WI different territorial settlement of the Franco-Prussian war?

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
OTL, the new German Empire claimed Alsace and two or three-fifths of Lorraine from France as a prize of victory which was justified in Germany from a strategic, linguistic and historic point of view.

One thing that is interesting however, as discussed in this prior thread (Alsace-Moselle), was that although the historic German identity of Alsace-Lorraine was claimed, the new border did not resemble any historic border between France and the Holy Roman Empire.

The linguistic rationale for transferring Alsace has been persuasive to some commentators, but generally not so for Lorraine.

But the linguistic and historic claims did not particularly overlap. In Lorraine France acquired Metz fairly early, but Lorraine was an independent duchy actually after most of Alsace was absorbed.

So, ISTM there was nothing particularly inevitable about the Germans imposing the particular border they did in 1871.

First, what if they had seized more:

A) All the historic territory they took in 1871, plus the rest of Lorraine up to the Moselle river. This takes away some French fortress, shortens the border and puts much of it along a river line.

B) All the historic territory from 1871, plus some additional territory to the west, covering the Briey-Longwy-Thionville iron ore region. This provides more natural resources and cuts of Luxembourg from France completely.

C) Alsace, plus all Lorraine, as defined as a modern region of France. This border is about as short as OTLs, but is further forward and provides more resources.

D) Alsace, plus all Lorraine, according to the prerevolutionary borders of the province. This grabs yet more resources, restores some of the HRE western boundary, and makes it easier to deal with France without going into Belgium, although it is very awkwardly shaped.

E) Alsace, Lorraine and Franche-Comte - this weakens France even more and reestablishes a historic western border of the HRE that lasted for centuries. Granted its not a complete restoration because there's no grabbing of Belgium, Artois and French Flanders, but messing with Belgium and the Channel ports is a sure-fire way to bring on war with Britain.

- alternatively, what if they took less than in OTL-

F) Alsace alone

G) Alsace plus some bordering portions of Lorraine but not Metz or anything south or west of that city

Obviously, the larger the annexation the more French-speaking people there are to manage.

At the same time, given a choice between absorbing more or less territory, there's a realpolitik argument for taking more, because France will be revanchist about any annexation at all, no matter how small.
 

Attachments

  • alternate 1871s.pdf
    333.6 KB · Views: 510

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
now in a .jpg form, so you don't need to worry about the .pdf

embedded into the discussion as a .jpg

Alternate 1871s.jpg
 
embedded into the discussion as a .jpg

A) I think this one is a reasonably likely alternative, if the military is especially hungry for annexations, it may happen. However, I don't think this one is particularly likely. The reason is that while the Moselle border may be more defensible (it would also include the Vosges slopes, IIRC), it would require giving up certain iron deposits on the western bank of the Moselle (unless the trans-Moselle territories that were annexed OTL are also demanded). It would also involve absorbing far more French-speakers than Germany even did OTL, which would be harder to justify on national grounds. On the same note, it would also give up on absorbing some Germanic-speakers in the trans-Moselle territories, unless those are also demanded.

B) I also think this one is reasonably likely, since it would absorb all of the Department of Moselle, making it a "cleaner cut." However, the people of Briey-Longwy didn't speak any Germanic language at all, which was part of why Bismarck left it out, and the jutting abutment is also not especially defensible (which remains the primary reason Alsace-Lorraine was absorbed), unless it was reasonably likely Luxemburg would be absorbed at a later date. IIRC, Germany was not aware of the iron deposits at the time, because when it was later discovered how rich in iron ore that region was, Bismarck regretted having left it off the table.

C) This option essentially combines the above two options, including the addition of Belfort. If Bismarck decides he wants both the strategic depth (less of a defensible border, IIRC), the clean cut, and knows about the resources, he may well demand it. Problems with this one are that Germany will be absorbing a LOT of Frenchmen, and Bismarck, to judge from his saturated Germany comments, thought they had taken too many as is. IIRC, and this applies to the above options as well, Bismarck was generally hostile to annexations at first, but the military insisted, and he had to keep gradually increasing the planned demands until finally he reached OTL's size. This problem would plague both option A and C (not B, given that leaving out Briey-Longwy and Belfort were gestures of magnanimity).

D) This option is not significantly different from C, but I think the awkward shape is probably going to be a plan-killer. At this point in time, Germany had only just finished the war with France, and naturally, the Schlieffen plan was not even in the mind of Schlieffen yet. The awkward border isn't really defensible, and it suffers from the same issues as Plan C.

E) Completely unlikely in my opinion. Except for the most deluded German nationalists, who took the lyrics of the Deutschlandlied entirely seriously, nobody wanted to annex the Franche-Comte at all. Alsace and parts of Lorraine were considered German-speaking at the time, and Metz was a small grab, and provided the coherent border (it was also somewhat bilingual, IIRC). So far as literally everyone is concerned, the Franche-Comte is French soil, far more than even the wholly French-speaking parts of Lorraine. "Restoring the HRE" won't cut with anybody.

F) Reasonably likely, if Bismarck gets more from his negotiations with the military, since it would accomplish the goal of shifting the border away from the Bavarian Palatinate and Baden, but the real job is convincing the military that they don't need the fortress city of Metz to shield the Rhineland (which by this time was the beating heart of German industry).

G) Same as the above, with the added advantage of providing an albeit thin shield for the Rhineland, the same issues with convincing the military that Metz is not needed are sufficient.
 
Top