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Yes folks, it's that time of year again when all self respecting Verdun fort lovers head for Dover and hot foot it across Belgium to avoid French motorway tolls!
You may remember that TJ and I explored several of the World War One forts around Verdun last year and we have added a further FIVE to our list during the last week of April this year. In 2011 we had spectacularly failed to get into de Bois Bourrus because there appeared to be no way to cross the moat so we went away and learnt to abseil and jumar with the intention of going back and cracking it this year. The moat is stupidly deep and totally vertical so we thought there would be no way to do it otherwise. Well we got that wrong and access was actually ticklish but nowhere near as bad as we had originally thought.
So... l'histoire...
After the completion of the so called "panic forts" which were constructed as a first line of defence around Verdun in great haste almost immediately after the end of the Franco-Prussian war, work began on a further ring of fortresses to enhance the protection of Verdun and block potential German progress along the most direct route to Paris. On the left bank of the River Meuse along a prominent ridge a series of forts were built which effectively closed down any route around Verdun to the west. The old print shown below gives a good idea of the geography of the Verdun area and the strategic locations of the forts.
Of a much more advanced design compared with the basic panic forts such as Belleville, St. Michel, Belrupt etc. these later additions to the fortress town's defences had many features which the earlier forts lacked, and they were built to withstand the German's new heavy artillery right from the outset. The panic fort method of relying upon portable artillery pieces moved and sited from within the fort, together with huge masonry and concrete shelters for the crews and ammunition storage, was dramatically reduced. Instead the fort was intended to be armed with a twin short barrelled 75mm artillery battery in a retractable armoured turret, and two armoured retractable double Hotchkiss machine gun turrets, each capable of acting independantly. In the event though, the 75mm installation at de Bois Bourrus was never finished.
To further sharpen the teeth of the fort two Bourges Casemates were built, each armed with two 75mm quick firing artillery pieces, the famous "Soixante-quinze", arguably the best light artillery piece of The Great War. The variant shown in our photograph - BELOW - has no wheels or axle for horse drawn transportation like the field version of the gun, rather it has a fixing point at the front which was anchored to a pivot point directly behind the firing port of the casemate, and a pair of small wheels set at 90 degrees to the barrel (which can be clearly seen in the photograph) enabled the gun to run on semi-circular tracks within the casemate through a fixed arc, thus facilitating the fastest possible traverse to the point of aim.
To protect the moat of the fort two casemates were built into the forward left and right corners, each with a field of fire back towards the entrance elevation. The front centre of the moat had a double casemate with fields of fire along the moat to left and right, and finally at the entrance elevation a double caponniere was constructed which jutted out into the moat to the right of the entrance drawbridge. The galleries of these strong points were armed with Hotchkiss "Revolver Canons" which are a kind of Gatling Gun style weapon with five 37 mm barrels - BELOW. They are capable of firing 43 rounds per minute with an accurate range of 2000 yards, more than adequate for the defence of the short moat sections.
Additionally infantry could man firing ports within the fighting galleries armed with their rifles or light machine guns, and large horizontal ports at knee level allowed the "posting" of hand grenades down into the moat onto an attacking enemy. The likelihood of the fort being successfully taken by infantry attacking along the moat was therefore very remote indeed.
Some of the Verdun forts are built with their heavily gated main entrances located at ground level, Forts du Regret and Vaucheraville for example. You can see this clearly in the now archived Fort du Regret report we posted in June last year - [ame="http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/showthread.php?t=19365"]CLICK HERE[/ame].
In this construction form the body of the fort was built on top of, or slightly into the ground, and then it was covered over with reinforced concrete, a deep layer of sand, more concrete, and finally a massive earth layer. The moat floor is therefore on the same level as the fort floor although there are further levels still within such a fort excavated down below the ground level. A second narrow moat some seven or so feet deep was constructed below the level of the normal moat floor directly at the base of the fort wall proper in order to prevent an attacking enemy from getting close enough to the walls of the fort to attempt entry through any of the firing ports. Thus approach to such forts is through the moat.
Not so Fort de Bois Bourrus which is built with the moat excavated out of the ground and the fort itself sitting mostly below ground level with only the peace time barrack blocks and Bourges Casemates etc. remaining on top. As a result of this design Bois Bourrus's moat is very deep and hence very difficult to cross without the drawbridge, which of course is long gone now! On our first visit to this fort back in June 2011 we could not find a way to cross the moat at all without recourse to climbing. In the event this did not prove necessary as we found a much easier way in!
The outlines of most of the Verdun fortifications are still very clear when seen from altitude - not so Fort de Bois Bourrus or it's closest neighbour Fort Marre. It is extremely difficult to make out much of the layout of these two forts now and only close scrutiny at maximum magnification reveals that there is actually something down there beneath the deep forest canopy.
The pix...
I call this picture "FRUSTRATION"! It is the front wall of the fort as seen from the wrong side of the moat!
Even if they hadn't destroyed the drawbridge there's still a substantial block wall barring the gate
I call this picture "DEEP DESPAIR"!
