ARGONNE - Montfaucon - Romagne-sous-Montfaucon
- by Pierre Grande Guerre
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- 16 May, 2019
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Year of visit: 2005
From a short distance a view at the hill of Montfaucon, ...
... to commemorate the American Victory of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of 26 September 1918. This tower overlooks the ruins of the former village and the battlefield around it.
The Meuse-Argonne Offensive - 26 September - 11 November 1918
Ludendorff's “Kaiserschlacht” or “Operation Michael” ended the period of trench warfare and started a mobile war. The Kaiser's Battle was Ludendorff’s last effort to destroy the Allies, before the Americans would arrive at the Western Front and participate in the war at full strength.
But although in the beginning the Germans were fast moving and eager to win: the 5 offensives of the Kaiser's Battle were not successful at all.
The Meuse-Argonne Offensive was part of the period of the “Hundred Days”, beginning on 8 August 1918 until Armistice Day. It was a combined French and American Offensive of the French 4th Army under command of General Gouraud and of the American 1st Army under General Pershing.
At 5:30 hrs the infantry attack of the US 79th Division broke lose.German troops of the Infanterie Regiment 450 and the Grenadier Regiment 11 were able to repulse American attacks on Montfaucon ridge, until it was outflanked to the south and Montfaucon was surrounded. German counter-attacks from 27–28 September slowed the American advance, but Ivoiry and Epinon-Tille were captured, and then Montfaucon ridge with 8,000 prisoners and 100 guns. In the afternoon of the 28th, Montfaucon was definitely in American hands.
Nearby Vauquois was rather easily mopped out by the US 35th Division. It would take until 14 October before the 3rd and 5th Corpses finally captured Cunel and Romagne.
They destroyed the village and the village church to fortify the summit with tunnels, trenches, and bunkers.
The Germans changed the summit of the hill into a base for observation and artillery.
They created a fortified defense line of 20 kilometers, connecting hill tops in the Argonne.
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.
