Colour Photo's of the Battlefields of the Vosges nowadays.

[Pierre Grande Guerre]

Dear Pickelhaube Friends,

Some few months ago I finished my chapter of Photo Impressions about the battlefields of the Vosges in Alsace, France.
My aim is to visit once all parts of the Western Front, and I might add, my wife and I did visit these last years already the whole length of the front.
For me the most interesting part of the 750 km. long Western Front is the most forgotten part, the Ridges of the Vosges. This rather long sector of about 300 km. has been almost forgotten for, I think, two reasons; after January 1916 there were no more great battles, though the fighting continued, and there were no British troops deployed in this sector.
But the territory of Alsace Lorraine was one of the main bones of contention and one of the main causes of the Great War: the French were very eager to re-conquer the lost territories of the Franco-Prussian War.
My personal interest lies also in the beautiful landscape of the Vosges with it’s wide panorama views and the traces, the Germans left on nowadays French territory.

Therefore I like to ask your attention to visit once my Photo Impressions about the Alsace Sundgau and Alsace Vosges battlefields. Here is a list of the pages of these battlefields:

ALSACE SUNDGAU (Swiss Border)
Zillisheim - Illfurth - Largitzen - Pfetterhouse

ALSACE VOSGES
Col du Bonhomme - Col de Mandray
Tête de Faux - Buchenkopf
Le Linge - Col du Wettstein - Schratzmännele
Lingekopf
Hohrodberg - Giragoutte - Trois Epis
Munster Valley - Petit Ballon
Route des Crêtes
Hartmannswillerkopf part 1 French line
Hartmannswillerkopf part 2 German line
Hartmannswillerkopf part 3 French line

Northern Vosges
Tête du Violu - Bernhardstein
Haute de Faite - Chaume de Lusse
Ban de Sapt - La Fontenelle
Senones - la Roche Mère Henry
Col de la Chipotte - Chapelotte - Donon

You will find hundreds of pictures of the battlefields of nowadays, period pictures, and in frames concise historical information about these locations. You will find photo's of bunkers, trenches, and war cemeteries. I translated the French and German inscriptions in English for better understanding.
You can start the virtual trip at Alsace Sundgau-Zillisheim or at Alsace Vosges-Col du Bonhomme. Below each page you will find my avatar and a link to guide you to the next chapter about the Vosges battlefields.
I hope this year to visit again the Vosges, and to expand later this chapter about the Vosges battlefields. I did still not cover yet all possible sites.

I hope, that you will enjoy these pages about Alsace as much, as you do enjoy my Photo Impressions about other more known battlefields along the Western Front.

Thank you for visiting my website now and later!

Pierre

Photo: German bunker at the foot of the Roche Mère Henry, Senones, France.

 

[ebeeby]

Pierre - As always, a fascinating labor of love - thanks for sharing it with us.

Best regards,
Eric

 

[Pierre Grande Guerre]

Eric, you are welcome. Thank you for your kind words of appreciation!

Pierre

 

[Pierre Grande Guerre]

I improved and extended two photo impressions. One photo page about the Col du Bonhomme has been extended with two period army maps and three 2010 views from quite another perspective of the French observation post of the Roche du Coq de Bruyère. For some of my fellow front-travelers to the Vosges these few, new photos, taken from the Col des Bagenelles, might be of interest.

The other photo impression about the Alsace-Sundgau, the ultimate, southern end of the Western Front, has been extended with in total 55 maps and 2010 photos extra! I edited new extensions about the German front lines: a second bunker in the neighborhood of the Bismarck bunker, next the 1918 Tagsdorf bunker, and the Mooslargue wartime cemetery.

On the French side of the Alsace-Sundgau front line we visited three important sites related to Caporal Peugeot, the opponent of Leutnant Mayer; his Etupes grave, his Joncherey memorial, and the site of action of the first deadly fight of 2 August 1914, before the war was even declared.
Passing the French Villa Agathe bunker near Pfetterhouse, we visited, what I consider the proper ultimate, southern end of the Western Front: the yellow painted bridge over the Largue river. On the east bank of the Largue we return to the German lines and the last German bunkers of the Western Front along the Franco-Swiss border.

If you are already familiar with the 2009 version of this photo impression, you sometimes may have to scroll down for a while for the next extension.

Do enjoy “Alsace Sundgau”, please. Click after reading at the end of this page on the link to the Col du Bonhomme to read further.

 

[joerookery]

Pierre,

I copied this picture from your website. Extremely interesting as I have looked into this–there are two pictures in your impression that show French infantry charges. Do you know more about the pictures? They must have been staged??? I am just trying to match these massed columns with the doctrine. Were these photographs taken prewar or some sort of demonstration?

No bayonets, no one is shooting at them. What are they trying to portray?

