Bois de Mort-Mare and Bois de la Sonnard –
Fighting in the Central Southern Salient of St. Mihiel 1914 – 1918

On the orders of the Oberste Heeresleitung, on September 15, 1914, an Armee-Abteilung (Army Detachment) was formed from parts of the 6th Army under the command of General Ludwig von Falkenhausen. The Armee-Abteilung Falkenhausen (Army Detachment Falkenhausen) received the order to secure the imperial territories of Alsace and Lorraine in place of the 6th Army and to tie down French forces at this sector of the front. It was assigned the Ersatzkorps (Ersatz Corps), the I. Bayerische Reserve-Korps (I Bavarian Reserve Corps), and other units from the previous association of the 6th Army.

To the north, Armee-Abteilung Strantz (Army Detachment Strantz), formed on September 10, 1914, also using parts of the 6th Army, under the command of General Hermann von Strantz, with the V. Preußisches Armeekorps (V Prussian Army Corps) and III. Bayerisches Armeekorps (III Bavarian Army Corps), was to become active from the Metz area in a westerly direction. The objective was to take the Côtes Lorraines and capture the three Meuse fortresses Camp des Romains, des Paroches, and de Troyon. It was then planned to advance further west from the captured area toward Bar-le-Duc and, together with the units of the 5th Army stationed in the Argonnen, to encircle the Festung Verdun.

On September 16, 1914, General von Strantz reported to the 5th Army that he would attack the following day. However, because the artillery had not been brought forward far enough, the attack had to be postponed. Reconnaissance revealed that stronger French units from the area of the Festung Toul were on their way north. Therefore, it was ordered that the XIV. Armeekorps (XIV Corps), originally intended for transport with the 6th Army, under the command of General Theodor Freiherr von Watter, should temporarily take over the security of the left flank of the operational strip in the direction of Nancy and Toul.

On September 19, 1914, Armee-Abteilung Strantz began the attack. Since the French had moved the bulk of their troops to the area north of Verdun, the German units met no significant resistance in the southern Woëvre plain. As early as September 21, 1914, the Meuse heights north of the city of St. Mihiel had been captured over a width of more than 20 kilometers.

Starting on September 23, 1914, the French attacked the positions of the XIV. Armeekorps in the Limey and Flirey areas from the south. Although the corps was able to hold its ground after reinforcements were brought up, General von Watter made another defensive and fateful decision on September 24, 1914. Von Watter ordered the positions to be withdrawn about 2 kilometers to the north from the commanding ridge between Seicheprey and Lironville and new positions to be established on the southern edge of the Bois de Mort-Mare, the Bois de la Sonnard, as well as on the adjacent heights. This decision, which was made above all without examining the geological conditions, was to very negatively influence the fighting on the southern flank of the salient for the Germans until the end of the war.

In the following weeks, the main focus was on the construction of positions. The very high groundwater as well as heavy rainfall made standard construction of the trenches impossible. Even pioneer units called in for assistance could achieve almost nothing. Position sectors that had just been completed sank back into the mud after only a short time, collapsed, or filled completely with water. Approach trenches were either non-existent or unusable again shortly after their completion.

During reliefs, casualties occurred regularly because the French could observe the entire area and immediately open fire upon detected troop movements. After only brief trench duty, the soldiers were covered in mud from head to toe and completely drenched. There were significant sickness-related casualties (infections, trench foot, respiratory diseases, etc.), especially since the use of coal stoves in the trenches and dugouts was initially forbidden due to French observation possibilities.

In the period that followed, further, in part heavy fighting developed in the form of regular artillery raids and larger operations. These concentrated gradually on specific front sectors, in particular a terrain cutting located between Flirey and the Bois de la Sonnard, through which the railway line from Toul toward Thiaucourt ran. This railway line is known because of the steel bridge near Bouillonville blown up by the French, which frequently served as a photographic motif.

In this railway cutting, the bottom of which was up to seven meters deep, the enemy units were separated only by a sandbag barricade constructed by the German troops. This was regularly subjected to artillery fire and frequently destroyed. At the beginning of 1915, it was provided with a concrete core. From February 1915 onward, the Guard units expanded the area using mining techniques with deep galleries and tunnels. In the following months, a second sandbag barricade was erected directly behind the front one. The railway cutting developed into a point that was very heavily contested until the end of the war.

The 1915 war year was otherwise characterized by the French spring offensive between the Meuse and Moselle, also called the Easter offensive. At the beginning of April 1915, the 1st French Army under General Auguste Dubail was to pinch off the entire St. Mihiel salient. For this purpose, French units at the northern spur of the salient were to overrun the Combres Heights (les Éparges) and the adjacent German positions in the Woëvre Plain. On the southern flank, French attack efforts concentrated on the Bois le Prètre (Priesterwald) located west of Pont-à-Mousson and the neighboring front areas. Also north of Flirey, in the area of the Mort-Mare forest and the Bois de la Sonnard, very heavy fighting was to occur.

