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Lorraine

Cultural and historical region in France

  • 16 min read
  • 9 chapters
La Lorraine (départements de Meurthe et Moselle, Meuse, Moselle, Vosges).
Niko67000 · CC BY-SA 4.0

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From 1982 until January 2016, Lorraine was an administrative region of France. In 2016, under a reorganisation, it became part of the new region Grand Est. As a region in modern France, Lorraine consisted of the four departments Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges (from a historical point of view the Haute-Marne department is also located in the region), containing 2,337 communes. Metz is the regional prefecture. The largest metropolitan area of Lorraine is Nancy, which was the seat of the duchy for centuries.

To the north, Lorraine borders Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg. In French, its male inhabitants are called Lorrains and its female inhabitants are called Lorraines. The population of Lorraine is about 2,356,000.

History

Lorraine's borders have changed often in its long history. The location of Lorraine led to it being a paramount strategic asset at the crossroads of four nations. This, along with its political alliances, marriage alliances, and the ability of rulers over the centuries to choose sides between East and West, gave it a powerful and important role in European history. Its rulers intermarried with royal families over all of Europe, played kingmaker, and seated rulers on the thrones of the Holy Roman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and others.

In 840, Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious died. The Carolingian Empire was divided among Louis' three sons by the Treaty of Verdun of 843. The middle realm, known as Middle Francia, went to Lothair I, reaching from Frisia in Northern Germany through the Low Countries, Eastern France, Burgundy, Provence, Northern Italy, and down to Rome. On the death of Lothair I, Middle Francia was divided in three by the Treaty of Prüm in 855, with the northern third called Lotharingia and going to Lothair II. Due to Lotharingia being sandwiched between East and West Francia, the rulers identified as a duchy from 903 onward, enabling the duchy to ally and align itself nominally with either eastern or western Carolingian kingdoms in order to survive and maintain its independence. Thus, it was a duchy in name but operated as an independent kingdom.

In 870, Lorraine allied with East Francia while remaining an autonomous duchy. In 959 the duchy was divided into the duchies of Upper and Lower Lorraine (or Upper and Lower Lotharingia); the lower duchy encompassed much of the southern Low Countries and the northern Rhineland, while the upper duchy broadly covered the modern region of Lorraine. In 962 Otto, the king of East Francia, restored the Empire (restauratio imperii), forming the Holy Roman Empire. By the end of the 12th century the lower duchy had become defunct, leaving the upper duchy to become known as simply Lorraine. Over the centuries feudal fragmentation led to various parts of the duchy splitting off (i.e. to become imperially immediate), including the County of Bar and the prince-bishoprics of Metz, Verdun and Toul. From 1301 Bar straddled the French-Imperial border, with the French part known as Barrois mouvant and the imperial part as Barrois non mouvant; it became a duchy in 1354. In 1480 Lorraine and Bar were joined in a personal union, which became permanent in 1506. From that point the two essentially became a single entity, often collectively referred to simply as Lorraine.

Following the Imperial Reform of 1500, Lorraine and the imperial part of Bar were assigned to the Upper Rhenish Circle, one of the imperial circles of the Holy Roman Empire, which were established to facilitate the Empire's administration, collective defence, and taxation.

In 1552 Metz, Verdun and Toul were annexed by France, becoming the Three Bishoprics province; this annexation was not recognized by the Empire until the 1648 Peace of Westphalia.

In 1738, by the Treaty of Vienna, Lorraine and Bar passed from the house of Lorraine to Stanisław Leszczyński and in 1766 were annexed under succession law by the Kingdom of France, becoming the Lorraine and Barrois province. The succession within these houses, in tandem with other historical events, would have later restored Lorraine's status as its own duchy, but a vacuum in leadership occurred. Its duke Francois Stephen de Lorraine took the throne of the Holy Roman Empire as Francis I, and his brother Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine became governor of the Austrian Netherlands. For political reasons, he decided to hide those heirs who were not born by his first wife, Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria, who was deceased when he took office. The vacuum in leadership, the French Revolution, and the political results and changes issuing from the many nationalistic wars that followed in the next 130 years, ultimately resulted in Lorraine becoming a permanent part of the modern Republic of France. Because of wars, it came under control of Germany several times as the border between the nations shifted. While Lorrainian separatists do exist in the 21st century, their political power and influence is negligible. Lorraine separatism today consists more of preserving its cultural identity rather than seeking genuine political independence.

With enlightened leadership and at a crossroads between French and German cultures, Lotharingia experienced tremendous economic, artistic, and cultural prosperity during the 12th and 13th centuries under the Hohenstaufen emperors. Along with the rest of Europe, this prosperity was terminated in Lorraine in the 14th century by a series of harsh winters, bad harvests, and the Black Death. During the Renaissance, a flourishing prosperity returned to Lotharingia until the Thirty Years' War.

The region's location has caused the population to be mixed. The north largely spoke German, Lorraine Franconian and other German dialects. A strong centralised nationalism had only just begun to replace the feudalist system which had formed the multilingual borders, and an insurrection against the French occupation influenced much of the area's early identity. In 1871, the German Empire regained a part of Lorraine (Bezirk Lothringen, corresponding to the current department of Moselle). The department formed part of the new German Empire's Imperial Territory of Alsace–Lorraine. In the French Third Republic, the revanchist movement developed to recover this territory.

The Imperial German administration strongly discouraged the French language and culture in favor of High German, which became the administrative language (Geschäftssprache). It required the use of German in schools in areas which it considered or designated as German-speaking, an often arbitrary categorisation. French was allowed to remain in use only in primary and secondary schools in municipalities definitely considered Francophone, such as Château-Salins and the surrounding arrondissements, as well and in their local administration.

After 1877, higher education, including state-run colleges, universities and teacher seminaries, was conducted exclusively in German. The predominance of German and the partial usage of French, though restricted, were both guaranteed by the 1911 constitution of Alsace-Lorraine. While many toponyms of German etymology in Lorraine were adapted to the High German standard (i.e. Germanised) a number of genuine Francophone toponyms remained untouched. During the Nazi occupation between 1940 and 1944, however, its government imposed German translations to replace French names. For instance, Château-Salins was called Salzburg in Lothringen.

During the Battle of the Frontiers at the beginning of World War I, the French First Army invaded Lorraine and briefly occupied Mulhouse. However, the German Sixth Army under Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria counterattacked and forced the French forces into retreat at the Battles of Sarrebourg and Morhange. Lorraine remained under martial law, close to the Western Front in northeastern France, and suffering from refugee crises for the rest of the war. The population effectively revolted against German rule by participating in the German Revolution of 1918–1919, with the Alsace-Lorraine Soviet Republic being founded, but eventually welcomed French troops two weeks after.

In the 1919 Treaty of Versailles following World War I, the Weimar Republic suffered severe territorial losses, including the portion of Lorraine territory that had been part of its state of Alsace-Lorraine. With the exception of its de facto annexation by Nazi Germany as part of the Gau Westmark (Civil Administration Area of Lorraine) during World War II, that area has since remained a part of France. During that war, the Cross of Lorraine was a symbol of Free France.

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