Thesis
The post World War I ethnic purges in Northern Lorraine and the formation of a distinct Mosellan identity, 1918-present
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2018
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/102846
Abstract
This thesis examines the diaries, journals, and letters written from 1918-1930 in the Moselle region of France to bring to light the personal experiences and trauma of the individuals who lived through an ethnic purge conducted by the French government in the aftermath of the First World War. After fifty years of German rule, the French regained control of the region. French authorities sought to ethnically "cleanse" the Moselle region of residents with German blood, ancestry, and sympathies between December 1918 and the end of 1921, as part of a state program of francisation (roughly translated as a "Frenchifying" process). Various commissions, operating without any civilian legal precedents, worked to identify and categorize the population in the Moselle. The official policy of épuration (ethnic cleansing) tore families apart, divided villages along ethnic lines, and forced individuals to face an undignified journey to Germany on special trains where limits were placed on the weight of luggage and on the amount of money people could carry. About 105,000 Mosellans were forced to leave France in the four years after the Great War. This thesis argues that francisation failed, and this failure led to the creation of a Mosellan identity, distinct from a French or Alsatian identity, and one that never really existed before among working-class artisans. This failure put the Moselle on a trajectory for the rest of the twentieth century that is marked by a distancing from French Laïcité, a growing sympathy for far-right political ideology, and a reluctance to embrace a French cultural identity.
Metrics
15 File views/ downloads
81 Record Views
Details
- Title
- The post World War I ethnic purges in Northern Lorraine and the formation of a distinct Mosellan identity, 1918-present
- Creators
- Matthias Romain Baudinet
- Contributors
- Steven D. Kale (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- History, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525163501842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis