Fortress Motto Bartola
The Motto Bartola fortress is a Swiss artillery plant on the south side of the Gotthard Pass in the canton of Ticino . It is located at 1527 m above sea level. M. in the municipality of Airolo at the entrance to the Tremola on the old Gotthard road. The fort, built in 1890, was closed in 1947 as a fighting facility for the Gotthard fortress and has been used as a barracks ever since . The Fortress Foppa Grande complex is less than 300 meters away .
history
When it became clear that the modern fortress Forte Airolo , which had been under construction since 1887 , could not be finished in time to protect the Airolo pocket in the event of an attack, it was decided to build a temporary structure above Forte Airolo on the motto of Bartola. Construction began in 1888 and was completed in the summer of 1890, the same year as Forte Airolo.
Today Motto Bartola is used as a barracks by the Swiss Army. In 2004 the retraining course of the fortress artillery department 13 took place here, the last remaining fortress department after the army reform XXI . With its dissolution in 2011, the Swiss fortress artillery belongs to history.
Work and armament
The system was designed for a battery of four 12 cm cannons and two batteries of four 8.4 cm cannons each. The gun stands for the 12 cm guns had a pivot for the frame of the carriage return brake. In addition, an ammunition casemate was built.
From 1901 a small war barracks ( Kehlkaserne ) was built alongside other modifications . Before the First World War , six single stands with pivot for 12 cm cannons with reverse brake were added to the existing half-battery stands A and B (two with the direction of fire Bedretto, four with the direction of fire Leventina).
Order and workforce
Motto Bartola had the task of protecting the Gotthard road and the road into Val Bedretto in the Airolo basin .
The fortress company consisted of 95 men.
Fieudo infantry bases
The fortress Motto Bartola with its open battery could from the 2000 m above sea level. M. situated Alpe di Fieud be viewed. To protect them, the Banchi path (fortification path ) was built from the Gotthard Hospice to Alpe di Fieud in 1898 and some barracks were built there. In 1903 two infantry bases with open trenches and brick accommodation rooms for around 70 men were built. The lower one is at 1930 m above sea level. M. under the Belvedere viewpoint of the autostrasse, the upper one at 2070 m above sea level. M. northeast of the south portal of the road tunnel. 1905 was at 2131 m above sea level. M. , east of Lake Fieud , a third, completely covered and granite-clad work with a polygonal ground plan and notches for rifles and machine guns was created.
literature
- Thomas Pfiffner: On a high bastion. Fortress Brigade 23 , in: The San Giacomo.
- Silvio Keller, Maurice Lovisa: Military monuments in the canton of Ticino , ADAB inventory of military monuments, EMD 1996
- Ziegler Peter: 100 Years of the Gotthard Fortress, 1885–1985, publisher fortress brigade 23, Andermatt 1986
Web links
- Armasuisse: Military monuments in the Canton of Ticino (PDF; 5.5 MB)
- Fortifications on the Gotthard Pass ( memento from August 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) in festung-oberland.ch (accessed on: May 2, 2016.).
Individual evidence
- ↑ [1] Fortificazioni Ticinesi fortress hiking trail No. 9: Object 2 Open artillery position and Kaserme Motto Bartola B 2846
- ↑ bunker friends: Fieudo, Tremola, Motto di Dentro
Coordinates: 46 ° 32 ′ 5 " N , 8 ° 35 ′ 15" E ; CH1903: six hundred eighty-eight thousand one hundred and thirty-three / 154359