Assimilation, Emigration and Mobilization: Elite Responses to Territorial Conquest

Territorial conquest is commonly assumed to generate backlash among the conquered population. This paper argues that responses to annexation can instead vary between emigration, assimilation, and mobilization. I test the argument on Alsace-Lorraine, a region annexed twice by Germany and France between 1850 and 1938. Using novel spatial data on historical book publications to measure linguistic behavior of local elites and a difference-in-differences design, I find that both conquests caused large shifts toward the language of the conquering state. These shifts were driven by the substitution of authors, but also by systematic linguistic assimilation. Moreover, conquest promoted the mobilization of regionalist discourse, which most likely served as a tool for local elites to advocate local interests while integrating into the conquering state, rather than an secessionist form of identification.