The Kaiser's men’s medals

[TabsTabs1964]

Hindenburg:
- But, but….Your Majesty, Sire, I think we have talked about all the states of the Empire, its soldiers and its medals…. Look at the map: Anhalt, Baden, Bayern, Braunschweig, Bremen, Hessen, Hamburg, Lippe Detmold, Lübeck, Mecklenburg Schwerin, Mecklenburg Strelitz, Oldenburg, Preussen, Reuss, Saxony, Saxony Altenburg, Saxony Coburg-Gotha, Saxony Meiningen, Saxony Weimar Eisenach. Schaumburg Lippe, Schwarzburg, Waldeck Pyrmont and Württemberg…

The Kaiser:
- No, gentlemen. Let's not forget Reichsland Lothringen and Reichsland Elsass.

Ludendorf:
- You are right, Your Majesty. Sir. We need to talk about the Imperial Territories.

The Kaiser:
- Well, do it gentlemen and do it quickly and well. Don't forget that we are Prussians.

Hindenburg & Ludendorff:
- Jahwol, Sire!

(... I can almost hear the sound of clicking their boots )

[VtwinVince]

LOL, indeed it would have been nice to have been a fly on the wall during that conference. Here is a Wuerttemberg MVO.

[Chopperman]

and a miniature Wuerttemberg Friedrich's Knight's cross 1st class.

[TabsTabs1964]

The Imperial Territories of Alsace and Lorraine

Historically, the territories of Alsace and Lorraine, bordering the German and French empires, have suffered precisely because of this circumstance, as France and Germany repeatedly fought over the territory.


Germania auf der Wacht am Rhein (Lorenz Clasen painting, 1860)

Really the eyes of "Germania" standing guard on the Rhine, the first thing they saw were the Alsatian and Lorraine territories....

Very very briefly, we could summarize the situation as follows:

In 1639, the French conquered Alsace to keep it from the Habsburgs. And so, it remained for almost 250 years. In 1871, Alsace (and Lorraine) fell under German control when France lost the Franco-Prussian War. With Germany’s defeat in the First World War, the area became French once again in 1919, and Germans who had settled in Alsace were expelled. When Germany invaded and annexed the area on October 18, 1940, the departments fell under German control. The situation finally changed again in 1945, after the German defeat in World War II

But let's go back to 1871

[TabsTabs1964]

The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine (Reichsland Elsaß-Lothringen) was formed pursuant to the Treaty of Frankfurt of 1871, which ended the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, and annexed part of the territories of the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine.


The city of Strasbourg taken on September 28, 1870, the day of its capitulation following heavy Prussian bombardments

The Treaty of Frankfurt agreed between German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and French head of government Adolphe Thiers, gave residents of the region until 1 October 1872 to decide between emigrating to France or remaining in the region and having their nationality legally changed to German. By 1876, 5% of the population (about 100,000 of the residents of Alsace-Lorraine) had emigrated to France.


Jules Favre, French Foreign Minister, puts his seal on the Treaty of Frankfurt, while Otto von Bismarck watches.

The creation of the German Reichsland meant that 93% of the territory of Alsace and 26% of the territory of Lorraine (almost the entire department of Moselle) were incorporated into the Empire

The new border between France and Germany basically followed the geolinguistic division between the Romance and Germanic dialects, with a few exceptions. However, the German administration was tolerant of the use of the French language and French was authorized as an official language and a language in schools in those areas where it was spoken by a majority (this relatively tolerant policy contrasted with the policy of the French authorities against the use of German after World War I).


Hermann Wislicenus (1825-1899) Central painting of the Imperial Hall of the Imperial Palace of Goslar "The Resurrection of the German Empire 1871".

In the center: William I and Crown Prince Frederick William.
Left: Bismarck, Moltke and Roon.
Right: Alsace with Strasbourg Cathedral and Lotharingia (Lorraine) with Metz Cathedral, next to Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia, nephew of Kaiser Wilhelm I
Above: Queen Louise of Prussia surrounded by medieval emperors and kings. Emperor Barbarossa points to Kaiser William I, indicating that he is his worthy successor.
Below: Father Rin and the Allegory of Germania

[TabsTabs1964]

Some Strasbourg era postcards...





And some from Metz...

[TabsTabs1964]

Some more in lithography style..




Strassburg




Metz


Even, as we have already seen, some imperial maneuvers took place there in 1899

[TabsTabs1964]

German soldiers at Deutsches Tor in Metz


German soldiers in Strasbourg, 1913.

