ARTICLE: Trench Warfare in the Vosges, 1914.

When war was declared, the French 41st Division, stationed in the region of Remiremont, was sent to the Vosges and took part in the offensives directed against the Haute Alsace. Capitane Dupuy belonged to the 51st Territorial Regiment. A journalist by trade, he participated in fighting along the Meurthe before his division settled down in September as the static front began to form. His memoir describes the beginning of trench warfare in the Vosges and highlights the difference in terrain from more familiar areas on the Western Front.

A French observation post on the Vosges.

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And so [we] came to rest perpendicular to the Fave, against the Ormont, behind the troops of 14th Corps busy chasing the enemy from this important massif… In the meantime, no rest. The enemy must be hounded… The 41st division are given the famous region of Ban-de-Sapt and the right bank of the Fave, a tormented plateau which extends between Saales and the Col de Hanz, the Fave, the Meurthe, the Rabodeau and the Belval stream and whose eastern slopes, crossing the border, come to die on the course of the Bruche… One does not see anywhere else in the Vosges such a disorderly meeting of many

peaks and rises, generally sparsely wooded, quite often uncultivated, offering as a whole no definite direction, but resting however, on high backs of land, with steep and gullied sides, between which flow in all directions rapid streams. Such a set of natural defences is of equal strategic and tactical importance for both opponents. To the Germans it would give mastery of the Meurthe Valley, while completely prohibiting access to the border; to us, it enables us to block the enemy’s way west.

In whose hands would these vital positions remain?

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