Why two fifths of Lorraine in 1871?

Unless there is a Revolution in Germany and the whole country is no longer ruled by the Prussian military, i don't think that the Alsatian would have develloped a german identity (ok maybe after 100 years of occupation).

Just a note, I don't think it matters if a "German" identity is developed by the Alsatians, they speak a related language to German. What matters is if they develop an attachment to the German nation, not ethnicity. It would have helped if the area had actual autonomy like in the other German states within the Empire.

I didn't know occupation can last that long. :confused:
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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no particular historical precedent for the territorial

demarcation the Germans chose in 1871.


It's clear from some of the links in the discussion that linguistics and contiguity caused the Germans to pick the territorial demands they made in 1871.

Historical claims were only related to it in a very vague and imprecise way. Ironically, the Alsace-Moselle region that the Germans annexed was prettty much absorbed by France at least fifty years earlier (1714) than the rest Lorraine (1766) which was surrounded by, but not incorporated into France for fifty years, and remained technically part of the HRE till then.
 
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