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Updated: June 7, 2025
After a week of this abandonment, of this entire separation from the rest of France, a telegram came bringing them the order to march. The news was well received, for anything was preferable to the prison life they were leading in Belfort.
Prince Bismarck, alarmed by the state of things in France, showed symptoms of intending to seize Belfort, that fortress in the Vosges which had never surrendered to the Germans, and which France had been permitted to retain. Thiers induced Russia to intervene, and went to Switzerland to thank Prince Gortschakoff personally for his services on the occasion.
On the Channel transport it was the same; the same from Dieppe to Paris; from Paris to Belfort; and now, here within a pebble's toss of the Swiss frontier, military curiosity concerning their papers apparently remained unquenched. The sous-officier of dragoon-lancers sat his splendid horse and gravely inspected the papers, one by one.
"But how about your objectives?" I asked. "At night you can never be sure of hitting them, and, well, you know what happens in French towns." "It is why I asked for my transfer to chasse," he told me afterward. "But the Germans, the blond beasts! Do they care? Nancy, Belfort, Châlons, Epernay, Rheims, Soissons, Paris, all our beautiful towns! I am a fool! We must pay them back, the Huns!
Of the two other main Allies, the French disadvantage may be thus summarized, and it is slight: It has no natural features upon which the defensive can rely. In the lack of this the French fortified at very heavy expense that portion of their frontier which faced their certain enemy, and established a line from Verdun to Belfort calculated to check the first movement of his offensive.
This is the line Belfort, Épinal, Toul, Verdun. A German attack launched upon this line without violating neutral territory would have to be frontal, for on the north the line is covered by the neutral states of Belgium and Luxemburg, while on the south, although the gap between the Vosges and the Swiss frontier apparently gives a chance of out-flanking the French defences, the fortress of Belfort, which was never reduced even in the war of 1870-1, was considered too formidable an obstacle against which to launch an invading army.
"I want the Zell end of the tunnel kept under observation. "Send our planes in from Belfort, Toul, Nancy, and Verdun. "And keep me informed whether railroad trains, camions, or cavalry come out. And whether indeed any living thing emerges from the end of the tunnel near Zell. "Because we are gassing the tunnel from this ravine. And I think we've got the dirty vermin wholesale!"
I can now tell you that Belfort will certainly pass this way to-morrow morning."... "Belfort? But he is not due then!" "Belfort has no fixed time," replied Vagualame sharply. "I have already told you that Belfort is his own master: his is a divisional." "A divisional? What exactly is a divisional?" demanded the singer. "Now you are asking questions," objected Vagualame. His tone was harsh.
Under a scattered but clearing sky I first limped, then, as my blood warmed, strode down the path that led between the trees of the farther vale and was soon following a stream that leaped from one fall to another till it should lead me to the main road, to Belfort, to the Jura, to the Swiss whom I had never known, and at last to Italy.
The French staff apparently had designed a campaign in Upper Alsace and the Vosges, but the throwing of a brigade from Belfort across the frontier on the extreme right of their line on August 6 would seem to have been undertaken chiefly with a view of rousing patriotic enthusiasm.
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