Fort Lucey... |
Fort Lucey is located some 55 miles or so south south-east of Verdun. Like Fort d'Ecrouves a few short miles further south, it is yet one more link in the massive chain of fortifications built to defend France against German invasion in the immediate aftermath of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 - 1871. This fort is quite unlike any of the Verdun forts and extremely unusual in that it is square in plan with a heavy artillery battery connected to the main fort by an underground corridor completely "out on a limb" some distance roughly north west of the main body of the fort proper. It is the only instance of a fort built in this style that we have encountered to date. The other unusual feature of the fort is the huge Mougin 155 double artillery turret planted squarely right slap bang (if you'll pardon the pun) in the middle of the fort. To give you some idea of exactly what a Mougin turret looks like this photo - RIGHT - shows German infantry posing on just such a turret after the fall of France in 1940. Personally, we have found and visited very few Mougin turret installations anywhere and sadly this statistic was not about to change despite us managing to get into Lucey because every turret in the fort, Mougin or otherwise, has been removed or demolished leaving gaping voids in the concrete superstructure wide open to the sky. Not withstanding that sad fact this is still a pretty awesome fort to wander around and really well worth the effort. In conjunction with the other two forts in the immediate area, Trondes and Brouly, Fort Lucey defends the towns of Lucey and Lagney; and more importantly it prevents movement along the next valley north from that which Fort d' Ecrouves defends. These valleys were extremely important tactically because they provide a natural artery funnelling any invader from the east straight on towards Paris. The initial construction phase began on this fort on September the 1st. 1874, and it was finished on the 1st. January 1877 at an initial cost of one and three quarter million Francs, a massive sum at that time and equivalent to almost 22 MILLION Euros now. As with all the forts of this period extensive modifications were necessary in order to keep ahead of the rapidly evolving German artillery, both in terms of their guns and their ammunition.
It does not appear that the fort was subject to any further modification during the so called "Travaux 17" programme - literally translated as "1917 works" - so common in the Verdun forts and those in the same area. During the battle of Verdun in 1916 Fort Vaux had fallen for the simple want of drinking water and as a result an urgent need was identified to provide all the forts with interconnection between fighting compartments AND a secret route in and out of the fort. In early 1917 work was therefore begun on the forts with the digging of a series of tunnels beneath the existing floors accessed by deep vertical pits and ladders or sloping tunnels with stairs. The original intention was to line these tunnels properly with reinforced concrete but sadly many did not progress much beyond the wooden pit prop and bare rock wall stage. These pit props have long since rotted away and any Travaux 17 in such condition is highly dangerous! LEFT is a translated version of the floor plan of Fort Lucey, shown here by kind permission of Cedric and Julie Vaubourg. I would seriously recommend a visit to their excellent site where incredibly comprehensive information and absolutely masses of superb photographs document this fort, and many other forts throughout the whole of France. The sheer amount of work they have done absolutely beggars belief and they must input practically every minute of their spare time into documenting the French fortresses. It is very much a "must see" site and there is a picture link to it here ABOVE RIGHT . Our visit to Fort Lucey was extremely interesting to say the least! On a cold, snowy Sunday morning in February 2013 we began a rather hairy drive up a steep, frozen forest track in our very low slung Volvo estate. We passed several well constructed arched masonry entrances on the side of the track into what appear to be Abri Caverenes, or infantry shelters, parked up and set off on foot looking for the fort entrance. Sadly I had gone in completely in the wrong direction but sooner rather than later we worked out where I had gone wrong and found ourselves approaching the moat where we could see a very new and extremely sturdy, grey painted steel half door with a gaping hole right next to it beckoning us enticingly into the blackness of the fort interior. After getting our camera kit ready we tentatively wandered in and waited for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. The fort interior is in remarkably good shape though sadly it has suffered somewhat at the hands of graffiti taggers. It was particularly distasteful to find evidence of right wing neo-Nazi types amongst the graf though thankfully there is little sign of any other vandalism beyond the prolific spray can moronity. It was very easy to navigate the fort with the help of Cedric and Julie's floor plan and we managed to wander out onto the top of the fort where the open walkways between the barrack blocks appear as deep rectangular pits in the carapace - see if you can spot them on the aerial photograph above. The weather was very misty at this time of day and so sadly, decent photographs of the fort exterior were very difficult to achieve. That said we hope you enjoy what we did manage to take...
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