Sunday 19 August 2018

News from the Front (4)

After we finished the tour of the Froeschwiller battlefield and had lunch we went into Woerth and visited the Musée de 6 août  Woerth is a typical town of the region with lots of timbered buildings in narrow streets. The Soultzbach stream runs through the town contained within stone walled banks. Today the stream is covered by dozens of small bridges whereas in 1870 there were only two and the French destroyed those prior to the battle.  On the day of the battle the stream was a raging torrent fed by a rain storm the night before and in places had burst its banks. In fact when the German 50th Regiment crossed the stream south of the town, several were swept away an drowned. But today its flow was shallow and gentle.




  
The musée entrance.

While not as well presented as the Gravelotte museum, this little museum had lots to offer. There are plenty of helmets, rifles and swords and uniforms on display.





Above, from top to bottom: the French Chassepôt, the Bavarian Werder, the Prussian Dreyse Needle Gun, the Bavarian Podwills.


Packs of Chassepôt cartridges.



There is a large diorama made with German flat figures depicting the battle at the time of the Bonnemain's Cuirassier charges.



What attracted me the most was seeing the originals of some of the paintings often published on the battle. The first was the famous Eduard Detaille painting of Michel's cuirassiers trapped in the streets of Morsbronn.


Since I was able to get close to the painting I was able to take some close detail shots. This really allows you to see how the artist captured the horrific drama of the moment. 



The second was a rather more fanciful painting of Bonnemain's attack - fanciful because in the four or five charges made no troopers got close enough to swing their sabre at any German troops.



Finally was a painting of a charge by the Turcos.




Leaving the Museum we were back on the road heading for Wissembourg, which we reached after about half an hour. Our hotel was a beautifully renovated mill.A sublimely peaceful place with a wonderful restaurant.



With the temperature soaring to 32 degrees we walked into Wissembourg town. We entered through what remains of the Bitche Gate, where on 4 August 1870 a small body of German troops cut off the French attempt to abandon the place.


What a beautiful town it is.











The final image is the Hôtel de Ville, in front of which the French garrison surrendered to the Germans in 4 August 1870.

Returning to the hotel dinner for me was fois gras, stuffed quail  and a dessert of apple sorbet liberally doused with Calvados, all washed down with a very pleasant Alsacian pinot noir. I went to bed very happy.



The next morning we headed off towards Hagenau where we would return the car and catch a train to Strasbourg, our next destination. Before we left I caught a glimpse of the hills behind the town on which part of Douay's division was deployed. 


Again, since the towns of Wissembourg and Altenstadt have grown over most of the battlefield, we merely drove across the crest of the heights and then onto Hagenau. By lunch time we were in Strasbourg.

14 comments:

  1. I see what you mean by the German-influenced architecture, it really is quite marked. That looks like a terrific meal as well, but very French-influenced. The best of both worlds.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a beautifully idyllic setting! hard to believe that 148 years ago it was a battlefield.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That was my exact thought as we walked th streets...how could you fight in such a pertty place. During the battle the residents lowered the drawbridges at one of the gates to let the Germans in, in the hope that they would not bombard the town. Most of the walls of the fortress are gone now, juts a few parts are visible.

      Delete
  3. Mark, thanks for yet another fine battlefield tour. Wissembourg looks divine. I would enjoy spending time there and your hotel/BnB looks marvelous.

    You and share a great admiration for Detaille. Eduoard is one of my favorite painters. These paintings you captured are superb. I recall closely examining the Detailles in Paris' Musee L'Armee many years ago. I actually had to spend a second day in the museum to see the FPW section since that section was closed on the Day 1 of my visit. My family thought me daft. Well, some still do!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wissembourg os one of those chocoalte box towns.

      A good number of the fragments of the Rezonvelle panorana are Detaille's work. I took multiple imges of each. When I get home and have access to some better image editing software, I will clean them up and post some more. The detail work is superb.

      Delete
  4. Beautiful looking place Mark - what always surprises me about Europe is how much of it WASNT flattened during the Second World War - Eastern Europe in particular, and the Baltic states - seem to be teaming with medieval and Renaissance architecture, when one might suppose that almost all of it would have been flattened as the Red Army advanced on Berlin! The same goes for France, Italy and Germany itself - huge tracts of all these countries must have avoided any "unpleasantness" during 1944-45.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I guess if you were outside of a major industrial area or away from big transport hubs then you were pretty much exempt of the severe destruction.

      There was some fighting near Metz in WWII when the American forces crossed the Moselle and the Franco-Prussian War battlefield of Spicheren featured shortly thereafter during the movement on Saarbrücken.

      Delete
  5. Another splendid tour...I am not sure I would have wanted to leave...;-)

    All the best. Aly

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Staying was very tempting...but we are in a schedule to see all we want in the short time left. Not much in the way of military interest to report from now on, although given my current interest in Egypt I couldn't resist snapping a few shots of the statue of Kléber in Strasbourg.

      Delete
  6. Lovely tour of a very germanic French town! Nice looking meal!
    Best Iain

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Iain, it is a beautiful town and that meal was great...the quail was delicious, but what seemed like half a litre of Calvados on the dessert was the clincher!

      Delete