In spite of their various acts of trespass on French territory before the declaration of war, the Germans at first showed little activity. Beyond the abortive attempt to recapture Montreux-Vieux, in the Belfort district, practically all they did was to shell and occupy Blamont, Cirey, Badonviller, and Baccarat, four small towns close to the frontier and almost midway between the Donon and Lunéville, on August 5th, 6th, and 8th, and to bombard Pont-à-Mousson, an unfortunate town on the Moselle fifteen miles below Nancy and the same distance above Metz, which since then has been shelled more than two hundred times, but, except for one short period, has always remained in the hands of the French.
Our Allies were much more energetic, and the advance in Lorraine, the Vosges, and Alsace was begun with wonderfully little delay. Of these three theatres of war in the east the third, the country between Strassburg and the Swiss frontier, cut off from the rest of Germany by the Rhine and the Black Forest, is strategically of great importance. Its western boundary, the chain of the Vosges, is the pivot of the long line of the French defence stretching from Dunkerque to Belfort, and on its stability depends the security of the whole of the rest of the front. In order to make that stability absolutely sure the French had to hold, besides the chain itself, at least a part of the plain of Alsace, including especially its natural bastion, the Sundgau.
ALSACE AND THE VOSGES.
(By kind permission of The Times.)
The Sundgau, which is the part of Alsace to the south of Cernay, is divided by the Rhone-Rhine canal into two regions, the physical aspects, geological structure, and tactical value of which are essentially different. The country to the south of the canal, known as the Alsatian Jura, is thickly studded with rounded mammelons, like a nest of giant molehills, intersected by a series of irrigation canals, some of which are two or three yards wide and useful as lines of defence. The country, as a rule, is thinly populated, there are few isolated houses, and the villages are some distance apart. It is watered by three rivers, the Thalbach, the Ill, which flows northward from the Swiss frontier past Altkirch, Mulhouse, Colmar, and Strassburg to the Rhine, and the Largue. On the right bank of the Ill there is a light railway, constructed shortly before the war, running from Ferette to Altkirch, and on the left bank of the Largue an ordinary-gauge line, running from Porrentruy, just across the Swiss frontier, to Dannemarie. There would be a formidable risk of a German flanking movement by this approach on the fort of Lomont, to the south of Belfort, if it were not for the careful watch kept by the Swiss army on their frontier. The general character of the country is suitable for guerilla warfare, but not for operations on an extended scale. It has two main defensive positions against a French attack based on Belfort along the line Petit-Croix, Dannemarie, Altkirch, at Altkirch itself, and at Britzy-Berg. The first of these consists of a series of heights on the south of the spur of the Schweighof (Hill 381), and on the north of a ridge running in the direction of Heidwiller and the junction of the Ill and the Largue. The value of this position is especially great on the south-west side where it commands the important point at which the lines of communication converging on Altkirch meet and the defile in which lie the railway, the river Ill, and the main roads from Mulhouse and Basle. The Britzy-Berg position, three or four miles further north, near Illfurth, commands the whole of the surrounding country to a considerable distance nearly as far as Mulhouse, and also sweeps with its fire all the roads that meet at Altkirch. Both these positions had been strongly fortified by the Germans.
The part of the Sundgau north of the Rhine-Rhone canal is quite different from the Alsatian Jura. It is a rolling tableland, with gentler slopes and wider valleys, and the crests of the rises less wooded than to the south of the canal. The open country is more thickly populated and better suited for the movements of large bodies of troops. The main road from Belfort to Cernay and thence to Colmar runs across the middle of it, and at right angles to the road, west of Mulhouse, runs the Doller, a quick-flowing tributary of the Ill. Between this river and the Rhine-Rhone canal there is a wide, moderately-wooded plateau, in which the chief military position is at Galfingen, commanding the approach to Aspach, Mulhouse, and Altkirch on the Colmar road, to the south of the bridge of Aspach, where on some heights round the twin villages of Burnhaupt, the Germans had prepared a strong position overlooking the wide bare plain called the Ochsenfeld, between them and Cernay. East of the Ochsenfeld they had a second line of defence in the valley of the Thur (another tributary of the Ill, rising in the Vosges on the Rheinkopf and flowing down the valley of St. Amarin, past Thann and Cernay, a deep river with marshy banks, from fifteen to twenty yards wide). This line extended from the heights of Steinbach to the forest of Nonenbruck. It was in this country, on both sides of the Rhine-Rhone canal, that the French began their main advance into Alsace.
