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So here we go with another Verdun fort report from our last visit. Some of you may be glad to know we are rapidly running out of forts now but we do still have a couple of dozens ouvrages left yet! 
Fort Rozelier sits on the top of Hill 39 covering the road from Verdun to Metz running away directly to the east. As such it was a very important fort strategically and this fact can be seen clearly in many different aspects of the fort, not least the fact that it has quite the best Travaux 17 tunnel network we have found in any of the Verdun forts to date. The fort is very heavily armoured including one of the few Gallopin 155R heavy artillery turrets, installed in 1908, which are really quite rare around Verdun.
The initial construction phase began on this fort in 1877 and took only two years to complete at a cost 4.5 million Francs, however almost continuous programs of improvement meant that some form of construction work was continually on the go there right up until a year before the outbreak of the Great War. The first fort at Verdun, Tavannes, had been started just three years before Rozelier so you would expect to find the forts to be broadly similar in style. That is not the case, they differ dramatically. Shortly after the construction of Tavannes began a dramatic political crisis occurred and it looked like Germany and France might be at war again within only a matter of months. As a result a series of six so called "Panic Forts" was built in great haste in a ring some 2 and a half kilometres out from the centre of Verdun. The panic forts were little more than fortified artillery emplacements where field artillery could be corralled and protected by infantry, themselves protected with bombardment proof shelters. There were no fixed defensive installations on these forts such as the turrets which would begin to appear on the larger examples that were to follow very soon. Eventually the political panic subsided into a grumbling resumption of the fragile peace and work resumed on the original plan which included forts Souville, Marre, Haudainville, Rozelier, and Bois Reunis. By 1879 they had all been completed and armed. At this point then there were a total of twelve forts protecting Verdun with the much earlier citadel sitting in the centre of the city.
Dramatic improvements in German ordnance, both in the shape and calibre of shells and the performance of the explosive filling them, resulted in the need for far better armour on these forts and a program of improvements was soon undertaken. Unlike the poorly armoured panic forts which employed masonry built blocks covered by a second masonry skin sandwiching an air gap to disperse blast from penetrating artillery shells, Rozelier appears to have embraced instead the new build techniques employed on the later forts which had been designed from the outset with a completely different approach. It appears that reliance was placed instead upon special reinforced concrete laid in a continuous pour to prevent delaminating layers, over which were poured deep layers of sand to absorb blast, and finally an earth shield several meters thick was dug in over the top. This technique proved so successful at Fort Douamont in 1916 that the first heavy shell to penetrate the fort was fired literally months after an almost continual bombardment had begun. In effect the entire shielding layer of the fort had been progressively blasted away until with just sufficient penetration, a high velocity French 320 mm shell broke through and decimated the by now occupying German forces, the fort having fallen without a shot being fired several weeks earlier. We did not witness much damage from German heavy artillery fire at all at Rozelier with the obvious exception of the few large shell holes in the gate wall area, though in truth we did not walk a great area of the fort's top side. Internally we saw very little damage anywhere so what ever protection Rozelier employed it was effective in the extreme.
There were three machine gun turrets built at the fort and then later TWO Bourges Casemates were added to up the firepower of the fort out to the flanks. These completely self-contained reinforced concrete gun emplacements were named after the French artillery proving site at Bourges where they had been developed and were a fast, cheap and highly cost effective emplacement, each carrying two fast firing 75mm canons on semi-circular rail tracks behind their embrasures.
The entrance to the fort was protected by the ubiquitous gorge caponniere, a structure with jutted out into the moat. Initially the fort will have used the same design of defensive emplacement to protect the rest of the moat. The trouble with caponnieres is that they require ever thicker roofs to remain proof against ever growing calibres of plunging artillery fire, and there comes a limit as to how thick the roofs can be made when the ordnance being fired at them approaches 300mm and more. The photograph BELOW shows TJ standing next to a 320mm artillery round for size comparison!
The biggest guns ranged on the Verdun forts however were larger still - the 420mm Krupps "Big Bertha" siege howitzers. As a result an improvement was made to the moat protection in 1900 by the conversion of the now inadequate caponnieres to counterscarp galleries. Being built into the outer wall of the moat, these galleries have an enormous depth of earth above them and do no protrude into the moat. Suitably armed with appropriate weapons then these galleries rendered the moat a veritable killing ground. The cost of the conversion and armament of the new counterscarp galleries was FF 1,275,000.
Around the same period it appears from certain documentation that two 75mm artillery turrets were installed either on the fort itself or just outside, however what happened to these turrets is very unclear. What IS for certain is that there are no 75mm installations anywhere in the fort now, so our best guess is that they were abandoned or possibly built over, or that they never moved beyond the planning phase at all. In 1903 three double machine gun turrets were installed, and then finally in 1906 work began on the installation of the 155mm artillery turret. It can be seen then that this fort had truly formidable fire power in excess of that even of "the mighty Douamont" construction of which begin somewhat later in 1885.
