History of Alsace

Peoples speaking Celtic and Germanic languages occupied the region prior to its conquest by Roman armies under the command of Julius Caesar.

Later Mesolithic remains include more finely shaped microliths used for arrowheads, as well as an intentionally severed head, similar to others found in Bavaria.

[3] By 5300 BCE Neolithic farming cultures were established in Alsace, particularly on the light and fertile loess soils between the river Ill to the east and the Vosges to the west.

In Alsace evidence has been found for the cultivation of einkorn and emmer wheats, barley, and vetch; the raising of cows, pigs and sheep; and transhumance: all typical of the Neolithic in Europe generally.

Genetic and archaeological evidence suggests the movement of peoples from the Parisian basin in the west eastwards to Alsace and Germany, possibly accompanied by violence.

Genetic testing of skeletons near Gougenheim suggests that the invaders carried with them a significant admixture of European hunter-gatherer ancestry, distinguishing them from the LBK-derived neolithic peoples previously established in Alsace.

Otherwise the archaeological record suggests considerable regional and temporal variety, as well as several significant social, economic and political transitions.

[10] After 2200 BCE, Bell Beaker remains become less common, and inhumations with mounds or tumuli above them, associated with Tumulus Culture of the Middle Bronze Age in north-central Europe, take their place.

Increased exchange of goods and ideas with Mediterranean regions and elsewhere appears to have encouraged the development of a wealthy elite, or "Hallstatt aristocracy," in a zone extending from central France, through Alsace, to Hungary and Bohemia.

Cultural practices of this aristocracy, so far as the archaeological remains demonstrate, appear to have included horsemanship, the accumulation and display of highly decorated weapons and other fine goods, and the drinking of imported wine with the paraphernalia of the Greek symposium.

Also in Alsace are several elite Hallstatt tombs, whose contents may include torcs, pins, armbands and other jewelry, decorated swords, and horse trappings, depending on the status and occupation of the individual.

[16] The very richest tombs include an entire funerary cart, as at Hatten and Ensisheim, or abundant quantities of elaborate gold jewelry, as for a young woman buried near Nordhouse.

[18] Away from the aristocratic centers are small farming communities situated in a variety of ecosystems, including wetlands, confirming the spread of agriculture well beyond the fertile loess soils that had first attracted farmers to the area.

The larger of these settlements may be distinguished from Hallstatt hill forts by their size, their less uniform association with centers of elite power and accumulation, and the form of defensive walls that surrounded them.

Urban buildings appear largely to have been half-timbered, as opposed to the predominantly stone construction in the rest of Gaul, likely due to the lack of accessible bedrock in the valley of the Rhine.

In the fourth and fifth centuries, several urban centers were fortified by ramparts, including Brocumagus, Tres Tabernae Cesaris (Saverne) and Argentovaria (Horbourg).

In 357 CE, the emperor Julian retook Argentoratum, but by 406, the traditional year given to the so-called crossing of the Rhine by Germanic tribes, Rome appears to have been unable to reassert control over the Rhenish boundary.

These monasteries formed important bases of power and wealth for the landowning elites, whose possessions were otherwise subject to the vicissitudes of shifting alliances and constant warfare.

At about this time, the surrounding areas experienced recurring fragmentation and reincorporations among a number of feudal secular and ecclesiastical lordships, a common process in the Holy Roman Empire.

Cities such as Colmar and Hagenau also began to grow in economic importance and gained a kind of autonomy within the "Decapole" or "Dekapolis", a federation of ten free towns.

In 1299, the French proposed a marriage alliance between Philip IV of France's sister Blanche and Albert I of Germany's son Rudolf, with Alsace to be the dowry; however, the deal never came off.

The latter was able to use this tax and a dynastic marriage to his advantage to gain back full control of Upper Alsace (apart from the free towns, but including Belfort) in 1477 when it became part of the demesne of the Habsburg family, who were also rulers of the empire.

Beset by enemies and seeking to gain a free hand in Hungary, the Habsburgs sold their Sundgau territory (mostly in Upper Alsace) to France in 1646, which had occupied it, for the sum of 1.2 million Thalers.

The warfare that had partially depopulated the region created opportunities for a stream of immigrants from Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Lorraine, Savoy and other lands that continued until the mid-18th century.

At the same time, some Alsatians were in opposition to the Jacobins and sympathetic to the restoration of the monarchy pursued by the invading forces of Austria and Prussia who sought to crush the nascent revolutionary republic.

In response to the final defeat of Napoleon I of France in the "hundred day" restoration in 1815, Alsace along with other French frontier provinces was under military occupation by foreign forces from 1815 to 1818,[32] including over 280,000 soldiers and 90,000 horses in Bas-Rhin alone.

Thus, it is not surprising that people left Alsace, not only for Paris – where the Alsatian community grew in numbers, with famous members such as Baron Haussmann – but also for more distant places like Russia and the Austrian Empire, to take advantage of the new opportunities offered there: Austria had conquered lands in Eastern Europe from the Ottoman Empire and offered generous terms to colonists as a way of consolidating its hold on the new territories.

In the perversion of their French life they have no exact idea of what concerns Germany.The Franco-Prussian War, which started in July 1870, saw France defeated in May 1871 by the Kingdom of Prussia and other German states.

During the First World War, to avoid ground fights between brothers, many Alsatians served as sailors in the Kaiserliche Marine and took part in the Naval mutinies that led to the abdication of the Kaiser in November 1918, which left Alsace-Lorraine without a nominal head of state.

During the war, 130,000 young men from Alsace and Lorraine were conscripted into the German army, allegedly against their will (malgré-nous), and in some cases volunteered for the Waffen SS.