Away from Salses
The Fort of Salses , also known as the fortress of Salses , is located in the village of Salses-le-Château in the Occitanie region of southern France . The fort was built at the end of the 15th century in the north of what was then the Principality of Catalonia on the border with France . In 1886 it was declared a monument historique by the French state .
History of the fortress
Roussillon has been controversial between the French and Aragonese crowns since the Middle Ages . By the Treaty of Corbeil (1258) it was added to the Kingdom of Aragón; between 1276 and 1344 it belonged temporarily to the Kingdom of Mallorca . The marriage between Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand I of Aragon in 1469 resulted in the unified Kingdom of Spain , which was watched with suspicion by France.
The construction of the fortress was commissioned by King Ferdinand of Aragón in 1496 after the French army sacked and burned the village and the old castle of Salses. The new fortress was built in a record time of seven years, between 1497 and 1504. Located at the strategically important gateway to Catalonia , the complex was intended to prevent further attacks and serve as a basis for offensive operations. A fortress that was revolutionary for the time also made it superior to artillery attacks .
As early as 1503, the fortress, which had not yet been completely finished, withstood a siege by the French. After the peace of 1544 between Emperor Charles V and the French King Franz I , a peaceful century began for the region. Due to military innovations, the fort gradually lost its military superiority based on its architecture. During the Thirty Years War , the fortress was besieged three times in three years and fell into the hands of France in 1642. Seventeen years later, in 1659, the Pyrenees peace negotiated between France and Spain made it less of a strategic importance, as the peace treaty set the border between the two nations on the course that still exists today and the entire Roussillon fell to France.
When the royal fortress builder Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban received the order from Louis XIV to blow up the fortress, this could not be implemented due to its massive construction. So it was preserved and served over the centuries as an observation post, as a state prison and in the 19th century as a powder magazine.
Strategic location and importance
The fortress guarded the entrance to the Spanish Roussillon. With the Pyrenees at its back and flanked by the Corbières mountain range to the west, the fortress controlled an important access point to Spanish territory . Even at that time, the route was one of the most important trade routes from Barcelona to Central Europe . In addition, the port of Salses and thus the shipping routes could be controlled from here.
Construction principle
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The peculiarity of the fort of Salses-le-Château is that it marks the transition from the medieval castle to the modern fortress .
With the use of cast iron cannon pellets in the artillery , the architectural conception of the medieval castle with a fortified main tower and curtains between corner towers became obsolete. The new construction of the fort took this development into account with walls up to ten meters thick and a lowered foundation . Salses-le-Château is on the one hand a castle (with the keep as the last refuge), but at the same time it is massive and sunk into the ground; castle and fortress at the same time and a future-oriented military structure at the time. The interior of the castle with its nested corridors and traps is also reminiscent of much more recent fortresses.
description
The building has three to seven levels above ground, which are connected by a labyrinth of corridors. The ingeniously designed defensive system consists of three independent parts facing east to west: a common part built around a courtyard, the reduit with the vital functions of the fortress and the main tower from which the system was commanded.
The courtyard is presented in the form of a large rectangle and is more simply laid out. In the middle there is a fountain. Are upstream him three picket defense in the form of nasal towers by Caponnières are connected to the middle part of the plant.
Today, visitors enter the fortifications via the southernmost nose tower. From this a bridge leads to the main portal of the fortress, which is enclosed by two cylindrical turrets . Even in the passage to the inner courtyard, the extremely winding construction with numerous loopholes and surveillance windows catches the eye. The courtyard is bordered on three sides by a pillared vestibule . In the adjacent buildings there was a vaulted chapel , the troops' quarters and the stables . The strength of the garrison is estimated at 1500 men and around 100 horses. On the west side of the inner courtyard is the Reduit, which is separated from the castle courtyard by a moat and an unfinished wall. This was where the powder store, a prison , the stores for food, the bakery , the kitchen and a room with a water basin were located, from which the spring water was distributed through a system of channels.
The donjon is located in the middle of the Reduit and is well secured by a combination of cleverly laid out corridors secured with loopholes and two drawbridges . It has seven levels and is now 20 meters high. There was originally a watchtower on its top , which is now destroyed. However, its appearance has been passed down through historical drawings.
Web links
- Fort de Salses - Photos * Info (French).
Individual evidence
- ^ Fort de Salses, Salses-le-Château in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French).
Coordinates: 42 ° 50 ′ 23 " N , 2 ° 55 ′ 6" E