Visiting in the Vosges Mountains of France’s eastern border last week, I decided to take the scenic small roads that wind north and south through this beautiful mountain landscape. But this paradise, north of the Swiss border and close to the Rhine River is part of Alsace-Lorraine, a land with a stormy history that has passed back and forth several times between Germany and France and formed the front lines in World War I. (For more photos of Le Linge click here)
Finding the trenches of Le Linge
It was here that I came across the battlefield of Le Linge. Some of the most severe fighting of World War I took place in the trenches along the peaks of the Vosges Mountains that formed the German-French border in 1914. Having acquired the territory by war against France in 1870, Germany had carefully fortified it with stone and concrete trenches, blockhouses and steel protected observation posts. Until the 1914 war began France had not fortified the mountain tops. These were the southern end of Germany’s defenses and from 1914 until 1916 the scene of vicious fighting.
A museum of arms, shells, and personal effects
Now well within French borders, the battlefield at Le Linge has an excellent museum dedicated to the sacrifices of the men of both sides who fought and died on the site. The museum shows the human part of the ordeal through historical objects and artifacts excavated from the battlefield over the past 95 years. Uniforms and helmets of both sides, firearms intact and as recovered rusted and destroyed from the ground, coins and personal possessions of soldiers killed here, as well as photos of the battlefield and its soldiers mix with armaments and shattered shells and munitions to create a sense of what happened here.
Proximity of opposing trenches
But the true nature of that brutal and senseless war lies just outside the museum door in the trenches of the two sides. More than 3.5 kilometers (2.1 miles) of trenches, gun emplacements and blockhouses can be explored on foot. The astounding thing about this place is the sense of the incredible madness of mankind that it evokes. French troops dug their trenches in 1914-15 within a stone throw of German lines. They are so close an insult would arrive as fast as a bullet. Signs warn of munitions still unexploded off the trail and white and black crosses note bodies found in the 1970s and ‘90s.
Once entrenched, the French proceeded to dig forward to within spitting distance, and all of this while under withering fire from German rifle and machine gun positions. Between 1915 and 1916 the French tried to surge forward over German positions, ultimately reaching the German second line of defense before being pushed back. The body of one French soldier killed in that drive in 1915 was found only in 1999 at the edge of the German second defense line.
First World War Centennial approaches
As the great tragedy of World War I approaches its centennial in only five years it is appropriate to visit this lesser known battlefield and pay homage to the bravery and courage of the average men of both sides who died here and to contemplate the stupidity of the leadership that made them kill one another on this beautiful mountaintop.
Photos and Text ©Stillman Rogers 2009
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