If the reintegration of Alsace-Lorraine, now Alsace and Moselle, was not for the French in a primary cause of the war, revenge rapidly became one of the proclaimed objectives. The consensus was unanimous for the restitution of the provinces lost in , and considered one of the conditions of peace for material, political and moral reasons ; as the Rev. Lafon said « the return of these regions to France has, for the civilised world, become the symbol of all obligatory reparations ».
Protestants within France were happy to rediscover the protestantism of Alsace. The arrival of the French troops was enthusiastically acclaimed. The « Vieux-Allemands » « Old Germans » , about , people who had come from Germany, were expelled. Most Alsatian executives, considered pro-German, lost their jobs.
The reorganisation of the Protestant churches and ecclesiastical authorities was no easy task. A board of direction was set up later called council by the Lutherans, and a synodal commission by the Reformed.
The government, fearing an excessive rise of pro-German elements intervened directly in certain nominations, enabling the pro-French to lead the churches.
But many Protestants in Alsace were first and foremost Alsatians, neither French, nor German, which resulted in their being out of step with the new managers and this became a source of subsequent conflict. Maintaining the faculty of theology within the secular university in Strasbourg also posed problems. The return of the theology faculty of Paris to Strasbourg, from where it had been transferred in , was even evoked.
Finally the status quo was maintained and the Rev. Paul Lobstein, a dogmatics professor in Strasbourg, successfully reorganised the faculty. Squabbles soon emerged as 47 years of foreign rule had left their mark, and the Alsatian victims of the war were to be found in both camps, but mostly wearing the German uniform.
Already some Protestant villages had been accused of being less enthusiastic towards the French troops than were the Catholic villages, and it must be said that the religious culture of the Protestants of Alsace was essentially Germanic. The « French of the interior », including the Alsatians who had settled in France after , found it difficult to assess the profound modifications introduced between and , notably the German system of decentralisation and the social protection, highly valued by the population.
Parisian Jacobinism set up a series of laws for Alsace-Lorraine under the responsibility of a vice-secretary of state linked to the council presidency, and later to a general commission of the Republic. The organisation lasted until , but the civil servants were not very conscious of the particularities of Alsace. German became a foreign language, and Alsatian was considered a folk dialect.
The population had a hard time adjusting to French legislation and was soon confronted with the economic and political problems of France. In , E. Herriot the president of the council announced that he wished to introduce in Alsace-Lorraine, still ruled by the Napoleon concordat the French legislation on the separation of church and state.
Opposition from Alsace was considerable and the government had to give up the project, but as B. Volger said « from the intermingling of languages, education and religious systems emerged the notion of self- rule ».
But the challenges of reintegrating Alsatians and Lorrainers into the French nation would prove far more complicated than anticipated. Vlossak, Elizabeth: Alsace-Lorraine , in: online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed.
DOI : Version 1. By Elizabeth Vlossak. Consensus Politics in Imperial Germany, Boston Un populisme? Nationalizing Women in Alsace, , Oxford , pp. Selected Bibliography Fischer, Christopher J. Kramer, Alan: Wackes at war. Alsace-Lorraine and the failure of German national mobilization, , in: Horne, John ed.
Vlossak, Elizabeth: Marianne or Germania? Citation Vlossak, Elizabeth: Alsace-Lorraine , in: online. Metadata Subjects. Author Keywords. GND Subject Headings. LC Subject Headings. Rameau Subject Headings. Regional Section s. Thematic Section s. Classification Group. French troops on the Alsace-Lorraine Front, Memorial du Linge. War memorial, Strasbourg.
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