So after hanging upside down on a rope on the gable end of our house whilst learning to jumar (I jest ye not) we got in to the fort and as it happens it was without the trauma of climbing!
Looking out of one of the revolver canon ports in the fort wall.
These are two of the peace time masonry built barrack blocks. In times of war the garrison went into underground bombardment proof barracks under the fort instead.
A bit spartan in the winter methinx!
This is the optical signalling station where the garrison could use an early kind of Aldis Lamp to signal in morse code to the nearest forts.
Heading down below ground level into the bombardment proof sector of the fort now.
This is a hand cranked ventilator for removing the fumes after weapons have been fired. These are very rare around Verdun and it is the first one we have found left in situ.
This long corridor is well within the safe area of the fort. The red line along the wall denotes that this sector is proof against bombardment.
A firing point for an infantryman to use his rifle against potential attackers down in the moat.
A bombardment proof barrack room deep under the fort. The bunk beds sleep three soldiers side by side on two tiers. Cosey or what!
This grafitti appears to date from 1941 during the Nazi occupation. It is the SS motto and it says in memory of those lost in 1918. Genuine?
I have no reason to think otherwise as there is a lot of very old graf in these forts and little in the way of modern "tagging".
Beautiful masonry construction shows that this area is not bombardment proof.
This is the corridor leading to the gorge caponniere which is a double fighting compartment built at moat floor level to protect the entrance of the fort against enemy attempting access from the moat.
Inside the gorge caponniere. The revolver canon firing ports are very clear.
the junction where the descending staircase leads into a fighting corridor running along the moat wall.
A topside room adjacent to a barrack block. probably an admin area of officer's quarters or the like as it's too small for a bunch of poilus.
The remains of the boulangerie (bakery).
Light literally at the end of the tunnel! This corridor leads out to the "Rue du Rempart", an area in the middle of the fort where extra artillery could be brought to supplement the fort's own artillery.
the exit to the Rue du Rempart.
L'pissoire pour l'infanterie...
the Germans blew up this fort's armaments. This is all that remains of one of the armoured, retractable, twin Hotchkiss machine gun turrets.
And this is the same installation from the outside.
This area of the moat is protected by a double fighting compartment accessed from within the fort by a tunnel running under the moat. It is situated at apex of the moat at the front of the fort.
Each specialised fighting turret is supported by an armoured observation cupola. The steel on the top of the cupola is 7 inches thick. This particular cupola has been blown apart, presumably with explosives by the German occupying forces in WW2.
...and finally, this is the interior of one of the two Bourges Casemates. each casemate was a completely self contained fighting compartment packing TWO 75mm fast firing guns.
Hope you enjoyed the piccies. Thanks for looking.
You may remember that TJ and I explored several of the World War One forts around Verdun last year and we have added a further FIVE to our list during the last week of April this year. In 2011 we had spectacularly failed to get into de Bois Bourrus because there appeared to be no way to cross the moat so we went away and learnt to abseil and jumar with the intention of going back and cracking it this year. The moat is stupidly deep and totally vertical so we thought there would be no way to do it otherwise. Well we got that wrong and access was actually ticklish but nowhere near as bad as we had originally thought.
So... l'histoire...
After the completion of the so called "panic forts" which were constructed as a first line of defence around Verdun in great haste almost immediately after the end of the Franco-Prussian war, work began on a further ring of fortresses to enhance the protection of Verdun and block potential German progress along the most direct route to Paris. On the left bank of the River Meuse along a prominent ridge a series of forts were built which effectively closed down any route around Verdun to the west. The old print shown below gives a good idea of the geography of the Verdun area and the strategic locations of the forts.
Of a much more advanced design compared with the basic panic forts such as Belleville, St. Michel, Belrupt etc. these later additions to the fortress town's defences had many features which the earlier forts lacked, and they were built to withstand the German's new heavy artillery right from the outset. The panic fort method of relying upon portable artillery pieces moved and sited from within the fort, together with huge masonry and concrete shelters for the crews and ammunition storage, was dramatically reduced. Instead the fort was intended to be armed with a twin short barrelled 75mm artillery battery in a retractable armoured turret, and two armoured retractable double Hotchkiss machine gun turrets, each capable of acting independantly. In the event though, the 75mm installation at de Bois Bourrus was never finished.
To further sharpen the teeth of the fort two Bourges Casemates were built, each armed with two 75mm quick firing artillery pieces, the famous "Soixante-quinze", arguably the best light artillery piece of The Great War. The variant shown in our photograph - BELOW - has no wheels or axle for horse drawn transportation like the field version of the gun, rather it has a fixing point at the front which was anchored to a pivot point directly behind the firing port of the casemate, and a pair of small wheels set at 90 degrees to the barrel (which can be clearly seen in the photograph) enabled the gun to run on semi-circular tracks within the casemate through a fixed arc, thus facilitating the fastest possible traverse to the point of aim.
