Elsab but not Lorraine: What If the Germans only take Alsace in 1871?

Question the first:
Was something like permanent demilitarization by treaty done in Europe during the 19th century? (Yes, I know about the Great Lakes in the Treaty of Ghent.)

In the concrete case of 1871, would it even be imaginable for the German side to demand that France, while keeping Alsace and Lorraine, had to destroy all its fortresses there and never garrison the area in perpetuity. Marching even a single soldier into it would be seen as a casus belli.

Please don't argue whether it would have been the right thing to do, I am mainly interested whether it could have been proposed at all. Or was it simply not done.

Question two:
What if Bismarck had proposed to turn A-L (with borders to be internationally determined) into a sovereign state with the same guarantees of neutrality Belgium and Luxemburg enjoyed. Would the other powers, ie mainly the UK and A-H, have agreed to accept and defend this?
Question One feels like the best-case-scenario France could ever get, and they can still get their Lorraine and Champagne fortresses behind, so... it's basically what Germany asked in Lorraine in the WWI ultimatum to France.
Could be done, and it would bring about way less irredentism.
For question two, it feels like the Annexion will precede the Anchluß.
 
Question two:
What if Bismarck had proposed to turn A-L (with borders to be internationally determined) into a sovereign state with the same guarantees of neutrality Belgium and Luxemburg enjoyed. Would the other powers, ie mainly the UK and A-H, have agreed to accept and defend this?

10 years later when France have rearmed, a referundum on annexation would be held and be won in an dictatorship-like landslide. Britain was pissed when Germany annexed Alsace-Moselle so would probably support the French if only to restore a little bit the balance of power on the continent. (incidently such a move would probably neuter France on the continent given that even OTL there was a warmup during the late 19th century and early 20th century between France and Germany given that France was mostly playing the colonial power and didn't really care about Europe, it was only when Germany started to compete with France there that the relation between them cooled down again)
 
10 years later when France have rearmed, a referundum on annexation would be held and be won in an dictatorship-like landslide. Britain was pissed when Germany annexed Alsace-Moselle so would probably support the French if only to restore a little bit the balance of power on the continent. (incidently such a move would probably neuter France on the continent given that even OTL there was a warmup during the late 19th century and early 20th century between France and Germany given that France was mostly playing the colonial power and didn't really care about Europe, it was only when Germany started to compete with France there that the relation between them cooled down again)

It probably also helped that Colonial success stopped translating into massive swathes of the map turning blue, because most of the world was dealt out to people.
 
10 years later when France have rearmed, a referundum on annexation would be held and be won in an dictatorship-like landslide. Britain was pissed when Germany annexed Alsace-Moselle so would probably support the French if only to restore a little bit the balance of power on the continent. (incidently such a move would probably neuter France on the continent given that even OTL there was a warmup during the late 19th century and early 20th century between France and Germany given that France was mostly playing the colonial power and didn't really care about Europe, it was only when Germany started to compete with France there that the relation between them cooled down again)

How could a referendum in A-L happen in 1880 when the 1871 installed monarch denied consent? I am not sure that a hypothetical Kingdom of Alsace-Lorraine would have parliamentary supremacy.
Of course, having a strong parliament would probably help with getting the sympathy of the UK.

Having a Alsatian Revolution in ~1880 with the goal of dethroning the king and rejoining France would be an interesting crisis. The Krieg-in-Sicht-Crisis had shown that neither the UK nor Russia was willing to grant Carte blanche to Berlin in conflicts with France. OTOH, the German-Russian relations in 1880 are strained, but far from broken.

Three semi-silly ideas for a king of A-L:
1) Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen of recent Spanish throne candidate fame. Catholic, southern German.
2) Ferdinand of Habsburg-Lorraine-Tuscany. Dethroned by Napoleonic meddling. Catholic, rather liberal (for a Habsburg).
3) Alexander von Battenberg. Scion of a morganatic marriage by the GD of Hesse, close to his uncle, Tsar Alexander of Russia. Putting him on the throne might be a way to create Russian interest in keeping him there. Presumably willing to convert for a royal crown.
 
Westphalian said:
Three semi-silly ideas for a king of A-L:
1) Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen of recent Spanish throne candidate fame. Catholic, southern German.
2) Ferdinand of Habsburg-Lorraine-Tuscany. Dethroned by Napoleonic meddling. Catholic, rather liberal (for a Habsburg).
3) Alexander von Battenberg. Scion of a morganatic marriage by the GD of Hesse, close to his uncle, Tsar Alexander of Russia. Putting him on the throne might be a way to create Russian interest in keeping him there. Presumably willing to convert for a royal crown.

So, if you're willing to tolerate three-four years of interegnum while a potential candidate is found and the French political situation continues as OTL, there's one thing the Prussian could do to REALLY mess with the French Republic: Appoint a French royal to the throne.

With a bit of luck, Henri V might get less honour bound (doubtful) and take it or maybe an Orléanist. It's borderline ASB but if you really fuck France up, then that's the way to go
 
How could a referendum in A-L happen in 1880 when the 1871 installed monarch denied consent? I am not sure that a hypothetical Kingdom of Alsace-Lorraine would have parliamentary supremacy.
Of course, having a strong parliament would probably help with getting the sympathy of the UK.

