Landships II

This might be the answer to where the Western Front met the Swiss border. The village of Pfetterhouse was the nearest settlement - population in 1914 1,400 - but the road linking it to Switzerland, with the home-made barricade was actually behind French lines. I shall now explain where I reckon the actual end of the line really was, and how it got there.

Alsace was annexed by the German Empire in 1871, after which Pfetterhouse became known as Pfetterhausen (as in Mulhouse/Mulhausen). It was (almost) where the three countries met, as shown on the postcards of the 3 stones and groups of customs officers. Under German rule it became prosperous. Germany imposed a high customs duty on wristwatches, so Swiss clockmakers moved to Pfetterhausen (which was now within Germany) to ply their trade and avoid the charges. From 1890 onwards the town flourished and almost everyone worked in some way for the watch-making industry, producing 300,000 watches a year. The village got its own, impressive railway station.

However, in August 1914 Pfetterhausen became embroiled in the War. The Battle of the Frontiers was taking place to the north, and early in the morning of the 7th (a religious holiday) French dragoons entered the village. There was considerable panic, but there must have been fighting because accounts state that 4 French soldiers were killed, though by whom is not clear. The French remained in possession of the village, the train service was withdrawn, and the Swiss watchmakers fled over the border, presumably via the customs post in the photographs.

From mid-September French customs officers were based in the village, responsible for patrolling the Largue sector, named after a small river to the east. On October 7th they fired on a small farm, killing the wife and child of the tenant farmer. Perhaps the officers suspected the presence of francs-tireurs; whatever the reason, the buildings were burnt down some days later. Then, in October, the 55th Territorial Regiment was billeted in the village and it was declared a centre of operations for the sector.

The above is an interesting episode. The reclamation of Alsace and Lorraine was a cause célèbre for the French, but the "liberators" don't seem to have treated their prospective compatriots very kindly. The place was renamed Pfetterhouse, and when the school was reopened in November 1914, lessons had to be conducted in French instead of German. It seems to have been a case of possession of territory rather than self-determination for the inhabitants. I haven't researched the sympathies of the people at the time, but I understand that many natives of Alsace consider themselves neither French nor German, but Alsatian.
 
In February 1916 a week-long German bombardment led to a complete evacuation of civilians, and Pfetterhouse remained an exclusively military base until the spring of 1919.

So where did the Front actually end? Well, it is supposed to have stabilised on the River Largue, about 2Km to the east. The Largue flows north until it meets the Swiss frontier, forms part of it for a short distance, then flows north-west.  To the south of that short section, Germany borders Switzerland, so the French couldn't be got at. It seems that, apart from the events described here, there was no action in the vicinity until the Armistice.

See previous threads:
http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=63528&p=3&topicID=11741954

http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=63528&p=3&topicID=11841622