Editing Alsace (section)

===From French Revolution to the Franco-Prussian War===
[[File:Enseigne Alsacienne revolutionnaire.jpg|thumb|Alsatian sign, 1792:<br />
''Freiheit Gleichheit Brüderlichk. od. Tod'' (Liberty Equality Fraternity or Death)<br />
''Tod den Tyranen'' (Death to Tyrants)<br />
''Heil den Völkern'' (Long live the Peoples)]]
The year 1789 brought the French Revolution and with it the first division of Alsace into the départements of [[Haut-Rhin|Haut-]] and [[Bas-Rhin]]. Alsatians played an active role in the French Revolution. On 21 July 1789, after receiving news of the [[Storming of the Bastille]] in Paris, a crowd of people stormed the Strasbourg city hall, forcing the city administrators to flee and putting symbolically an end to the feudal system in Alsace. In 1792, [[Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle|Rouget de Lisle]] composed in Strasbourg the Revolutionary marching song "[[La Marseillaise]]" (as ''Marching song for the Army of the Rhine''), which later became the anthem of France. "La Marseillaise" was played for the first time in April of that year in front of the [[Mayor (France)|mayor]] of Strasbourg [[Philippe-Frédéric de Dietrich]]. Some of the most famous generals of the French Revolution also came from Alsace, notably [[François Christophe Kellermann|Kellermann]], the victor of [[Battle of Valmy|Valmy]], [[Jean Baptiste Kléber|Kléber]], who led the armies of the French Republic in [[Revolt in the Vendée|Vendée]], and [[François Joseph Westermann|Westermann]], who also fought in the Vendée.

[[Mulhouse]] (a city in southern Alsace), which had been part of Switzerland since 1466, joined France in 1798.<ref name=":0" />

At the same time, some Alsatians were in opposition to the [[Jacobin (politics)|Jacobins]] and sympathetic to the restoration of the monarchy pursued by the invading forces of [[Habsburg monarchy|Austria]] and [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]] who sought to crush the nascent [[revolutionary republic]]. Many of the residents of the [[Sundgau]] made "pilgrimages" to places like [[Mariastein Abbey]], near [[Basel]], in Switzerland, for baptisms and weddings. When the [[French Revolutionary Army]] of the Rhine was victorious, tens of thousands fled east before it. When they were later permitted to return (in some cases not until 1799), it was often to find that their lands and homes had been confiscated. These conditions led to emigration by hundreds of families to newly vacant lands in the [[Russian Empire]] in 1803–4 and again in 1808. A poignant retelling of this event based on what [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]] had personally witnessed can be found in his long poem ''[[Hermann and Dorothea]]''.

In response to the [[Hundred Days|"hundred day" restoration]] of [[Napoleon I of France]] in 1815, Alsace along with other frontier provinces of France was occupied by foreign forces from 1815 to 1818,<ref>Veve, Thomas Dwight (1992). ''The Duke of Wellington and the British army of occupation in France, 1815–1818'', pp. 20–21. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, United States.</ref> including over 280,000 soldiers and 90,000 horses in Bas-Rhin alone. This had grave effects on trade and the economy of the region since former overland trade routes were switched to newly opened [[Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean]] and [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]] seaports.

The population grew rapidly, from 800,000 in 1814 to 914,000 in 1830 and 1,067,000 in 1846. The combination of economic and demographic factors led to hunger, housing shortages and a lack of work for young people. Thus, it is not surprising that people left Alsace, not only for Paris – where the Alsatian community grew in numbers, with famous members such as [[Georges-Eugène Haussmann]] – but also for more distant places like Russia and the [[Austrian Empire]], to take advantage of the new opportunities offered there: Austria had conquered lands in Eastern Europe from the [[Ottoman Empire]] and offered generous terms to colonists as a way of consolidating its hold on the new territories. Many Alsatians also began to sail to the United States, settling in many areas from 1820 to 1850.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://members.cox.net/smithgen/sources/ships/ships18201850notes.htm#sully1838match |title = Cox.net |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060504053923/http://members.cox.net/smithgen/sources/ships/ships18201850notes.htm#sully1838match |archive-date=4 May 2006 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1843 and 1844, sailing ships bringing immigrant families from Alsace arrived at the port of New York. Some settled in Texas and Illinois, many to farm or to seek success in commercial ventures: for example, the sailing ships ''Sully'' (in May 1843) and ''Iowa'' (in June 1844) brought families who set up homes in northern Illinois and northern Indiana. Some Alsatian immigrants were noted for their roles in 19th-century American economic development.<ref>[http://will.ilgenweb.net/bios/scheidtj.txt Ilgenweb.net] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723154212/http://will.ilgenweb.net/bios/scheidtj.txt |date=23 July 2011}}</ref> Others ventured to Canada to settle in southwestern [[Ontario]], notably [[Waterloo County]].

====Alsatian Jews====
{{Main|History of the Jews in Alsace}}
In contrast to the rest of France, the Jews in Alsace had not been expelled during the Middle Ages. By 1790, the [[Jewish]] population of Alsace was approximately 22,500, about 3% of the provincial population. They were highly segregated and subject to long-standing [[antisemitic]] regulations. They maintained their own customs, [[Yiddish]] language, and historic traditions within the tightly knit ghettos; they adhered to Jewish law. Jews were barred from most cities and instead lived in villages. They concentrated in trade, services, and banking. They financed about a third of the mortgages in Alsace. Official tolerance grew during the French Revolution, with full emancipation in 1791. However, local antisemitism also increased and Napoleon turned hostile in 1806, imposing a one-year moratorium on all debts owed to Jews.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Necheles |first1=Ruth F. |date=1971 |title=The Abbé Grégoire and the Jews. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4466643 |journal=Jewish Social Studies |volume=33 |issue=2/3 |pages=120–40 |jstor=4466643 |access-date=15 February 2024}}</ref> In the 1830–1870 era, most Jews moved to the cities, where they integrated and acculturated, as antisemitism sharply declined. By 1831, the state began paying salaries to official rabbis, and in 1846 a special legal oath for Jews was discontinued. Antisemitic local riots occasionally occurred, especially during the Revolution of 1848. The merger of Alsace into Germany in 1871–1918 lessened antisemitic violence.<ref>{{cite book |first=Vicki |last=Caron |chapter=Alsace |editor-first=Richard S. |editor-last=Levy |title=Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution |year=2005 |volume=1 |pages=13–16 |publisher=Abc-Clio |isbn=9781851094394 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tdn6FFZklkcC&pg=PA13 }}</ref> The constitution of the ''Reichsland'' of 1911 reserved one seat in the first chamber of the ''Landtag'' for a representative of the Jewish Consistory of Alsace–Lorraine (besides two seats respectively for the two main Christian denominations).