10/08/2026
A view can explain why a battlefield mattered.
This photograph was taken from the former German front line trench towards the eastern end of the Hartmannswillerkopf battlefield.
We recently had the pleasure of guiding a group of Swiss school pupils here as part of their summer journey along the Western Front — a journey that will eventually take them all the way to the North Sea in Belgium.
Behind them stretches the southern Alsatian plain. Mulhouse can be seen spread out to the left. Further away lie Switzerland and the Black Forest, in what is now often called the Three Borders region.
Today, it is a beautiful view. During the First World War, it was much more than that.
From positions such as this, soldiers could observe movement across the plain, watch roads and settlements, direct artillery fire, and understand the wider geography of the front.
The Hartmannswillerkopf was not fought over only because it was a mountain. It mattered because of what could be seen from it. Observation meant information. Information could mean artillery fire. And artillery fire could mean control, destruction, fear, and survival.
For students walking the Western Front, places like this help connect the local battlefield to the wider geography of the war.
The trenches of the Vosges were not isolated from the rest of the front. They formed part of a vast line stretching across landscapes, borders, languages, armies and memories.
Standing in this trench, looking out over Alsace, Switzerland and the Black Forest, helps make that larger story visible.
A map can show where the front was.
But standing on the ground helps explain why it mattered.
German Front Line Trench
Hartmannswillerkopf / Vieil-Armand, Alsace
