Our series devoted to Borders is back to Alsace today for a “scène patriotique” during World War I: young girls dressed in traditional Alsatian costumes, wrapped in a French flag. During the transition period from Germany to France at the end of the war, a self-proclaimed Soviet government of Alsace-Lorraine declared its independence as the “Republic of Alsace-Lorraine”. Although U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had insisted that the area was self-ruling by legal status, when French troops entered Alsace less than two weeks later to quash the worker strikes and remove the newly established Soviets from power, many Alsatian and German administrators cheered the re-establishment of order.
The documents on the Republic of Alsace-Lorraine can be found at the Archives départementales du Cantal and France Archives.
Find more about November 1918 in Alsace-Lorraine on Archives Portal Europe: https://www.archivesportaleurope.net/ead-display/-/ead/pl/aicode/FR-FRAD015/type/fa/id/FRAD015_43_PH/unitid/43+PH+13/search/0/alsace
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