Following the battle of Verdun in 1916 a need was identified for the interconnection of all fighting compartments within all of the forts by the excavation of secondary communication tunnels running back into the heart of the fort, and for an emergency personnel exit to be provided in order to allow the garrison to evacuate secretly if needed. the same tunnels serving to re-supply under fire. The work commenced in 1917 and was named "Travaux 17" - literally "17 work". Many of the Travaux 17 tunnels in the forts we have visited are crude and very fragile indeed never having been fully completed. The roofs are held up with pit props which have rotted to leave little more than black, mouldy shadows:
Indeed in many places the tunnel roofs are down comprehensively barring further progress. Not so in Fort Rozellier. So important was the fort's position judged to be, covering the approach from the east which might outflank Verdun, that the tunnels in Rozelier are the best made and most extensive we have ever seen in a Verdun fort, bar none.
L' histoire...
Fort Rozelier sits on the top of Hill 39 covering the road from Verdun to Metz running away directly to the east. As such it was a very important fort strategically and this fact can be seen clearly in many different aspects of the fort, not least the fact that it has quite the best Travaux 17 tunnel network we have found in any of the Verdun forts to date. The fort is very heavily armoured including one of the few Gallopin 155R heavy artillery turrets, installed in 1908, which are really quite rare around Verdun.
The initial construction phase began on this fort in 1877 and took only two years to complete at a cost 4.5 million Francs, however almost continuous programs of improvement meant that some form of construction work was continually on the go there right up until a year before the outbreak of the Great War. The first fort at Verdun, Tavannes, had been started just three years before Rozelier so you would expect to find the forts to be broadly similar in style. That is not the case, they differ dramatically. Shortly after the construction of Tavannes began a dramatic political crisis occurred and it looked like Germany and France might be at war again within only a matter of months. As a result a series of six so called "Panic Forts" was built in great haste in a ring some 2 and a half kilometres out from the centre of Verdun. The panic forts were little more than fortified artillery emplacements where field artillery could be corralled and protected by infantry, themselves protected with bombardment proof shelters. There were no fixed defensive installations on these forts such as the turrets which would begin to appear on the larger examples that were to follow very soon. Eventually the political panic subsided into a grumbling resumption of the fragile peace and work resumed on the original plan which included forts Souville, Marre, Haudainville, Rozelier, and Bois Reunis. By 1879 they had all been completed and armed. At this point then there were a total of twelve forts protecting Verdun with the much earlier citadel sitting in the centre of the city.
Dramatic improvements in German ordnance, both in the shape and calibre of shells and the performance of the explosive filling them, resulted in the need for far better armour on these forts and a program of improvements was soon undertaken. Unlike the poorly armoured panic forts which employed masonry built blocks covered by a second masonry skin sandwiching an air gap to disperse blast from penetrating artillery shells, Rozelier appears to have embraced instead the new build techniques employed on the later forts which had been designed from the outset with a completely different approach. It appears that reliance was placed instead upon special reinforced concrete laid in a continuous pour to prevent delaminating layers, over which were poured deep layers of sand to absorb blast, and finally an earth shield several meters thick was dug in over the top. This technique proved so successful at Fort Douamont in 1916 that the first heavy shell to penetrate the fort was fired literally months after an almost continual bombardment had begun. In effect the entire shielding layer of the fort had been progressively blasted away until with just sufficient penetration, a high velocity French 320 mm shell broke through and decimated the by now occupying German forces, the fort having fallen without a shot being fired several weeks earlier. We did not witness much damage from German heavy artillery fire at all at Rozelier with the obvious exception of the few large shell holes in the gate wall area, though in truth we did not walk a great area of the fort's top side. Internally we saw very little damage anywhere so what ever protection Rozelier employed it was effective in the extreme.
There were three machine gun turrets built at the fort and then later TWO Bourges Casemates were added to up the firepower of the fort out to the flanks. These completely self-contained reinforced concrete gun emplacements were named after the French artillery proving site at Bourges where they had been developed and were a fast, cheap and highly cost effective emplacement, each carrying two fast firing 75mm canons on semi-circular rail tracks behind their embrasures.
The entrance to the fort was protected by the ubiquitous gorge caponniere, a structure with jutted out into the moat. Initially the fort will have used the same design of defensive emplacement to protect the rest of the moat. The trouble with caponnieres is that they require ever thicker roofs to remain proof against ever growing calibres of plunging artillery fire, and there comes a limit as to how thick the roofs can be made when the ordnance being fired at them approaches 300mm and more. The photograph BELOW shows TJ standing next to a 320mm artillery round for size comparison!
