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Vosges Front
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or "VOSGES FRONT Gerardmer to Munster. On the French side of the Vosges small branch lines ran up into the mountains to St. Die, Gerardmer, Cornimont and Bursang, and other branch lines on the Alsatian side ran from the Strasbourg-Mulhouse railway to the heads of all the Vosges valleys.
The frontier imposed on France in 1871 by the Treaty of Frankfort reached the crest of the Vosges, after cutting the gap of Belfort at the Ballon d'Alsace, and followed the watershed as far as the Donon; thence it changed direction from N. to N.W., and following a purely artificial line left all the upper Saar valley to Germany, cut the Seille at two points, and reached the Moselle 2,000 yd. below Pont-a-Mousson. From the military point of view this frontier left French Lorraine in a regular salient. General Sere de Rivieres, the far-sighted and skilful creator of the French defensive system, had therefore been compelled to go back to the Moselle to organize the barrier blocking the roads from the frontier. This barrier consisted of the two fortresses of Epinal and Belfort, connected by a line of forts along the upper Moselle. The importance of Belfort lay in the fact that it formed the right flank pivot of the whole defensive system, blocking as it did the gap between the Jura and the Vosges, and commanding the ground as far as the Swiss frontier. On their side the Germans had progressively strengthened the line of the Rhine by constructing the fortress Istein facing Mulhouse, improving the old strongholds on Huningen and Neubrisach, and turning Strasbourg into a great entrenched camp, extending its action by means of the forts of Mutzig and Molsheim as far as the Bruche valley.
The Position in the middle of Sept. 1914
The work carried on by either side for 40 years had made of the Vosges region a military area in which it was impossible to move without encountering some natural or artificial obstruction, defended on one side or the other by numerous garrisons. It was there, nevertheless, that hostilities between Germany and France actually started in the early days of Aug. 1914. After a few weeks fighting, however, the main offensives had been stopped in one place or another; and the position of the two adversaries towards the middle of Sept. was as follows: On the western slope of the Vosges the Germans had been checked and obliged to retire on Sept. 7. In the Luneville area they had maintained their hold on the Parois forest and Badonvillers. North of St. Die, which they had evacuated on the 11th, they held the Ormont ridge and the vicinity of the Saales gap. On the Vosges crest their occupation of the Violu and the Bernhardtstein secured to them the pass of Ste. Marie-aux-Mines; a little further to the S. they held the Tete-de-Faux, commanding the Bonhomme pass. The pass itself was in the hands of the French, who, since the withdrawal of the army of Alsace, held all the crest from there to the south. The German counteroffensive had been stopped on this side facing the Schlucht on the summit of the Luige ridge, commanding the valleys of the Weiss and the Fecht; at Metzeval, blocking the upper Fecht valley, the Grand Ballon de Guebwiller was held by French outposts, and a ! French division occupied the Thur valley as far as Thann, the gate of the Sundgau. In the Sundgau itself the outpost line of the Belfort garrison had been pushed forward to Lauev, Mortzwiller, Dieffmatten, Traubach, Gommersdorf, Ballersdorf, Suarce, and Rechezy.
On the French side the forces in the Vosges consisted of three infantry divisions and ten Alpine groups, forming, under the command of Gen. Putz, a " Vosges group " attached to the army of Gen. Dubail. The troops in the gap belonged to the Belfort garrison and were under the governor-general Thevenet. On the German side the troops holding the gap of Saales belonged to von Falkenhausen's army detachment. Those in the Upper Vosges and the Sundgau belonged to the army detachment under von Gaede. Both consisted principally of Ersatz and Landwehr troops, von Gaede's strength being equivalent to five divisions.
From mid-Sept. onward the operations in the Vosges assumed the character of local and disconnected actions, always bloody and often prolonged. These actions may be dealt with here in succession, in each of the secondary theatres - the region of St. Die, the eastern slope of the High Vosges, and the Sundgau.
