French troops take Mulhouse

On the evening of 8 August 1914 troops of the French VII Corps entered Mulhouse, the largest town in southern Alsace. For the first time since 1871, when the province passed under German rule, French soldiers had taken an important Alsatian town. The news caused euphoria in France, but the victory proved illusory: the French held Mulhouse for less than two days.

A cautious advance

The expedition into Alsace was the first step of the French war plan. The British official history, drawing on Joffre’s evidence before a parliamentary commission, describes it as a small offensive on the extreme right wing, intended to make the attack of the main armies easier. For this purpose the VII Corps under General Louis Bonneau was detached from the First Army, with the 14th and 41st Infantry Divisions, a brigade of the 57th Reserve Division from Belfort and the 8th Cavalry Division. The attack was also meant to show Russia that France was fighting the common enemy, and to begin the recovery of the lost provinces.

On 7 August the French crossed the frontier and took Altkirch with a bayonet charge. Bonneau, however, did not trust the easy success. He reported large German forces in the area, proposed halting the advance and feared a trap, but the commander-in-chief, Joseph Joffre, ordered him to press on, as far as the Rhine. At seven in the morning of 8 August Joffre issued his first General Instruction, in which he announced that once the concentration of the armies was complete he would give battle to the Germans with all his forces, his right wing resting on the Rhine. The French staff already knew that units from five German corps were fighting at Liège, but still placed the enemy’s main forces around Metz and Luxembourg. If the Germans were held up at Liège or turned south, the French left wing was to move forward. Only in the following days would it become clear that the main German forces were marching through Belgium.

Into the town

On 8 August the VII Corps moved cautiously forward and occupied Mulhouse without a fight, shortly after the German 58th Infantry Brigade had left it. Many of the inhabitants of this textile-manufacturing centre welcomed the soldiers as liberators. In Paris the news was celebrated as the first great success of the war.

Joffre issued a proclamation to the people of the province. In it he addressed the “children of Alsace” and wrote that after forty-four years of sorrowful waiting French soldiers once again trod their noble soil. He called them the first workers in the great work of revenge, remembered those who had already given their lives for it, and assured them that the words “Right and Liberty” were inscribed on France’s flag. The press of the time printed the proclamation in different versions; some speak of forty-one years of waiting.

The counter-attack

The euphoria did not last. Units of the XIV and XV Corps of General Josias von Heeringen’s German Seventh Army were coming up from Strasbourg. On the morning of 9 August they struck at Cernay (PL), west of Mulhouse, while others came out of the Hardt forest east of the town. The fighting was chaotic, communications failed on both sides, and inexperienced German soldiers at Rixheim even fired on their own units in the dark. One German regiment, the 112th Infantry Regiment, lost according to the returns 42 killed, 163 wounded and 223 missing in this fighting. Bonneau, threatened with encirclement and with being cut off from Belfort, and having no reserves, began to withdraw that same day. A reserve division sent to him by Joffre arrived too late. On 10 August the French left Mulhouse and fell back towards Belfort.

Significance

Joffre regarded the retreat as a humiliation. He accused Bonneau of a lack of resolve and removed him from command, together with the commander of the 8th Cavalry Division. He was one of the first of the many generals dismissed in the first weeks of the war. In place of the VII Corps a stronger Army of Alsace was formed under General Paul Pau, which renewed the advance on 14 August and on 19 August entered Mulhouse again. At the end of the month, however, the French had to abandon it once more, and the front in Alsace settled for long years close to the old frontier.

The brief capture of Mulhouse opened the Battle of the Frontiers and became a symbol of the hopes and illusions of the first days of the war. It showed how deeply the French longed to recover the lost provinces, but also how cautiously the first reports of victory had to be received. Mulhouse returned to France only in November 1918.