The Position in the middle of Sept. 1(114. 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 en- countering 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 Badon- villers. North of St. Die, which they had evacuated on the irth, they held the Ormont ridge and the vicinity of the Saales gap. On the Vosges crest their occupation of the Violu and the Bern- hardtstein 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 counter- offensive 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 I 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 1 5 2nd 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 aoth 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 Tetc-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 en- trenching 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 counter- mines 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 bpgan 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 reinforce- ments, 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 be- tween 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
