Federal fortress

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Federal fortresses of the German Confederation had been the fortified places Luxembourg , Mainz and Landau since 1815 . Ulm and Rastatt also received this status later . They were directly under the Federal Assembly or appointed by their Federal Military Commission . During the time of the Provisional Central Authority (1848/1849), Reich Minister of War Eduard von Peucker was in charge.

The federal fortresses were intended to give Germany the opportunity to defend itself against a French attack. During the time of the German Confederation (1815–1866), such an attack did not take place, despite foreign policy crises around 1830 and 1840. Some federal fortresses were manned by soldiers from various German states so that they fostered a shared sense of responsibility.

After the end of the German Confederation, the federal fortresses were razed or taken over by German member states. Only remnants of most of the systems are left today.

history

On the fringes of the Paris Peace Conference , the four victorious powers Austria , Great Britain , Prussia and Russia had designated the cities of Mainz, Luxembourg and Landau as fortresses of the German Confederation on November 3, 1815 and also planned the construction of a fourth federal fortress on the Upper Rhine. A supplementary resolution to the Federal War Constitution of July 11, 1822 then created the legal basis.

The takeover of the federal fortresses by the federal government took place after a considerable delay. The Mainz fortress was not taken over until December 15, 1825, Luxembourg on March 13, 1826 and Landau on January 27, 1831. Later, from 1841 and 1842, the new buildings near Rastatt and Ulm were added to these older federal fortresses. In addition, according to the Gastein Convention of 1865, Rendsburg was intended as a federal fortress. Because of the dissolution of the German Confederation in 1866, this resolution was no longer implemented.

The federal fortresses, at least in the initial phase of the German Confederation, were probably the only area of ​​effective military competence through central federal authorities. And so it is of symbolic value that the double-headed federal eagle adorned all gun barrels on the federal fortresses.

function

The military function of the federal fortresses was primarily to secure the western border against France . Fortresses played a central role in the defense concept of the German Confederation. In the event of war, the fortresses were supposed to cover the deployment of the armed forces, to force the enemy to time-consuming sieges and to serve as a base of operations for one's own offensive actions.

Due to their often unfavorable, exposed location, the federal fortresses only gained importance in conjunction with the other fortifications of the individual German states, especially the Prussian fortress system on the Rhine .

Management and administration

The fortress governor was responsible for the administrative management of a federal fortress and the fortress commander was responsible for the military leadership. Both were usually determined by the sovereign, whose contingent in the respective federal fortress formed the majority of the occupation . Both the governor and the commanding officer had to swear an oath when they took over the fortress , which obliged them to exercise their office in the interest of the Federation and only in its defense .

For the maintenance of the federal fortresses, the federal register bank was set up, which was formed primarily from register contributions from the individual states. In addition, from the French war cost allowance of 1815, which had initially been set at 700 million francs , 60 million were spent on expanding or building new Rhine fortresses.

Federal fortresses

The Reduit of the Mainz fortress in Mainz-Kastel

Mainz

The Mainz fortress has existed since the 17th century. During the German Confederation, Mainz was in the Grand Duchy of Hesse . The crew of the federal fortress consisted in peace , according to the Carlsbad Convention of 10 August 1817/2 from Austrian, half of Prussian troops. Every five years the commanding officer should alternately be appointed by Prussia or Austria. In addition to the total of 6,000 Austrians and Prussians, a 1,000 man strong Grand Ducal Darmstadt battalion was destined to replenish the occupation contingent. In fact, this strength of peace was not achieved. There was not enough space in the older core of Mainz fortress to accommodate the full number.

In the event of war, it was planned to increase the crew to around 21,000 men. In addition to the Austrians and Prussians, according to the resolution of the Federal Assembly of March 3, 1831, the last third was to be formed from the troops of the small state contingents of the reserve division of the Federal Army, the value of which was more than doubtful. The accommodation of such a contingent within the core fortress and the city ​​wall was completely ruled out. For this reason, the detached forts of Mainz fortress , which were planned on the surrounding heights, were expanded according to plan after 1815, so that in addition to the old citadel and the city wall, three outer belts of interconnected detached works were created, the inner districts of which could accommodate an entire army .

Luxembourg

Fort Thüngen of the federal fortress of Luxembourg

The occupation of the federal fortress of Luxembourg was to consist of three quarters of Prussians and one quarter of Dutch people . In the supplementary tract of November 8, 1816, the Dutch king , who was also Grand Duke of Luxembourg, relinquished Prussia the right to appoint both the governor and the commander of the Luxembourg fortress. In addition to the stipulated 4,000 men of the peace garrison, whose strength was not adhered to, another 1,500 Prussians and 500 Dutchmen had to be brought into the fortress in case of danger.

