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The importance of the iron ores of Lorraine Annexee and French 

 Lorraine may be shown by the fact that they furnished in 1913 34 per 

 cent of the total iron consumed in Europe. 



Lorraine Annexee, that part which Germany controlled subsequent 

 to 1872, produced in 1913 75 per cent of the entire German output of 

 iron ore. The reserves aggregated about 1,830,000,000 tons of ore 

 averaging about 30 per cent iron. More than two-thirds of the coke 

 used in Lorraine Annexee came from the Westphalian and Aix-la- 

 Chapelle districts; the remainder, only some 1,500,000 tons, was from 

 the nearby Sarre field. The European iron reserves in other fields were 

 being rapidly depleted, and it would thus have been greatly to the 

 interest of Germany to obtain control also of the French Lorraine field. 

 German capital already owned 10 to 15 per cent of the entire iron district 

 by purchase before the outbreak of the war, and if French Lorraine had 

 been annexed, Germany would have controlled 50 per cent of Europe's 

 iron resources. As it is, however, "the Treaty of Versailles has left 

 Germany with only 7 per cent of Europe's iron reserves, while France 

 owns 48 per cent. Moreover, the deposits of iron ore in the German 

 Republic are widely scattered, and some of them are not favorably 

 located for economic development. Therefore any large production of 

 iron and steel in Germany must be based on imported ores." Only her 

 Westphalian coking coals prevent the immediate annihilation of 

 Germany's metallurgical industry; this coal, it is shown in the report, 

 is necessary to assure the economic utilization of France's Loiraine ores. 



In general the iron deposits of Lorraine occur in a belt extending 

 northward from Metz along the pre-war frontier between France and 

 Germany in an area averaging 60 kilometers long and 20 kilometers 

 wide. The more southerly Nancy iron district lies entirely within the 

 pre-war French territory and forms an outlier of the main field. The 

 dip of the beds is gently westward, though modified by slight folds and 

 faults. 



The ores are mined at a low cost; this, taken with their great extent, 

 their proximity to coal fields and markets, and their composition, 

 which adapts them to the basic process, gives them their great value. 

 The phosphorus content is 1.5 to 2 per cent, fairly constant, and yields 

 valuable slag fertilizer. The iron mines in the occupied parts of Lorraine 

 were but little damaged by the Germans, but the furnaces, which might 

 later be expected to compete with German ones, were injured or 

 destroyed. 



About 74 per cent of all coking coal that is sufficiently near for 

 economic use in Lorraine lies in the Westphalian fields of Germany. 



