Home | Former Subdivision | Alsace-Lorraine
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These territories had become part of Eastern Francia in 921 during the reign of King Louis the German, and later became part of the Holy Roman Empire. Their population spoke Germanic and Romance dialects. Those in Alsace spoke in their vast majority Germanic dialects, in particular Alsatian, an Alemannic German dialect similar to that spoken on the opposite bank of the Rhine, while those in Lorraine were divided roughly equally between those who spoke the Romance Lorrain dialect and those who spoke Franconian German dialects. The area had gradually become part of France between 1552, when Metz was ceded to the Kingdom of France, and 1798, when the Republic of Mulhouse joined the French Republic. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the area was annexed by the newly-created German Empire in 1871 by the Treaty of Frankfurt and became a Reichsland. French troops entered Alsace-Lorraine in November 1918 at the end of the World War I and the territory reverted to France at the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. The area was de facto annexed by Nazi Germany in 1940 (although no official de jure annexation took place), but reverted to France in 1944-1945 at the end of World War II and has remained a part of France since. In 1871, the Reichsland of Elsaß-Lothringen was made up of 93% of Alsace (7% remained French) and 26% of Lorraine (74% remained French). For historical reasons, specific legal dispositions are still applied in the territory in form of a local law. In relation to its special legal status, the territory has since its reversion to France been referred to as Alsace-Moselle. |