LORRAINE - Bouxières-sous-Froidmont - Verny - Feste Wagner
- by Pierre Grande Guerre
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- 28 Aug, 2019
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Year of visit: 2012
Some 500 m. west of the village of Bouxières-sous-Froidmont the paved road stops near a picnic table at the foot of the Froidmont.
The Franco-German 1871-1918 border divided the Froidmont at the edge of the northern prairie and the wood in a northern German half and a larger, southern French half.
On 21 August 1914, during the second day of the “Schlacht in Lothringen”, units of the the German 5th Army attacked the Froidmont and the Butte de Xon, supported by artillery fire from two forts in the north-east, “Feste Wagner” and “Feste Luitpold”. The Germans succeeded in occupying the Froidmont completely. The Butte de Xon would stay in French possession.
The final No Man’s Land was in this valley between the two heights.
Some 10 m. to the left and behind the chapel we find another bunker out of the many to be found on the Froidmont.
Here we arrive at the site of action, where the first French soldier fell after the official start of the Great War.
(It depends how you approach the concept of the “first killed soldier of the war”. Thirty hours before the official German war declaration, on 2 August 1914, Caporal Peugeot was killed at Joncherey, Sundgau.)
A bullet entered Pouget’s head "above the right ear and left via the bottom of the skull.”
The Chasseurs of another surveillance post hurried to the spot to safeguard "the corpse of their comrade against rifle shots from the German patrols. A car of the Red Cross has been sent out from Pont-à-Mousson to collect him in the evening.”
Cavalryman, Fortuné Emile Pouget, was buried the next day in the civilian cemetery of Pont-à-Mousson.
Artillery grenade or rifle shot?
Some contemporary sources of the period state that Pouget was killed by an artillery grenade. This text of the J.M.O., written during the night of 4 to 5 August 1914, proves that Pouget has been killed by a rifle shot from one of the 8 patrol men!
We leave this spot to return via the same path to our car near the picnic table.
Le Froidmont - German Trenches and Bunkers
of L.I.R. 30
The Armee-Abteilung von Strantz
The last component of the Armee-Abteilung von Strantz was the 33rd Reserve Division of Metz. This reserve division had the task of defending the ring of forts and fortifications around Metz. The division was formed on mobilization of the German Army in August 1914 and it was part of the central reserve of the Fortress of Metz (“Hauptreserve/Festung Metz”).
Although designated a reserve division, it was initially composed of one active and one reserve infantry brigade. The active brigade was the 8th Bavarian Infantry Brigade, detached from the 4th Bavarian Infantry Division. The rest of the division's troops came mainly from the Prussian Rhine Province and Province of Westphalia.
The Deutscher Kriegsgräberstätte Fey-Buch contains the human remains of 2,009 men. Three of them belonged to the K.u.K Österrisch-Ungarischen Armee.
There are 1,485 individual graves of whom 16 men are unknown and one communal grave, containing the human remains of 521 men of whom 188 are unknown. The officers and soldiers, buried here, were killed during all periods of the war.
The Fey German War Cemetery was created by the French military authorities in 1923 as a collective cemetery for German war dead, whose graves were provisional or makeshift graves. The corpses were collected in the west and northwest of Metz between Gravelotte and Ars and more to the west, to the area of the Bois le Prêtre or Priesterwald. More corpses were recovered from areas south of Metz between the Moselle and the Northern Vosges. A portion of the men lost their life early in the course of the war, during the Battle of Lorraine, from mid August to early September 1914. The large majority were collected as a result of the extreme trench warfare combats in the Bois le Prêtre during the period of 1915-1917. Another great number of burials were caused by the defensive battles in the closing stages of the war, from October to November 1918. The soldiers and officers, buried here, belonged to units, whose home base was predominantly in Bavaria, and also in Lorraine, Westphalia, West Prussia, Posen, Silesia, Brandenburg, Baden, Württemberg, Saxony and the Rhineland.
We explore the cemetery.
