A watercolor by F.B. champions deliverance and liberty for the cities of Strasbourg and Metz in Alsace-Lorraine.
Deliverance LiberteStrasbourgMetzDeliverance;Liberty
"The purpose of the operations in Alsace was to retain a large part of the enemy's forces far from the northern theater of operations. Our offensive in Lorraine was to pursue the same purpose still more directly by holding before it the German army corps operating to the south of Metz.This campaign began brilliantly on August 14th. On the 19th we had reached the region of Saarburg and that of the Etangs (lakes), and we held Dieuze, Morhange, Delme, and Château Salins."
Excerpt from French Commander Joseph Joffre's Official Review of the first month of the Campaign in France. Executing France's war Plan XVII, Joffre struck east across the Franco-German border. German Commander Helmuth von Moltke reversed initial French advances, first in Alsace, then in Lorraine, by bolstering his defenses, drawing from, and weakening, his right wing advancing through Belgium. Germany would feel this loss in its defeat at the Marne.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. II, 1914, p. 119, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
1914-08-14, August, 1914, Lorraine Offensive, Metz, Strassbourg, Strassburg
