This river, the backbone of Alsace, is 217 km long between its source at Winkel (Alsatian Jura) and its confluence with the Rhine a little downstream from Strasbourg. At this ford, in 1917, the Germans had a 300 m long wooden bridge built by Romanian prisoners, which the inhabitants of Sausheim ironically called Abseckelbrucka (bridge of the debacle, see explanatory marker).