Bitsch Citadel
The Citadel of Bitsch is the fortress that characterizes the cityscape of Bitsch in the Moselle department of the historic Lorraine region . As a masterpiece of military technology, the citadel was classified as a Monument historique des Pays de Bitche ( Bitscher Land ) in 1979 .
location
The approximately 366 m long and 30 to 60 m wide sandstone plateau on which the citadel was built, towers over the surroundings of Bitsch by about 80 m. It is strategically located at the crossroads of several long-distance connections from the Rhine to Lorraine and from Alsace to the Palatinate, which have been important since the early Middle Ages. The military commissioner responsible for Lorraine and Bar, Marshal Belle-Isle Bitsch , attached such great importance as the junction of six roads, namely those of Strasbourg , Phalsbourg , Saargemünd , Zweibrücken , Landau and Wissembourg , that a new fortification was decided on a grand scale. In order to obtain the necessary money, a special tax was advertised in Lorraine, as the lavish court holdings of the dukes Francis III. and Stanislaus Leszczyński other funds were not liquid.
Until well into the 19th century, the rock was largely surrounded by ponds and swamps, which further increased the defensive capability, since the enemy could not bring heavy siege material into position. A marker on the uppermost plateau indicates an altitude of 365 m above sea level . The view from the height of the fortress extends into the vast, hilltop-rich northern Vosges .
"Bitche, laissee à elle-mème, c'est la solitude, l'isolement, l'abandon le plus absolu"
"Bitsch, left to yourself, is absolute loneliness, isolation, abandonment"
construction
The citadel and the sandstone cone form about 40 m high vertical walls. In the period up to the 20th century , basements carved into the rock offered bombproof protection for the fortress' crew in the form of separate rooms for officers, NCOs and men as well as for the necessary infrastructure. For peacetime, two barracks (caserne de la garnison) and a chapel in the classical style were built on the uppermost plateau . There is a 450 m³ water reservoir under the chapel. The fortress headquarters building (État-major) is opposite the chapel.
As is the case with many castles in the Northern Vosges (e.g. Waldeck , Falkenstein , Ramstein and others), the surface of the summit is divided into three parts: a central, larger one and, separated by gorges, a smaller northeastern part - the large (large tête) - and southwestern - called the small head (petite tête). Access to the festival is via a large ramp with a drawbridge and postern . In the triangular gable of the main gate of the citadel there is a coat of arms covered with three silver alérions .
history
12th to 17th centuries
The history of the citadel is closely interwoven with the Duchy of Lorraine . Bitsch was first mentioned in a letter from the 12th century in which Duke Matthew I of Lorraine asked the Count of Saar Werden to respect the boundaries and inhabitants of his feudal lordship.
In this letter, written in broken script but in Latin , the boundaries of this mansion are clearly shown. In a document from 1170 a Bitis Castrum appears in which Frederick I of Lorraine is named Dominus de Bites . Already in 1172 we find a "castrum Bytis" mentioned as a family estate of the Dukes of Lorraine. The desire to hunt gave rise to the construction of Bitsch Castle. The story locates the first Bitsch or Altbitsch Castle on the Schlossberg in the north of the city of Lemberg (Moselle) . The strategically favorable location of the promontory with a panoramic view over several valleys did not escape the rulers of that time.
When the Zweibrücker Land was divided under the sons of Count Heinrich II. Von Zweibrücken , the Lemberg office with the castle of the same name came to the older son Eberhard I after 1286. His part also included Morsberg , Linder and Saargemünd . In 1297 he exchanged these three castles with Duke Friedrich III. of Lorraine and received from this castle and dominion Bitsch as a fief. In the same year he decided to establish the seat of his government there and renovated the castle on the rocky plateau. He calls himself "Comes Gemini Pontis et Dominus in Bitsch". During the 13th century, the territory of the Lords of Bitsch was the only German-speaking area of the Dukes of Lorraine and was geographically isolated due to the fragmentation of the holdings of the Counts of Zweibrücken.
