The adventures of a young man from Bözen, his travels to North Africa and Asia and his final resting place in Sarrebourg, France.
The picture on the barn door
One day many years ago, this picture was hanging on a barn door in Hinterdorf, Bözen. The resident of the house had found it in the attic. Although he was impressed, he found no use for it. Wind and weather would soon have taken their toll on the picture. When asked about its provenance, he handed it over to Urs Frei.
The pretty frame contains a copper engraving. It shows the departure of the volunteers in 1792 (also known as La Marseillaise), which can be seen on the right-hand column of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
The relief was sculpted by François Rude around 1833.
Below the image of the heroic monument is the printed inscription, partly completed by hand:
A LA MEMOIRE DE
Büchli Jakob
Soldat de 1ère Classe au Régiment de Marche de la Légion Etrangère
MORT POUR LA FRANCE
le 27. Décembre 1918
HOMMAGE DE LA NATION
[signed by the president of the Republic – Henri Poincaré]
Shortly after Christmas, on December 27, 1918, Jakob Büchli died for France, according to the picture (other documents mention December 29, 1918 as the date of death). But nobody in the village knew who this Jakob Büchli was, even though he had only died around a hundred years earlier.
Who is soldier Jakob Büchli?
Clues about the inhabitants of Bözen are not found at first glance. The above document, however, was unusual. Having become aware of it, co-author Urs Frei wondered what the above picture was all about. Why was it hanging on this barn door of all places? Who was this soldier Jakob Büchli? The research could begin.
The search began at the Laufenburg Regional Registry Office. This is where the Bözen family registers are kept. They replaced the church registers from 1820 onwards. The soldier we were looking for did not have a personal family page, hence he was unmarried. This meant that the entries of all the Büchli families had to be examined. Jakob Büchli’s parents were found on page 84 of the second register. They are father Jakob Büchli, Konrad’s, and mother Anna Maria Kistler, a teacher. The couple had five children, the eldest being Jakob, born on March 18, 1884. His date of death was also noted, December 29, 1918. Under “Remarks” it said:
“Died as a French legionnaire in the German prison camp Langensalza, Prussia”
This entry clearly identified the wanted man. We will come back to the infamous prison camp in Langensalza later, but first we will turn our attention to Jakob’s family.
The Büchli Family
The Büchli family is widespread in Bözen and Elfingen. Surnames or nicknames used to be an important way of distinguishing different branches of the family. Konrad Büchli was the grandfather of our protagonist. The nickname “Kureten” or “Chureten” was derived from his first name. The nickname is still known today.
Jakob Büchli (*1884) was the eldest of five siblings, the two youngest were twins.
The Büchli go back to the 16th century. For several generations, members of the family held the office of governor and were probably part of the village’s upper class.
Jakob Büchli’s parental home was inherited from the family of his grandmother, Maria Büchli. She belonged to another branch of the Büchli family, known as the “Fuchsenhansen”. The stately building on the main street had been built in the year 1850.
A fire on the night of July 1, 1849, had destroyed two older houses on the same site, leaving five households homeless. At a local citizens’ meeting in Bözen held at short notice on July 3, 1849, the following was recorded in Article 3:
“The chairman, Mr. Ammann Heuberger, reported that five households had lost their homes in a fire in the night from the 1st to the 2nd of this month, namely
- Johannes Büchli, shoemaker
- Heinrich Pfister, tailor
- Joel Büchli, shoemaker
- Samuel Joho and Magdalena Amsler
- Hans Jakob Brack, Bracken
whereby they have lost all their possessions, so that they are in poor condition. He asked how and in what way these needy people were to be helped. Father Vögtlin suggested that he thought it would be best to collect love taxes [donations] in the community, which was unanimously decided to do. The members of the poor commission were appointed to assist the municipal council in collecting and distributing these gifts.”
With the proceeds from the fire insurance and the voluntary donations of the parishioners, a new building was constructed in 1850.
Fortunately, a family photo of Jakob’s parents and siblings has survived. He is missing for well-known reasons; he was in North Africa at the time. His sister Marie Büchli (1885-1962) married Hans Pfister, a chimney sweeper by profession. The picture in question was on the barn door of his house in Hinterdorf. After Jakob Büchli’s death, his sister Marie Pfister-Büchli received the tribute.
