is a ''
Département '' in the northeast of
France named after the
Moselle River .
Moselle was one of the original 83 ''départements'' created during the
French Revolution on
March 4 ,
1790 . It was created from the former
Province of
Lorraine .
In
1793 , the foreign
Enclave s of
Manderen ,
Lixing-lès-Rouhling ,
Momerstroff , and
Créhange (Kriechingen), all possessions of princes of the German
Holy Roman Empire , were annexed by France and incorporated into the Moselle ''département''.
By the
Treaty Of Paris of
1814 following the first defeat and abdication of
Napoleon , France had to surrender almost all its conquests since
1792 . On the northeastern border, France was not restored to its 1792 borders, but a new border was established to put an end to the convoluted nature of the border, with all its enclaves and exclaves. As a result, the French
Exclave of
Tholey (now in
Saarland ,
Germany ) as well as a few
Communes near
Sierck-les-Bains (both territories until then part of the Moselle ''département'') were ceded to Austria. On the other hand, the French annexations of 1793 were confirmed, and what's more the south of the Napoleonic ''département'' of
Sarre was ceded to France, including the town of
Lebach , the city of
Saarbrücken , and the rich coal basin around it. France was thus a net beneficiary of the Treaty of Paris, all the new territories ceded to her being far larger and more strategic than the few territories ceded to Austria. All these new territories were incorporated into the Moselle ''département'', and so Moselle had now a larger territory than ever since 1790.
However, with the return of Napoleon and his final defeat at the
Battle Of Waterloo , the
Congress Of Vienna in
1815 imposed much harsher conditions on France. Tholey and the communes around Sierck-les-Bains were still to be ceded as agreed in 1814, but the south of the Sarre ''département'' with Saarbrücken was withdrawn from France. What's more, France had to cede to
Austria the area of
Rehlingen (now in Saarland) as well as the strategic fort-town of
Saarlouis and the territory around it, all territories and towns which had been French since the 17th century, and which were part of the Moselle ''département'' since 1790. In the end of 1815, Austria gave all these territories to
Prussia , and it is from them that Prussia invaded France in the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871.
Thus, by the end of 1815, the Moselle ''département'' had finally the limits that it would keep until ,
Sarreguemines , and
Thionville .
After the French defeat in the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, almost all of the Moselle ''département'', along with
Alsace and portions of the
Meurthe and
Vosges ''départements'', were annexed to the
German Empire by the
Treaty Of Frankfurt on the ground that the population in those areas spoke
German . Only one-fifth of Moselle (''arrondissement'' of Briey in the extreme west of the ''département'') was spared annexation by Bismarck, as it was a French-speaking area. Bismarck later regretted bitterly his decision when it was discovered that the region of Briey and
Longwy was rich with iron ore. The Moselle ''département'' ceased to exist on
May 18 ,
1871 , and the territories annexed to Germany became part of the ''Reichsland'' of ''
Elsaß-Lothringen ''. The remaining area of Briey was merged with the amputated Meurthe ''département'' to create the new
Meurthe-et-Moselle ''département'' (a new name chosen on purpose to remind people of the lost Moselle ''département'') with its ''préfecture'' at
Nancy .
In
1919 , with the French victory in the
First World War , Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France by Germany at the
Treaty Of Versailles . However, it was not decided to recreate the old ''départements'' of Meurthe and Moselle by reverting to the old ''département'' borders of before 1871. Instead, Meurthe-et-Moselle was left untouched, and the four-fifth of Moselle that had been annexed by Germany in 1871 were merged with the one-third of Meurthe also annexed in 1871 to create a new ''département'' of Moselle. Thus, the Moselle ''département'' was reborn, but its borders were quite different from those before 1871. Having lost the area of Briey, it had now gained the areas of
Château-Salins and
Sarrebourg which before 1871 were in the Meurthe ''département'' (being one-third of it) and which had been part of the ''Reichsland'' of ''Elsaß-Lothringen'' since 1871.
The new Moselle ''département'' now had its current area of 6,216 km² (2,400 sq. miles), larger than the old Moselle because the areas of Château-Salins and Sarrebourg were far larger than the area of Briey and Longwy.
During
World War II Moselle became part of the ''Gau Westmark'' at the armistice of
June 22 ,
1940 . Adolf Hitler considered Moselle and Alsace part of Germany.
Moselle was liberated by the
American army in
1944 and returned to France, with the same limits as in 1919. As a consequence of these German annexations, the population of Moselle is known to be fiercely patriotic (French patriotism); and anti-German feelings remained in Moselle for a much longer time than in the rest of France, despite the fact that originally the inhabitants of Moselle were German speakers.
Moselle is part of the current ''
Région '' of
Lorraine and is surrounded by the French departments of
Meurthe-et-Moselle and
Bas-Rhin , as well as
Germany (states of
Saarland and
Rhineland-Palatinate ) and
Luxembourg in the north.
The following are the most important rivers:
The inhabitants of the ''département'' are called ''Mosellans'' in
French .
The population has remained relatively stable since World War II and now exceeds 1 million, located mostly in the urban area around
Metz and along the
Moselle River .
If the Moselle ''département'' still existed in its limits of between 1815-1871, its population at the
1999 French census would have been 1,089,804 inhabitants. The current Moselle ''département'', whose limits were set in 1919, had less population, with only 1,023,447 inhabitants. This is because the industrial area of Briey and Longwy lost in 1871 is more populated than the rural areas of Château-Salins and Sarrebourg gained in 1919.
Today, about 100,000 – 300,000 inhabitants of the ''département'' have
German as their native language. The local dialect is known as ''Lothringer Platt''; linguistically, it is classified as
Rhenish Franconian ,
Moselle Franconian , and
Luxembourg Franconian .