The biggest guns ranged on the Verdun forts however were larger still - the 420mm Krupps "Big Bertha" siege howitzers. As a result an improvement was made to the moat protection in 1900 by the conversion of the now inadequate caponnieres to counterscarp galleries. Being built into the outer wall of the moat, these galleries have an enormous depth of earth above them and do no protrude into the moat. Suitably armed with appropriate weapons then these galleries rendered the moat a veritable killing ground. The cost of the conversion and armament of the new counterscarp galleries was FF 1,275,000.
Around the same period it appears from certain documentation that two 75mm artillery turrets were installed either on the fort itself or just outside, however what happened to these turrets is very unclear. What IS for certain is that there are no 75mm installations anywhere in the fort now, so our best guess is that they were abandoned or possibly built over, or that they never moved beyond the planning phase at all. In 1903 three double machine gun turrets were installed, and then finally in 1906 work began on the installation of the 155mm artillery turret. It can be seen then that this fort had truly formidable fire power in excess of that even of "the mighty Douamont" construction of which begin somewhat later in 1885.
Following the battle of Verdun in 1916 a need was identified for the interconnection of all fighting compartments within all of the forts by the excavation of secondary communication tunnels running back into the heart of the fort, and for an emergency personnel exit to be provided in order to allow the garrison to evacuate secretly if needed. the same tunnels serving to re-supply under fire. The work commenced in 1917 and was named "Travaux 17" - literally "17 work". Many of the Travaux 17 tunnels in the forts we have visited are crude and very fragile indeed never having been fully completed. The roofs are held up with pit props which have rotted to leave little more than black, mouldy shadows:
Indeed in many places the tunnel roofs are down comprehensively barring further progress. Not so in Fort Rozellier. So important was the fort's position judged to be, covering the approach from the east which might outflank Verdun, that the tunnels in Rozelier are the best made and most extensive we have ever seen in a Verdun fort, bar none.
L'photographie...
The impressive main gate, about the only part of the fort we found to have been damaged by German heavy siege artillery...
Who's that dodgy character and what's that she's carrying?
Inside the gorge caponnier...
This is the first time we have seen painted signage on firing ports in any of te Verdun forts.
Many of the forts relied on water piped or carried in from outside. Rozelier has it's own well in this room.
...and here it is.
This is part of the mechanism which retracted a sliding bridge over the moat.
The route up from the moat floor level of the gorge caponnier to the main thoroughfare level. It is blocked and required a "portable frig" to get past
Succesfully past the block wall barrier now.
Despite the damage the artillery wrought this looks quite picturesque
The purpose of the formidable moat is readily apparent at this height within the fort.
Moving further into the fort now along the main thoroughfare, ahead is the first of the masonry built peace time barrack blocks lining the fort's Rue du Rempart.
We initially thought this said something about the fort being built on the remains of another fort but it literally translates as:
'rather be buried beneath the ruins of the fort than surrender'
It is apparently inscribed in many of the Verdun forts however this is the first time we have seen it.
This is part of the peace time kitchen/bakery area.
...and this is the interior of a peace time barrack dormitory designed for roughly a platoon of soldiers who would sleep in three level bunk beds
Off we go down into the business areas of the fort now.
The red line denotes we are entering a bombardment poroof area.
This is the war time personnel entrance at a much deeper level than the main thoroughfare.
If the fort were entered by the enemy it could compartmentalise itself to resist attack. Here we see a machine gum crenel allowing fire back into the fort.
A hole cut apparently randomly into the wall gives away the fact that this is part of the Travaux 17 tunnel system.
"Betonne" translates as: "concrete" but we take it to mean that it is an area of reinforced and armoured concrete from what we have seen in documentation.
Concrete lined and well made. Compare this shot with the earlier shot from a different fort
An access shaft within the Travaux 17 going up to a fighting compartment.
We are entering the first of the twin machine gun armoured turet installations here.
The turret counterbalance weight system allows the turret to rise and fall with no more than man power and a few gears.
The chains connecting the turret to the weights pass over pulley wheels on the turret base.
Hand-cranked fume extraction.
On the cupola dome can just about be made out the "art work" for the turret. Each turret contained a painted representation of the horizon around it's inner rim so that the crew could swing to the correct position on fire control orders before actually raisng the turret up. They remained bombardment proof that way for much longer.
Travaux 17 shaft access to the turret...this is why a good torch is essential
The long, weary trek back up to the air
Each peace time barrack block had a communicating corridor running along the back.