Legend from left to right: Gotthold (*8.1.1890), Anna Maria Kistler (1856-1940), Jakob Büchli (1859-1923), unknown boy, twin sisters Ida and Bertha (*6.2.1892)
From the archives of the Foreign Legion
Following a request to the Foreign Legion Archives (Centre de documentation historique de la Légion étrangère, Aubagne), we received the dossier 1906/35136. Neatly scanned as a PDF, there are a total of 12 pages about Jakob Büchli. These include personal details, rank, whereabouts, special decorations and various correspondence.
Jakob Büchli was a butcher and 22 years old when he moved abroad. The reasons for his decision are unknown.
Stay in North Africa
Jakob joined the French Foreign Legion in Belfort on July 13, 1906. Initially he signed up for 5 years. This was soon followed by assignments in North Africa, in Morocco and above all in Algeria.
He proved himself through his commitment and was an exemplary soldier. For this he received a medal (Medaille Du Maroc) and two brackets: Agrafe de Maroc and Agrafe de Casablanca. 1911 he extended his service for a further 5 years.
Stay in Southeast Asia
Jakob’s next trip took him to Tonkin in Southeast Asia 1913. During the French colonial period, the northernmost part of Vietnam was known as Tonkin. Important cities include the capital Hanoi and the port city of Hải Phòng. Tonkin comprised the three northernmost regions of Vietnam.
In the second half of the 19th century, France had conquered large parts of Southeast Asia, today’s Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Jakob Büchli spent just under a year in Tonkin, which must have been the quietest phase of his military service.
Service in the 1st World War
He returned to Marseille at the end of 1916 and was promoted to Légionaire de première Classe. His unit was now ready for action in the First World War. The troops were immediately deployed to the Amiens-Verdun area and deployed alongside French and British troops in the fight against the Germans. With tireless will to fight and great dedication, he survived the terrible battles and the dreadful conditions in the bombed-out crater landscape.
Jakob Büchli must have been mainly deployed in the Bois de Hangard and Villers-Bretonneux area. Later, his commander at the time, Colonel Rollet, described what a heroic soldier Jakob Büchli had been.
BLESSURES ET CITATIONS
Cité à l’ordre du régiment n°156 du
13.8.18 Lt Colonel Rollet [LT = Lieutenant]
«S’est courageusement élancé
à l’assaut, le 26.4.18 sous un
feu violent de mitrailleuses
a travaillé sans relâche à l’or-
ganisation de la position con-
quise et a contribué à repousser
toutes les contre-attaques successives»
Translation:
INJURIES AND CITATIONS
Quoted in regimental order no. 156 of 13.8.18 Lieutenant Colonel Rollet.
“Courageously threw himself into the attack on 26.4.18 under heavy machine-gun fire. Worked tirelessly to organize the conquered position and helped to repel all subsequent counterattacks”
The battle in the north of Alsace and in the Verdun area caused untold suffering and claimed thousands of lives, with no significant gains on either side.
Imprisonment in Germany
On June 23, 1918, Jakob Büchli was taken prisoner by the Germans and taken to the Langensalza prison camp in Thuringia. The prisoners were transported in cattle wagons under inhumane conditions. Harald Rockstuhl vividly describes and illustrates the conditions in his book “Langensalza Prison Camp.”
The officers were housed in separate camps from the soldiers. Several thousand Frenchmen, soldiers from the French colonies, Belgians, Englishmen, Italians, Russians, Romanians, and even Asians lived in these camps. It is hard to imagine how difficult it was for these people to live together under such harsh conditions and with language barriers.
During and after the First World War, there were 2.5 million prisoners of war in Germany. Langensalza was one of approximately 100 camps where these men were housed.
From 1914 to 1918, 27’707 prisoners were held in Langensalza. 1’642 died, mostly from typhus, pulmonary tuberculosis, pneumonia, dysentery, cholera, or influenza. At that time, there were no antibiotics, hygienic conditions were catastrophic, and the separation of healthy and sick patients was not consistently enforced. At one point, German doctors withdrew and left treatment to French doctors. Several of them subsequently died after being infected.
