Alsace-Lorraine was lost to the French after the Franco-Prussian War, and for over four
decades, many French dreamed of taking it back.
As The World War began, they got their chance to try and do so.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War Special Episode about the fighting for Alsace-Lorraine
during the First World War.
The battle for Alsace Lorraine is often overshadowed by the larger battles further north at Verdun
or Ypres, but on the most southern edge of the Western Front, close to the Swiss border,
the fighting was as fierce and unforgiving as anywhere else during the war.
As we saw four years ago, Germany began the war in the west by executing the Schlieffen
Plan, which was sort of a pinwheel through Belgium into France with an anchor at the
French-German border.
In order for the motion of the German armies through Belgium to be effective though, the
French army would have to be drawn in to the anchor, Alsace-Lorraine, which they knew was
of tremendous value to the French.
Despite the warnings of his generals, French Chief of Staff Joseph Joffre was unable to
withstand the opportunity to retake that land, and his two pronged attack went into action
August 6, 1914 as the French armies crossed the border near Belfort.
They were initially successful, but the reports of the speed of the German advance through
Belgium stopped them in their tracks, because they had to immediately send over reinforcements.
But would the Germans in Alsace-Lorraine continue a fighting retreat?
Or would they offer resistance?
On August 13th, Generaloberst von Heeringen gave the order to establish a defensive line,
the Germans dug in, and as the French renewed their assault, they were repulsed by entrenched
German forces.
Thing is, the fight for Alsace-Lorraine was from the start a battle for prestige and its
value for morale was higher than its strategic value.
Neither side could withdraw without losing face, and the war in the valleys of the Vosges,
on this southernmost part of the Western Front, stalled as breakthrough became impossible.
Both sides then looked to the mountain slopes.
Around December 1914, the first scouts began climbing them.
French High Command believed that the heights of Cote 956, the Hartmannswillerkopf, could
give them the advantage.
From up there, they could direct the French artillery onto the German supply lines below.
Soon, enemy soldiers stumbled upon each other and shots were fired at over 900m altitude.
And those first soldiers that bled out in the snow were just omens for what would become
the “anneé terrible”, the terrible year, of 1915.
The French sent in three regiments of the elite chasseurs d’alpine.
These mountain troops were used to the cold and the climbing.
They excelled in skiing and light infantry tactics.
Because of their dark blue jackets and grey-blue trousers, they were known as the Blue Devils,
and their iconic beret bore the insignia of a yellow hunting horn.
They easily defeated the first German counterattack., but digging trenches in the hard mountain
rock was difficult, so they built a small rock fort and awaited reinforcements.
And let’s be clear, the nature of mountain warfare in general means small groups can
hold off much larger forces by position alone.
However, through immense effort, the Germans managed to drag a minenwerfer up the steep
slopes, and the firepower of that single German mortar decided the first battle for the mountain
top as the little fort was destroyed and the French chasseurs remaining were forced to
surrender.
Even though French command had failed to relieve its men, the French propaganda machine kicked
into high gear.
The chasseurs defeat was portrayed as a heroic last stand, like the Spartans at Thermopylae,
and only hunger had forced their surrender.
From then on, it was all about avenging their defeat.
The French gathered their artillery.
They spent the spring of 1915 blasting both the mountaintop and its western face apart.
The thickly forested mountain became a moonscape.
So the Germans withdrew to their side of it and underground, trenches and dugouts were
blasted into the rock, and pioneers built concrete bunkers.
The mountaintop became a no-mans land, with trenches sometimes as close as 10m to each
other.
Barrage after barrage fell and the opposing infantry clashed again and again.
Hartmannswillerkopf would become known as “Little Verdun” for the huge amount of
casualties for such a small area of ground.
Just the French summer offensive from July 20th to August 25th caused 10,000 casualties
for the taking of few patches of ground here and there.
Thing is, though the Germans were well dug-in, there weren’t very many of them at all,
but French High Command only half-heartedly committed reserves, so no French successes
could really be exploited.
The nature of the fighting on these hilltops and mountaintops was well-described by Capitain
Ferdinand Belmont, whose patriotic writing earned him fame as “The Crusader of France”.
“Henceforth all these names will evoke repeated engagements, bloody alterations of advance
and retreat; and it seems sad and curious that, on both sides, such sacrifices should
be made for the possession of a few hundred yards- or even less- of territory.”
The nature of the environment was also good for something else, experimentation.
General Hans Gaede issued his first Gaede helmets there, which were designed to prevent
injuries from rock splinters.
The Prussian Captain Rohr tried out new small group techniques with flamethrowers, and the
close quarter fighting was proving grounds for his ideas for stormtroops.
The French were concentrating more and more artillery for a final attack to take the Hartmannswillerkopf
once and for all.
By the end of 1915, they had over 250 artillery pieces there, including two super heavy 370mm
Filloux mortars, and they were pounding the mountain daily, with a new level of intensity.
On Christmas Day, the French infantry, led by the 152nd regiment- the Red Devils- stormed
up the hill, easily taking the first German positions, but after that being chewed up
by a few German machine guns bunkers at the top.
Still, the 152nd came on and soon, and for the first time since 1914, the French had
control of the whole mountain.
All they had to do was dig in and wait for fresh reserves to consolidate success.
But those reserves never came, and indeed were never available to begin with.
And Gaede gathered the Division Fuchs, proto-stormtroops, armed them with flamethrowers and bags of
hand grenades, and sent them by night in freezing temperatures up the mountain.
The Red Devils were annihilated in a last stand.
The fighting would go on for weeks after this, but by mid-January the Germans had retaken
most of their old positions.
It was a return to the status quo, for some 10,000 casualties, including Ferdinand Belmont.
From then until the armistice of 1918, the Vosges fell silent; both sides were exhausted.
Well, not entirely silent.
There was always sporadic fighting, with sharpshooters and small raiding parties, but the big battles
there were over.
The Americans entered the region in 1918, but didn’t try to take the mountaintops,
and by the armistice, the Germans were orderly vacating their positions, and thus, control
of Alsace-Lorraine.
With trumpets blaring and flags held high, the French marched through the cities of the
region, celebrating their victory over the occupiers, but they still stood in the shadows
of the mighty mountains, where 30,000 soldiers had met their fate.
Thank you Markus for the research for this episode.
If you want to learn more about fighting in another mountainous front, check our episode
we filmed at 10,000 feet in the Dolomites last year right here.
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See you next time.