When the Odds Were Even: The Vosges Mountains Campaign

CHAPTER 1 The Battleground In the wooded mountain terrain, the formation of a contiguous front was not possible. The individual strongpoints were far apart. The intervening land could only be covered through flanking fire of heavy weapons and artillery. The fighting always consisted of small battles in the underbrush, man on man. The American infantryman, accustomed to the protection of superior airpower and artillery, and used to advancing behind tanks, suddenly found themselves robbed of their most important helpers. The persistent bad weather hindered their air force, and the terrain limited the mobility of their armor to a significant degree. Here, the individual soldier mattered the most. For the German soldier, theirs was the courage of despair that gave rise to the utmost resistance: after many years of combat all over Europe, his back was to the wall of the homeland. On their side, the Americans believed that the banner of victory was already half-fastened to their colors and that it would only take one last energetic exertion for them to victoriously end the war. So both sides fought with unbelievable bitterness and severity. Gerhard Graser, veteran and chronicler of the 198th Infantry Division, writing about combat in the Vosges Mountains in 194445 The Vosges Mountains have always been a refuge and a great defensive bastion. They rise dramatically from the Rhine Valley near Belfort to peaks of four thousand feet or more. Running parallel to the Rhine along the broad, flat Alsatian Plain for about ninety miles, they become even more rugged as they descend to their northern terminus near the Lauter River. Generally, geomorphologists divide the thirty-mile-wide range into two parts: the High Vosges, to the south, made up mainly of granite and gneiss, and the Low Vosges (which many Germans call the Hardt), composed mainly of sedimentary rock such as red sandstone. The High Vosges were formed by titanic terrestrial upheavals during the Paleozoic era, but were somewhat smoothed by glaciers later on; thus, their slopes are somewhat even and they allow easy east-west crossings at a few passes. The Low Vosges to the north of the Saverne Gap were never affected by the vast, abrading seas of ice that planed the higher formations to the south. Thus, although these more northerly mountains do not reach elevations much in excess of three thousand feet, they afford even fewer places to cross due to their steeper, more dramatic crescendos and diminuendos in relief. During the dim prehistory of Alsace, several hundred years before Christ, a still-unidentified Celtic people inhabiting the Vosges attempted to supplement their mountain fastness with the construction of a ten-kilometer-long, three-meter-high wall around a mountain peak (the modern Fliehburg) near contemporary Obernai. Known as the Heidenmauer (Heathen Wall), due to its pre-Christian origins on the site of the shrine of Saint Odilia, patroness of Alsace, it represents one of the earliest known fortification systems in the Vosges. In the first century before Christ, the frightened Sequanians, Aeduans, and other Celtic tribes retreated to the craggy protection of "Mons Vosegus" when Ariovistus and his Suevi (Swabians) crossed the Rhine and threatened to subjugate them and occupy their territory. When Caesar marched northeastward to Alsace from southern Gaul, he and his proud legions successfully ejected the Germans from the area by defeating them in battle near Vesontio (modern Besancon). Fortunately for the Romans and their Gallic allies, Ariovistus chose to retreat northeastward across the Alsatian Plain toward the area that is today Selestat in an attempt to link up with reinforcements; had he and his Germans withdrawn to the Vosges, Caesar may never have crossed the Rhine, however briefly. After later defeatiBonn, Keith E. is the author of 'When the Odds Were Even: The Vosges Mountains Campaign' with ISBN 9780891415121 and ISBN 0891415122.