Souvenir locket from Alsace-Lorraine

Patriotic locket bearing on the cover the figure of a woman wearing the traditional folk dress of Alsace-Lorraine and holding a flag and a shield. The shield has the coat of arms of the county of Alsatia - the shield being halved diagonally with three crowns on each side. In the background is a village, with a plane flying overhead and an artillery piece. The cover has broken off the locket, which is is empty, but has space for a photograph or lock of hair, protected by a glass insert.

The Alsace-Lorraine region was part of Germany during the First World War and this locket is likely to have been taken from a German prisoner, or a dead German soldier. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, which France lost, Alsace and the northern part of Lorraine was ceded to the new German Empire. During the First World War, soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine were mainly sent to the Eastern front, or were drafted into the German Imperial Navy to avoid the possibility conflicting interest when confronting their relatives from France on the Western Front. On 11 November 1918 the signing of the Armistice ended the war. On the same day an independent Republic of Alsace-Lorraine was declared. Their independence only lasted 11 days, before the French occupied the area and reincorporated it into France. Later, under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Germany formally ceded the region to France.