St. MIHIEL SALIENT - Les Eparges Ridge
- by Pierre Grande Guerre
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- 21 Apr, 2019
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Years of visit: 2005, 2006
Memorial for the French Engineers ("Génie") on Les Eparges, whose units were involved in the mine warfare here.
Saint Mihiel Salient
In September 1914 the Germans tried to capture Verdun from the south side. On 22 September 1914, the Germans occupied all ridges dominating the Plain of Woëvre. The city of St. Mihiel would fall only 3 days later, on the 25th. And so the Germans created the Saint Mihiel Salient.
The frontline went from Les Eparges, St. Mihiel, Apremont, to the Bois le Prêtre on the west bank of the Moselle and north of Pont-a-Mousson on the east bank.
The Salient would never be recaptured until 13 September 1918. As you can read in my Photo Impression of the Butte de Montsec, American troops made a big difference during this last Franco-American offensive.
Before the definite capture of the salient in 1918, the French Army tried to retake the salient many times!
Point X overseeing the Plain of Wöevre in the direction of Verdun Tavannes.
Mine Warfare
On 17 March 1915 General Herr, commander of the 6e Corps d’ Armée, ordered his 12e D.I. to attack again. More than 100 guns are involved in 45-minute artillery preparation. The assault troops are the 1st and 2nd battalions of 132e R.I., the 3rd battalion is in support of the 1st. The reserves are formed by 6 companies of the 54th R.I. At 16 hours, the French troops launch their attack and approach the defensive sector called point C, the main objective of the assault, but the are not able to occupy the zone. This assault allows just the capture of 350 meters of trenches, but Point X is still being located 100 meters from the new French lines.
Om 27 March General Herr orders the execution of a new attack by the 12th D.I., this time re-inforced by a Battalion of Chasseurs again with no result.
From 5 to 9 April 1915, a new series of attacks was launched on the ridge of Les Eparges during the French offensive in the Woëvre Plain. The 12e D.I. was again engaged to take the summit. The 106e R.I. had to capture Point C in the middle of the ridge while the 132e R.I. had to attack the eastern part of the ridge and take Point X.
At 4 pm, after a 30-minute artillery preparation, the infantry attack started. The 106e R.I. succeeded in capturing its objectives, the 132e R.I. is blocked by the violence of the German fire. Some French sections are forced to break off the fight; the mud rendered their weapons out of service.
On 6 April, the 67e Infantry Regiment attacked with a battalion of the 132e R.I., but the attack was stopped by German machine guns. During the day the Germans counter-attacked and took back all the ground lost on April 5 during hand-to-hand combats. From 3 pm, the French artillery launched a barrage. A general attack of the French troops made it possible to take again Point C, but it is blocked at the extreme east of the butte of Les Eparges at Point X.
On 7 April, four German battalions attack the 106e R.I. and 132e R.I. These two regiments are not supported by the French artillery and must abandon the ground captured the day before. In the afternoon, the German advance is contained, but French counterattacks fail.
On 8 April, the 8e R.I. is sent in support of the 12e D.I. This regiment participates in several night attacks which are immediately stopped by the Germans who repel all these assaults.
On 9 April 9, the ridge line was bombarded by the French artillery, and the 106e R.I. and the 25e Battaillon Chasseurs Alpins supported by the 132e R.I. captured definitively Point C and the line of crest. The 8e R.I. attacked Point X, but after very violent fighting the Germans remained in possession of Point X and the southern slope of the hill. To all these deadly fights the 166th R.I. was also involved.
After three months of extreme fighting for the infantry of both parties, in the mud, under the incessant shelling of artillery on both sides, the French possessed, under precarious conditions, most of the Ridge of the Eparges except Point X. It was impossible for them to establish posts for the artillery, the original purpose of the battle. 
For both sides each these fights cost about 12,000 casualties (killed, wounded and disappeared), for almost zero results. Fighting in this region turned into a mine warfare until April 1917, creating more mine craters on the ridge as we will later see. During this period, 46 German mines and 32 French mines exploded on a front length of 800 meters without changing the front line.
On 17 February, 1915, the French detonated 4 mines on Hill 346 causing craters of more than 30 metres deep. My late wife, Chris ( + 08-05-2018), made this photo: me on the lip of one of the 4 huge mine craters, just to show you the size of it.
As we walk towards the former lines we cross this huge mine crater, lying behind …
The monument commemorates the 12e Division d' Infanterie.
Amidst traces of shell holes and trenches we descend from the memorial downward …
… to this German dressing station bunker, constructed during the winter of 1914-1915.
The tunnelled corridors into the underground of the ridge are now filled in.
A sign near the bunker calls this bunker wrongly: "L 'Abri du Kronprinz" , the shelter of the Crown Prince.
With my back to the bunker I look to this marvellous view of the Woëvre plain and the village of Combres-sous-les-Côtes.
In the valley, south of les Eparges, along the D 113, we discover this German machine gun bunker.
Continue to: "Fort de Troyon"
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.