Having a Alsatian Revolution in ~1880 with the goal of dethroning the king and rejoining France would be an interesting crisis. The Krieg-in-Sicht-Crisis had shown that neither the UK nor Russia was willing to grant Carte blanche to Berlin in conflicts with France. OTOH, the German-Russian relations in 1880 are strained, but far from broken.

Three semi-silly ideas for a king of A-L:
1) Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen of recent Spanish throne candidate fame. Catholic, southern German.
2) Ferdinand of Habsburg-Lorraine-Tuscany. Dethroned by Napoleonic meddling. Catholic, rather liberal (for a Habsburg).
3) Alexander von Battenberg. Scion of a morganatic marriage by the GD of Hesse, close to his uncle, Tsar Alexander of Russia. Putting him on the throne might be a way to create Russian interest in keeping him there. Presumably willing to convert for a royal crown.

Interesting idea, though Alsace-Lorraine will probably be a Grand Duchy. It will also be a state, which from it's inception will have additional troops stationed there as the first bulwark to defend the German Empire against potential French aggression. IOTL neither Baden nor Bavaria were thrilled by having troops from all over the German Empire (many of which were Prussian) stationed on their territory to defend against a revanchist France, and like the prospect of having A-L between them and France.
 

Perkeo

Banned
It is a pity that, once more, a thread on this subject turns wrongly because some people can't help moving to the question of determining who was right.

If you don't want to discuss that question, stop discussing it. If you do, accept that there are different opinions than just yours and the wrong one.

The fact is that there was 2 conceptions about nationality that were antagonist :

- the french one that was about political community and the sense of a national consciousness. And it is to a large extent the model of most of existing nation States. It is the political frontier that determines the nation.

- the german one that very long was (until the end of WW2) about filial link and language. Whatever people think, they were german if they were of german blood and the most obvious sign of this national identity was speaking german.

If only the Germans had defined nationality/claimed teritory upon language. In that case we wouldn't be having this discussion. WWI (as we know it) would likely and WWII certainly have been prevented.

The matter has been settled politically. Pan-somethingism, be it pangermanism or panfrenchism or pan englishism or pan chinesegism is very dangerous because it calls for conflictual relationships.

The fact was that when the french royal or republican State took control of territories, it assimilated the people and culturally turned them into french people feeling french which did not prevent them from also feeling a local identity (be it britons, provencials, or alsacians).

Are you saying forced assimilation doesn't call for conflictual relationships???

The fact is also that the 19th century was the century of national identities forgery. Some writers and poets strongly contributed to the emerging of national identities that had not existed because there were just in fact in the past there were just some common feature of languages. But they created a national mythology. Common german was set-up in the 19th century while there had forever been several germanic dialects and that there still remained other germanic languages than german, such as english, danish, dutch, and that there were other nations than Germany that spoke a germanic language or even german.

Common German began when Martin Luther translated the Bible, so in that aspect, Germany was actually early.

And AFAIK there is no German speaking territory that wasn't part of Germany for some time in history - just as there is no French speaking territory that was never French.

Claiming that Alsace was a german land because it was inhabited by people speaking a germanic language from the 4th century on is the same as claiming that Brandenburg, Saxony, Mecklenburg-Pommern, not to say about Prussia and Silesia, were polish lands because they had been inhabited by slavian people before germanic settlers began colonizing these areas from the 10th century on. It is like claiming that germans took french-celtic lands south of Denmark because the lands between the Rhine and the Alps was inhabited by celts that were ancestors of the french since there are many celtic roots in the french language.

All this is subjective and contains a lot of gross manipulations.

In case no one told you, all territories that were still Danish or Slavic speaking in 1918 were taken away from Germany, and I've heared of noone saying "I'm not a German native speaker, but I still want to stay German".

The mismatch between nationality and language in A-L is quite unique.

EDIT: To avoid misunderstandings, I'm not saying A-L should be German. I just object to the picture of evil 19th century Germans that condemned the absolutely not German Alsaciens to exile vs. the white French nights who freed them from their suffering in 1918. That picture is utterly wrong for both sides.

But the decisive point is that, in the 19th century, there was a massive surge in national consciousnesses and of the idea of national of sovereignty as the base of popular will. This implied that it became much harder to exchange territories as if they were goods, which had been common in the past.

Neither Germany nor France ever bothered to make a referendum, and both Germany and France made a partial ethnic cleansing after they took it.

So if we just came back to the question of this thread, I will sum it up again by saying that, no, if Germany had just taken Alsace but not Moselle in 1871, it would have changed nothing because of all that has already been written on this thread.

That much I agree with. Neither the French nor the German mistakes are removed even by total waiver of annexations:

France had a long history of aggression against Germany. A-L was an excellent excuse for France to continue this emnity, but not the only one that could be found.

Gemany would have been just as arrogant without A-L and perhaps even more paranoid if a stronger France allied with Russia.

They need some sort of common project to learn how self-destroying that enmity was - like OTL cold war.
 
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