Louis XIV of France conquered parts of Alsace and Lorraine ( 1678 – 1681 ), and had invaded and devastated the Electorate of the Palatinate ( 1688 – 1697 ) in the War of Palatinian Succession.

Half a million residents of the annexed Polish territories, as well as from Slovenia, Alsace, Lorraine, and Luxembourg were deported to the General Government or sent to Germany as slave labour.

The High German languages ( in German, Hochdeutsche Sprachen ) or the High German dialects ( Hochdeutsche Mundarten / Dialekte ) are any of the varieties of standard German, Luxembourgish and Yiddish, as well as the local German dialects spoken in central and southern Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg and in neighboring portions of Belgium and the Netherlands ( Ripuarian dialects in southeast Limburg ), France ( Alsace and northern Lorraine ), Italy, Denmark, and Poland.

The Treaty of Frankfurt allowed the newly formed German Empire to annex the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.

Following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War ( 1870 – 1871 ), German Cancellor Otto von Bismarck proposed harsh terms for peace — including the German occupation of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.

In practice, France deployed about twice as many men, 36 divisions ( roughly one third of its force ), for defence of the Maginot Line in Alsace and Lorraine, whereas the opposing German Heeresgruppe C only contained 19 divisions, or less than one seventh of the total force committed in Fall Gelb.

* To protect Alsace and Lorraine ( returned to France in 1918 ) and their industrial basin.

He died March 16, 1520, " ab intestat ", then a canon of the collegiate Church of Saint-Dié ( located between Nancy, Lorraine and Strasbourg, Alsace in the heart of the Vosges blue mountain range along the Rhine river valley ).

At the end, France had to surrender Alsace and part of Lorraine, because Moltke and his generals insisted that it was needed as a defensive barrier.

* Lothair received the central portion of the empire which later became, from north to south: the Low Countries, Lorraine, Alsace, Burgundy, Provence, and the Kingdom of Italy ( which covered only the northern half of the Italian Peninsula ), collectively called Middle Francia.

* The provinces of Alsace and Lorraine are transferred from France to Germany.

1843: France had 86 departments ; Alsace and Lorraine ( region ) | Lorraine were in France, but not County of Nice | Nice and Savoy

Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, Brabant, Lorraine, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Limburg, Luxembourg, Gelderland, Landgrave of Alsace, Prince of Swabia, Count Palatine of Burgundy, Princely Count of Habsburg, Hainaut, Flanders, Tyrol, Gorizia, Artois, Holland, Seeland, Ferrette, Kyburg, Namur, Zutphen, Margrave of the Holy Roman Empire, the Enns, Burgau, Lord of Frisia, the Wendish March, Pordenone, Salins, Mechelen, etc.

As part of the settlement, the territory of Alsace and part of Lorraine was taken by Prussia to become a part of Germany, and it remained so until the end of World War I when it was returned to France in the Treaty of Versailles.

Jules Favre, foreign minister in the new government, went to negotiate with Bismarck, but the negotiations were broken off when he found that Germany demanded both Alsace and Lorraine regions.

Alsace is frequently mentioned with Lorraine, because German possession of parts of these two régions ( as the imperial province Alsace-Lorraine, 1871 – 1918 ) was contested in the 19th and 20th centuries ; France and Germany exchanged control of Alsace four times in 75 years.

After the conclusion of the war, France was again free to pursue its desire to reach the Rhine and in 1444 a French army appeared in Lorraine and Alsace.

The transfer of most of Alsace to France at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 marked its start, along with Lorraine, as a territory claimed by both France and Germany.

Otto von Bismarck annexed Alsace and northern Lorraine to the new German Empire in 1871 ; unlike other members states of the German federation, which had governments of their own, the new Imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine was under the sole authority of the Kaiser, administered directly by the imperial government in Berlin.

Alsace was merged with Baden, and Lorraine with the Saarland, to become part of a planned Westmark.

During the war, 130, 000 young men from Alsace and Lorraine were forcibly inducted into the German army and in some cases, the Waffen SS.

France again had to vacate it after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which however won France several positions in Alsace, east of Lorraine.

It was part of France until the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 / 1871, when northern parts of Lorraine around Metz, along with Alsace, were annexed by the newly-founded German Empire, causing a large number of French people to emigrate into France ( including Algeria ).

From 1934 to 1944 the Commeinhes family ( René and his son Georges ) from Alsace invented and successfully tested a demand regulator, but the main inventor, Georges, was killed in 1944 during the liberation of Strasbourg and Cousteau's regulator had no competitors immediately after the war.

