A Chronology.
By Eric
Mansuy
August 7, 1914: The French enter Alsace. Thann is conquered.
 |
Thann
August 8, 1914: The French occupy Mulhouse.
August 9, 1914: After very hard fighting, Mulhouse is abandoned by the French.
August 11, 1914: Retreat of the French troops from Haute Alsace (the plain area) to the Franco-German border.
August 12, 1914: The French enter Saales.
August 14, 1914: The French take Mount Donon and Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines.
August 15, 1914: The French occupy Guebwiller.
August 16, 1914: Schirmeck is taken by the French troops, 55 km of Strasbourg.
August 17, 1914: The French take Munster.
August 19, 1914: The French take Mulhouse again and capture 3,000 prisoners.
 |
Mulhouse, August 1914.
August 20, 1914: The French are heavily defeated at Morhange and Sarrebourg.
August 21, 1914: The French are at the doors of Colmar.
August 22, 1914: The French armies, after serious defeats in Belgium and the Ardennes area, have been forced to retreat. The General Headquarters decide the offensive in Alsace must come to a halt. On that very August 22, the French troops lose 27,000 men killed in action.
August 26 – September 9, 1914: Battle of La Chipotte pass. The Germans try to pierce the French line of defense and rush towards Epinal via Rambervillers. They are stopped at la Chipotte pass, between Raon-L’Etape and Rambervillers. Meanwhile, very hard fights occur in the zone comprised between Saint-Dié, Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, Le Bonhomme pass and Le Plafond pass (between Saint-Dié and Gérardmer).
August 27, 1914: Saint-Dié is occupied by the Germans.
September 11, 1914: As the battle of the Marne is taking place, the Germans leave Saint-Dié, immediately reoccupied by the French.
 |
Saint-Dié after the fighting
September 20, 1914: Battle of Spitzemberg (near Provenchères-sur-Fave) won by the French. The French 152nd Infantry Regiment loses 600 men in 3 days.
September 24, 1914: The French take Cote 607 (Hill 607), a good observatory between Lusse and Lesseux.
September - December 1914: Combats nearly everywhere around the passes of the Vosges, held by the French who can thus have views down the plain of Alsace.
October 31, 1914: The 28th Bataillon de Chasseurs Alpins take the Tête du Violu.
December 2, 1914: At the Tête des Faux (between Le Bonhomme pass and the Lac Blanc), a French sudden attack wins a big part of the German position overlooking the valley of Kaysersberg.
December 14, 1914: At Cote 425 (Hill 425), near Thann, small but wild trench combats kill 400 French in 3 days.
December 25, 1914 - January 3, 1915: The village of Steinbach, near Thann, taken and retaken successively by both sides, is finally conquered by the French who lose more than 1,300 men. As for the French 152nd Infantry Regiment, whose strength was of 3,200 men at the start of the battle, only 1,800 remain. The others have been evacuated because of wounds, mostly for cases of frozen feet.
January 1915: First combats at Hartmannswillerkopf, a 956 metres-high wooded summit above Thann.
February 1915: At Reichackerkopf, near Munster, 5 days of German attacks result in 1,600 killed, wounded, and missing for the French.
February 18, 1915: German attack on Cote 607, after a heavy artillery preparation from 9.30 am to 6 pm. Several mines explode and the French have to leave their trenches at the top of the hill.
February 27 – March 4, 1915: Daily combats for La Chapelotte pass, between Celles-sur-Plaine and Badonviller.
March 26, 1915: The summit of Hartmannswillerkopf is seized by the French, who capture 200 German prisoners.
April 25, 1915: Violent German attack at Hartmannswillerkopf.
May – June 1915: The "Route des Français" (nowadays "Route des Crêtes") is built from la Schlucht pass to the Ballon de Guebwiller (or Grand Ballon).
June 15 – 23, 1915: The French attack Metzeral. Their victory costs them 6,700 killed, wounded, missing.
June 22 – July 8, 1915: On June 22, the Germans attack La Fontenelle (not far from Saint-Dié). The French lose 1,200 men. But on July 8, the French regain the position and capture 1,637 prisoners.
July 20, 1915: Attack of le Linge by the French, mainly "Chasseurs Alpins". That wooded chain, extremely fortified by the Germans, stands 1,000 metres high above the valley of Munster.
July 22, 1915: At le Linge, in 2 days of struggle, the French have already lost 1,000 killed.
July 23 – August 5, 1915: Second series of French attacks on le Linge. The summit is taken and retaken by both sides several times.
August 6 – 25, 1915: Third series of French attacks on le Linge. Between July 20 and August 25, the French have lost 10,000 killed.
September 1 – 5, 1915: The French lose 1,000 men on a new assault at le Linge. The offensive on what was called "Le tombeau des Chasseurs" ("The Chasseurs’ graveyard"), comes to an end.
December 21, 1915: At the cost of 400 killed, the French seize the main part of Hartmannswillerkopf and capture 800 prisoners.
December 22, 1915: A German counter-attack regains Hartmannswillerkopf : the French suffer 2,000 killed, wounded, missing. A whole regiment, the 152nd Infantry Regiment, is destroyed.
January 8, 1916: Last wide-range German attack on Hartmannswillerkopf, killing 1,000 French. The "man-eater mountain", from then on, will only see fights episodically, as the French and German headquarters do not want to go on with sterile and fruitless attacks in that sector. The stabilization of the front in the Vosges and Alsace happens at that moment.
November 7, 1917: The 17th and 60th Battalions de Chasseurs take the heights of Schönholz, near Altkirch.
July 2 – September 1918: The 21st and 22nd Czechoslovakian "Chasseurs" Regiments enter the lines in the sector of Masevaux and suffer casualties in the wood of Kreuzwald.
August 17, 1918: Troops of the U.S. 5th Infantry Division liberate the village of Frapelle, 15 km of Saint-Dié, which had been occupied by the Germans for 4 years.
Final assessment: - More than 50,000 French were killed in action in the Vosges and Alsace in the sole year 1915. Out of 587,000 hectares of soil in the Vosges department, 132,000 have been ravaged. The 21st Army Corps of Epinal mobilised 112,000 men in 1914; at the end of the war, 16,500 were killed or missing, 6,500 had been made prisoners.
 |
From L'Illustration, August 8, 1914
An Unfortunate Region 2004