To protect the moat of the fort two casemates were built into the forward left and right corners, each with a field of fire back towards the entrance elevation. The front centre of the moat had a double casemate with fields of fire along the moat to left and right, and finally at the entrance elevation a double caponniere was constructed which jutted out into the moat to the right of the entrance drawbridge. The galleries of these strong points were armed with Hotchkiss "Revolver Canons" which are a kind of Gatling Gun style weapon with five 37 mm barrels - BELOW. They are capable of firing 43 rounds per minute with an accurate range of 2000 yards, more than adequate for the defence of the short moat sections.
Additionally infantry could man firing ports within the fighting galleries armed with their rifles or light machine guns, and large horizontal ports at knee level allowed the "posting" of hand grenades down into the moat onto an attacking enemy. The likelihood of the fort being successfully taken by infantry attacking along the moat was therefore very remote indeed.
Some of the Verdun forts are built with their heavily gated main entrances located at ground level, Forts du Regret and Vaucheraville for example. You can see this clearly in the now archived Fort du Regret report we posted in June last year - [ame="http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/showthread.php?t=19365"]CLICK HERE[/ame].
In this construction form the body of the fort was built on top of, or slightly into the ground, and then it was covered over with reinforced concrete, a deep layer of sand, more concrete, and finally a massive earth layer. The moat floor is therefore on the same level as the fort floor although there are further levels still within such a fort excavated down below the ground level. A second narrow moat some seven or so feet deep was constructed below the level of the normal moat floor directly at the base of the fort wall proper in order to prevent an attacking enemy from getting close enough to the walls of the fort to attempt entry through any of the firing ports. Thus approach to such forts is through the moat.
Not so Fort de Bois Bourrus which is built with the moat excavated out of the ground and the fort itself sitting mostly below ground level with only the peace time barrack blocks and Bourges Casemates etc. remaining on top. As a result of this design Bois Bourrus's moat is very deep and hence very difficult to cross without the drawbridge, which of course is long gone now! On our first visit to this fort back in June 2011 we could not find a way to cross the moat at all without recourse to climbing. In the event this did not prove necessary as we found a much easier way in!
The outlines of most of the Verdun fortifications are still very clear when seen from altitude - not so Fort de Bois Bourrus or it's closest neighbour Fort Marre. It is extremely difficult to make out much of the layout of these two forts now and only close scrutiny at maximum magnification reveals that there is actually something down there beneath the deep forest canopy.
The pix...
I call this picture "FRUSTRATION"! It is the front wall of the fort as seen from the wrong side of the moat!
Even if they hadn't destroyed the drawbridge there's still a substantial block wall barring the gate
I call this picture "DEEP DESPAIR"!
So after hanging upside down on a rope on the gable end of our house whilst learning to jumar (I jest ye not) we got in to the fort and as it happens it was without the trauma of climbing!
Looking out of one of the revolver canon ports in the fort wall.
These are two of the peace time masonry built barrack blocks. In times of war the garrison went into underground bombardment proof barracks under the fort instead.
A bit spartan in the winter methinx!
This is the optical signalling station where the garrison could use an early kind of Aldis Lamp to signal in morse code to the nearest forts.
Heading down below ground level into the bombardment proof sector of the fort now.
This is a hand cranked ventilator for removing the fumes after weapons have been fired. These are very rare around Verdun and it is the first one we have found left in situ.
This long corridor is well within the safe area of the fort. The red line along the wall denotes that this sector is proof against bombardment.
A firing point for an infantryman to use his rifle against potential attackers down in the moat.
A bombardment proof barrack room deep under the fort. The bunk beds sleep three soldiers side by side on two tiers. Cosey or what!
This grafitti appears to date from 1941 during the Nazi occupation. It is the SS motto and it says in memory of those lost in 1918. Genuine?
I have no reason to think otherwise as there is a lot of very old graf in these forts and little in the way of modern "tagging".
Beautiful masonry construction shows that this area is not bombardment proof.
This is the corridor leading to the gorge caponniere which is a double fighting compartment built at moat floor level to protect the entrance of the fort against enemy attempting access from the moat.
Inside the gorge caponniere. The revolver canon firing ports are very clear.
the junction where the descending staircase leads into a fighting corridor running along the moat wall.
A topside room adjacent to a barrack block. probably an admin area of officer's quarters or the like as it's too small for a bunch of poilus.
The remains of the boulangerie (bakery).
Light literally at the end of the tunnel! This corridor leads out to the "Rue du Rempart", an area in the middle of the fort where extra artillery could be brought to supplement the fort's own artillery.
the exit to the Rue du Rempart.
L'pissoire pour l'infanterie...
the Germans blew up this fort's armaments. This is all that remains of one of the armoured, retractable, twin Hotchkiss machine gun turrets.
And this is the same installation from the outside.
This area of the moat is protected by a double fighting compartment accessed from within the fort by a tunnel running under the moat. It is situated at apex of the moat at the front of the fort.
Each specialised fighting turret is supported by an armoured observation cupola. The steel on the top of the cupola is 7 inches thick. This particular cupola has been blown apart, presumably with explosives by the German occupying forces in WW2.
...and finally, this is the interior of one of the two Bourges Casemates. each casemate was a completely self contained fighting compartment packing TWO 75mm fast firing guns.
Hope you enjoyed the piccies. Thanks for looking.