The Region of St. Die. - The Ormont ridge, on which the Germans halted after their retirement, was too close to St. Die to be left by the French forces in their hands, and on Sept. 17 the 152nd were ordered to drive them from it. The task was no easy one, and for three days the gallant regiment of Gerardmer vainly attempted to maintain their footing on the slopes, which were stubbornly defended and swept by machine-gun fire. On the 10th it delivered a new surprise attack without preliminary bombardment from W. to S. The hostile resistance was as stubborn as ever, but after immense exertions two companies gained a footing on the summit, and despite fierce hand-to-hand fighting and heavy counter-attacks, the mountain remained in French hands at the price of 600 dead.
At the end of Oct. serious fighting took place around the Ste. Marie-aux-Mines pass for the possession of the Tete-de-Violu, commanding the pass to the west. After a series of actions, lasting from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12, the French Alpine troops held the hill, the pass itself remaining in the hands of von Gaede's Landwehr men.
On Dec. 2 Alpine troops stormed the Tete-de-Faux facing the Bonhomme pass on the Alsatian slope, thus securing the pass. On Christmas eve violent hostile attacks, intended to dislodge them, were repulsed by the bayonet and destroyed by the French artillery, and the enemy retired leaving over 500 dead.
The early months of 1915 were passed by both sides in entrenching themselves, but in April violent combats broke out for the possession of the promontory of the Ban-de-Sapt, N. of St. Die, between Saales and Moyen Mautiers; the trenches were so close together and so strong that both sides had recourse to underground warfare. German and French mines and countermines were exploded one after the other, destroying the defences, and blowing great craters, the possession of which was hotly contested, with bomb and bayonet. After some months of this the French at the end of July had definitely secured possession of the Ban-de-Sapt by their occupation of hill 627, dominating the promontory and the hamlet of Launois in advance of it.
From now onward the positions on both sides were stabilized, and remained so for three years, during which trench mortars and machine-guns were daily in action, and frequent patrol encounters took place, without the fighting ever becoming as intense as during the first year of the war.
In Nov. 1917 the French were relieved by the Americans in the St. Die sector, where the division under Menohery completed its training and underwent its baptism of fire.
The Eastern Slope of the High Vosges
On the eastern slope of the High Vosges, between the Schlucht and Cernay, position warfare began in Sept. 1914. Trench systems were gradually dug and often hewn out of the rock. On the crests they were in places so near as to touch each other, and bristled with accessory defences. Elsewhere they were farther apart, separated by valleys and deep ravines. The German positions facing W. were close up against the mountains, but the Alsatian plain behind them facilitated the supply of materials, artillery and reinforcements, and by affording convenient billets rendered easier the task of the command. The French had the advantage of the ground, but there was no inter-communication between the valleys, the heads of which they occupied. The roads leading to the rear were poor, and the supply of ammunition and material of all kinds was proportionately difficult. Bivouacking on the crest was uncomfortable and even impossible in cold weather, while the exercise of command was much impeded by the poverty of communications.
The fighting in this region was necessarily of a local character, and exercised no influence on the general course of the operations; but owing to the stubbornness of the two adversaries its intensity was often such as to involve losses quite disproportionate with any possible results. On the French side the army detachment of the Vosges, under Gen. de Maud ' Huy, thus became the VII. Army, which included practically all the available Chasseurs Italiens, while on the German side von Gaede's detachment also increased to the size of an army, in which some of the best troops of the German Empire often fought.
These local combats attained their greatest intensity during 1915, and the names of the sectors in which they took place, such as the Fecht and Linge valleys, and Hartmannswillerkopf, appeared in the communiques for several months.
