On the left flank and north of the U.S. 3rd Division, General Garbay's French 1 March Infantry Division (French: "1re Division de Marche d'Infanterie", formerly known as the 1st Free French Division) attacked to the east on 23 January with the Rhine River as their objective. Facing four battalions of the 708th Volksgrenadier Division (part of General Max Grimmeiss' LXIV Army Corps) supported by heavy tank destroyers and artillery, the 1st Division's 1st Brigade fought in conditions similar to that experienced by the Americans to the south. The Germans mounted a defense in depth, using positions in the villages and forests to command the open ground to their front and liberally planting land mines to slow and channelize the French advance. Two battalions of the 708th Volksgrenadier Division counterattacked the French bridgeheads over the Ill River around 17:00 on 23 January but were repulsed. Wishing to avoid dug-in German infantry and armor in the Elsenheim Woods (), General Garbay directed the 1st Brigade to concentrate their advance along the road from Illhaeusern () to Elsenheim. On 26–27 January, the 1st Brigade concentrated on opening this route and skirting the obstacle posed by the Elsenheim Woods, with a key attack into the woods made by the 3rd Battalion of the March Regiment of the French Foreign Legion ("R.M.L.E.") on 27 January. At heavy cost, the village of Grussenheim () was taken on 28 January by supporting tanks of the French 2nd Armored Division. Against crumbling German resistance, the French surged forward, taking Elsenheim and Marckolsheim () on 31 January and reaching the Rhine River the following day. In the course of its operations in the Colmar Pocket, the French 1st Division suffered casualties of 220 killed, 1,240 wounded, 96 missing, and 550 trench-foot cases.