On Friday, August 7th, a French brigade arrived about eight o’clock in the evening in front of Altkirch, ten miles from the frontier, coming by Petit-Croix and Dannemarie. On the same day another detachment of French troops came down the valley of the Thur as far as Thann. The smallness of the combined force was perhaps accounted for (though it was not excused) by the fact that the French airmen had reported that the bulk of the German troops were on the other side of the Rhine, and that little opposition was to be expected between Mulhouse and the French frontier. Altkirch was at the time occupied by a German brigade of about equal strength, with their chief entrenchments south of the town, on the precipitous spurs of the Schweighof. A little higher up, towards the top of the hill, they had a battery of eight 77’s and a number of mitrailleuses. These were quickly silenced by the French 75’s, and the trenches were then carried by a surprise infantry attack which drove the Germans at the point of the bayonet off the Schweighof in disorderly flight. They were chased well past their second line of entrenchments on the Britzy-Berg, five miles further north in the direction of Illfurth and Mulhouse, by a dragoon regiment supporting the infantry, and a number of prisoners were taken before night put an end to the pursuit. Thus, three days after the declaration of war, at a total loss in killed and wounded of less than 150, Altkirch, after forty years in the wilderness of German domination, was once more in the hands of the French. The inhabitants received their long-hoped-for deliverance with every sign of frantic delight. The uprooted frontier-posts were carried in triumph through the flag-decked streets, flowers were rained on the heads of the triumphant troops, every one was cheering or in tears, and in the general tumult of joy and excitement no one apparently stopped to consider the remarkable ease with which the victory had been won or the extent of the guile which the retreat might possibly conceal.
CHAPTER VIII
OCCUPATIONS OF MULHOUSE
Encouraged by their success at Altkirch, the French set out early next morning for Mulhouse, ten miles further down the valley of the Ill. The troops which had descended the previous day on Thann also advanced by way of Cernay, and along the twelve-mile front between Thann and Altkirch the whole way to Mulhouse no trace of the Germans was seen except their deserted entrenchments. At one o’clock a small patrol of dragoons trotted up to the Hotel de Ville, and after a momentary halt clattered away again to report that not a single German soldier was left in the town. As a matter of fact, they were not, however, very far off, and the dragoons had hardly disappeared when a squad of Bavarian infantry marched into the principal square, seized a tramway car which was standing in front of the town-hall, and forced the driver to follow the dragoons, breaking the windows of the car as they went to make convenient rests for their rifles. By chance, however, they took the Brunstatt or south road out of the town, whereas the dragoons had gone west along the Dornach road, so that after a short and fruitless journey, they thought it wiser to turn back and join the main body on the further side of the town, once more leaving it empty of all but the civilian inhabitants, who by this time were in a state of the wildest excitement. After that there was another long wait till after six o’clock, and then, at last, a couple of platoons of dragoons and Chasseurs-à-cheval came riding in along the Dornach road, and the whole population turned out to greet them and the main body, which followed a quarter of an hour behind them, with the same extravagant manifestations of delight and enthusiasm as at Altkirch on the previous day.
That was on the Saturday evening, during which the French took up their position on the heights at Rixheim, about two miles east of the town, their front protected by the road and railway which curve down southwards to Basle, the Germans being a few miles north of them along the Rhone-Rhine canal towards Neu-Brisach and also in the Hardt (a big forest about twenty miles long between Mulhouse and the Rhine) on their right.