About the Vosges

[Guest montegrappa]

Hi there,

I am a new member, and I would like to know if any of you has some information on the german and french front lines in the Vosges. I am writing from England, but I would like to spend a few days in Alsace this spring. Therefore I would also like to take some interesting walks in the mountain range to have a better understanding of that part of the front which seems to be regardes as "not as important" as the famous, and usual, Somme or Verdun.

I know that the front line crossed the Vosges; however I have no clue about where to start from. If any of you has some information, maps or website...Thanx!

montegrappa

[paul guthrie]

Marco Hoveling, forum member, has good information on An Unfortunate Region http://www.igr.nl/users/vandenheuvel/ It is not working at the moment,.

[Hedley Malloch]

Montegrappa; if you like walking and the Western Front, then the Vosges is the place for you. First equip yourself with the basic paperwork. Order the following Serie Bleue maps:

IGN TOP 25 3719 OT Grand Ballon Guebwiller Munster

IGN TOP 25 3718 OT Colmar Keyserberg

IGN TOP 25 3619 OT Bussang La Bresse

and the FFRP Topo Guide to the Crête des Vosges. This is a guide to the two Grandes Randonées; the GR5 and the GR53 which in part follow the Front through the Vosges. There are no guides to the Vosges battlefields in English, but study the maps and know that the three main centres to visit are, from South to North Hartsmanweillerkopf near Cernay, Le Linge near Munster; and Tête des Faux, near nowhere very much. The first two are well known, the last not so much, but well worth a visit. If you know this, can walk and read a map then you can work out some good circulars. But allow me to recommend the following:

From the Sudelkopf (map 3719: grid square I3) to Hartsmanwillerkopf (square J4) via Col Amic, Chapelle Sicurani, Arbri Baratin, Croix Zimmerman and thence through the old French Front line to HMWK.

From Lapoutrie (map 3718 square E4) to Têtes des Faux (E2) via any one of a number of paths which criss-cross this area, but be sure to take in the old German front line cemeteries near the Etang du Devin and the restored casualty clearing station. Look to for the gigantic remains of the aerial ropeways in the Stygian gloom of the forests at the base of the Tête: they are like something out an HP Lovecraft novel.

Where to stay? Munster is central for everything, but why not go a little further afield and stay in one of the villages you've only read about on the labels of the better class of Reisling bottle, such as Turckheim or Ingersheim? Three warnings:

1. The food is good, seriously good - possibly the best in France. The Vosges is the only place I know where you can haul a 20lb day bag, 20 kilometres a day up an average of 800 metres of lift, every day for a fortnight - and put on 5 kilos in weight.

2. Take plenty of camera film or whatever storage medium you use.

3. Make your will before you go - you are going to die of pleasure.

[paul guthrie]

I agree with all Hedley said, there are lots of reminders in stone on these peaks. Try Turckheim for a great place to stay, they still have a town crier who comes around each night, some others do also but this is for real, has gone on for centuries. Got storks too!

Be sure to go to museum St Amarin I think but not sure.

[Dragon]

I have written to several Forum members about Alsace and the Vosges, so I will quote from an long email I sent someone recently. I’ve been visiting Alsace and the Vosges for probably about twelve years now and usually manage to make two or three visits a year, in various seasons.

My preference is to stay in the wine villages, because the Vosges in bad weather are cold, foggy, wet and can be thoroughly unpleasant, and the fog can last for days. Anyway, the wine areas are very beautiful, with lots of scope for walking from village to village through the vineyards, and the villages are very appealing. It is very much a working region, which is visited by tourists, not a theme park.

From the wine villages it takes about half an hour to drive up into the Vosges areas where the evidence of the Great War is still visible. The preserved sites of Le Linge (near Orbey) and Hartmannswillerkopf (aka Vieil Armand) are well worth seeing and reasonably accessible to people who may not be particularly fit. Flanders it is not; you need to be active and relatively fit to get the most out of a visit; and the walk back up to the top of the memorial area at Hartmannswillerkopf on a sunny day would probably explode a few heart valves in some people. But it’s possible to potter round both and be rewarded by a visit, even with some disabilities. Hartmannswillerkopf has a reasonably satisfying café restaurant at the car park; le Linge hasn’t. The museums in both places are adequate and quite informative, though with a very heavily biased French orientation.

One of the pleasures of the area is that it’s relatively undiscovered in comparison with the usual areas visited by British tourists. There is also a lot to do in the area should the weather be bad; obviously Strasbourg and Freiburg are beautiful cities with galleries etc. And it’s also good to go across for a day out in the Black Forest.

When exploring at the battlefield areas, I use old maps which show the front lines, which you can plot on the modern large scale IGN maps, then pick a locality which looks as if it’s interesting in terms of its natural beauty. If there are relics to be seen, such as blockhouses, they are usually marked on the IGN maps, so you can plot a walk which will take in things to see. I advise sticking to the Club Vosgien marked paths, though; it’s lonely mountainous countryside. However, as I’ve often found, you can be on the front line and know for a fact that there ought to be something, and there isn’t anything visible because you can’t sensibly go scrambling down steep afforested slopes.

