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.

News from the Front (3)

Leaving Metz on Thursday morning we took the A4 as far as Forbach then lesser roads to Bitche. The route was of great interest to me because Forbach was the centre of another of the Franco-Prussian War battles (known as Forbach to the French, but Spicheren to the Germans). Since Forbach and Saarbrücken have expanded greatly over this field I had decided not to visit, but as we drove along the names of the towns and villages were familiar from my study of the battle - Forbach, Spichern, Behren, Petite Rouselle, Grosbliederstroff, etc. The road in fact took us across the back of the battlefield and I caught a good view of the Simbach Ravine that marked the French extreme right.

We stopped briefly at Bitche and could see the fortress high on the hill, dominating the whole area. But it was a public holiday and everything except a Café was closed. So after a coffee and a few macarons we were back on the road to our stop for the night, Niederbronn les Bains. The town featured briefly in the FPW during the French retreat after the Battle of Froeschwiller. It was here that late arriving elements of de Failly's 5th Corps covered the retreat of shattered 1st Corps. 

We arrived way too early for our room to be ready so we set off on a walk to the town center. I hadn't expected much of Niederbronn, but it is a charming town with a strong German architectural influence. Since it was a holiday the shops were closed, but there was a fair in the square and I am sure the whole town was present.

We left the hotel at 9:00 AM and drove to Froeschwiller via Reichtshoffen. Driving through the narrow streets of Reichtshoffen it is easy to imagine the chaos that must have reigned as the retreating French crammed through with German cavalry nipping at their heals. The road carried us through the woods where the troops of Ducrot's and Pelle's divisions fought a deperate rearguard and out into the open ground that leads to Froeschwiller.

We didn't linger in Froeschwiller, but turned off to the left towards Nehwiller. This was where Ducrot's Division  formed in the relatively open ground about 100 meters in front of the road (at the extreme left of the image below) with clear field of fire to the woods.  The ground rises significantly from the woods where the Bavarian 4th Division initially advanced until Ducrot ordered two battalions of Zouaves to clear them out.

Turning back towards Froeschwiller we passed through the village and turned right towards Elhasshausen,  stopping about half a kilometre down the road beside the monument to the 3rd Wurtemberg Jäger Battalion. This unit charged forward from Elhasshausen and was the first German unit to force its way into Froeschwiller towards the end of the battle.

The same position marks the crest of the ridge and along that the ridge line the French artillery deployed and tried to respond to the deluge of shells from from all 14 batteries of the German V Corps. In the image below the ground can be seen falling away from the ridge. In this dip Bonnemain's cuirassiers and Pelle's Division waited out most of the battle.

The next shot shows the view back towards Froeschwiller from the same spot.

The next two shots show the ground looking from the ridge looking east. This was the focus of the fignting of the mid to late afternoon. Beyond  what appears to be the treeline (but in truth is just a number of scattered trees the the camera sees as a mass) is the forward edge of the ridge where Raoult's Division deployed and fought most of the day. 

Later in the day it became the site of the counterattack of the Wollf's and Marie's brigades.

Perhaps most famously it was the site of the charges of Bonnemain's cuirassiers.

The next shot is taken from the Elsasshuasen road looking south towards the Neiderwald. This marked the right of Raoult's line.  Starting within the wood and extending further south is where Lartigue's division stood.

This shot, a little to the right of the one above, is where Nicolaï,'s 7th Corps division stood at the start of the battle.

A little further along the Elsasshausen road is the Lion Monument to the German 83rd Regiment.

 

The ground along this ridge line is scattered with small apple orchards and, as in the last  of the shots below offers a view back to Freoeschwiller.

A little furher along the road stood the monument to the German 94th Regiment, that finally carried the village of Elsasshausen.

And yet further down the road, past the village of Elsasshausen, is the artillery monument, marking the position taken along the road by batteries of the XI Corps. This two level, octagonal observation tower, with 8 Krupp gun barrels built into its walls, offers a mgnificent view of the center of the battlefield.

Below, looking back towards Froeschwiller, give a great view over the ground that Bonnemain's troopers charged. What really surprised me was the number of clumps of vegitation, not woods, but just a few trees, were scattered across the fields...food for thought for future game tables.

This shot looks west towards Elsasshausen.

This looks south towards the Neiderwald. The wood in the center middleground is the Petit Bois, the scene of fierce hand to hand fighting.

Still further north the road descends through the gully (the name of which escapes me) that runs north of Calvary Hill. Atop this hill, the site of the counterattack by the French 99th Regiment, stands the French memorial to the battle, which comes in the form of this modern sculpture (sorry it is so dark but the shot is taken almost directly into the sun)...

And the more traditional form.

The site also offers great views southeast across the face of the hill towards Gunstett where the XI Corps artillery was positioned early in the day, and in the second shot south towards the Niederwald. 

The next stop for us was at the monument to the 11th Jäger battalion. This battalion was roughly handled first by the Turcos in front of the Brüch Mill and then at the farm that stood at the top of the hill beyond the monument.

On the crest of that hill, shown better here, is where the bulk of Lartigue's Division initially deployed.

Moving further around to the south, beyond Morsbronn, stands the memorial to Michel's Cuirassier Brigade that made the suicidal charge across the slopes show in the second image.

Also from the position of the Cuirassier memorial, looking southeast, can be seen the route taken by von Bose's XI Corps in thier flanking movement around Lartigue's right.

The final stop was on the north end of the line near Langensoultzbach. It was here that the Bavarian 4th Division formed and advanced against Ducrot early in the action. 

By now it was lunch time and we found a little place and settled in. After that we went into the town of Woerth to visit the Musée de 6 août, but that is another post, since this one has gone on for too long.