The assimilation of France and Alsace was made complete during the Revolution. Fustel de Coulanges well summed up this truth when he wrote in 1870: "Do you know what has made Alsace French? It is not Louis XIV., but it is our revolution of 1789. From that moment Alsace has followed our fortunes; she has lived our life; she thinks as we think; she feels as we feel; our glories and our faults, our joys and our sorrows."
The wars of the Empire gave to the Alsatians a chance to display their military aptitude which they rendered the more generously to the service of the country, as promotion was given to each according to his merits; each soldier carried in his knapsack the baton of a Maréchal de France!
The generals of Alsace and of Lorraine who distinguished themselves in the army of the Republic and with Napoleon are numerous. Among the best known are Kléber, Kellermann, Rapp, Lefévre, Ney, Mouton, Lasalle, Shérer, Westermann, and Schramm. The names of twenty-eight Alsatian generals are engraved upon the Arc de Triomphe at Paris.
Many able Alsatians devoted themselves to the administration of the German countries that were at that time under the French Government. Their knowledge of German helped them in their task. After the disasters in Russia and in Leipzig, in 1813, the Alsatians showed exemplary devotion in their preparations for defence and sacrifices for the army.
In his Mémoires, Ségur says on this subject: "There were no better, braver, more generous Frenchmen in all France." Never, during all these trying days, did they remember that their forebears had been subjects of the Holy Empire.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, after the fall of Napoleon, the pan-Germans made a campaign for the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in launching the slogan: Der Rhein, Deutschlands Strom nicht Deutschlands Grenze (The Rhine is a German river and not Germany's boundary). This found no echo in Alsace, which forced from the poet, Rückert, the heartfelt cry of indignation which fell from the lips of the German soldiers, who were obliged to evacuate Alsace: "And thou Alsace! Degermanized race, thou too dost jeer at us, oh, deepest infamy!"
The Alsatian poet, Ehrenfried Stoeber, whom the Germans readily invoked on account of his dialect, said that if his harp was German his sword was French. Referring to the Revolution he said: "If we speak of the wars of the Revolution in which we fought for our independence and the protection of the indefeasible rights of man, it is because we are proud of our fervent ardour and enthusiasm."
Under the restored kingdom of the Bourbons, orderly citizens knew how to command respect in their new country without sacrificing in the least their democratic and republican ideals. A prefect of the Upper Rhine registered in his report of 1818: "All are submissive, but none are royalist." De Serre, an elector of the Department wrote: "Ultra-royalism is not the spirit which actuates my constituents."
The prefect, Puymaigre, candidly complains in 1821 of the advanced ideas of the citizens: "They give faith," said he, "with a most deplorable credulity, to all the most dangerous political systems."
The same year, after his tour in Alsace, General Foy expressed himself as follows: "If all that is good and generous in the hearts of the inhabitants of ancient France ever becomes enfeebled, they must journey over the Vosges and come to Alsace to renew their patriotism and energy."