A severe winter, to which the troops were not yet inured, had for a time suspended operations, but at the end of Feb. 1915 the Germans became active in the Fecht valley, and after several vain attempts to push their line forward in front of Munster they occupied the Reichackerkopf on March 21. On April 17 the French retaliated by occupying the Schnepfenrieth, and a few days later the Sillackerkopf; once in possession of these two heights they drove the Germans from Steinbruck on the Fecht and advanced to the outskirts of Metzeral. During the whole of May fighting went on on both banks of the Fecht, and the French succeeded, after great efforts, in getting up sufficient artillery to render the valley untenable as far as Munster. They then between June 19 and 23 captured Metzeral and Sondernach, and picked up over 700 prisoners in the bottom of the valley. During the course of the following weeks the Germans made several attempts to recapture these villages, but without success, and eventually they turned their attention to the Linge ridge further to the north, activity in the Fecht being henceforward confined to artillery and patrols.
The Linge is a spur, some 3,000 ft. high, situated in front of the main ridge between the Weiss and Fecht valleys. The Germans had occupied it in Sept. 1914, and had constructed a maze of trenches with a thick belt of barbed wire and flanked by redoubts of machine-guns. Owing to the fact that the Linge hindered inter-communication between the upper Weiss and upper Fecht, the French decided in July 1915 to occupy it. The operation was an extremely difficult one, for it was necessary for them to come down from the heights, pass through a marshy valley, and scale steep rock-strewn slopes under hostile machinegun fire; moreover the troops and supplies necessary for the operations had to be brought up from the rear by inferior mule tracks. After ten hours' intense bombardment, the assault was delivered on July 20 1915, and the struggle swayed to and fro uninterruptedly until the end of August. On this small peak there fell more than 50,000 shells; 7 German brigades came into action one after the other against 16 French Chasseurs battalions anal 2 infantry regiments, and at the end of severe and costly fighting both sides remained face to face on the crest in trenches which were held unchanged until the end of the war.
The Hartmannswillerkopf, or, as the French soldiers soon began to call it, the " Vieil Armand," is a spur 95 metres high, thrown out to the N. of Cernay into the Alsatian plain by the Molkenrain (1,125 metres), itself an offshoot from the Ballon de Guebwiller (1,425 metres), the highest peak in the Vosges. This spur, with its steep slopes, commands the village from which it takes its name, at a distance of some 700 yards. Its sole advantage from the military point of view lies in the fact that it affords good observation over the Alsatian plain, from Isenheim to Mulhouse. The French therefore had advanced their outpost line up the Thann valley by Willer and Goldbach to the summit of the spur. Its possession by the French naturally annoyed the Germans, and on one wintry day in Jan. 1915 they surprised and captured the French post on the summit, and installed themselves there. In a short time they succeeded in transforming the position into a practically impregnable fortress. Trenches and belts of wire were constructed on all the crests, dug-outs were tunnelled out on the steep eastern slopes, a road was constructed to the summit, and aerial cable set up for the transport of supplies, and concrete shelters for troops and munitions erected, while subterranean passages gave access to all the advanced posts.
The loss of the Hartmannswillerkopf caused no apprehension to the French, who still remained in possession of the Grand Ballon and of the Molkenrain, nor could it even be said to cause them any real inconvenience, as they had no intention of taking the offensive in Alsace. Unfortunately pride spoke louder than reason, and a series of useless struggles, which the higher command did not intervene to stop, were undertaken to recover the lost position. The fighting went on for months under very difficult conditions for the French. On the slopes facing Goldbach the heroism and self-sacrifice of the French troops in their hastily dug trenches were unevenly matched against the facilities for defence and attack which had been accumulated by the patient labour of their enemies. Attack and counter-attack alternated during the whole of 1915, and French and Germans alike suffered fearful losses.
