Meurthe - History

History

After the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, the northeastern part of the Meurthe département was annexed to the German Empire by the Treaty of Frankfurt. On May 18, 1871, about one-third of the Meurthe, corresponding approximately to the arrondissements of Château-Salins and Sarrebourg in the northeast of the département, were detached from Meurthe and annexed to Germany, becoming part of the Reichsland of Elsaß-Lothringen.

The remaining two thirds of Meurthe were merged with one fifth of the Moselle département (arrondissement of Briey, in the extreme west of Moselle, to the northwest of Meurthe) which had escaped German annexation, and on September 7, 1871, the merger gave birth to the new Meurthe-et-Moselle département (area: 5,246 km², compared to 6,070 km² for the former Meurthe), with its préfecture at Nancy.

In 1919, with the Allied victory in the First World War, Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France by Germany at the Treaty of Versailles. However, the old départements of Meurthe and Moselle was not recreated by reverting to the old département borders of before 1871. Instead, Meurthe-et-Moselle was left untouched, and the third of Meurthe and the four fifth of Moselle that had been annexed by Germany in 1871 were merged to create the new département of Moselle, whose name is the same as the old département of Moselle but whose borders are quite different.