Up in the Vosges, with the trench lines and dugouts cut into sheer mountain rock, often with the damp mist swirling round the towering pines, occasionally the strange shriek of a bird of prey, and the isolated Inconnu crosses where they've discovered a body even as recent as, oh, last week, it's chilling, and you get a strong sense of undisturbed, charged, air. Yet it's incredibly beautiful too, and sometimes you come across small burial grounds of German dead, lost in the forests, known only to walkers, with moss encrusted stones and personal inscription. One I'm thinking of is close to an isolated, reedy pool with iridescent dragonflies hawking around. Another set of German dug-outs in a glaciated corrie by a mirror of a pool. You'd have to be numb to fail to imagine how horrible it must have been up there in most months of the year.

And for those who are also interested in the Holocaust, there is the concentration camp of Natzwiller Struthof in the Vosges west of Obernai. I can’t describe that; it is too deep.

So... where to start? it may sound pseudy but Tom Stevenson’s book about the wines of Alsace is very helpful for its succinct descriptions of villages (as well as pointing out people whose wines are worth buying, which is one of the reasons to go). It isn’t a tourist sell, it’s a respectful account of a working area.

For the Vosges battlefield areas, I have recently used La Bataille des Hautes-Vosges Février-Octobre 1915 by Général d’Armau de Pouydraguin, which is a 1937 book available as a reprint. It has maps. I also have Le Drame du Linge by A Durlewanger, which draws on the book by Pouydraguin but has more pictures. You can buy books (in French) at the entrance to le Linge.

If in the Munster area, there’s a tourist office specifically to promote the Parc naturel régionel des ballons des Vosges - http://www.parc-ballons-vosges.fr - ask the tourist office to send a couple of booklets, such as Mémoires vives – les lieux de mémoire dans le Parc naturel… or one on Hartmannswillerkopf entitled Sur les traces de la Grande Guerre. These would give you websites to visit. But everything has a heavy bias; I don’t read German so I can’t find anything on the German side of things. Nor are the French websites as good as visiting the Munster tourism office itself (Maison du Parc, 1 cour de l’Abbaye, 68140 Munster, tel 03 89 77 90 20) and asking them specifically to tell you what there is in the region and to point it out on maps – which they are happy to do. I suppose one could email or write and ask them to send material.

The other organisation which has a lot of material is Club Vosgien. They have a rather idiosyncratic website (turn off your sound, unless woodpeckers do something for you).

I went last in December and got stuck in the snow for two days. I still have some pictures of the battlefield areas on my website, though they are not linked for general viewing, so I could send you a link if you like. I could also send directions of one walk from le Linge where you’re guaranteed to see relics and maybe more.

Gwyn

[Dragon]

PS. I agree with Hedley about food and my favourite temple for the special meal of the trip is Aux Armes de France, Ammerschwihr (can't afford Crocodile in Strasbourg). I'd have a gourmet meal there and book one of its rooms for the night.

I don't eat meat and Alsace does at least have vegetarian options.

But where do people stay in Turckheim?

Gwyn

[paul guthrie]

Gwyn we stayed at Hotel de Vosges, it's a small village, maybe 2000, all hotels looked pretty good, this one is.

[Dragon]

Thanks, Paul. I don't know that hotel, but then I've never wanted to stay in Turckheim. Too much traffic noise. It's ok for lunch.

The place for storks is Munster. It is SERIOUSLY over-storked. It's INFESTED with them.

Gwyn

[Guest montegrappa]

Thank you guys for all the info I got about the Vosges. I really hope to be able to visit the area , and if anyone has some photos of the area or of the battlefields I would really appriciate it....just to have an idea, as I am taking a friend as well...

Regards

[Dragon]

I'll look for some, Montgrappa and either post them in the Forum or put them on my website and supply a link.

It might take a few days.

Gwyn

[Dragon]

Here's where I like to stay. It's one of the wine growing villages at the foot of the Vosges.

My battlefield pictures aren't on my hard drive and I'll have to look for them.

Gwyn

[Dragon]

Another I found quickly, at the top, at le Linge. (Have had to compress heavily for quick download.)

[Dragon]

Nature strugges to obliterate the relics of defence. (Compressed again.)

I have better ones, it's just a matter of finding and scanning them.

Gwyn

[healdav]

If you go to the old concentration camp of Natzweiler, stay at the hotel down in the village. It is excellent and the food extraordinary.

I suggest that you do a bit of googling as they have a website and often have special weekends/ days with offiers you wouldn't believe.

Beware; the restaurant is closed on Sunday evening and so is everything except your bedroom!

[Dragon]

Is that the Auberge (?)Metzger in Natwiller, Healdav? I remember driving past and wondering about it. I’m glad to have an endorsement.