Of all these fruitless combats of 1915 the most characteristic were perhaps those which took place at the very end of the year. The 7th, 13th, 27th, and 53rd battalions of Chasseurs and the 152nd Infantry Regt. on the French side were engaged against the German 12th Landwehr Div., the 187th Ersatz brigade and parts of the 19th Reserve Division. On the cold winter morning of Dec. 21 the 152nd dashed forward under a crushing fire from trench mortars and machine-guns. Its waves advanced, broke, reformed, and advanced again, destroying with bombs every obstacle in their path; decimated but triumphant they reached the summit and even passed beyond it in their rush, chasing the routed enemy down the further slopes. At the end of the day the exhausted victors, who had made more than 1,50o prisoners, halted and passed the night where they were, without even being able to reform. The Germans meanwhile were concentrating a powerful artillery and massing their reserves to recover the lost ground. The German counter-attack took place on the morning of the 22nd. The French 152nd, extended in one long, thin line which was outflanked and broken through by the enemy, was exposed on the steep slopes to a hostile bombardment to which their own guns could not reply; it struggled desperately all the morning, although the men, exhausted by the previous day's fighting, had to make head against the onset of fresh hostile troops thrown in in whole battalions. After eight hours' fighting the heroic regiment was surrounded in the depths of the ravines, and amid the tangle of rocks was entirely overwhelmed. Fortyeight officers and 1,950 men were killed or taken; the rest cut their way out at the point of the bayonet, and rejoined the reinforcements which, though too late to succour their comrades, still held the summit of the " Vieil Armand." The Chasseurs hung on to the crest, and the fierce struggle continued for several more days until the Germans outflanked their position on the north and forced them to retire to their original lines.
A protest was made by the French Parliament against these useless sacrifices of Dec. 1915, and the Minister of War intervened to forbid all local actions not demanded by strategic considerations, and serving no purpose but to increase casualties. This put an end to the fighting which had made the name of the Hartmannswillerkopf famous throughout the world, and from now until the end of the war the two adversaries remained facing each other on the crest, and no further action took place save harmless exchanges of rifle fire. The actions of the Linge and the Hartmannswillerkopf had in this one year of 1915 cost thousands of human lives. Nowhere on the front had there been displayed more courage, more tenacity, more self-sacrifice, but the results had been absolutely nil. From mid-Sept. 1914 onward neither of the two adversaries was in a position to manoeuvre offensively in the High Vosges. The strategic defensive was here imposed on both alike by the course of the campaign, and by the local conditions. In the circumstances the task of the commanders was simply to observe the enemy, to strengthen their own positions, and to remain prudently alert without undertaking any local offensives which could only be foredoomed to failure.
The Germans, who disposed of ample resources and good communications in the Rhine valley, should have been content to hold the mouths of the Vosges valleys in strength, while keeping their reserves billeted in the Alsatian plain ready to manoeuvre if necessary against any isolated columns which attempted to be debouched from the mountains. The French on their part had an excellent opportunity of applying to the existing situation on the Vosges crest the defensive principles adopted so successfully by Marshal Berwick in the Alps in 1709. A system of solid defences at the heads of the valleys, covered by small advanced posts and supported in rear by well sheltered reserves which could be rapidly moved to any threatened point, would have needed for its successful application a good road running N. and S. on the western slopes of the mountains and connecting up the roads to the various passes. Unfortunately no such lateral road existed, so that the Fecht and Thur valleys were absolutely isolated from each other. This fact explains, though it does not excuse, these attacks on the Linge and the Vieil Armand, which eventually assumed proportions far greater than had been originally intended.
In this respect however the situation began to improve after the spring of 1915. The Governor of Belfort then took in hand the construction of the good and well-concealed road between Massevaux and Willer, connecting the Doller and Thur Valleys. Later the commander of the VII. Army constructed another from the Thur valley road at Kruth along the heights, below the crest which passed behind the Schlucht and extended as far as the Luchpach pass. This new road, together with a few cross tracks, supplied the long-felt need of a lateral line of communication between Massevaux and the Bonhomme pass. It thus became possible to construct strong defensive systems on the heights, and to erect quarters for the reserves and supply parks served by aerial cables further back. A narrow-gauge railway was made from Bursang to Wesserling, so that by 1916 the VII. Army in the Upper Vosges was sufficiently well equipped to be able to fulfil its role with complete security. The Germans, on their side, refrained henceforward from partial attacks which could lead to no useful result. The sector thus became one of the quietest on the western front, and up to the end of the war no further fighting took place apart from artillery activity and patrol encounters. Morton's American division came into line here for the first time in 1918, prior to taking part in the decisive battles in that year on the Meuse.