On April 5, 1915, the French 76th Infantry Division (76e DI) attacked the German positions. The French stormed out of their trenches after only brief artillery preparation. They penetrated deep into the German position system with Stoßtrupps (assault detachments), in some places as far as the third trench. The Germans carried out counterattacks. In the next two weeks, attack followed counterattack. In places, the French were able to hold the front German trench and now faced the German troops at hand grenade throwing distance.

On April 19, 1915, the French 63rd Infantry Regiment (63e RI) was to advance again, after having been considerably decimated in the previous days. Members of the 5th Company refused to assault. In view of this mutiny, the French high command wanted to make an example. From the regiment, the lot fell upon one Unteroffizier (NCO) and three enlisted men. It affected the soldiers Antoine Morange, Félix Baudy, François Fontanaud and Jean-Henri Prebost. They were court-martialed and shot on April 20, 1915, near the village of Manonville.

Following these events, mutual offensive efforts slackened. The mine warfare already begun in this sector in February 1915 was intensified.

During the bitter fighting in April 1915, more than 1,500 soldiers were killed on both the French and German sides. Given the small combat area and the short duration of the fighting, this represented an unusually high toll in blood for the entire Western Front. The French had only succeeded in gaining about 700 meters of ground over a front of barely one kilometer, from which point both sides lay closely opposite each other in their trenches.

Following the fighting in 1915, French offensive efforts and also German attempts to regain ground ebbed. During the fighting, the French had lost a large part of their tactical reserve for this sector. Both sides now confined themselves to reciprocal patrol operations, mine warfare, and artillery combat.

Events in 1916 and 1917

In 1916, the Germans began to massively expand the position system in the Bois de la Sonnard and Bois de Mort-Mare. In the forward position area, the enemy-facing parapets were built of quarried stone or made of concrete. Deep dugouts and drainage systems were established, as well as concrete infantry fire steps, observation and machine gun posts. The second and third lines, as well as the approach trenches, were also partially expanded accordingly. These works were continued throughout 1917. Large parts of these positions are still preserved in good condition today and can be found in the terrain.

In early April 1918, the German leadership noted the steadily increasing presence of American troops and took it as an occasion to plan assault detachment operations from the positions south and east of the village of St. Baussant against the village of Seicheprey.

The area was held by units of the 26th US Infantry Division from Connecticut, called the “Yankee Division”. Following the American entry into the war, US units had initially landed in France at the end of 1917 with approximately 170,000 men and had been in action for only a few weeks. They were highly motivated, excellently equipped, yet still completely inexperienced. Originally, it was planned to launch several independent operations simultaneously on April 14, 1918, for example, in the sector of Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 258 south of Lahayville, the operation “Schnepfenstrich”.

At around 06:30 on the morning of April 20, 1918, about 600 German soldiers of Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 259 (259th Reserve Infantry Regiment) charged against the allied positions. They were supported by two companies of Sturm-Bataillon 14 (14th Assault Battalion) with flamethrowers, parts of Pioneer Companies 79 and 80, as well as two volunteer companies of Reserve-Infanterie-Regiments 258. The action was prepared by artillery fire in which over 20,000 gas shells were fired. The enemy was surprised and routed everywhere. The capture of the village of Seicheprey succeeded right away, and the German troops pushed further into the American-French position system. Hesitant American counterattacks could be repulsed on April 20, 1918. Already on April 21, 1918, however, the situation consolidated on the Franco-American side. With a massive artillery bombardment on the village of Seicheprey, the Americans opened a counterattack. However, the Germans had cleared the village again as planned and had withdrawn to their starting positions with about 200 prisoners. What remained of the village of Seicheprey from the previous fighting was finally destroyed during this artillery bombardment in April 1918.

As a Leutnant (second lieutenant), assault detachment leader, and commander of the 7th Company of the Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 259 (259th Reserve Infantry Regiment), writer Paul Coelestin Ettighoffer, born on April 14, 1896, in Colmar, who lived in Niederkastenholz near Euskirchen after the war and died in 1975, took part in the assault detachment operation. He wrote many works on military history, such as “Verdun. Das Große Gericht”, published in 1936, or the 1937 book “Eine Armee meutert. Frankreichs Schicksalsstunde 1917”.

In his debut work “Gespenster am Toten Mann” from 1931, in the chapter “Landsknechte gegen Sportsleute”, Ettighoffer very impressively describes the course of the fighting starting from page 272. His account provides an unsparing picture of the condition of the German troops in the fourth year of the war and especially of the inadequate equipment and supply situation.