Fort Saint-Nicolas is a former military fort in

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

. It's the sister fort to Fort Saint-Jean which was constructed at the same time. After an uprisings in 1630–31 and

the Fronde The Fronde () was a series of civil wars in the Kingdom of France between 1648 and 1653, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659), Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. The government of the young King Louis XIV c ...

in 1648–1652, the young King

Louis XIV LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...

had two large forts, fort St. Jean and Fort St. Nicholas, built at the harbour entrance to control the city's unruly population. It was constructed at the same time as Fort Saint-Jean on the opposite side of the harbour. Commenting on their construction, Louis XIV said, "We noticed that the inhabitants of Marseille were extremely fond of nice fortresses. We wanted to have our own at the entrance to this great port.""Nous avons remarqué que les Marseillais prisaient fort les jolies bastides. Nous avons voulu avoir la nôtre à l'entrée de ce grand port." In fact, the two new forts had cannons pointed inwards towards the town, not outwards towards the sea. It was besieged On 30 April 1790, and many of the soldiers inside were massacred. During the

Battle of Marseille The Battle of Marseille was an urban battle of World War II that took place August 21–28, 1944, and led to the liberation of Marseille by Free French forces under the command of General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. The groundwork was laid ...

, it was the main center of German resistance. French artillery opened up on the fort and after two days it was clear that resistance was futile and the Marseille garrison surrendered on 27 August. On 29 August

marines Marines (or naval infantry) are military personnel generally trained to operate on both land and sea, with a particular focus on amphibious warfare. Historically, the main tasks undertaken by marines have included Raid (military), raiding ashor ...

from the cruisers USS ''Augusta'' and USS ''Philadelphia'' accepted the surrender of Germans on the fortified harbour islands.

References

Forts in France Buildings and structures in Marseille {{Provence-geo-stub