Operations in the Sundgau in front of Belfort
The headquarters of the 57th Div. had been transferred to Dannemarie on Sept. 18 1914. When this transfer had been completed, the offensive reconnaissances of the Belfort garrison were pursued with renewed vigour; they were even pushed as far as Altkirch and Waldighoffen, and their advance facilitated the occupation by outposts of the passages of the Largue between St. Ulrich and Seppois and the garrisoning of Pfetterhouse by custom-house officers from Chavannate. Toward the end of Sept. the organization of the Belfort garrison was unexpectedly changed by the departure of the active brigade which the Governor was ordered to despatch to. the Meuse within 24 hours, and by the demands on its magazines made by the generalissimo in order to increase the reserves of the armies in the field. Batteries of 155 mm. short guns were formed from the artillery in the fortress; the stocks of 75 mm. ammunition were almost entirely depleted, and the loss of the active troops was not completely compensated for by the insufficiently trained territorial battalions which took their place, though the numbers in either case were about equal. As against this the Germans in the Sundgau were receiving important reinforcements; and the French reconnaissances, in the course of their daily encounters, met with an ever-increasing resistance. In view of these circumstances the Governor of Belfort made a careful calculation of his forces, and toward the end of Oct. proceeded to redistribute the troops which he considered could be allotted to the defence of the forward positions, leaving in the fortress only the minimum consistent with safety.
According to these arrangements the 57th Div. remained between Guvenhatten and Strueth as the centre, and, so to speak, the spinal cord of the new disposition. A northern group, equivalent in strength to a mixed brigade, held the interval between Guvenhatten and the Doller on its left, while a similar group was established on its right to occupy the front from Strueth to Pfetterhouse. The infantry of these two groups consisted only of territorial battalions, and the artillery of a few 75 mm. guns borrowed from the 57th Div., and some 90 mm. batteries formed from the reserve artillery of the fortress. All units were ordered to fortify their positions and to cover their fronts by means of heavy and medium calibre batteries borrowed from Belfort.
Two divisions of French reservists and territorials were thus in close contact with the enemy on a front of 20 m. - a line which would have been far too thin but for the fact that its flanks rested on the frontier and on the mountains, and its rear on Belfort. But the main strength of the dispositions lay in the fact that Belfort remained, for all the troops drawn from the garrison and operating in front of the forts, a centre of command which unified all their efforts, and a point of support which could sustain or receive them in case of need.
The new distribution of the French forces in the Sundgau marked the opening of a period of activity which was employed in consolidating the ground held, in rectifying the line, and carrying out small and methodical advances as far as the increasing hostile resistance permitted, until the limit of expansion permissible and the limited forces available was reached. The northern group first strengthened its position at Thann, establishing its heavy artillery on the heights of Roderen, and then established itself solidly on the left bank of the Soultzbach. It then swiftly assumed the offensive on Nov. 7; by the 10th it had pushed forward beyond Michelbach and thus rendered it impossible for the enemy to pursue his attacks against Thann, which was now in a pronounced re-entrant and could henceforward only be bombarded. On Dec. 2 Aspach-le-Haut fell to the combined efforts of the troops from Thann and those from Belfort, but the northern group was held up before Aspach-le-Bas and the Kalberg, which the Germans had converted into a regular fortress. It therefore turned its attention to the right bank of the Doller, occupied Pont d'Aspach station, penetrated on two separate occasions into Burnhaupt-le-Haut, but without being able to remain there, and finally established its right early in Jan. 1915 at the S.E. angle of Langelittenhag wood.
