Pfetterhouse and Km 0

We've seen a fair bit of the Belgium end of the western front because that's the end our boys fought at. And we all know that it ended at the other end ,at the Swiss border, but exactly where and how ?

  I can see you nodding and saying

  " yes, always wondered that myself"

 Well, wonder no more ,it's just east of Basel at a place called Pfetterhouse.

 I was told to go to the Mairie and ask for Andre Dubail, the chairman of a group called 'Les Amis du km zero ' very obliging chap and he explained that their group have been cleaning up the old pill boxes and making a little tourist walk around 'km zero' as it was named during the war.(I'm fairly certain that's what he said. He may have been saying his potatoes have got blight )

  A strip of Switzerland , several hundred meters wide sticks out into France at this point ( actually it was part of Germany at the time) . It was fenced off with barbed wire ,and a Swiss pillbox and a few Swiss soldiers were all it took. "Ze vestern front finishes ere !"

  The Germans could however, fire over the top of this bit of Switzerland at the French positions ,and did so, until some landed short. The saying 'caught short', came from those poor Swissy's. 

  It's such an interesting area and so unspoiled by tourism. The trees growing up through the concrete give it a sad and  somewhat spooky atmosphere.

Christines holding onto a border post with 1760 chiseled into it. Not that one, that's a flag, this one !

Its too late in the day to move on so we're camping the night on what was 'no mans land' That forest in the background  hides the German pillboxes . We had to search but we found about 11