Bold in 1475, ravaged by Protestants in 1591, and captured by a Swedish army in 1635. The relative strength of the natural defensive position of the old citadel preserved Briey from yet more frequent devastations, but it was nonetheless reportedly occupied briefly by a Russian army during the final days of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. In 1801 Briey became a sub-prefecture in the Moselle department. However, after the Franco-Prussian War most of the Moselle department became part of the German Empire's territory of Alsace-Lorraine under the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt. The former French department ceased to exist and its residuum, including Briey, was integrated into a new department of Meurthe-et-Moselle. When Lorraine was recovered by France in 1919 it was decided not to return Briey to its former department. Thus in terms of departmental boundaries, the town remains administratively separated from the eastern portion of the Briey Basin. Population Economy At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Briey Basin was one of Europe’s leading steel producing regions: in the 1970s the Hagondange-Briey agglomeration still had a population of above 130,000, although by 1990 this figure had fallen to 112,000. Intensive heavy industry is now a receding memory, as the service sector has provided the principal sources of employment growth in recent years, with increasing numbers of the working-age residents commuting to nearby Metz or Luxembourg. See also Communes of the Meurthe-et-Moselle department References External links Duchy of Bar Former communes of Meurthe-et-Moselle Subprefectures in France