Editing Alsace (section)

===Struggle between France and united Germany===
{{Main|Alsace–Lorraine}}
{{Blockquote|''We Germans who know Germany and France know better what is good for the Alsatians than the unfortunates themselves. In the perversion of their French life they have no exact idea of what concerns Germany.''|[[Heinrich von Treitschke]], [[German nationalist]] historian and politician, 1871<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/alsacelorraines00cerfgoog/alsacelorraines00cerfgoog_djvu.txt|title=Full text of "Alsace–Lorraine since 1870"|year=1919|publisher=New York, The Macmillan}}</ref><ref>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1915/05/30/100157406.pdf Remaking the Map of Europe] by [[:fr:Jean Finot|Jean Finot]], ''[[The New York Times]]'', 30 May 1915</ref>}}
[[File:Alsace4.jpg|thumb|Traditional costumes of Alsace]]
The [[Franco-Prussian War]], which [[Causes of the Franco-Prussian War|started]] in July 1870, saw France defeated in May 1871 by the [[Kingdom of Prussia]] and other German states. The end of the war led to the [[unification of Germany]]. [[Otto von Bismarck]] annexed Alsace and northern Lorraine to the new [[German Empire]] in 1871. France ceded more than 90% of Alsace and one-fourth of Lorraine, as stipulated in the [[Treaty of Frankfurt (1871)|treaty of Frankfurt]]; [[Belfort]], the largest Alsatian town south of Mulhouse, remained French. Unlike other member states of the German federation, which had governments of their own, the new ''Imperial territory of Alsace–Lorraine'' was under the sole authority of the [[Kaiser]], administered directly by the imperial government in Berlin. Between 100,000 and 130,000 Alsatians (of a total population of about a million and a half) chose to remain French citizens and leave ''Reichsland Elsaß–Lothringen'', many of them resettling in [[French Algeria]] as [[Pieds-Noirs]]. Only in 1911 was Alsace–Lorraine granted some measure of autonomy, which was manifested also in a flag and an anthem ([[Elsässisches Fahnenlied]]). In 1913, however, the [[Saverne Affair]] (''French'': Incident de Saverne) showed the limits of this new tolerance of the Alsatian identity.
[[File:Adolphe Braun Alsace costume.jpg|thumb|left|upright|An Alsatian woman in traditional costume, photographed by [[Adolphe Braun]] in the 1870s]]

During the First World War, to avoid ground fights between brothers, many Alsatians served as sailors in the [[Kaiserliche Marine]] and took part in the Naval mutinies that led to the abdication of the Kaiser in November 1918, which left Alsace–Lorraine without a nominal head of state. The sailors returned home and tried to found an independent republic. While [[Jacques Peirotes]], at this time deputy at the ''Landrat Elsass–Lothringen'' and just elected [[List of mayors of Strasbourg|mayor of Strasbourg]], proclaimed the forfeiture of the German Empire and the advent of the [[French Republic]], a self-proclaimed government of Alsace–Lorraine declared its independence as the "[[November 1918 insurgency in Alsace–Lorraine|Republic of Alsace–Lorraine]]". French troops entered Alsace less than two weeks later to quash the worker strikes and remove the newly established Soviets and revolutionaries from power. With the arrival of the French soldiers, many Alsatians and local Prussian/German administrators and bureaucrats cheered the re-establishment of order.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/popup.php?vue=partenaire&partenariat=1df07ccad656b16c3f7dcd36ce620f11| title = Archive video}}</ref>

Although U.S. President [[Woodrow Wilson]] had insisted that the ''région'' was self-ruling by legal status, as its constitution had stated it was bound to the sole authority of the Kaiser and not to the German state, France would allow no plebiscite, as granted by the [[League of Nations]] to some eastern German territories at this time, because the French regarded the Alsatians as Frenchmen liberated from German rule. Germany ceded the region to France under the [[Treaty of Versailles]].

Policies forbidding the use of German and requiring French were promptly introduced.<ref>However, propaganda for elections was allowed to go with a German translation from 1919 to 2008.</ref> In order not to antagonize the Alsatians, the region was not subjected to some legal changes that had occurred in the rest of France between 1871 and 1919, such as the [[1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State|1905 French law on the separation of Church and State]].

[[File:Ensemble Timbres Hindenburg surchargés par Elsass.JPG|thumb|upright|German stamps of [[Paul von Hindenburg|Hindenburg]] marked with "Elsaß" (1940)]]

Alsace–Lorraine was occupied by Germany in 1940 during the Second World War. Although it was never formally annexed, Alsace–Lorraine was incorporated into the [[Nazi Germany|Greater German Reich]], which had been restructured into [[Reichsgau]]e. Alsace was merged with [[Baden]], and Lorraine with the [[Saarland]], to become part of a planned [[Gau Westmark|Westmark]]. During the war, 130,000 young men from Alsace and Lorraine were conscripted into the German armies against their will ([[malgré-nous]]). There were some volunteers for the [[Waffen SS]].,<ref>Stéphane Courtois, Mark Kramer. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=H1jsgYCoRioC&pg=PA323 Livre noir du Communisme: crimes, terreur, répression]''. [[Harvard University Press]], 1999. p.323. {{ISBN|0-674-07608-7}}</ref> although they were outnumbered by conscripts of the 1926–1927 classes. Thirty of said Waffen SS were involved in the [[Oradour-sur-Glane massacre]] (29 conscripts, one volunteer). A third of the malgré-nous perished on the Eastern front. In July 1944, 1500 [[malgré-nous]] were released from Soviet captivity and sent to [[Algiers]], where they joined the [[Free French Forces]].