Bitche

Bitche (Ger. Bitsch), a German town of Lorraine, in a wild and wooded pass of the Vosges, 49 miles NNW. of Strasburg by rail. Its citadel crowns a precipitous and isolated rock in the middle of the town. The Prussians under the Duke of Brunswick attempted to surprise it in 1793, but failed. It resisted the Germans for seven weeks in 1815, and did not surrender till three weeks after the close of the war of 1870-71. Pop. 2764.