. It's failure was the beginning of the end for Germany and after Germany's surrender in 1945, Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France.

Nowadays Alsace-Lorraine is still part of France, but it follows different laws and schools teach both French and German.

*I chose to blog about this as I am a quarter Alsatian, and have a grandmother who considers herself German and is still very bitter about this situation today... 

Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/place/Alsace-Lorraine
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803133337204