Source: File: Alpin Chasseurs.jpg, 2015. The Battle
Source: File: Battling
on skis - a charge by the Chasseurs Alpins.jpg, 2015. Picturing the Great War
The First World War Blog from Mary Evans Picture
Library Monday, September 09, 2013. [online] Available at: <http://blog.maryevans.com/2013/09/battling-on-skis-a-charge-by-the-chasseurs-alpins.html>
[Accessed: 5 March 2015].
i
A reporter watched skiers return from a fight,
On a march, to make an impressive sight -
That had taken place in mountainous region,
Of the Alsatian border, of a French frontier.
Formed from the days of Italian threats,
Trained in mountain warfare, the Chasseurs
Alpin Corps - with an attachment of French
Skiers - returned from a campaign - skis
Over shoulders, proving selves a stoic force.
Within the last two months of a cold winter,
The combined corps had fought against
A flawed enemy out in a mountainous
Campaign - skiers and Chasseur Alpins
Succeeded in destruction of enemy batteries.
In the regions of Alsace
and the Vosges ,
A varied, mountainous, unforgiving terrain
For the German units of Landsturm - men
Aged between 34 and 55 made up numbers
To form second and third class reserves.
Lacking quality, they made up in numbers -
A heavy presence of determination - whose
Purpose for a German offence, setting out
To Displace the French from the old town
Thann - on the river Thur, beside the Vosges .
Experiencing the appearance of the Ski
Corps, the Germans then formed companies
Of their own skiers - in attempt to even
Out their disadvantage - fighting on slopes
Of winter snow against French expertise.
Facing the hardship of this high frontier
And skilled opposition, German Landsturm
Lost 10,000 of their men, within the period
Of only one week – to result in a continued
Static place - proving selves in abject failure.
In a remorseless terrain of rocky outcrops
And steep slopes - within the midst of winter -
An attack was to form on the rocky pyramidal
Spur of Hartmannsweilerkopf - to overlook
The Rhine valley - a long
named place,
Where German force struggled to entrench.
The low mountains of Vosges ,
within east
Of fourteen high and twenty two lower
Peaks, to border Germany
In the plains north of Thann, slopes became
Haphazard German burrows of trenches,
Reinforced by countless wire entanglements.
This German foothold spread out to summits -
In a great enduring effort, to continue a line,
Carved by dynamiting the mountain edges.
On the sheltered side of a slope, a soldier's
Village took shape for the Landsturm troops -
With recreational huts, canteens, beer barrels
Brought and stored in cellars - even to include
Telegraph, telephone and electrical supplies.
ii
In learning of this, the French made plans,
Setting out to drive them from this place.
In an account, one of the Alpin's told of this
Process - as they set out almost in a game
To capture sentries of Hartmannsweilerkopf.
By this method they advanced and reached
The stream of the Sultz, a stealth of advanced
Forces, consisting mainly of skiers – in use
Of skill they slipped about the mountains -
Skiing about in varied directions, to avoid
Shots of the enemy’s attempts to trace them.
In curving paths, the ski corps were seen
As 'shadows,' almost impervious to all hits -
Skiing to a place behind Hartmannsweilerkopf
And the site of the ancient area, Freundstein –
Completing this without an enemy in sight.
A clear evening turned to clear night, as
The moon rose to illuminate the mantle
Of dense snow - between the pines
They formed a camp – no lamp or fire
Would be lit, in giving away their position.
Sweeping away snow to settle and rest
The night was not quite quiet - in a right
Direction came the thud, thud of a 77mm
German Battery -
somewhere from
An opposite crest a French 75 mm replied-
Squabbling like two angry night birds.
While some skiers rested, with knapsacks
For pillows – sentries kept watch as other
Skiers went on a reconnaissance - in quiet
Manoeuvres under the pine trees - swift
Shapes, they shrank to specks to vanish.
Some hours passed with the reassuring
Boom of the field guns, filling the clear,
Two scout skiers re-appeared, to say that
A German battery was two kilometres away,
Hidden by the castle ruins of Fruedenstein.
This battery kept silent to keep their secrecy
But with the sudden discovery of the skiers,
A company of enemy pursued the Chasseurs
Alpins and their skiers, who replied in kind -
With two officers wounded the Germans made
Their rapid retreat back to their enemy lines.
The skiers took news swiftly back to their own
Heavy batteries near Thann - who then used
Precise coordinates of concealed enemy guns.
Within a time of thirty minutes, a hidden battery
Along with ammunition wagons, were blown.
iii
With the ski corps re-grouped the order
Was to advance - within minutes reaching
Sudel Farm, an enemy equipped redoubt -
Concealed machine guns waited, but seen
by scouts, the skiers turned towards a crest.
There, a small Landsturm party sat to rest -
Not expecting an attack, as they smoked
Their pipes - surrounded they surrendered
As prisoners - in a position they overlooked
Sudel Farm, on which they made fire -
This account ended in a German retreat...
Alternatively was an attack on Sudel Farm
Made for a French defeat - with Chasseurs
Alpin and two officers cut off by Germans.
Refusing orders to surrender, men on skis,
With fixed bayonets, charged the slope
Into the German trenches - where struggle
Ended with the French being overcome
The fight's final clarity would yet be known.
by Jamie Mann.
Beaumont, A., 1915. War in the Snow – Capturing a Hill –
Work of the Skicorps. The Daily
Telegraph, [online] 5 Mar. p.10.
Col.3. Available online at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11447691/Daily-Telegraph-March-5-1915.html
[Accessed: 5 March 2015].
Anon.,1915. Alpine Chasseurs
Charge Down Slope Upon Enemy on Skis. British Columbia Historical
Newspapers Feb 20 1915, [online]
5 Mar. P.1. Col.2. Available
at:
http://historicalnewspapers.library.ubc.ca/view/collection/bellacoo/date/1915-02-20#1
[Accessed: 5 March 2015].
Mann, J., 2015. 100 years Ago -
Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal communication, 5 March 2015).
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