Bitche (English pronunciation: /biːtʃ/ BEECH, French: [bitʃ]; German and Lorraine Franconian: Bitsch) is a commune in Moselle department, in the region of Grand Est in northeastern France.

Its commander Louis-Casimir Teyssier held it for about eight months, with 3,000 men against about 20,000 Prussian and Bavarian soldiers, until the French government ordered him to surrender after the 1871 ceasefire.

Bitche is located near the German border on the small river Horn, at the foot of the northern slope of the Vosges between Haguenau and Sarreguemines.

The citadel, which had been constructed by Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban on the site of the old castle after the town's capture by the French in 1624, had been destroyed when it was restored to Lorraine in 1698.

[3] During the Napoleonic Wars, 1804–1814, the citadel at Bitche became a major prisoner-of-war camp housing British and allied soldiers and sailors.

A large part of the fortification is built into the red sandstone rock, and was rendered bomb-proof; a supply of water was secured to the garrison by a deep well in the interior.

[citation needed] Alsace-Lorraine returned to Germany after the Battle of France in the summer of 1940 and remained under German occupation.

In March 1945 the U.S. 100th Infantry Division broke through the Maginot Line in the area and liberated the town for good, as part of Operation Undertone.