Bibliographical Note
The best history of Alsace is R. Reuss, Histoire d’Alsace (11th edition, Paris, 1916). There is no analogous work for Lorraine; see C. Pfister, La Lorraine, le Barrois, et les Trois Evêchés (Paris, 1912). A good recent book in German is lacking; see Lorenz and Scherer, Geschichte des Elsass (Berlin, 1886). For the seventeenth century, see R. Reuss, L’Alsace au xviiᵉ siècle (Paris, 1897-98). On the cession of 1871, see G. May, Le traité de Francfort (Paris, 1909); and for the fixing of the frontier, A. Laussedat, La délimitation de la frontière franco-allemande (Paris, 1901), with facsimile of the original map showing the changes between the preliminaries of Versailles and the final treaty.
There is a vast literature of the period since 1871 and the ‘question’ in all its aspects. Convenient accounts in English are B. Cerf, Alsace-Lorraine since 1870 (New York, 1919); C. D. Hazen, Alsace-Lorraine under German Rule (New York, 1917); C. Phillipson, Alsace-Lorraine (London, 1918); and E. A. Vizetelly, The True Story of Alsace-Lorraine (London, 1918). Examples of the literature are: H. and A. Lichtenberger, La question d’Alsace-Lorraine (Paris, 1915), by two fair-minded Frenchmen of Alsatian origin; the various books of the Alsatian nationalist, Abbé E. Wetterlé; S. Grumbach, Das Schicksal Elsass-Lothringens (Neuchâtel, 1915), by an Alsatian Socialist; D. Schäfer, Das Reichsland (Berlin, 1915), Pan-German; H. Wendel, Elsass-Lothringen und die Sozial-Demokratie (Berlin, 1916), Social Democrat; H. Ruland, Deutschtum und Franzosentum in Elsass-Lothringen (Colmar, 1908); E. Florent-Matter, Les Alsaciens-Lorrains contre l’Allemagne (Paris, 1918). The brilliant statement of the French case in the letter of Fustel de Coulanges to Mommsen (now in his Questions historiques, Paris, 1893, pp. 505-512) has lost none of its point with time. A. Schulte, Frankreich und das linke Rheinufer (Stuttgart, 1918), is an historical polemic against French claims.
A good manual of the government under German rule is O. Fischbach, Das öffentliche Recht des Reichslandes (Tübingen, 1914).
The human geography of the whole region is admirably discussed in P. Vidal de la Blache, La France de l’Est (Paris, 1917). There is a good general article by L. Gallois in the Geographical Review, vi, pp. 89-115 (1918). There are excellent discussions of resources, as well as of frontiers, by eminent geographers and historians in the first volume of the Travaux du Comité d’Etudes: L’Alsace-Lorraine et la frontière du Nord-est (Paris, 1918).
On the iron of Lorraine see The Iron Resources of the World (Stockholm, 1910); the Atlas of Mineral Resources of the U. S. Geological Survey; E. Gréaux, Le fer en Lorraine (Paris, 1908); F. Engerand, L’Allemagne et le fer (Paris, 1916); H. Schumacher, Die westdeutsche Eisenindustrie (Leipzig, 1910); P. Krusch, in Petermann’s Mitteilungen, lxiii, pp. 41-44 (1917).
The formation of Alsace and Lorraine is traced, from the point of view that they are naturally German, in Boeckh and Kiepert, Historische Karte von Elsass und Lothringen (Berlin, 1870); and in Droysen, Historischer Handatlas (1886), no. 41. For the changes of 1789-1815, the Atlas of the Comité d’Etudes is convenient, as also for mineral resources. There is a good map of the minette field in Petermann’s Mitteilungen, 1917, plate 8. The linguistic maps of C. This will be found in Beiträge zur Landes- und Volkskunde von Elsass-Lothringen, parts 1 and 5 (1887, 1888); those of H. Witte, showing the modifications of the linguistic frontier, in Forschungen zur deutschen Landes- und Volkskunde, viii, x. A percentage map based on the German census of languages is given by Langhans, in Deutsche Erde, 1910, plate 1; cf. 1909, plate 3. See also Gallois’ maps in Annales de géographie, ix, nos. 4, 5; and Gröber, Grundriss der romanischen Philologie (Strasburg, 1904-1906), i, end.