Having visited Spicheren, I continued on this rainy day via Sarreguemines and Bitche into Alsace. As I entered the northern Vosges, the forests closed around me once again until I turned off at Niederbronn to follow an even smaller road eastward to Wissembourg. It was already late in the afternoon as I passed through Reichshoffen, Froeschwiller and Woerth, and I still needed to find a hotel. Furthermore, I urgently needed an internet connection to check for more messages from my clients. Judging by the size of it on the map, Wissembourg itself seemed to offer the best chance of finding both of these, so I resisted the temptation to linger and pressed on among fields and thick woods, over the high Col du Pigeonnier until the town lay before me.
Intending to find the tourist information office in the town centre, I saw instead the Hotel d’Alsace immediately to my right as I entered Wissembourg and decided to enquire there. It turned out to be an excellent choice. Run by a friendly young couple (he was French and she was English) who had taken over the management only the previous month, it was clean, neat, comfortable and not too expensive. Within 20 minutes I was in my room overlooking the river and preparing to venture into the town and find a restaurant.
Wissembourg is one of the loveliest, prettiest towns that I have ever seen. It has many picturesque, half-timbered buildings and its oldest buildings and structures date back to the Middle Ages. Built on an island in the River Lauter, it was fortified from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries and large sections of its ancient walls and towers still exist. Its main church dates from around 1075 and vestiges of the original structure are preserved intact. The bulk of the church is built of pale sandstone and I saw some interesting and very old graffiti on its walls.
A couple of them bore some resemblance to the magical signs that I had seen in Iceland. The town’s inhabitants are equally pleasant and charming. On several occasions as I dined at an outside table in the warm evenings, I was greeted by strangers with a warm "Bonsoir M'sieur”. Striking up conversation with a mixed group of French and Germans on the evening I arrived, I asked if they knew the weather forecast for the next day. “Pareil” – the same – a lady replied. Wishing for better weather, I made a prayer to Thorr and poured a sacrifice of wine into the river on returning to the hotel. The next morning dawned bright, clear and sunny.
Some views of the lovely town of Wissembourg
So delighted was I with this beautiful and historic town that I explored its streets and ramparts for longer than I expected, even looking at properties for sale in an estate agent’s window to see whether I could afford a house there. Regrettably, but as one might expect from such a location, the prices were rather more than I can currently afford!
At midday I called the Hotel d’Alsace to book for another night and, after a quick lunch, returned to the car to resume the battlefield tour.
So delighted was I with this beautiful and historic town that I explored its streets and ramparts for longer than I expected, even looking at properties for sale in an estate agent’s window to see whether I could afford a house there. Regrettably, but as one might expect from such a location, the prices were rather more than I can currently afford!
At midday I called the Hotel d’Alsace to book for another night and, after a quick lunch, returned to the car to resume the battlefield tour.
In contrast to its peaceful appearance today, Wissembourg was the scene of the first major battle of the Franco-German War. On 3 August 1870 (the day after the French 2nd Corps had occupied Saarbruecken), General MacMahon had pushed forward Gen. Abel Douay’s 2nd Division to the River Lauter to guard against German incursions from that direction. They were not really expecting anything much to happen, for their (admittedly poor) intelligence gathering indicated that the Germans were not preparing to advance in any strength on that front. The Germans had different ideas, however, and Wissembourg was the exact spot where the German III Army (consisting mainly of Bavarians) intended to cross the border into France. Douay’s 8,600 men thus lay directly in the path of 80,000 Prussian and Bavarian troops.
At about 8.30 in the morning of 4 August, the first shells of the German artillery landed in and around Wissembourg as the columns of Bavarian infantry, in their plumed helmets and mid-blue uniforms, marched down the long slopes towards the small town and the River Lauter. General Douay deployed a battalion of his division in Wissembourg itself, another a mile away in the neighbouring town of Altenstadt and a third along the railway embankment in between. His artillery and the rest of his infantry were deployed on the hillside overlooking Wissembourg and Altenstadt, including the strong point of Schloss Geissberg.
As the Bavarian divisions approached, the French opened upon a heavy, long range fire with both artillery and rifles. They had yet another terrible weapon that gave a foretaste of the slaughter of the First World War, 44 years later: the mitrailleuse. This was an early, hand cranked machine gun that could deliver 125 half-inch bullets per minute in bursts of up to 25 rounds. Sometimes a single man would be torn asunder by the entire volley, leaving little more than a pair of stumps in their boots. The Bavarians reeled under the slaughter, but still they came on, pressing ever closer. Further divisions swarmed around the left flank of the French line, while the Prussians manoeuvred around the right. As always in the battles of the Franco-German War, it was the boldness and technical superiority of the German artillery that made the difference. Bringing their guns up to within 1,000 yards of the town, they blew the northern gates to splinters. As mentioned before, Wissembourg was a fortified town and, while it may not have been designed to withstand modern guns, it was still a formidable obstacle. Under withering fire from the mediaeval ramparts and bastions, the Bavarian dead and wounded soon lay thick around the walls and choked the weed-grown moats. But in the end it was the citizens who decided the issue; fearing the total destruction of their beautiful town, they rose up, barged aside the soldiers and opened the other gates to allow the Germans in and put an end to the battle.
Elsewhere, despite brave resistance, the Algerian regiments deployed in Altenstadt and around the railway station were overrun, and Prussian divisions swept forward to take the high ground and surround Schloss Geissberg. That was where the final act was played out; in dense formations, the Prussian troops – many of them Poles – tried to storm the citadel and were cut down in droves until guns were brought onto the higher ground overlooking the Schloss and bombarded it into submission. Abel Douay did not live to see the wreck of his division. Going forward to assess how the defence of Wissembourg was progressing, he had stopped by a mitrailleuse battery; it was struck by a shell and Douay died in the explosion. It was left to other officers to lead the survivors back over the mountains towards Froeschwiller.
With these events clearly pictured in my mind, I drove first around the back of the modern railway station to a deserted and disused yard faced by old buildings that may well have dated from 1870. There I encountered two young men who were practising their skill at fighting with heavy swords, and I stopped to speak with them. It was a hot day, and they seemed glad to take a rest from their exertions. We discussed sword fighting for a while (I used to fence and have fought with heavy, Viking-era weapons in re-enactment) and then they gave me accurate directions to the Geissberg. The Schloss itself, they said, no longer existed, having been destroyed in the battle.
I thanked them and continued on my way along a winding road among fields of wheat and maize, all the time heading upward until I came to a sign marking the Geissberg itself. As the young men had said, there were no remains of the Schloss, but in its place stood a memorial garden containing monuments to the Prussian and Bavarian dead. I stopped to take photographs and, seeing some litter around the site, picked it up and put it in a plastic bag for disposal later. Litter is always bad, but to leave it in a sacred place is an abomination.
From the hill where the Schloss once stood I was able to view the entire battlefield: Wissembourg, Altenstadt and the railway station in the Lauter valley; the long slopes of the approach from the direction of Landau in Germany; the higher ground whence Prussian guns had sent shells crashing down to the ground where I stood; and the steep, wooded hills behind over which the survivors of the French 2nd Division retreated. Standing by the car and its CD player, I played the first movement of Saint-Saens’ 3rd Symphony, hearing in it the confusion of battle, the crash of the artillery shells and the pathos and the heroism of combat. Finally I had realised a dream – to fully appreciate the site of a conflict that had fascinated me for many years, in similar weather and without distraction from any source. To say that I felt happy would be a gross understatement, and the afternoon was only to get better!
PS. I can thoroughly recommend the Hotel d'Alsace in Wissembourg : http://www.hotel-alsace.fr/