ALSACE VOSGES - Hohrodberg - Grand Hohnack - Giragoutte - Les Trois Epis
- by Pierre Grande Guerre
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- 22 Jun, 2019
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Year of visit: 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
At the southern foot of the Schratzmännele, on the junction with the Hohrodberg, called the Baerenstall...
... some Germans built this cairn and the smaller one next to it. Early in the war the German regiments started to erect their own monuments along the front.
By vandalism after the war, most of the medaillons with inscriptions have been destroyed. Only this medaillon survived the vandalism.
During the hard winter of 1915 the Germans launched again a series of attacks. On 22 January the Germans launched fierce attacks at the summit of the Vieil Armand or Hartmannswillerkopf. On 22 February 1915 the Germans captured Metzeral, on the 19th they occupied the nearby Reichackerkopf. During this week the Germans also bombarded the Col de la Schlucht and the area behind the Vosges ridges into the direction of Gerardmer, an important connection point for supplying troops and materials to the front.
On 21 February the Germans captured the villages of Hohrod and Stosswihr, and the Hohrodberg itself. The winter conditions were so harsh that the German offensive petered out on 25 February 1915.
In front of the Hohrod Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof stands this German bunker.
... but I presume it has also been the entrance to an underground tunnel- and "Stollen"system, a man-made cave system.
We enter the Hohrod Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof. Whatever the nationality of the buried soldiers may be, every military cemetery tells it’s own story.
The story is always told by using few words and an almost endless list of names of fallen soldiers. Most of the German soldiers and officers buried here, have been killed during the battle of the nearby Lingekopf in the summer of 1915.
The inscriptions on this 1915 tombstone are alas not readable for me anymore.
At the top of the cemetery is a mass grave marked by two short towers with inscripted plaques. The plaque on the right has fallen out of it's frame.
We follow on along the D 11VI eastward, staying on the slope of the Hohrodberg.
This road, running from Les-Trois-Epis to the front line at the Kleinkopf, used to be a "street" with a lot of bunkers along it and a 60 cm. railway. The road was an important supply route for the Germans.
On the verge of the road we detect this German field altar, also made of concrete. The Catholic grails are still to be seen, the text is alas not readable anymore.
Furtheron, driving very slowly at walking speed, we detected some German shelter bunkers, ...
Along the D 11 VI, the hikers path, GR 523, we continue upward passing the summit of the Grand Hohnack (976 m.).
The kepi with the red top gives the memorial a personal touch. Of course the sculptor added the symbol of the Red Devils.
We continue along the D 11 VI into the direction of Giragoutte to find this German bunker at the northern side of the road, constructed and dug in the slope of the mountain.
From the German occupation of this sector in February 1915 it used to be the entrance to an underground German Dressing Station. It has been improved in 1917.
The circle shaped spots still tell us, where the Red Cross symbols were located on the architrave. The text on the architrave is not readable anymore, only some lose characters.
... I could still find door openings, leading inside the mountain, which are now filled in.
These filled in corridor tunnels were also giving entrance to an underground "Stollen" system.
Some 500 m. further on we detect other entrances to underground tunnel systems.
Another 100 m. further on on the same side of the road this armoured door and entrance to an ammunition bunker.
We are going on further eastward, at the 3-way junction we turn left.
After the second curve of the road, we park our car, and we descend on the northern side of the road ...
In the verge of the 3rd curve we park our car to descend another track to this memorial at the outskirts of Labaroche Evaux.
It is a German memorial Stone, dedicated to General Otto Reuter, who commanded several Reserve and Landwehr Brigades during the battles in the Vosges.
Opposite the "Relais au Trois Epis" we go left and we enter a forest road running southward for some 200 m. into the direction of "Chalet Meierhof".
It is a memorial of a Gebirgs-Maschinengewehr-Abteilung, a special mountain machine-gun unit. Only one side is still partly readable.
From here we return to the D 11 to continue eastward to the hamlet of Les Trois Epis.
We follow the circle shaped path around the cemetery anti-clockwise.
The soldiers, buried here, have been killed during all 4 years of the war.
This Vizefeldwebel, Karl Kliemann, of the 1st Company of the Gardejäger Bataillon died "for King and Fatherland" on 27 July 1915.
This Bavarian memorial is dedicated to several soldiers, fallen in 1918.
The Bavarian royal lion in this heraldic weapon with oak leaves holds the Bavarian flag with white and blue lozenges.
