Fort De Pontisse
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The Fort de Pontisse () is one of twelve forts built around
Liège Liège ( ; ; ; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east o ...
,
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
, in the late 19th century. The overall
Fortified Position of Liège A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from La ...
was a constituent part of the country's
National Redoubt A national redoubt or national fortress is an area to which the (remnant) military forces of a nation can be withdrawn if the main battle has been lost or even earlier if defeat is considered inevitable. Typically, a region is chosen with a geogra ...
. Fort de Pontisse was built between 1881 and 1884 according to the plans of General Henri Alexis Brialmont. Contrasting with the French forts built in the same era by Raymond Adolphe Séré de Rivières, the fort was built exclusively of unreinforced concrete, a new material, rather than masonry. The fort was heavily bombarded by German artillery in the
Battle of Liège The Battle of Liège (5–16 August 1914) was the opening engagement of the German invasion of Belgium and the first battle of the First World War. The city of Liège was protected by a ring of modern fortresses, one of several fortified cities ...
. Attacked in both World War I and World War II, the fort has been preserved as a refuge for bats, which may be visited during summer months.


Description

The Fort de Pontisse is located about northeast of the center of
Liège Liège ( ; ; ; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east o ...
. Flémalle overlooks the
Meuse The Meuse or Maas is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a total length of . History From 1301, the upper ...
valley and the
Albert Canal The Albert Canal (, ; , ) is a canal located in northeastern Belgium, which was named for King Albert I of Belgium. The Albert Canal connects Antwerp with Liège, and also the Meuse river with the Scheldt river. It also connects with the Des ...
downstream from Liège. The fort was built as an irregular trapezoid. A deep by ditch encircles the fort. The principal armament was concentrated in the central massif. The ditches were defended in
enfilade Enfilade and defilade are concepts in military tactics used to describe a military formation's exposure to enemy fire. A formation or position is "in enfilade" if weapon fire can be directed along its longest axis. A unit or position is "in de ...
by 57 mm guns in
casemates A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armoured structure from which guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to antiquity, the term "casemate wall" mea ...
resembling
counterscarp A scarp and a counterscarp are the inner and outer sides, respectively, of a ditch or moat used in fortifications. Attackers (if they have not bridged the ditch) must descend the counterscarp and ascend the scarp. In permanent fortifications, the ...
batteries, firing at shot traps at the other end of the ditch. The fort is one of the larger Liège forts. With the exception of the Fort de Loncin, the Belgian forts made little provision for the daily needs of their wartime garrisons, locating latrines, showers, kitchens and the morgue in the fort's
counterscarp A scarp and a counterscarp are the inner and outer sides, respectively, of a ditch or moat used in fortifications. Attackers (if they have not bridged the ditch) must descend the counterscarp and ascend the scarp. In permanent fortifications, the ...
, a location that would be untenable in combat. This would have profound effects on the forts' ability to endure a long assault. The service areas were placed directly opposite the barracks, which opened into the ditch in the rear of the fort (i.e., in the face towards Liège), with lesser protection than the two "salient" sides. The Brialmont forts placed a weaker side to the rear to allow for recapture by Belgian forces from the rear, and located the barracks and support facilities on this side, using the rear ditch for light and ventilation of living spaces. In combat heavy shellfire made the rear ditch untenable, and German forces were able to get between the forts and attack them from the rear. The Brialmont forts were designed to be protected from shellfire equaling their heaviest guns: 21 cm. The top of the central massif used of unreinforced concrete, while the caserne walls, judged to be less exposed, used . Under fire, the forts were damaged by 21 cm weapons and could not withstand heavier artillery.


Armament

Pontisse's armament included two turrets with a single 21 cm Krupp gun, a 15 cm turret with twin guns and two 12 cm turrets with two Krupp guns, all for distant targets. Four 57 mm gun turrets were provided for local defense. The fort also mounted an observation turret with a searchlight. Eight rapid-fire 57 mm guns were provided in casemates for the defense of the ditches and the postern. The fort's heavy guns were German, typically
Krupp Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp (formerly Fried. Krupp AG and Friedrich Krupp GmbH), trade name, trading as Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century as well as Germany's premier weapons manufacturer dur ...
, while the turret mechanisms were from a variety of sources. The fort was provided with signal lights to permit communication with the neighboring Fort de Liers and Fort de Barchon across the river. The guns were fired using
black powder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate, potassium ni ...
rather than
smokeless powder Finnish smokeless powder Smokeless powder is a type of propellant used in firearms and artillery that produces less smoke and less fouling when fired compared to black powder. Because of their similar use, both the original black powder formula ...
, producing choking gas in the confined firing spaces that spread throughout the fort.


First World War

Liège first came under attack on 6 August 1914. When Liège's fortifications proved unexpectedly stubborn, the Germans brought heavy siege artillery to bombard the forts with shells far larger than they were designed to resist. Pontisse was the first fort to come under bombardment from 42 cm artillery. It held out until 13 August 1914, when it surrendered, unable to resist any longer. The Germans improved Pontisse with better sanitary arrangements, ventilation and reinforced concrete in 1916. The Liège forts were reoccupied by the Belgian army in 1918 after the armistice.


Fortified Position of Liège

Pontisse's armament was upgraded in the 1930s to become part of the
Fortified Position of Liège A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from La ...
II, which was planned to deter a German incursion over the nearby border.Donnell, pp. 55-56 The armament was upgraded with new guns in the turrets and an anti-aircraft battery. This was accompanied by improvements to ventilation, protection, sanitary facilities, communications and electrical power. The 57mm guns were replaced with machine guns. As the most northern fort in PFL IV, it was tasked to support Fort Eben-Emael. A flanking bunker was built to survey the Laveau ravine and to serve as an alternate exit and as a source of ventilation air, in contrast to most of the other Liège forts, which used ventilation towers.


Second World War

In May 1940 Pontisse was garrisoned by 223 men under the command of Captain-Commandant Fernand Pire. Following the successful German assault on Fort Eben-Emael to the east on May 11, Pontisse provided fire support for Belgian field units for the next few days, including firing on the area around Eben-Emael after Eben-Emael's surrender. Pontisse surrendered in its turn on May 18 following an air attack that destroyed the 105mm turret and damaged the 76mm turrets. Pontisse was, in any case, almost out of ammunition.


Present

Pontisse was used as an army munitions depot after the war, then by a private munitions firm for the same purpose. It was stripped of its equipment by a salvager in the 1950s. The fort has been unoccupied since 1993. It is maintained as a refuge for bats during the winter months. It may be visited in the summer by arrangement.


References


Bibliography

*Donnell, Clayton, ''The Forts of the Meuse in World War I'', Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2007, . *Kauffmann, J.E., Jurga, R., ''Fortress Europe: European Fortifications of World War II'', Da Capo Press, USA, 2002, .


External links


Fort de Pontisse

Fort de Pontisse
at fortiff.be {{Authority control Pontisse Pontisse Government buildings completed in 1884 Military installations established in the 1880s Herstal