 

[Pierre Grande Guerre]

Both Pictures are really made in the Vosges at the beginning of the war in 1914, Joe, but for propaganda reasons.
On the fiirst you see an excersise of a charge attack, photographed from the side of the would be enemy.
The second one is a period postcard, and it is an arranged scene.
So the time and the location are both ok, but these two pictures of charching French soldiers ( Attaguez a l'outrance!) represent not real fighting scenes. Joe, I hope you don’t mind, that I use these photos just to spice up my historical explanations?

 

[joerookery]

I think the photos are very useful to the presentation! My problem comes from the book by Terence Zuber. There is a very ingrained opinion that these represented true French tactics–it just is not holding up to my research but certainly in English somebody took these tactics very literally.

 

[Pierre Grande Guerre]

Joe, I am not an expert on tactics. The first mentioned photo has been taken on the National festive day of 14 July 1914.
This kind of charges were developed by General Grandmaison. But already at the Battle of Mulhouse (7-10 August 1914) the French troops experienced the dangerous disadvantages of this kind of charges. Later, but still early in the war, they would introduce less dangerous tactics. It looks all very brave, but in fact it was also a very stupid tactic. Another sample of these “heroic” charges on a period Vosges post card:

Pierre.

 

[joerookery]

Those all are some great postcards! quite the propaganda! Between staged photographs and artists it keeps me looking and guessing. Thank goodness I'm still young.

 

[joerookery]

On the French side of the Alsace-Sundgau front line we visited three important sites related to Caporal Peugeot, the opponent of Leutnant Mayer; his Etupes grave, his Joncherey memorial, and the site of action of the first deadly fight of 2 August 1914, before the war was even declared.

http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-people/remember-on-this-day/1389-2-august-1914-cpl-jules-andre-peugeot-and-lt-albert-mayer-.html

 

[Pierre Grande Guerre]

On the French side of the Alsace-Sundgau front line we visited three important sites related to Caporal Peugeot, the opponent of Leutnant Mayer; his Etupes grave, his Joncherey memorial, and the site of action of the first deadly fight of 2 August 1914, before the war was even declared.

http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-people/remember-on-this-day/1389-2-august-1914-cpl-jules-andre-peugeot-and-lt-albert-mayer-.html

Joe, thank you, the concise US WFA-article confirms completely my on the web page described reconstruction of this incident.

Again about remarkable French tactics. A real (and rare) fighting scène after the introduction of the Adrian M15 helmet; changed and rather desperate battle tactics, somewhere in the Vosges. Soldiers are even throwing rocks down the slopes.

 

[Opas Enkel]

Those all are some great postcards! quite the propaganda! Between staged photographs and artists it keeps me looking and guessing. Thank goodness I'm still young.

No way!!!!!

Im actually reading the book "Beste Gelegenheit zum Sterben" by Dominik Richert (anyone knows??). He was a german soldier from Alsace, who fought in Alsace and nearby during the first weeks of the war, before he was commanded to the eastern front! He describes THAT scene!! The cross blown away and the arms of the figure still stretched up to the sky...

 

[Robert]

I wonder how many really authentic battle scenes there are. The only confirmed picture I know of is that very common scene from the third battle of Ypres which is copied almost in every book. Note that the photographer actually looks sideways along the remains of the trench, which makes a lot of sense in this situation. Probably he was behind an obstacle.

 

[joerookery]

He describes THAT scene!!

I do not have the book you are reading–but while I have heard of the scene, it is the artist's rendition of the masses of soldiers bunched together that caught my eye. Pretty obvious that Robert's picture is the real thing just based on body language. I think an expanded question along the line of Roberts–how many pictures of 1914 are correctly attributed?? At least to me this is a very interesting topic in a time where cameras were not as common and artists drew many scenes. Pierre has sent out this BBC series which has amazing movies in it. While I have not seen many of them previously, you can trace many historical misconceptions directly to this series. This has been really worth my time!–similar to the website–thank you Pierre.

 

[Pierre Grande Guerre]

(Feste Kaiser Wilhelm II, Mutzig, France)

New Category: “Alsace - Northern Vosges”.
As a consequence of the recent and the future extensions of the Alsace pages I preferred to reorganise the routing on my website slightly. I made these changes for your convenience and for my convenience, hoping that navigation in the increasing amount of Alsace pages will be easier. Next to the already existing categories ( “Rubrieken”), “Alsace-Sundgau” and “Alsace Vosges”, I added a third category, “Alsace - Northern Vosges”. In the left column of the website I shortened it into “ALSACE VOSGES NORTH”.

Routing Alsace Vosges Pages Changed.
The routing of the Northern Vosges pages is also slightly changed. From the Col du Bonhomme the photo pages no follow the front line to the north, starting at Ste. Marie-aux-Mines. The following order of the links and chapters is now: Tête du Violu - Bernhardstein, Haute de Faîte-Hochfirst, Ban de Sapt - La Fontenelle, Senones - la Roche Mère Henry, the Col de la Chipotte - de la Chapelotte, Avricourt - Leintrey - Reillon - Domèvre - Montreux – Parux to finish with a special impression about the German fortress, Feste Kaiser Wilhelm II at Mutzig.

