Battle of the Lisaine

Battle of the Lisaine

Part of: Franco-German War

date	15. bis 17th January 1871
place	Near Belfort on the Lisaine river , France
output	German victory

Parties to the conflict
North German Confederation Baden	France
Commander
August from Werder	Charles Bourbaki
Troop strength
approx. 37,300 to 52,000 men	about 150,000 men
losses
1,847 men and 81 officers	6,000 to 8,000 men

The Battle of the Lisaine ( French Bataille d'Héricourt ) took place from January 15 to 17, 1871 near Belfort during the Franco-Prussian War between the German XIV Corps under General August von Werder and the French Eastern Army under General Charles Bourbaki instead. In some sources it is also referred to as the "Battle of Belfort", "Battle of Héricourt " or "Battle of Montbéliard ".

initial situation

After the fall of the fortress of Strasbourg , the German XIV Corps, under the command of General Graf von Werder, was tasked with taking the Alsatian fortresses. Schlettstadt was captured on October 24, 1870 and Verdun on November 9. Neu-Breisach and Fort Mortier capitulated after nine days of bombardment on November 10, 1870.

Count August von Werder

The siege of Belfort began on November 26, 1870 by the 1st Reserve Division until February 18, 1871. The German units had advanced as far as Dijon , which was conquered on October 31, 1870 after brief fighting.

A French army under General Bourbaki, newly formed from parts of the Loire Army after the Battle of Orléans , was gathered in the Bourges area . It was with this army that the main strike of a coordinated offensive was to be carried out. At the same time there was to be an outage in Paris and coordinated attacks on Paris from the north and west. This plan by Charles de Freycinet was finally decided on December 19th, and on the 20th his goals were published by the Paris newspaper Le Moniteur Universel , violating secrecy as an essential precondition for success.

The aim of the French attack in the east was to take Dijon and relieve the fortresses of Belfort and Langres . This would have cut the German connections to the rear. This would have made it difficult to supply the German units near Paris, as the only railway line available at the time, Paris - Strasbourg , would have been interrupted near Nancy . The strategic goal was the union with the Northern Army of General Faidherbe . The Eastern Army received support from Garibaldi's Vosges Army .

The Eastern Army consisted of around 140,000 soldiers with 300 guns. The core of the army was the XVIII. and the XX. Corps. Other associations were the Crémer Division and the 7th Military Division. The newly established XXIV Corps was to be added. All of these associations had been put together in a great hurry, with corresponding difficulties in training, management, and equipment. The already combat-experienced parts of the corps had to accept heavy losses in the fighting on the Loire and had been in service without interruption for over two months.

Deployment to battle

General Charles Bourbaki

Bourbaki's advance against Belfort forced General von Werder to retreat from Dijon on December 27th and to transfer the troops to Vesoul . As reinforcement, the reinforced brigade under Goltz was withdrawn from the siege of Langres . On January 9, 1871, this brigade, the 4th Reserve Division and the French fought at Villersexel . The Prussian associations recognized the strength and composition of the Eastern Army. As a result, considerable German reinforcements were put on the march, but apart from a few units from the reserve in southern Germany, they could no longer be on site in time. With this reinforcement, the number of German troops in this area was around 43,000 soldiers. Some French sources name 52,000 soldiers.

General von Werder then withdrew his troops to a permanent position west of Belfort on the Lisaine . The aim was to maintain the siege of Belfort until the reinforcements arrived.

In contemporary reporting, for example in Friedrich Engels in the Pall Mall Gazette No. 1854 of January 21, 1871, General Bourbaki was accused of being too slow and overly cautious. This would have gambled away his advantage of numerical superiority and left the German associations too much time for dismissal and later preparation for the defense. The French, however, were hampered by the severe frost - the temperature on the night of January 14th fell to minus 17 degrees - and the mountainous terrain. In addition, the rail transport of the French troops in this case was exceptionally badly organized, so that there was a backlog of up to ten days in front of the Clerval unloading station , which led to human and animal losses due to frost and further demoralized the troops.

Skirmishes on the Lisaine

Battle of the Lisaine

On the evening of January 11th, the German troops moved into a defensive position formed by the Lisaine and Allaine valleys west of Belfort. In addition, the embankment of the railway line from Montbeliard to Héricourt, which follows the Lisaine, provided a natural fortification for the Prussian units. The line extended to Montbeliard-Héricourt in the south and north to Frahier-et-Chatebier . Heavy artillery was withdrawn from the siege of Belfort to strengthen these field fortifications.

On January 15th the battle for the outposts in front of the fortified line took place with morning temperatures of minus 14 degrees . Due to the difficult road conditions, the French could not immediately use their numerical superiority. On that day the German outposts were pushed back to the main line, but were also there under the protection of their own artillery . The frontal attack on the German center could not cross the Lisaine.

On January 16, General Bourbaki tried with the Crémer division to encircle the German right wing in order to reach the road leading from Frahier via Châlonvillars and Essert to Belfort. The right German wing was formed by three Baden battalions with three batteries under Major General Degenfeld , which had been brought in immediately before the battle. However, this enclosure was set too briefly. Due to their numerical superiority, they succeeded here after a fight of around ten hours in taking the village of Chenebier and pushing back the weak German wing until shortly before Châlonvillars . However, the capture of Châlonvillars did not succeed. At the same time, French attacks on the other sections took place that day. The considerable expansion of the German positions meant that General Bourbaki misjudged the strength of his opponents and proceeded accordingly cautiously.

