History
Two important routes crossed the area already during the Roman era, which allowed Julius Caesar to quickly move troops which were used to defeat Ariovistus and force his German tribes (primarily Suebi) in the province of Germania Superior to retreat across the Rhine. After the Migration Period and the Decline of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, Germanic Alemanni tribes settled east of the plateau, while the Burgundians established a first kingdom west of it. Both had been incorporated into the Kingdom of Francia by the early 6th century, while the highland remained the linguistic border between Germanic and Romance languages.
Upon the division of the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century, the area again marked the border between East Francia, i.e. the German stem duchy of Swabia, in the east and the Kingdom of Arles (Upper Burgundy) in the west. While the Swabian Alsace region was a constituent part of the Holy Roman Empire in 962, the adjacent County of Burgundy in the west was not incorporated until 1033. About 1042 the County of Montbéliard (Mömpelgard) was established on Burgundian territory right at the border with the Alsacien Sundgau region. Montbéliard fell to the Swabian House of Württemberg in 1407, while the Sundgau region around Ferrette (Pfirt) and the French-speaking town of Belfort (Beffert) had been acquired by the Habsburg duke Albert II of Austria by marriage in 1324.
The area again marked a borderline, when the Habsburgs had to cede the Sundgau to the Kingdom of France according to the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. Over the following centuries of French–German enmity, the strategically important town of Belfort, situated at the western entrance into the corridor, has played the role of a bolt against invasions over the centuries whether originating from the west or the east and remained a communications center that is impossible to circumvent. After the Franco-Prussian War and the Siege of Belfort, the language border was used in 1871 to determine the new demarcation line between the newly established German Empire and the French Third Republic retaining Belfort. A series of fortifications was set up to ensure defense of the area. The most recent military advance through the Belfort Gap was that of the French I Corps in November 1944.
Read more about this topic: Belfort Gap
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
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