About these new 2010 pages and updates.
I thoroughly re-edited and substantially enlarged the already existing photo page about the southern side of the Col de Ste. Marie, about the Tête du Violu-Bernhardstein, with a report of another hike, we recently made along the German lines in June 2010. Click HERE.

During the same week we also walked on the northern side of the Col de Ste. Marie, along the lines of the northern part of the “Leber” sector on the Haute de Faîte, or the Hochfirst, a southern sub-summit of the Chaume de Lusse. Of course this walk generated some more interesting footage for a new Photo Impression. Click HERE.

I extended my already existing photo impression about “Col de la Chipotte- C. de la Chapelotte - C. Du Donon” with 24 new photo’s of 2010 of amongst others Pierre Percée and Allarmont and some period images and period maps. Click HERE .

Next; though we will depart from Badonviller in the Northern Vosges, we will make a jump northward to the east of Lunéville and Manonviller. We start at Avricourt on the border of Alsace and Lorraine. From the Avricourt Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof we will tip-toe into Lorraine. We will explore the southern Lorraine battlefields; the mine craters of Leintrey, the Franco-German war cemetery and Côte 303 at Reillon, and German bunkers near Gondrexon, Montreux, and Parux. Besides period maps and period photo’s you will also find on this new page a concise biography about the French observer and aviator, Nissim de Camondo. Click HERE .

Our route in the Northern Vosges continues northward with a completely new Special Photo Impression, continuing We finished with our last visit into Lorraine in Badonviller in the Northern Vosges. From Badonviller we continue north-eastward for a visit to an extraordinarily well restored sample of German fortifications: the Feste Kaiser Wilhelm II, or Fort de Mutzig. The Feste is lying on a 330 m. height above the town of Mutzig, some 8 km. away from the 1871-1918 Franco-German Border, overseeing the Valley of the Bruche.
I consider our short, 2,5 hours visit to the Feste as one of the highlights of this year of our adventures in the Vosges. Of course I do hope that my photo report of this visit reflects successfully my amazement for this remarkable piece of 19th century German fortification architecture. Click
HERE .

As always; be welcome to visit these photo impressions. Thank you in advance for visiting my website again.
Pierre

(The control panel of the power station in the Feste Kaiser Wilhelm II.)

 

[Pierre Grande Guerre]

Dear Pickelhaube Friends,

After finishing my chapters about the Northern Vosges, I continued with my chapter of Photo Impressions of the battlefields of the Central Vosges. Though I have to release still one photo impression about the French Military Cemetery at Moosch, all other Central Vosges pages are finished, at least for this season. Many of these photo reports are about Germans units serving in the Vosges.

Some already existing photo reports have been extended with new photo footage of extra locations. The last months I also added some NEW photo impressions.
The route starts at the Col du Bonhomme and it is following via 12 photo impressions the front southward to the Hirzstein, some 750 m. south of the Hartmannswillerkopf.

In the list below I marked altered and new photo impressions. Photo impressions concerning the German Units are marked with a D.

Col du Bonhomme Col de Mandray ; extended
Tête de Faux – Buchenkopf D
Col du Wettstein - Schratzmännele D
Lingekopf - le Linge ; re-edited D
Kleinkopf – Barrenkopf ; NEW D
Hohrodberg-Giragoutte-Trois Epis D ; extended
Reichackerkopf D ; NEW
Munster Valley - Petit Ballon D ; extended
Le Tanet - Bichtstein - Villa Sidi-Brahim ; NEW
Route des Crêtes - Sudelkopf
Hartmannswillerkopf - Vieil Armand D; re-edited
Guebwiller - Rimbach – Hirzstein D; NEW
Moosch French Military Cemetery ; to be expected in April 2011.

Warning: these photo impressions contain more than 125 pictures each and sometimes more than 3500 words. It is hardly possible to visit all pages in one visit. Please, bookmark my website, and return another time for another visit to continue.

As always in Phierre’s Photo Impressions, all pages contain maps, satellite views, period pictures, and of course my own contemporary photo’s of the battlefields.

Thanks in advance for visiting my website!

Pierre

 

[joerookery]

Warning: these photo impressions contain more than 125 pictures each and sometimes more than 3500 words.

Warning: these are fascinating and can take up much of your day.

 

[Pierre Grande Guerre]

Warning: these photo impressions contain more than 125 pictures each and sometimes more than 3500 words.

Warning: these are fascinating and can take up much of your day.

Thanks, Joe! So, now you all are warned twice!

 

[Pierre Grande Guerre]

Those all are some great postcards! quite the propaganda! Between staged photographs and artists it keeps me looking and guessing. Thank goodness I'm still young.

It took me some time to fish it from my digital collection, Joe, but this is a photo of the "miracle of Saarburg". It may have been photo-shopped in a dark room, or is the lack of the wooden cross pure coincidence?

 

[RON]

Speaking of the Miracle of Saarburg, I just bought a similar card on eBay... Needless to say I was pretty excited when I stumbled upon it and remembered this wonderful thread: