Dufour Bridge

Dufour Bridge, seen from the Grossbasler Ufer. Author of the drawing unknown.

The Dufour Bridge was a temporary military pontoon bridge over the Rhine in Basel that existed from January to March 1857.

When a military attack by the Prussians appeared possible during the Neuchâtel trade , General Guillaume-Henri Dufour gave the order on January 7, 1857 , to build a pontoon bridge at the Harzgraben, about 100 meters above today's Wettstein Bridge, in order to have enough bridge capacity for fast To have troop shifts across the Rhine. At that time the Mittlere Brücke was the only Rhine crossing in Basel.

The bridge took eight days to build. Since the anchors did not offer a sufficiently secure hold due to the strong current, a rope was stretched across the Rhine, with which the ships were additionally secured. Gottlieb Ott from Bern was involved as a civil engineer .

When the political crisis was over in March, the bridge was torn down again. Although she had only stood there for just under three months, the people of Basel had gotten used to the new transition and missed it after the demolition.

Coordinates: 47 ° 33 '23 "  N , 7 ° 35' 48"  E ; CH1903:  611904  /  two hundred sixty-seven thousand two hundred ninety-six