VOSGES - Senones - La Roche Mère Henry
- by Pierre Grande Guerre
- •
- 15 Aug, 2019
- •
Year of visit: 2009
Along a road on the western outskirts of Senones we detect this after war demarcation stone.
... lie the French and German War Cemeteries next to each other. The inhabitants of Senones call this location "La Poterosse", after the hamlet at the western outskirts of Senones.
The German War Cemetery or Kriegsgräberstatte Senones contains 1.528 German burials. Of the 1.528 soldiers 784 are buried in a grave, and 22 individual soldiers of them are unknown. The mass grave contains the remains of 744 killed soldiers, only 348 of them are known by their name.
The "Schlacht in Lothringen" or the "Battle of Lorraine" from 25 to 28 August 1914, the defensive fighting in the winter 1914-1915, the trench warfare of 1915, and the war in late 1918 increased the number of dead in this front sector. After 1915 The army units were here “at rest”. After 1915 there were no great battles anymore, but the artillery bombardments and skirmishes continued. Soldiers, buried here, came from garrisons in Bavaria, Baden, Hessen, Hanover, Brunswick, Ostfriesland, Wurttemberg, Westphalia, Thuringia, Brandenburg, Silesia and the Rhineland.
Some samples of the graves to be found on this cemetery.
Two graves of 1914. The Hebrew words on the grave of the Jewish Emil Siegel mean above the name: "Here rests", and below the name: "May his soul stay interwoven to the circle of the living."
Instead of their traditional duties, doing construction works or guarding prisoners, even the often more older soldiers of the Bavarian Landsturm, ...
... attached to Bavarian Landwehr and Ersatz units, also had to actively fight in the positional war of the Vosges, and of course could also get killed.
In the middle lies the grave of a Wehrman, Karl Bohn, fallen on 20 September 1914.
The other two graves contain each the mortal remains of a civilian worker.
View from the mass grave north-eastward to the Côte de Senones.
From 18 August 1914, the 30. Bayerische Reserve-Division consisted of:
10. bayerische Reserve-Infanterie-Brigade , Kgl. Bayerisches 11. Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment , 14.Radfahrer-Abteilung, Festungs-MG-Kompanie Nr. 2, Reserve-MG-Abteilung Nr. 3, 5. bayerische Ersatz-Brigade, Bayerisches Brigade-Ersatz-Bataillon Nr. 5 (mob.Ers.Btl./Kgl. Bay. 23.Inf.Regt.), Bayerisches Brigade-Ersatz-Bataillon Nr. 6 (mob.Ers.Btl./Kgl. Bay. 18.Inf.Regt. Prinz Ludwig Ferdinand), Bayerisches Brigade-Ersatz-Bataillon Nr. 7 (mob.Ers.Btl./Kgl. Bay. 5.Inf.Regt. Großherzog Ernst Ludwig von Hessen), Bayerisches Brigade-Ersatz-Bataillon Nr. 8 (mob.Ers.Btl./Kgl. Bay. 8.Inf.Regt. Großherzog Friedrich II. von Baden), Kavallerie-Ersatz-Abteilung Landau/II. Bayerisches Armeekorps (⅓ Eskadron), Kgl. Bayerisches 2. Feldartillerie-Regiment, 1. Ersatz-Batterie/Kgl. Bayerisches 12. Feldartillerie-Regiment, Ersatz-Abteilung/Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 80, 1.Ersatz-Batterie/Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 84, 3.Batterie/Reserve-Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 14.
On 26 December 1916 the Division was renamed the 30th Royal Bavarian Reserve Division. It spent it's time during the whole war in positional warfare in the Vosges mountains and the Alsace-Lorraine region.
The French opponents - 363e R.I. and the 37e
Régiment
d'Infanterie
Coloniale
19 November 1914 - Attack at Côte 675
The target of the attack was to capture the German Bunker at Height 675. Advanced troops of the Génie blew a breach in the barbed wire entanglements of the Bavarians. The infantry followed and jumped off from the trench, south of Les Quatres Sapins; in the centre of the sketch below.
We now pay a visit to the French Nécropole Nationale de Senones.
The Nécropole Nationale de Senones contains the graves of 795 French Soldiers, including colonial soldiers. 372 Of these soldiers are buried in 2 ossuaries. Quite remarkable; there also buried 6 Poles, 11 Rumanians and 6 Russians.
The human remains are collected from battlefields in the area around, like Bois du Palon, Bois "Y", la Scierie de Malfosse, la Chapelle de la Halte, the nearby Mère Henry, the Haute-Forain, etc.
Later we will detect memorials and graves, reminding us of the former presence of the 363e. R.I. and the 37e R.I.C.
Some graves of soldiers from Indo China, nowadays Vietnam, of the 7e Bataillon Indochienois, fallen in 1917 and 1918.
One of the two ossuaries containing the human remains of 186 soldiers.
The list of units on the plaque gives us an impression of the other French units, which were active in this front sector.
Michael Maximow died for France and belonged to the "18e Bataillon de Travailleurs Russes" or 18th Batallion of Russian Workers.
The second ossuary contains also 186 persons.
The same text on this plaque as on the first one, which tells us a little about how hopeless the identification procedures must have been. Besides the presence of regular infantry regiments, the plaque tells us also about the former presence of other Colonial Regiments, and Battalions of Chasseurs Alpins.
Two graves of Polish soldiers. Left : the grave of Second Lieutenant Mille Roman of the 3e Régiment des Chasseurs Polonais. Right: a soldier, named Francize Davotak, of the 1e Régiment des Chasseurs Polonais.
(I
explain the presence of Poles at the Western Front in my photo impression about
La
Targette.)
On 18 June 1915, on a rather quiet day at the front, even the Commander of the 37e R.I.C., Lt. Colonel Paul Cozineau, ...
We leave the cemeteries of la Poterosse to continue our exploration.
From the cemeteries of la Poterosse,
we follow a route, north of Senones, climbing along
the eastern slopes of the Côte de Senones
to the
Roche Mère Henry ("Mother Henry Rock "),
in the former German lines to search for relics. I do realise that this impression
gives not a complete image, because there are more relics on
the Côte des Senones to explore, than we could
cover during this trip.
On the west side of the nameless, meandering road to a location, called "Les Quatres Bancs", stands this Bavarian bunker.
Some few hundred metres more northward we detect two "twin" bunkers next to each other.
The interior with at the rear the entrance of a filled in tunnel, running inside the height.
This one has also an entrance to a filled in tunnel, possibly leading to other tunnels and dug-out caves.
... and again some few hundred metres further on we spot another shelter bunker with a rather large window and a tunnel entrance inside.
Just before the hair pin curve we spot another tunnel entrance with concrete and steel beams.
At an open spot in the wood, at a junction of different paths, is the location of Les Quatres Bancs. From here we continue on foot.
Near and below this tree with the sign stands a rather large bunker.
Perhaps nature and in particular this fallen tree damaged the roof?
... and fortified the outside walls, only there where necessary, with masonry stones.
This bigger window served possibly as an observation post south-eastward.
On top of the eastern rock I have to rest, ...
.. and I try on the spot to reconstruct for you this panorama with map and compass.
Panorama north-eastward and east from the more stable, southern rock.
Again: a look closer in two steps from left to right.
The third panorama detail offers a view at Ban de Sapt - la Fontenelle.
We continue our explorations to other sites in the Northern Vosges.
Continue to: "Cols de la Chipotte - Chapelotte - Col du Donon"
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.