First we continue northward to the village of Fey. From there we follow the D 66 eastward to Coin-lès-Cuvry. We pass and leave the village at the east side in the direction of Fleury.
Some 300 m. behind the village boundary and just before the bridge over the Seille, we make a rather dangerous stop along the road. Be careful!
... I offer you some concise information in the next frame.
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The Feste Wagner |
By an imperial decree of 17 May 1910, Kaiser Wilhelm II baptised the “Feste Wagner” after General Julius Hermann Ulrich Wagner (1842-1904), who was a member of the Engineering Committee involved in the constructions of the fortifications around Metz.
In 1904 began the construction of the “Feste Wagner”. The 47-acre complex of fortifications was completed in 1910.
All these fortification units are surrounded by barbed wire networks.
The garrison
The garrison of the fort consisted of 4 infantry companies, 2 machine-gun companies, 2 artillery batteries, and 3 Pioniere detachments. During the war a total of some 1,250 men, infantrymen, artillerymen and engineers, manned the fort. The Germans always feared a French rupture of the front to Metz. For this reason the fort always possessed a complete garrison during the war.
Outer defensive circle
The defensive ring of fortifications around Metz consisted of an inner circle and an outer circle. Feste Wagner belonged to the outer circle, defending the Seille border.
The Feste Wagner during the Great War
Except for 21 and 26 August 1914 the Feste Wagner was not involved in the battles of the Great War. On 21 and 26 August 1914 two guns of the 150 mm. “Schirmlafetten” battery bombarded Nomeny, Lèsmenil and the Butte de Xon. In September 1914 artillery guns of the Feste bombarded the station of Pont-à-Mousson. During the rest of the war the fort housed an aerial reconnaissance unit.
Maginot Line and Second World War
As I remarked above, after the Great War the German “Feste Wagner” was incorporated in the French Maginot Line. The French Army baptised the fort “Groupe Fortifié de l‘Aisne”. During the Second World War the Germans took over again the possession of the fort. It was involved in battle during the final phase of this war, in particular during the Battle of Metz of 1944.
Guided tour by the A.D.F.M.
A guided tour of the fort is possible once a week and it takes two and a half hours. Check for the schedule of these tours on the fine website of the “Association pour la Découverture de la Fortification Messine” (A.D.F.M.): Feste Wagner – Groupe fortifié de l'Aisne. The A.D.F.M. is an organisation of volunteers, who spend their free time to preserve and to restore the fort.
Merci beaucoup, Monsieur le Président, Raymond Decker et votre équipe de l’A.D.F.M. pour votre bon travail du préservation du fort!
Recommended sources: Feste Wagner – Groupe fortifié de l'Aisne. I.& D. Wernet: “Die Feste Wagner” (A.D.F.M.-2010), Clayton Donnell: “The German Fortress of Metz 1870-1944” (2008).
Walking along the ammunition niches ...
The armoured 15 cm. guns were transported by train from their depot at Sablon, on “Spezialwaggons”. These carriages, especially designed for these guns, arrived on a railway running parallel to the battery wall. From the carriages the guns were lifted by ropes and pulleys onto the rails in this open position and anchored with bolts. This lift-and-install operation lasted some 2 to 3 hours.
Source: I.& D. Wernet: “Die Feste Wagner” (A.D.F.M.-2010).
The left gun position.
| The 7 Deutz generators of the “Kraftwerk” converted a gasoline mix to 110 Volt electricity. The “Kraftwerk” formed the power supply for the complete Feste Wagner. |
We walk to the most interesting part: the top construction of the battery itself.
A view at the line of the four armoured 15 cm. howitzer turrets of the “Panzerturmhaubitzen” battery.
Three options to continue to a next chapter:
1. A Special Photo Impression of another and different German fort: "Feste Kaiser Wilhelm II - Fort de Mutzig".
2. Continue to the first chapter of the Northern Vosges: "Tête de Violu - Bernhardstein".
3. Go for some German "Bunkerology", a visit to the trenches and bunkers on the foot of the "Donon" mountain.
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.
