Alsace and Lorraine not annexed?

Also, without the conquest of Alsace, would the German unification have actually happened?

I was always under the impression that the whole unification momentum was something of a 'wave', culminating in Versalies. Without the comprehensive defeat of France, the wave would have a bit less momentum, which might leave the German minors feeling no real reason to join the empire.

On the other hand, letting France keep A-L gives Baden a very good reason to join a united Germany. No small nation wants a border with a pissed off France.

It does seem that most of the tensions between the two countries would ahve been avoided in the long term, though. It's difficult to underestimate just how upset the French were at losing A-L.
 

Perkeo

Banned
I was under the impression, that the Alsatian dialects are closely related to the Swabian dialects? In any case in the Netherlands and Flanders it got a chance to develop in a language. Whereas in the Alsace it remained dialects.

The difference between a language and a dialect is sometimes difficult to tell. But the point is that there is no linguistic boundary whatsoever between A-L and Germany while there's a very distinct linguistic boundary between A-L and the rest of France. Furthermore, no Swabian would ever consider himself as not German. So if, and once again I say if, language is the criterion, AL cannot be anything but German.

OTOH Switzerland is essentially the same, and noone thought of annexing the "Swiss German" speaking parts either, so I see no reason why Germany must annex AL.

Furthermore the impression I'm getting from this thread is that apparently the Alsatians have less issues with Frenchification, than the Flemish have with the failed (19th century) attempts of Frenchification by the French speaking Belgian (19th century) elite (The Flemish are much more language aware, than Dutch speakers in the Netherlands). OTOH in the Alsace it really was a choice between Frenchification or Germanization, maybe they actually would have preferred to stay Alsatian?

They would have stayed Alsatian just as much as the Swabians stay Swabian.

The German reluctance towards given AL autonomy and making it a full member state IMHO did ruin their chance of success.

Surely. They obviously didn't trust the Alsacians and Lorraines to consider themselves German - despite them speaking the same language. A certain amount of autonomy was given to AL just before WWI, and it propably would have become a full member state sooner or later, but not in the generation of 1871.

A lot of bad misjudgements were made in 1870/1871: AFAIK the French were offered a peace without any annexations just after Sedan (because Bismarck worried that Britain could still join), but they drastically overestimated their chances of turning the war. Later Germany drastically underestimated the will and ability of France to get AL back.

IMO a Franco-German alliance around 1900 is one of the great missed chances in history.
 
Also, without the conquest of Alsace, would the German unification have actually happened?

I was always under the impression that the whole unification momentum was something of a 'wave', culminating in Versalies.

You are generally right concerning the swiftness of the process, but if you study the developments in Germany in the years up to 1870, you can see that unification was already well underway. Most of Germany was already an economic Union, since 1867, the whole North was being United as an exact constitutional blueprint for the 1871 Reich. As the Franco-German-War showed, the several Armies had become very well integrated after 1866. In 1868, the "Zollparlament" was established as a Pan-(small)-German Parliament, adding 85 Southern MPs to the Reichstag of the North German Federation. (I have to admit, that these elections in the South were won by Germanosceptics).

Full Unification might have taken longer if not taking place in 1871, but France was beaten so gloriously and thorougly, even without an annexation there might have been a Versailles-proclamation.
 
Top