On the night of January 16-17, the focus of the attack shifted back to the center. An attempt to exploit and expand the success at Chenebier was not made. Instead, the Basement Brigade in Baden started a counterattack from around 4 a.m. and was able to penetrate the village of Chenebier, take 400 prisoners and capture equipment. Since the place itself could not be held, the people of Baden took up a position between Chenebier and Frahier, where they could repel all further attacks.

On January 17th, further attacks took place in all sections, but the exhaustion of the French soldiers made itself felt during the last attacks. The associations were demoralized by the failure of the breakthrough, which was unsuccessful in spite of the overwhelming power, the cold and the insufficient food. Bourbaki had to decide to withdraw, also because he had received news of the approach of the army from Manteuffel .

Retreat and persecution

Disarming of the French troops in Switzerland, depiction in the Bourbaki panorama in Lucerne

The withdrawal began on the evening of January 17th. A rear guard remained in place until the evening of January 18th. The pursuit of the French troops by General von Werder began on January 19th.

The planned retreat towards Lyon was no longer possible for General Bourbaki. The valleys of the Jura in the direction of Lyon had already been occupied by the newly formed southern army with the II and VII Corps under the command of General von Manteuffels with 60,000 men and 168 guns. The remnants of the Eastern Army thus only had the choice of a battle against numerically strong, rested, experienced and well-equipped German units, which would have led to a catastrophe for the completely exhausted and disorganized troops, and the transition to Switzerland to lose their lives save. On January 26, after being telegraphed from Freycinet on the 25th to be solely responsible for the failure, Bourbaki attempted suicide and was replaced by General Justin Clinchant . The German units von Manteuffel and von Werder succeeded in enclosing the Eastern Army at Pontarlier on the Swiss border from January 26th .

On January 29th at around 5 p.m., Clinchant learned of a ceasefire the day before. Since Jules Favre in his telegram to the government delegation in Bordeaux had withheld the regulations for the province in general and for the territory of the Eastern Army in particular, which differed from the regulations for Paris, Clinchant believed he had time while the leaders of the containment troops from Versailles correctly informed, the last two remaining possible escape routes via Foncine-le-Bas and Saint-Laurent-en-Grandvaux were blocked. Therefore, on February 1, around 3 a.m., he had to sign the Treaty of Les Verrières with the Swiss General Herzog for the transfer of his soldiers to Switzerland.

From February 1st to 3rd, 1871 approx. 87,000 soldiers with 12,000 horses crossed the border and were interned in Switzerland according to the contract , the remaining soldiers had deserted in the past few days and were trying to get by on their own.

consequences

After this battle and the elimination of the Eastern Army, there was no longer any hope of relieving the beleaguered fortress of Belfort, which continued to resist but had to surrender on February 16, 1871 .

The coordinated attempts by French associations in the winter of 1870/1871 to regain the initiative had failed. The failures of Paris in the Battle of Buzenval had just as little success as the attacks from the north in the Battle of Saint-Quentin and the west of Le Mans . In addition to the military, this series of failures also had a considerable demoralizing effect on the French population.

After the Battle of the Lisaine, an armistice was negotiated, which, however, expressly excluded the areas in Eastern France, so that the persecution and subsequent elimination of the Eastern Army by the German units remained legally permissible.

Web links

• Hervé de Weck / GG: Bourbaki Army. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . 08/31/2004 , accessed February 9, 2019 .

literature

• Theodor Fontane: The war against France 1870–1871. Complete edition in 2 volumes. Verlag Rockstuhl, Bad Langensalza, Reprint 1873/1876/2004, ISBN 3-937135-25-1 (Volume 1) and ISBN 3-937135-26-X (Volume 2)
• Friedrich Engels: About the war. Transcription of a text from the Pall Mall Gazette No. 1854 of January 21, 1871

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wilhelm Oncken : The Age of Emperor Wilhelm. Single edition: ISBN 978-3-8460-3638-9 . In: W. Oncken (Ed.): General history in individual representations. Fourth main section, part six, volume 2. Grote, Berlin 1890 and more often, p. 315.
2. ^ Wilhelm Oncken : The Age of Emperor Wilhelm. Single edition: ISBN 978-3-8460-3638-9 . In: W. Oncken (Ed.): General history in individual representations. Fourth main section, part six, volume 2. Grote, Berlin 1890 and more often, pp. 316/317.
3. ^ Wilhelm Oncken : The Age of Emperor Wilhelm. Single edition: ISBN 978-3-8460-3638-9 . In: W. Oncken (Ed.): General history in individual representations. Fourth main section, part six, volume 2, Grote, Berlin 1890 and more often, pp. 337/337.
   • Text of the Favre dispatch: Mr. J. Favre, Minister for Foreign Affairs to the Delegation to Bordeaux. Today we are signing a contract with Count Bismarck. A ceasefire of 21 days has been agreed. A meeting is called in Bordeaux on February 15th. Make this news known all over France. Let the armistice be carried out and call the voters on February 8th. A member of the government will be leaving for Bordeaux.
   • Text of the Moltke telegram: Capitulation and armistice negotiations with Paris have just been concluded. Armistice begins here immediately, everywhere else on the 31st of this month at noon. The departments of Côte d'Or, Doubs and Jura are provisionally excluded pending a decision on the operations to be continued by you, and the siege of Belfort continues. signed G. Moltke