Meanwhile, in a series of successful operations, the 57th Div. had occupied Hecken, Falkwiller, Gildwiller, and penetrated into Buchwald and Keibacker woods. The advance of the northern group to Langelittenhag secured the division's left, and shortly after its front was firmly established on the eastern edge of the forest between the Soultzbach and the Spechbach. Beyond this forest lay the village of Ammertzwiller, which was strongly fortified and held; an attempt to storm it on Jan. 25 1915 failed owing to want of effective artillery support and lack of munitions, and was not repeated, and in front of Dannemarie, the villages of Balschwiller, Ueberkummen and Eglingen were taken and the 57 th Div.'s front was pushed forward to the far bank of the Rhine - Rhone canal.
On the right of the 57th Div. the southern group, which was at first almost completely isolated, also set to work to gain ground by small partial offensives; the infantry advanced by slow degrees, consolidating the ground gained at each stage, and thus gradually succeeded in settling and straightening the general line of the front. On the extreme right it was pushed forward to the middle trench of the Largue, below Largin mill. At the same time the position of Pfetterhouse was put in a state of defence, and a 155 mm. battery was placed in position on the slopes S. of the village for counter-battery work against the hostile artillery near Mornach. In front of Seppois the occupation of the Largue valley was completed by the capture of the Entre-Largues salient, which encroached on the heights of Bisel, and further to the N. the southern group's outposts occupied a line in front of and more or less parallel to the Seppois-le-Bas - Largitzen road.
North of Largitzen the line of advanced posts was at first drawn in rear of a group of lakes in the middle of Hirtzbach wood. Later, when the southern group was reinforced, infiltration northward became possible, and the front was pushed forward to the eastern edges of the communal forests facing Carspach and Hirtzbach. Then on Jan. 25 1915, while the 57th Div. attacked Ammertzwiller, the southern group cooperated by advancing S. of the canal, the hostile positions were overrun and our troops crossed the Aspach road, but the check to the 57th Div. leaving them in a salient, they had to be withdrawn, having effected only a small permanent advance in Carspach wood. The action of Jan. 25 1915 was the last effort made to carry out an advance in the Sundgau. The outpost line of the Belfort garrison had then been advanced to a front from N. to S. along the edge of the Brickerwald in front of Michelbach, thence by Pont d'Aspach station, the S.E. corner of the Langelittenhag, the eastern edges of the Buchwald and of Gildwiller wood, Eglingen, the salients of Carspach wood and the communal forests, the crest of the slopes between Seppois and Bisel, the Entre-Largues and Largin mill. To the N. this outpost line joined with that in the Petit Doller, in front of Thann; to the S. it rested on a tongue of Swiss territory known as the Bec-du-Canard, between the Banholtz and Courtavon wood.
The Belfort garrison had employed the offensive-defensive method to the utmost possible limits in carrying on operations for five months, despite the constant depletion of its forces and munitions by the High Command, and in establishing itself firmly between the Petit Doller and the upper Largue; its resources in men, artillery and ammunition were too small to allow of more being done. The objects laid down by the governor in the dark hour at the end of 1914 had, moreover, been practically achieved. The fortress had been made strong enough to inspire a salutary fear in the Germans; the gap was barred and the barrier had been pushed far enough forward to secure Belfort against possible bombardment, save from the ineffective bombs of raiding hostile aircraft. Finally the Belfort troops had set foot as conquerors on the soil of Alsace - that soil whose inhabitants had twice been rendered desperate by the French retirements; they had re-established the prestige of their country at little cost in blood, and had had the honour of restoring to France a portion of her beloved lost provinces.
From Jan. 1915 onwards, only patrol actions, exchanges of rifle fire and intermittent bombardments either of the trench lines or of the billets and communications in rear, disturbed the calm of the upper Alsatian front. Belfort was shelled from long range but remained inviolate. The front itself underwent no change, and in the hour of victory in Nov. 1918 it was still as the garrison of Belfort had made it at the end of 1914, close on four years before. For all that time the pivot on which rested the right flank of the Allied armies had remained firm, and these armies had been able to carry on their operations with no fear for their communications, while the centre of France, secured against attack, had been able to turn all its resources towards winning the war. (F. T.)
These files are public domain.
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Vosges Front'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/v/vosges-front.html. 1910.
