"Kilometre Zero": Where the Western Front met the Swiss frontier

The Western Front in the First World War stretched from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border. But what happened at that point, which is often called “Kilometre Zero” or “Km 0”?

The photo above shows one of the bunkers just across the frontier inside Switzerland, from which the Swiss army kept watch on the opposing forces.

Much of this information is readily available in French and German, but is less well known to English-speaking audiences.
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The following image is another view of the bunker shown above but from the opposite side, with a trench approaching it. These bunkers were built from wood and earth, as they were not expected to come under direct attack, but were for protection from the occasional bullet fired in the wrong direction. The bunker was marked with the Swiss flag to ensure that it was not fired upon by French or German soldiers who were unfamiliar with the lay of the land – as both sides would occasionally fire on each other. Relations between the Swiss and the troops across the border seem to have been good. ​

As well as several bunkers on the Swiss side, there were also smaller observation points. Below you can see a small observation post on the right, and a bunker in the distance at far left. The frontier with Germany lay along the line of trees in the distance.

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The next image is a view looking directly north into no man's land, with the French to the left and the Germans to the right. A Swiss observation post in the foreground looks out onto a destroyed farm, which was just metres across the border (inside Germany, according to the 1914 borders). It had been hit in the 1914 fighting.

Next is a slightly different view of the same destroyed farm, looking roughly north from just inside Swiss territory (you can see two Swiss guards standing on their side of the frontier, infront of the ruin). Beyond the building was no man's land for the French and German forces.

A map will help put this in context. The area of Swiss territory that we are looking at (part of the Jura) projected out into what was then France and Germany. The north-eastern part of that area is shown on the map below. From the north-east corner of that 'peninsula', a small area of Swiss land (Le Largin) projects out into Germany.​ This last area was known to the Swiss soldiers at "Bec de canard" (the duck's beak)!

​As you can see on the map, the 1914 border between France and Germany was further to the west.
 
Alsace, the region stretching roughly 100 miles north from this part of the Swiss frontier, had been absorbed into the German Empire in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian War. Therefore in 1914 the French were determined to recover this territory. In the first month of the First World War, the French army managed to advance until they captured the city of Mulhouse (about 20 miles/32 km north-east from this part of the Swiss frontier), but were swiftly forced back by a German counter-attack, and the front lines then stabilised, with the French retaining control of the village of Pfetterhouse. On the German side, Moos was the nearest village. The two sides faced each other from either side of the valley of the Largue river. As on the rest of the Western Front, a system of trenches grew up behind the front lines.

After 1914, there was no longer any heavy fighting next to the Swiss frontier, but the vicious battles in the Vosges mountains took place some 30 miles/50 km to the north. The map below (published in the Swiss magazine "Mars" in July 1915 and annotated by me - click on it to see larger image) gives some idea of the terrain as you go north from Switzerland at this point. 

On the Swiss side, there were defences but the frontier was not a highly-fortified area. The following photograph shows a point roughly in the bottom right corner of the map, near Miécourt, Switzerland. A column of German soldiers marches along the road in the foreground, while in the centre several Swiss soldiers can just be seen standing in the middle of a road on their side of the border.

Part of the area was heavily wooded, but the Swiss used their ingenuity (and from a modern point of view, a certain disregard for 'health and safety' to create observation towers at treetop level. One of these, shown below, was celebrated by Swiss officer Charles Gos in his book "Point 510", which was also the name of that post.

While the actual frontier was not heavily fortified, it should not be imagined that the Swiss army had ignored the basic principles of military defence. Further back from the border were other defences such as trenches (below), barbed wire and supporting artillery.

Also marked on the map is the 'marker of three states' ('borne des trois puissances' in French) which marked the point at which (in 1914) the French, German and Swiss borders met. In fact there were three stones as markers, two of which are shown in the photograph below, which has a Swiss soldier on the left, and two Frenchmen on the right. The third stone, a corner of which is just visible on the right of the image, dated to the Middle Ages, whereas the other two were placed in the late Nineteenth Century. The marker stones are still there to this day, but the modern Franco-German border is much further east, at the River Rhine. 

Did troops from either side choose the opportunity to slip across the frontier and desert? Significant numbers of deserters did make their way into Switzerland, but I am not sure that they would have chosen such an obvious point to cross - but I would be interested if anyone knows otherwise. 

​An interesting incident: It was not far from this point that on 2 August 1914, one day before France and Germany were officially at war, that the first casualties of the conflict took place. Shots were exchanged between a German patrol that had crossed the French border, and French sentries. The commanders of the two detachments, French Corporal Jules Andre Peugeot and German Lieutenant Albert Otto Walter Mayer were both shot and died.
There is a good account of this incident here.

The area today: There is now an association called “Les amis du Kilomètre Zéro” (Friends of Km 0) which promotes visits to the area. Several of the nearby earthworks have been rebuilt. These and a couple of concrete fortifications are linked by a path, so that visitors can better understand the history of this area. Here is a leaflet from Jura Tourism, illustrating this route.

Here are some other websites relating to this area in the First World War and today that you may find interesting:

The Vosges Front (www.front-vosges-14-18.eu). In English, French and German language.

The Southern Tip of the Western Front 1914-1918: The Terminus of the ‘Underground Railway' Oostende-Switzerland (Western Front Association journal). Some interesting details about alleged frontier violations in this area. In English language.

An Unfortunate Region (www.unfortunate-region.org). In English language. In them menu, choose “Battlefields”, then scroll down to the “Vosges” section which includes articles on the Franco-German fighting near the frontier and in the Vosges battlefields, as well as on “Km 0”.

Swiss defences in the “Km 0” area (www.schweizer-festungen.ch). In German language.

The Western Front north of Pfetterhouse (front-du-sundgau-14-18.jimdo.com). In French and German language.

Here and here: some interesting photos of remaining fortifications in the area, within France (pages14-18.mesdiscussions.net). In French language.

A video tour of some of the frontier area at Largin from the Swiss side, including the reconstructed bunker. 

Also on this website: The Swiss frontier in the First World War.