North channel
With North Channel ( French Grand Canal du Nord ) one in 1806 from is Napoléon initiated project to build a waterway between the port of Antwerp , the Maas and the Rhine referred. Only sections of the canal from Neuss to Neersen (in North Rhine-Westphalia ) and from Nederweert to Beringe / Helden (in the Netherlands , called Noordervaart there) were built.
General
As early as the 17th century, efforts were made to connect the Rhine and the Maas with a navigable waterway . The Fossa Eugeniana is a canal between Rheinberg and Venlo that was begun in 1626 and was also never completed .
In the First Coalition War , French troops conquered, among other things, many areas on the left bank of the Rhine (in the Peace of Basel (April 1795) Prussia withdrew from the war and in fact renounced its possessions on the left bank of the Rhine). Napoléon took up the idea of building this waterway again in order to pursue various military and economic purposes with it. In 1804 he traveled to the Lower Rhine to find out - among other things - on site about a geographically favorable route for the canal construction. The detailed planning began in 1806 and in a further step envisaged the extension of the canal to Antwerp .
reasons
Napoléon could not defeat Great Britain by military means, which is why he imposed the continental lock in order to weaken the British economy. The Netherlands ignored this, however, in order not to harm their own economy or to gain economic advantages from breaking the blockade . Since the shipping traffic on the Rhine and Maas passed through the Dutch seaports , Napoléon was looking for a way to change this in order to bypass the Netherlands. A direct connection from the Rhine via the Meuse and Scheldt to a French seaport was the solution. In this way it was also possible to bypass the high river tariffs downstream. Antwerp, which was under French control at the time, offered itself as a seaport . The construction of the “ Grand Canal du Nord ” was ordered for the first connection between the Rhine and the Maas .
Planned course
Originally, a route further north was planned from Duisburg . The route Neuss-Venlo obviously had advantages; For example, there was a natural harbor at the mouth of the Erft , so landowners did not need to be compensated. The route of the channel is of Grimlinghausen (now a district of Neuss) via Neuss , Holzbüttgen , Schiefbahn , Neersen , Viersen-Donk , Viersen-Sittard , Süchteln , Grefrath , Krickenbecker lakes , Herongen , Straelen by the Heronger Buschberge until after Venlo configured .
technology
The channel depth should be about 2.60 m, the width about 16 m. Barges loaded with goods from 200 to 400 tonnes should be on the 6 m wide and 1.40 m high dam of horses towed are. Harbors were planned at Grimlinghausen, Süchteln and Venlo. Nine locks were planned, most of them to overcome the differences in altitude and some as protective locks against flooding on the Rhine or Maas. The planned length was about 53 km; the highest point ( apex ) was around 42 km from Neuss. Up to the planned completion in 1813, 3.25 million m³ of earth was to be moved.
The cost was estimated at 20 million francs . The Département de la Roer , located on the canal, was supposed to raise 10 million and 10 million should come from the French state budget.
The construction
Napoléon's chief engineer, Aimable Hageau, was entrusted with the planning and was able to start surveying in the spring of 1808 . The foundation stone for the construction in Neuss was laid on July 3, 1809 , and afterwards, hard work was carried out on the canal for over a year.
On July 9, 1810, Holland was united with France after Napoléon had forced his brother Ludwig to abdicate as King of the Netherlands. As a result of this event, Napoléon now had direct control over the Dutch seaports. The “Grand Canal du Nord” project was no longer needed.
Construction ceased on January 1, 1811, when a third of the canal was completed and 12.5 million francs had been spent. Instead, a Canal Baltique from the Seine to the Baltic Sea was planned, but the implementation was ruined by the Russian campaign .
After that
After the French occupation ended and Prussia took over the administration , the finished Neuss-Neersen canal section was made navigable. From 1823 coal was carried on it and in the 1840s people also carried it . The initiative for this went back to the Düsseldorf entrepreneur Johann Wilhelm Thomas . With the advent of the railroad , the authorities' interest in the North Canal fell asleep, shipping subsided and in October 1850 the last ship sailed on the North Canal.
The north canal became a sewer and is now used to drain the adjacent fracture areas . A small, seven kilometer long stream, the Krur , which flowed from Holzbüttgen to Neuss, silted up after the north canal was built.
At Euroga 2002, the north canal was rediscovered as a connecting element and a cycle path ( the " Fietsallee on the north canal " ) was designated along the planned or still existing canal , and missing sections were created. On paved stretches there is a green-blue line with regular horizontal lines at a distance of 10 meters and with enlarged 50-meter markings. On the surfaces unsuitable for painting, steles of the same color were set up at 10-meter intervals, also here with wider 50-meter steles. This gives the impression of an oversized tape measure that winds through the landscape and whose color represents the water of the canal. In addition, red and white ringed, spindle-shaped steles can be found along the course of the canal, which are intended to be reminiscent of surveying rods as an indication of the engineering achievements .
Particularly noteworthy is the Euroga Adventure Bridge, a transporter ferry in Donk at km 19.3. Here people and bicycles with muscle power can be transferred over the Niers , which the North Canal would have crossed at this point.
The Epanchoir in Neuss was renovated by 2016 .
Existing parts today
A section runs from the Epanchoir in Neuss to Kaarst.
The Noordervaart is now a 15 km long, continuous canal in Central Limburg, which is connected to the Zuid-Willemsvaart near Nederweert.
See also
literature
- Hans Scheller, Jürgen Huck (ed.): The north channel between Neuss and Venlo. Stadtarchiv, Neuss 1980, ISBN 3-922980-06-6 , ( series of publications by the Stadtarchiv Neuss, vol. 7).
Web links
- Garden Art Street
- Cycling in Napoleon's footsteps / Fietsen in de sporen van Napoleon In: Kreis Viersen (German, Dutch)
Individual evidence
- ↑ N 51 ° 22'36.2 '' E 6 ° 15'04.2 Article with map . Louisenburg is close to the A40 on the B221 .
- ↑ Fietsallee on the north canal. (PDF) Kreis Viersen , p. 5 , accessed on January 20, 2020 (flyer about the cycle route along the north canal, map with route on page 5). Available on bike route. District of Viersen , accessed on January 20, 2020 .
- ^ Hans Scheller: The north canal between Neuss and Venlo , Neuss 1980, Volume 7 of the series of publications of the Neuss City Archives, ISBN 3-922980-06-6 .
Map with all linked sites: 