I like the comment on the complete closure of everything. That was how it was when stuck in the snow just before Christmas 2004 and having to make an unplanned stop in one such closed hotel in Alsace. The hotel was pleasant, but it wasn’t safe to go out anywhere, and there were no bars open in the village, so by four in the afternoon one realised that there was absolutely nothing whatsoever to do but sit on one’s bed and drink one’s way through six-packs of Fischer and a bottle of Riesling, with mountain cheeses as the main course and a packet of peanuts (barbecue d’été flavour, ironically) as dessert, playing CDs through the laptop. Knowing that everyone else was enjoying Christmas……

(However, in normal weather one would plan ahead for Sunday evening and go out somewhere.) Quite a lot of those communities round le Hohwald and le Champ du Feu have festivals in summer months, such as Fêtes des Cerises, which appeal to some visitors. You can get spectacular storms and deluges up there while you’re enjoying your walks in secret places.

Gwyn

[Guest montegrappa]

hi guys,

nice to be back and see that quite a lot of people are trying to help. I am trying to get hold of one of those maps previoulsy suggested, but where can I find one here in England? it seems like I have got to buy one once in France, and that my planning-ahead-plan here in England is kinda falling through...I would really like to visit the Vosges area as I know from some friend of mine that it is a cracking place to wind down and take some historical walks. However, on the Atlas, it seems like the Vosges range is fairly big and I do not want to go all the way there to find myself lost in the bush without being able to locate trenches and dug outs. It is also hard to find general information on the net. Does anyone have some map where the 2 lines are marked? So that at least I know where I am going and I can follow a proper path in the bush, maybe taking some interesting photos of what is left from the war.

I might sound unusual, but what mostly fascinates and intrigues me, is the fact that this is some sort of "forgotten front"....and I am here to find out more about it.

p.s. gwyn , thanx for the pics, any chance u send me some more?

montegrappa

[Dragon]

If it’s your first trip I would suggest that you start by visiting Hartmannswillerkopf or le Linge first of all. Get a feel for the situation.

The problem is that you can’t just walk a front line. This is a mountainous area and scrabbling up and down sheer slopes looking for relics is neither safe nor easy, especially if it’s wet. See the contours......

This is the sort of thing you can easily do, though:

Starting from le Linge, you can walk down the road to the German cemetery (Cim Allemand) and the picnic area. Then you can walk round Baerenstall and Baerenkopf. The Club Vosgien paths are marked with symbols and you’ll see that some of them pass relics marked as Blockh. You can deduce that these will be connected to some remains of military operations.

Here’s an extract from the IGN blue map 3718 OT at 1:25000. I’ll make another post with further suggested maps, later.

[Dragon]

You can compare the modern map with the 1915 map to work out where the remains may be. I say may, because it isn’t riddled with visible trench lines.

This is taken from the July 1915 map of that area. The line with slashes is the German front line, the plain line is the French.

So you plan your walk using the modern map, now you can see where the lines were.

[Dragon]

It's a long, tiring walk which will reward with some amazing views at the top. Part of the area is designated as a heritage site and fenced off, and you can walk freely in this as it’s flatter. There are map-boards and markers from time to time, pointing out a few points of interest.

Eventually you will begin to come across remains, especially if you keep your eye on the map and look in the areas marked blockh. You have to go off the paths and start looking, carefully. I never take risks. There are numerous hazards as in any mountain area, and this also has holes in the ground and unnatural features. Just as a matter of interest, I’m still being treated by a pain consultant for a leg injury sustained up there in Sept 2003, and I am always careful. I just fell in an unmarked hole, in safe, dry conditions.

This is the sort of thing you will see within safe reach of the path. I’ve enhanced it for contrast so you can see it more clearly. Sorry that my pictures aren't digital; I use prints and have to compress for this forum, so it's lost crispness.

I think it’d p'raps be best if I put pics on my own website.....

[Dragon]

Map suggestions, to complement Hedley's recommendations:

IGN Série Verte (1:100000) for general planning

IGN Série Verte 12 Strasbourg Forbach (parcs naturels régionaux de Lorraine est et des Vosges du Nord)

IGN Série Verte 31 St-Dié Mulhouse Bâle (parc naturel regional des Ballons des Vosges)

IGN Série blue (1:25000) for closer detail and walks:

3618 le Hohneck Gérardmer la Bresse (la carte de randonnée)

3717 Sélestat Ribeauvillé Haut-Koenigsbourg

3718 Colmar Kaysersberg

3719 Grand Ballon

I still think you would get good initial help from the tourist office in Munster, and the two leaflets I mentioned. I'm sure they speak English, if that's an issue for you.

[Dragon]

Unmarked hazard, covered with overgrown vegetation. (I didn't go down it!) The first I saw of it was the concrete block at the top.

[Dragon]

Typical of many areas, this is the nearest you'll get to the front line in this location. (This is not le Linge.) The German line was about 50 metres or more down a near-vertical face, right below me.

It's a rubbish picture; I'm just using it to give a feeling for the problem.

[Dragon]

The end of one part of the story. Breitenbach.

[Guest montegrappa]

Amazing stuff mate,

now I believe I can work out where the two lines where at last. Where did you get the original black and white map? any book I could buy or order?

It would be cool to check out your website as you keep mentioning it...if that is ok with you...I will try to see if I can get hold of one of those maps...

and yes, I speak no french at all!

the only site I know is this one...did u know it ?

My Webpage

[Guest montegrappa]

vosges

sorry here you are the website, hopefully