Some inscriptions are hard to read. Names of a machine gunner, a stretcher bearer, and an artillerist of B.F.A.R. 6, all fallen in 1918.
The inscription on the left side of the memorial, is dedicated to a stretcher bearer.
The inscription on the right side of the memorial is dedicated to an artillerist, also of the Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment 6.
The grave of Lt. Major Frober, a cavalarist of the Bavarian Reserve Kavalerie Schütze Abteilung, killed in 1914, "witnessed by his Chief of the squadron and the NCO of the second squadron".
A last view over the Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof Ammerschwihr-Trois Epis.
From Les Trois Epis we return back and south-westward along the same D 11 VI to the Hohrodberg for a wide panorama over the Munster Valley.
... you are only some 100 meters away from this rather hardly visible bunker in a slope of the Kleinkopf.
Just out of the woods, more to the south, in a curve along the road we arrive at the French Memorial at the Hohrodberg.
This memorial is dedicated to the civilian and military victims of the community of Hohrod of both World Wars. This plaque is for the Great War victims of Hohrod.
The site of the Hohrodberg Memorial offers a wide panorama view over the former battlefields.
From left ro right: Reichackerkopf, Sattel, Petit Honeck, Honeck, Schlucht.
From the Hohrodberg we descend to the Munster Valley, and visit the Col du Sattel and the Reichackerkopf.
Continue
to the next chapter: "Reichackerkopf - le Gaschney"
Inleiding: Franz Von Papen & Werner Horn; schaker en pion
Onlangs stuitte ik in een oud boek (1) van 1919 op een opmerkelijk verhaal over een Duitse Luitenant, die in begin februari 1915 een half geslaagde bomaanslag pleegt op een spoorbrug over een grensrivier tussen de Verenigde Staten en Canada. Ook al staat de bekentenis van de dader, Werner Horn, deels in het boek te lezen, de naam van zijn opdrachtgever zal Horn blijven verzwijgen. Na wat verder zoeken vond ik ook de naam van Horn’s opdrachtgever, Franz von Papen, een van de aangeklaagden van het latere Neurenberg Proces in 1946.
In een Grote Oorlog als de Eerste Wereldoorlog is Horn’s aanslag op de brug uiteraard slechts een bescheiden wapenfeit. Toch vermoed ik dat dit relatief onbekende verhaal, dat de geschiedenis is ingegaan als de “ Vanceboro International Bridge Bombing ”, nog interessante kanten kent. Het is onder andere een spionageverhaal over hoe in een groter plan een sluwe schaker zijn naïeve pion offert.
Beknopte situatieschets Canada en de Verenigde Staten in 1915
This trip we start at the Léomont near Vitrimont and we will with some exceptions concentrate on the Battle of Lorraine of August-September 1914 in the area, called, the “Trouée de Charmes”, the Gap of Charmes.
After the Léomont battlefield we continue our explorations to Friscati hill and its Nécropole Nationale. Next we pay a visit to the battlefield of la Tombe to go on to the Château de Lunéville. There we cross the Vezouze to move on southward to the Bayon Nécropole Nationale. At Bayon we cross the Moselle to pass Charmes for the panorama over the battlefield from the Haut du Mont. North-west of Charmes we will visit the British Military Cemetery containing 1918 war victims. From Charmes we go northward to the battlefield of the First French Victory of the Great War, the Battle of Rozelieures of 25 August 1914. North of Rozelieures we will visit the village of Gerbéviller. From there we make a jump northward to visit the ruins of Fort de Manonviller to finish with an interesting French Dressing Station bunker, west of Domjevin.
During this visit, we try to focus on the day that the momentum of the battle switched from the French side to the advantage of the Bavarian side: the day of 20 August 1914, when the Bavarians rapidly re-conquered the territory around Morhange , being also the day of the start of their rather successful “Schlacht in Lothringen”.
We will visit beautiful landscapes of the "Parc Naturel Régional de Lorraine", memorials, ossuaries, and cemeteries. Sometimes we will divert to other periods of the Great War, honouring Russian and Romanian soldiers, who died in this sector. We start our route at the border village of Manhoué, and via Frémery, Oron, Chicourt, Morhange, Riche, Conthil, Lidrezing, Dieuze, Vergaville, Bidestroff, Cutting, Bisping we will finish in Nomeny and Mailly-sur-Seille, where the Germans halted their advance on 20 August 1914, and where they constructed from 1915 some interesting bunkers.