Proper latrines were not installed until after the Battle of Verdun so even these squatting plates were preferable and a definite improvement on buckets
A route out to the Rue du Rempart from the barrack block.
On the top of the fort now, it is extremely over grown.
Back off into the dark once again, this time en-route for the "Galopin" 155 mm turret.
The bottom level of the turret compartment.
By employing a see-saw beam with huge steel weights this enormous turret could also be wound up or down by man power alone.
The huge counter balance weights.
Part of the turret traverse system, again man-draulic.
The turret magazine chambers. The purpose of the opening was to allow the interior of the magazine to be lit by acetelyne lamps which were
placed in the openings and a glass window seperated the lamp from the magazine interior. No glass is present today sadly.
Diving under the moat on the way to a counterscarp gallery.
In the fighting gallery. The large opening would have been for a heavy weapon.
The moat is incredibly overgrown despite the fact that photographs in the late "noughties" showed it as having been de-forested. The woods around Verdun grow at a prodigious rate.
Time to head off towards the light again.
...and time to leave behind yet another Verdun fort. Mission accomplished...
...and that's your lot for now, thanks for looking...
Who's that dodgy character and what's that she's carrying?
Inside the gorge caponnier...
This is the first time we have seen painted signage on firing ports in any of te Verdun forts.
Many of the forts relied on water piped or carried in from outside. Rozelier has it's own well in this room.
...and here it is.
This is part of the mechanism which retracted a sliding bridge over the moat.
The route up from the moat floor level of the gorge caponnier to the main thoroughfare level. It is blocked and required a "portable frig" to get past
Succesfully past the block wall barrier now.
Despite the damage the artillery wrought this looks quite picturesque
The purpose of the formidable moat is readily apparent at this height within the fort.
Moving further into the fort now along the main thoroughfare, ahead is the first of the masonry built peace time barrack blocks lining the fort's Rue du Rempart.
We initially thought this said something about the fort being built on the remains of another fort but it literally translates as:
'rather be buried beneath the ruins of the fort than surrender'
It is apparently inscribed in many of the Verdun forts however this is the first time we have seen it.
This is part of the peace time kitchen/bakery area.
...and this is the interior of a peace time barrack dormitory designed for roughly a platoon of soldiers who would sleep in three level bunk beds
Off we go down into the business areas of the fort now.
The red line denotes we are entering a bombardment poroof area.
This is the war time personnel entrance at a much deeper level than the main thoroughfare.
If the fort were entered by the enemy it could compartmentalise itself to resist attack. Here we see a machine gum crenel allowing fire back into the fort.
A hole cut apparently randomly into the wall gives away the fact that this is part of the Travaux 17 tunnel system.
"Betonne" translates as: "concrete" but we take it to mean that it is an area of reinforced and armoured concrete from what we have seen in documentation.
Concrete lined and well made. Compare this shot with the earlier shot from a different fort
An access shaft within the Travaux 17 going up to a fighting compartment.
We are entering the first of the twin machine gun armoured turet installations here.
The turret counterbalance weight system allows the turret to rise and fall with no more than man power and a few gears.
The chains connecting the turret to the weights pass over pulley wheels on the turret base.
Hand-cranked fume extraction.
On the cupola dome can just about be made out the "art work" for the turret. Each turret contained a painted representation of the horizon around it's inner rim so that the crew could swing to the correct position on fire control orders before actually raisng the turret up. They remained bombardment proof that way for much longer.
Travaux 17 shaft access to the turret...this is why a good torch is essential
The long, weary trek back up to the air
Each peace time barrack block had a communicating corridor running along the back.
Proper latrines were not installed until after the Battle of Verdun so even these squatting plates were preferable and a definite improvement on buckets
A route out to the Rue du Rempart from the barrack block.
On the top of the fort now, it is extremely over grown.
Back off into the dark once again, this time en-route for the "Galopin" 155 mm turret.
The bottom level of the turret compartment.
By employing a see-saw beam with huge steel weights this enormous turret could also be wound up or down by man power alone.
The huge counter balance weights.
Part of the turret traverse system, again man-draulic.
The turret magazine chambers. The purpose of the opening was to allow the interior of the magazine to be lit by acetelyne lamps which were
placed in the openings and a glass window seperated the lamp from the magazine interior. No glass is present today sadly.
Diving under the moat on the way to a counterscarp gallery.
In the fighting gallery. The large opening would have been for a heavy weapon.
The moat is incredibly overgrown despite the fact that photographs in the late "noughties" showed it as having been de-forested. The woods around Verdun grow at a prodigious rate.
Time to head off towards the light again.
...and time to leave behind yet another Verdun fort. Mission accomplished...
...and that's your lot for now, thanks for looking...