The integration of the new province into the Second German Empire, based on the condition of its Germanic character according to the new administrators, meant a progressive change in the uses and customs of society, often with the manifest opposition of some sectors that coalesced around the autonomist movement that flourished from the 1880s onwards.

In 1911, as a result of the influence of regionalist sectors, the Reichsland adopted a constitution which, ratified by the Emperor, granted partial autonomy to the province.


Protesters surround the Strasbourg statue in the Place de la Concorde in Paris

Meanwhile, a strong nationalist sentiment had developed in Germany and France which, in the French case, was based on the concept of revanchism, while in the German case it favored the affirmation of Pan-Germanism. The two positions were irreconcilable.


The Geography Lesson or The Black Spot (Albert Bettannier,'s painting "La tache noire", 1887).

This magnificent painting, which is worth enlarging to see the children's faces and all their details, perfectly represents the wound opened in French society for two generations due to the loss of Alsace and Lorraine after the defeat of 1871...

[TabsTabs1964]

During the First World War, soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine were mainly sent to the Eastern Front or to the Kaiserliche Marine (imperial navy) in order to avoid possible confrontations with their relatives in France.

In October 1918, the Imperial German Navy was ordered to go out to sea to fight the Royal Navy. The sailors revolted. There were about 15,000 Alsatians and Lorraine in the imperial navy. Some of them joined the insurrection and the November Revolution, and decided to return to their homeland.


1918. German revolutionary sailors


Another image of the 1918/19 revolution. Berlín, 1918 armed soldiers and sailors

On 8 November, the proclamation of the Alsace Soviet Republic was announced in Strasbourg, the capital. The next day, November 9, thousands of demonstrators gathered in Strasbourg to cheer the first soldiers returning home from northern Germany. On the same day, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated and Philipp Scheidemann declared Germany a republic in a speech from the Reichstag.

Since Alsace-Lorraine had been administered by Berlin and the Emperor, and did not have a government or monarch like other German states, the Emperor's abdication left an even greater power vacuum.

Similar to other areas of Germany, the former sailors created a Strasbourg Soldiers' Council and took control of the city. The workers' and soldiers' council was then formed, which was chaired by the leader of the brewers' union. Their slogan was: "Neither Germany nor France."

With the collapse of the Empire and the abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II in November 1918, on the eve of the armistice, a part of society – with the support of some military units – joined the insurrectionary movement of the November Revolution and declared the Independent Republic of Alsace and Lorraine on 11 November 1918.


Proclamation of republic Place Kléber in Strasbourg on November 10, 1918

[TabsTabs1964]

On 11 November, the Armistice with Germany (Compiègne) was signed, ending the war. On the same day, the Strasbourg regime proclaimed the Independent Republic of Alsace-Lorraine. The Parliament proclaimed itself the "National Council of Alsace-Lorraine" and the nation's sole legal authority. The next day, the National Council proclaimed the sovereignty of Alsace-Lorraine.


General Gouraud entering Strasbourg at the head of the French IVth Army on 22 November 1918

However, independence was very short-lived, as the French occupied Mulhouse on 17 November. They took Colmar and Metz in the following days, and on 21 November, French troops reached Strasbourg. After eleven days of independence, Alsace-Lorraine was occupied and incorporated into France. The region lost its newly acquired autonomy, returning to the French centralized system. It was divided into the departments of the Upper Rhine, Lower Rhine and Moselle (the same political structure as before the annexation).


Georges Clemenceau and Raymond Poincaré Visit Alsace

The French government immediately began a campaign of "Frenchification" that included the forced deportation of all Germans who had settled in the area after 1870. Alsatian newspapers written in German were also suppressed.

In addition, the French government carried out a campaign to suppress the use of German in accordance with its traditional language policy. Both the German language and the local German dialect elsässisch were banned for a time from public life (street and city names, official administrations, the educational system, etc.).

And from 1918 life continued that way in Alsace and Lorraine for 22 years, until the summer of 1940.... A unique place, because Alsace has something unique in Europe: the Franco-German cultural heritage.


Abzeichen des Krieger Landesverbandes

An example of these contrasting sensibilities, these imperial brooches worn by the Alsatians who served the Kaiser and which they proudly displayed on their civilian clothes...

Soon, very soon the feeling of revenge changed sides. During the 1920s and 1930s, Germany longed to recover those (and other) territories lost after the defeat of 1918 and the Treaty of Versailles....


German propaganda poster: "Peace treaties are a matter for men. God wants it different"
(The two white arrows point to Alsace and Lorraine)