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Ultimately only about 50,000 people left for France, corresponding to 3.2% of the population of Alsace–Lorraine. The approximately 110,000 optants who had not emigrated by 1 October 1872 lost their option of French citizenship, although they were not expelled by the German authorities but retained German citizenship.
Thus, the Welches valleys of Alsace and the Metz region, not following the linguistic border, found themselves "imperial territory" under the official name of "Alsace-Lorraine" and the direct administration of Emperor William. The preliminary peace treaty of February 26, 1871, put an end to the fighting between France and Germany.
The remainder of the country was to be left unoccupied, although the new regime that replaced the Third Republic was mutually recognised as the legitimate government of all of Metropolitan France except Alsace–Lorraine. The French were also permitted to retain control of all of their non-European territories.
Alsace and Lorraine were annexed by Germany again in 1940. Unlike the rest of occupied France and the unoccupied so-called "Free France" (Vichy France) - which became a Nazi puppet state - Alsace-Lorraine was formerly incorporated into the Third Reich. It was returned to France once again after World War II.
France ceded more than 90% of Alsace and one-fourth of Lorraine, as stipulated in the treaty of Frankfurt. 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.
Although Adolf Hitler did not initially have plans to expand territorially in France except for the return of the formerly German Alsace-Lorraine, the total German hegemony gained after the Battle of France enabled him to plan the annexation of regions of France deemed strategically or economically important. [3]
Parts of the region were consolidated into the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine for 48 years (1871–1919), but Alsace–Lorraine itself was restored to France after the First World War. The remainder of the Rhineland was retained by Germany, albeit under Allied occupation from 1918 to 1930.
[a] Italy occupied part of France on the Mediterranean coast and Alsace Lorraine [b] was annexed by Germany. [ 9 ] During the war black markets arose when government imposed quotas and regulations to control supply and distribution, and demand exceeded supply; [ 10 ] a phenomenon described as "the free market at its most brutal."