The strength of the war garrison of Luxembourg was thus fixed at a total of 6,000 men and 200 horses. This number was urgently needed because the fortress belt consisted of 22 forts, 15 of them in the middle belt and 7 in the outer belt. Large casemates and tunnels totaling 22 km in length had also been worked into the rock . For this reason, Luxembourg was also called the “ Gibraltar of the North”. In 1867, the entire complex of this fortress with the surrounding fortifications had 24 forts.

Landau

Landau was in the Palatinate, which at that time belonged to the Kingdom of Bavaria . The peace garrison of the Landau Fortress originally consisted of 2,800 Bavarians . In the event of war, at the request of Bavaria , Baden had to provide a third of the war garrison, which had grown to a total of 6,000 men. After the formation of the reserve infantry division of the federal army, the composition of the occupation contingents of the federal fortress was changed. On March 3, 1831, the Federal Assembly decided that the war garrison of Landau from 4,000 Bavarians should be supplemented with the mixed contingents of the reserve division of 2,300 men.

The governor and commander of the Landau fortress were appointed by Bavaria, as it was transferred from Austrian to Bavarian jurisdiction in 1816.

The construction of the fortress of Landau had already begun in 1688, according to plans by Vauban , and has been continuously continued, especially since the 18th century. The small fortress, which was already obsolete in the 19th century, consisted of a polygonal system flanked by casemated towers. At the time of the German Confederation, numerous detached porches were built as part of significant expansion work, which withdrew the old city wall from the area of ​​action of the enemy artillery .

New fortress buildings in Rastatt and Ulm

The discussion as to which of the two squares, Ulm (Württemberg) or Rastatt (Baden), would have a more favorable effect on the defense capabilities of the federal government, had reached a polemical climax since the mid-1830s. Austria preferred Ulm to cover its own borders and in the interests of a defensive defense concept for southern Germany in which it could participate. The southern German states, however, preferred Rastatt because they wanted to strengthen their active defense on the Upper Rhine . Prussia traditionally tended more towards the southern German position, since it coincided with its own security policy.

In this deadlocked situation, the Württemberg King Wilhelm I proposed fortifying both places in October 1836 . This position was also taken over by the Prussian authorized representative at the Federal Military Commission. After lengthy negotiations, in August 1838 he succeeded in winning the Bavarian king and, a year later, the Austrian plenipotentiary to the Federal Military Commission for the plan. A definitive decision on the construction of the fortresses Rastatt and Ulm was only made under the impression of the Rhine crisis . On March 26, 1841, the Federal Assembly decided to build both fortresses.

The construction of the fortresses of Rastatt and Ulm represented a military compromise . It balanced two strategic military concepts: the more offensive Prussia and the southern German states on the one hand and the more defensive Austria on the other. In addition, both fortresses, with their bulwarks considered almost impregnable in the contemporary judgment, represented a considerable engineering achievement.

The Karlsruhe Gate of the Rastatt Fortress

Rastatt

The fortress of Rastatt was entirely in Baden's hands. The Grand Duchy provided administrative management with the exception of the Austrian-occupied Geniedirektion, in peacetime the entire occupation, and in war with Austria two-thirds of the occupation. The construction of this fortress strengthened Prussia's military position in southern Germany by establishing a solid foundation for the effective cooperation between the southern German troops and the Prussian associations concentrated on the Rhine, which Prussia had striven for since 1830.

The main fortress enclosed the city of Rastatt and consisted of three forts (Leopold, Ludwig and Friedrichfeste), which could be defended independently of each other. Created according to the "new German" fortress system, Rastatt adapts to the terrain without using a strictly geometrical floor plan. The focal points of the defense front were in the western, southern and eastern areas, while the northern section was covered by the terrain.

Kienlesbergbastion Double caponier of the fortress Ulm

Ulm

The fortress Ulm, with its fortifications that are far forward on both banks of the Danube, forms a central point and main arsenal for the defensive defense of southern Germany. Built under Prussian leadership as one of the largest fortifications in Europe, it consisted of one of the main walls surrounding the cities of Ulm and Neu-Ulm in an elliptical shape. 16 outer forts dominated the surrounding mountain ranges, plus an extensive system of ditches.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Procès-verbal de la conférence de MM les plénipotentiaires des quatre puissances du November 3, 1815 à Paris, Annexe B, Système défensif de la confédération germanique. Art. 10, of November 3, 1815. In: State Archives of the German Confederation, edited by Johann Ludwig Klüber , Volume I, Volume 3, Erlangen 1816, pp. 389–391 .