The prisoners had the opportunity to send postcards or letters home to their relatives. They could also receive packages from home. However, strict censorship prevailed.
Life in this facility must have been terrible. The prisoners of war were crammed into cramped quarters with poor food and harsh weather conditions. The accommodations consisted of tent camps and barracks with dormitories for 1’000 men each. Hunger was often so severe that the last scraps of food were scraped out of buckets, which in turn resulted in beatings with sticks.
On November 11, 1918, the armistice was signed. The war was now essentially over. But the misery was far from over. The repatriation of prisoners to their countries of origin was very slow. 535,000 French prisoners alone were waiting in the prison camps for their return. Many escaped from the camps and tried to make it home on their own. Others lay sick, injured, and weakened in the hospitals.
Jakob Büchli, too, was still lying in a hospital barracks. He suffered from an infectious disease and died on December 29, 1918. He was subsequently buried in the cemetery directly next to the Langensalza camp.
Final Rest in Sarrebourg (France)
After the war, the French government decided to bring the deceased in the prison camps back to France and bury them together in one place. After a long search, the municipality of Sarrebourg in Alsace provided a plot measuring 330 x 150 meters. The graves in Germany were then gradually excavated, and the soldiers’ remains were brought back to France. The exhumation in Langensalza began on November 28, 1923, and lasted until June 19, 1926.
Cimetère national de Sarrebourg around 1926 (Source: Geneanet.com)
On September 12, 1926, the National Cemetery for French prisoners of war was inaugurated. The wooden crosses were renewed in 1937 and replaced with concrete crosses in 1950.
In the center of the cemetery stands a memorial created by the Swiss artist Frédy Stoll (1869-1949) during his imprisonment in the Grafenwöhr camp in Bavaria during World War I. Stoll, a volunteer soldier, sculpted the statue from a block of granite with the help of his comrades.
The memorial depicts a kneeling, desperate warrior, like a defeated Hercules, a symbol of the prisoners’ plight. The statue was dismantled in Bavaria in 1928 and transported to France, where it was finally erected in Sarrebourg in June 1930.
Today, 13’314 gravestones commemorate the misery of World War I. Communal graves were also created for the unknown dead. Later, the entrance portals were shortened, and the large columns with the cross-like sabers were removed. This gives Frédy Stoll’s sculpture more visibility.
In this cemetery, which is still reverently tended after a hundred years, stands the grave cross of Jakob Büchli.
It can be found under number 5624 in one of the many long rows of graves.
BUCHLI Jakob
1er CLASSE R.M.L.E
MORT POUR LA FRANCE le 29.12.1918
Jakob Büchli was 34 years, 9 months and 11 days old.
Mort pour la France
The honor “Mort pour la France” was originally only given to those who died in war. After the war, there were intense discussions about the merits of those who died in captivity. Some believed that anyone who allowed themselves to be captured and didn’t fight to the end was a coward. Others, however, believed it took a great deal of courage to surrender to the enemy and continue to endure all the misery. After much deliberation, it was decided to also award the honor “Mort pour la France” to those who died in captivity.
Jakob Büchli received such a certificate of honor. It went to his family in Bözen. There it was kept by his sister Marie, the wife of the chimney sweep Hans Pfister-Büchli in the Hinterdorf. Later, it was kept in the attic of Walter and Hedwig Pfister-Fuchs and finally resurfaced thanks to Jakob’s great-grandson, Thomas Pfister.
That was the moment when the story of this Foreign Legionnaire piqued interest and led to many exciting discoveries.
Despite the interesting details, many questions remain unanswered: How did Jakob Büchli end up in captivity, and what happened to him in the prison camp? How many of his enemies fell at his hands? How did he cope with this terrible time? Did he still have contact with his family? Were there any letters or postcards from him? Was anyone from his family ever able to make the journey to Sarrebourg and say goodbye at his gravesite?
We don’t know, and the answers will probably remain elusive.
Note:
Essential parts of this text are taken from the documentation created by Urs Frei in 2023: “The tragic fate of Jakob Büchli from Bözen”. Many thanks for the cooperation.
