Landships II

Thomas Buecheler · Captain

Where No Man's Land meets Switzerland

Paul Bonnett · Hero

http://www.swissworld.org/eng/history/The_First_World_War_and_Swiss_Neutrality.html?siteSect=809&sid=4103321&cKey=1167580768000&rubricId=16090

The above site has an interesting snippet of info, plus 2 photos
HTH Paul

James H · Legend

Apparently, the nearest place of any significance was Belfort, a fortified French town now in Franche-Comt�, west of Mulhouse and Basel. Many maps of the Front, though, show the southernmost part of the lines going into Germany before meeting the Swiss border. I've often wondered about that little-discussed part of the Front, which doesn't seem to have seen�much action.

Ah. Since 1871�Alsace had been part of Germany, making Belfort almost a border town. This is from Wikipedia:

The Battle of Mulhouse (or M�lhausen), which began on August 9th1914, was the opening attack of World War I by the French army against Germany.� On the morning of August 7th, the French army quickly took the French-German border town of Altkirch and moved to the Rhine the following day, seizing the town of Mulhouse. The quick success of the offensive resulted in large victory celebrations in Paris, but on August 9th the German army launched a counter-attack. Unable to mount a concentrated defence, the French were forced to withdraw from Mulhouse.

Therefore the line went through territory which was German at the time but French before and afterwards. The French seem to have been pushed back to just east of Belfort. The�nearest Swiss�settlement was probably Boncourt.

PS: There are some pictures on the Net of soldiers in double-breasted greatcoats and oilskin-covered shakos, described as Belgian. As far as I can make out, they're actually Swiss.

-- Edited by James H at 02:02, 2007-05-17

-- Edited by James H at 12:42, 2007-05-17

Thomas Buecheler · Captain

Hello James and Paul

Thank you for your interesting replies!
By chance I made a trip to this part of Switzerland last week. I found an interesting information.
At Beurnev�sin, a small village located east of Boncourt - still in Switzerland -one can find�a boundary stone which marked the border between Germany, France and Switzerland (1871 - 1914?).
Unfortunately I wasn't able to visit this place and I have to ask for more informations now.

Kind regards
Thomas

Thomas Buecheler · Captain

Hello!

The boundary stone mentioned above is called "Borne des Trois Puissances". This information brought me to a very nice, informative website:

http://homepage.sunrise.ch/homepage/schwitte/

I recommend it!

Regards
Thomas

James H · Legend

Hi, Thomas. Some more info that might be helpful. I'm getting interested in this myself now.

A postcard of the junction in happier times. (The French can't have been all that pleased at recognising the 1871 frontiers)

A map that might help to pin down where the lines met the border. If you look the area up on Mappy or suchlike, it might give you a fix.

Swiss soldiers. Apparently they also had some mountain troops whose uniform was very like that of their German equivalents.

Hope this helps.

Sorry.�The first map was rubbish. The wrong place entirely - my fault. This one shows the French line ending at Carspach, SW of Moulouse/Mulhausen. Can't find out where it went from there.�It's a few more Kms to the border.

I expect the pictures will now appear in the wrong order.

-- Edited by James H at 14:32, 2007-05-23

-- Edited by James H at 15:26, 2007-05-23