From 917-925, Magyars raided through Basle, Alsace, Burgundy, Saxony, and Provence.

From a geological point of view, a graben in the beginning of the Tertiary area caused the formation of Alsace and the uplift of the plates of the Vosges now in eastern France and the Black Forest now in Germany.

From 1354 – 1515 Mulhouse was part of the Décapole, an association of ten Free Imperial Cities in Alsace.

From the 4th to 5th centuries, the Franks settled in northern France and Belgium, the Alemanni in Alsace and Switzerland, and the Burgundians in Savoie.

By 58 BC, the Romans had invaded and established Alsace as a center of viticulture.

Born in Kaysersberg, Schweitzer spent his childhood in the village of Gunsbach, Alsace (), where his father, the local Lutheran-Evangelical pastor, taught him how to play music.

Long disputed, the predominantly German-speaking region of Alsace or Elsaß was annexed by Germany in 1871 ; after World War I, it was reintegrated into France.

He envisaged instruments in which the French late-romantic full-organ sound should work integrally with the English and German romantic reed pipes, and with the classical Alsace Silbermann organ resources and baroque flue pipes, all in registers regulated ( by stops ) to access distinct voices in fugue or counterpoint capable of combination without loss of distinctness: different voices singing together in the same music.

First mentioned by the Romans in 213, the Alamanni captured the Agri Decumates in 260, and later expanded into present-day Alsace, and northern Switzerland, establishing the German language in those regions.

Ammianus relates ( xvii. 1. 11 ) that much later the Emperor Julian undertook a punitive expedition against the Alemanni, who by then were in Alsace, and crossed the Main ( Latin Menus ), entering the forest, where the trails were blocked by felled trees.

In the great mixed invasion of 406, the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine river a final time, conquering and then settling what is today Alsace and a large part of the Swiss Plateau.

She retired to a nunnery she had founded in c. 991 at Selz in Alsace.

To isolate the Danube from any Allied intervention, Marshal Villeroi's 46, 000 troops were expected to pin the 70, 000 Dutch and English troops around Maastricht in the Low Countries, while General de Coigny protected Alsace against surprise with a further corps.

" A second possible objective now occurred to the French – an Allied incursion into Alsace and an attack on the city of Strasbourg.

Marlborough skillfully encouraged this apprehension by constructing bridges across the Rhine at Philippsburg, a ruse that not only encouraged Villeroi to come to Tallard's aid in the defence of Alsace, but one that ensured the French plan to march on Vienna remained paralysed by uncertainty.

Knowing Marlborough's destination, Tallard and Villeroi met at Landau in Alsace on 13 June to rapidly construct an action plan to save Bavaria, but the rigidity of the French command system was such that any variations from the original plan had to be sanctioned by Versailles.

The Count of Mérode-Westerloo, commander of the Flemish troops in Tallard's army wrote – " One thing is certain: we delayed our march from Alsace for far too long and quite inexplicably.

" Approval from Louis arrived on 27 June: Tallard was to reinforce Marsin and the Elector on the Danube via the Black Forest, with 40 battalions and 50 squadrons ; Villeroi was to pin down the Allies defending the Lines of Stollhofen, or, if the Allies should move all their forces to the Danube, he was to join with Marshal Tallard ; and General de Coignies with 8, 000 men, would protect Alsace.

The campaign began well for Louis XIV's generals: in Italy Marshal Vendôme had defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Calcinato in April, while in Alsace Marshal Villars had forced the Margrave of Baden back across the Rhine.

Determined to show the Grand Alliance that France was still resolute, Louis XIV prepared to launch a double surprise in Alsace and northern Italy.

In Alsace, Marshal Villars took Baden by surprise and captured Haguenau, driving him back across the Rhine in some disorder, thus creating a threat on Landau.

The guilds, asserting that the Jews were responsible — several had been tortured and confessed — demanded they be executed, which the Council did in January 1349, except for a few who escaped to Alsace.

Basel, had a strategic location, good relations with Strasbourg and Mulhouse, and control of the corn imports from Alsace, whereas the Swiss lands were becoming overpopulated and had few resources.

The BVB also shares commuter bus lines in cooperation with transit authorities in the neighboring Alsace region in France and Baden region in Germany.

* St. Stephen's Day ( public holiday in Alsace, Austria, Catalonia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, Poland and Slovakia ), and its related observances:

Eventually the diagonally opening slit appeared as well, and then there was the diamond-shaped opening iris, as in Poor Little Peppina and Alsace ( 1916 ), rather than the usual circle.

Alsace is influenced by the Alemannic food culture ; as such, beers made in the area are similar to the style of bordering Germany.