Moselle position in 1914

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The Moselle position was a fortified line from Sierck-les-Bains (Bad Sierck) - Thionville (Diedenhofen) - Metz - Vatimont (Wallersberg), which was expanded until 1914 with, among other things, eleven modern, very expensive festivals in the personal interest of Kaiser Wilhelm II .

prehistory

After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, the German Empire came into being ; it annexed parts of Lorraine and Alsace and formed the realm of Alsace-Lorraine . France, hurt by this victory (see revanchism ), soon afterwards began building the Barrière de fer , a chain of fortress rings around various cities in eastern France.

When new explosives were discovered around 1890 and used in explosive grenades - especially picric acid (TNP), the forerunner of TNT - this was called La crise de l'obus torpille in France , and explosive grenade crisis in Germany . The French army bombarded Fort de la Malmaison on a test basis and found that practically every masonry was damaged or destroyed. The forts that were considered most important were modernized. In some places slabs of hard concrete were poured; in some cases barracks were built entirely of concrete and the old masonry left standing next to it. The tests had also shown that the powder and ammunition magazines were no longer safe. New ones were built deeper underground (called magasin sous roc or magasin caverne ); Another option was to store the ammunition distributed throughout the buildings.

task

The great importance of the fortification line was u. a. described by Field Marshal Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz , General Inspector of the Engineer and Pioneer Corps and the fortresses, in a memorandum on the organization of German national defense from March 1889 to July 1900. Within the Schlieffen Plan , the Moselle position represented the fulcrum of the German deployment planning against France: The much larger contingent of troops was to carry out the attack north of it, while only small, passive forces were stationed south of it. In the course of the attack, four important tasks should be performed:

  • A safe deployment area for the field army was initially created behind the approximately 70 km long front.
  • After the successful attack on Belgium and the advance of the German armies on a line from around Verdun to Paris , a French attack on the German left flank - i.e. the position on the Moselle - with subsequent encirclement of the German attack wedge had to be repulsed.
  • If the French troops had evaded the German advance, they were to be pushed eastwards towards the position of the Moselle and finally crushed.
  • Due to the very strong expansion of the line, on the one hand, own troops were saved and could thus be used for the right wing; on the other hand, considerable French troops would have been tied up in Lorraine in an attack on the Moselle position .

construction

The centerpiece of the fortification line were the two fortress cities of Thionville and Metz . The intermediate field was expanded with infantry and artillery positions.

First World War

At the beginning of the war, the Moselle position made it possible for parts of the field army to march securely and throughout the course of the First World War ensured an undisturbed supply of troops via the " cannon train " to Metz. The then actually carried out strong advance of the German armies brought the French troops into such distress that the French commander- in- chief Joffre only considered a flank attack west of Verdun by the French 3rd Army (General Maurice Sarrail ) in the run-up to the Marne battle . The forces were lacking for a greater swing against the Moselle position. After the armies on the western front only faced each other in trench warfare, the Moselle position lost its importance. Infantry and foot artillery were largely moved from there to the front. The line was not involved in combat operations, so that the fortresses fell into the hands of the French practically undamaged after the First World War was lost.

Others

After the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/71, the German Empire annexed parts of Lorraine and Alsace and formed the realm of Alsace-Lorraine .

Three forts were built near Thionville during this period:

Two belts of fortifications were built around Metz.

First belt of fortifications:

Second fortress belt:

Batteries with cannons existed between the two fort belts and east of the second belt.

literature

  • Clayton Donnell: The German Fortress of Metz 1870-1944 . Osprey, Oxford 2008, ISBN 978-1-84603-302-5 ( Fortress 78).
  • Walter Dumbsky: The German fortresses from 1871 to 1914. Strategic importance and technical development . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-8204-0044-3 ( Erlangen historical studies 11), (At the same time: Erlangen, Nürnberg, Univ., Diss., 1986).
  • Colmar Frh. Von der Goltz : Memories. Edited and edited by Friedrich von der Goltz and Wolfgang Foerster . Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1929.
  • Rudi Rolf: The German tank fortification. The Panzerfest in Metz and their prehistory . Biblio-Verlag, Osnabrück 1991, ISBN 3-7648-1784-4 .

Footnotes

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ The essential parts of it are printed in Goltz, pp. 196–214.