The fact that Bitsch was already very defensive in the 14th century and, defended by brave men, was a difficult place to be, is proven by the fact that in 1366 the young elector Ruprecht allied himself with a number of princes, counts, lords and cities, in order to render the Counts Simon and Hanemann harmless “together with their commoners in the Bitsch castle”, who were characterized by extraordinary violence and robbery in front of their other peers. It is not known who was the wiser and gave in, but there was no fight.
In the 15th century, the castle was partially destroyed during the Peasants' War. Until the early 16th century, the Bitsch rule was part of the Holy Roman Empire .
After the death of Jacob von Zweibrücken-Bitsch , who, like his brother Simon V. Wecker, who died in 1540, had only left one daughter each, a dispute developed between the husbands of the two cousins, Count Philipp I of Leiningen-Westerburg and Count Philipp , in 1570 V. from Hanau-Lichtenberg . This led to the Bitsch office falling to the Duchy of Lorraine in 1604. In the course of the Fronde , Lorraine was occupied in September 1633 at the behest of Richelieu . Bitsch was taken in 1634.
Expansion by Vauban
When Louis XIV took Bitsch after the Peace of Nijmegen , the castle of the Counts of Zweibrücken-Bitsch was in ruins, although it was restored several times in the course of its history. On the earlier advice of Turenne , who had taken his quarters in the Palatinate during the Franco-Dutch War in the winter of 1673–1674, the king commissioned his fortress builder Vauban to make the rock of Bitsch impregnable. The fortress construction lasted from 1683 to 1697 and the cost to France was 2,500,000 livres d'or , a huge sum for the time. By clever use of the terrain, he succeeded in arranging multi-level gun floors. The tiered fire was ensured by dividing the rock into a main part and two detached works , a lunette in the west (small head) and a horn work in the east (large head). The flanks were secured by four bastions protruding from the main part .
The citadel was razed as early as 1698 as a result of the terms of the Rijswijk Peace Treaty and the town of Bitsch was transferred to Leopold I, Duke of Lorraine . The Vauban fortifications should be demolished. From autumn 1697 to summer 1698 a regiment from Flanders was supposed to do this job. In 1701 the War of the Spanish Succession broke out and Bitsch was again captured by a French garrison. The soldiers immediately began to rebuild the fortifications of Vauban, which had recently been razed to the ground.
Expansion by Cormontaigne
The years 1735 and 1736 are marked by agreements according to which Duke Francis Stephan of Lorraine to his duchies of Bar and Lorraine in favor of the exiled King of Poland Stanislaus I. Leszczyński , whose daughter the King of France Louis XV. married, renounced. The deposed king assumed the title of Duke of Lorraine and settled in Lunéville. In 1738, Louis XV. it was to reintegrate the fortress of Bitsch into the defense system of the French borders.
Since the rock of Bitsch had lost none of its strategic importance, the ruins were exposed and Vauban's ideas were used as the basis for a new citadel. The engineer Louis de Cormontaigne planned the new fortress . In the following 13 years the fortifications were built that still largely shape the townscape of Bitsch today. The entire steep sandstone rock is criss-crossed by a labyrinth of underground passages, casemates and large halls carved into the rock .
The fortification work continued until 1765, as a memorial plaque in the triangular gable of the main gate of the citadel shows. Vauban's floor plan is respected and reinforced by other works . Cormontaigne's work includes the barracks, buildings for the technical officers and the fortress governor, magazines and powder stores for the artillery, the guardhouse and the embankment of the glacis .
The citadel in the Franco-Prussian War 1870–1871
During the siege in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–1871, the citadel was partially destroyed. The facility was besieged for 230 days. During this time the citadel, under the command of Louis-Casimir Teyssier, withstood the attacks of a Bavarian army with a strength of 7000 men and three heavy bombings. The crew of the fortress consisted of a 800-strong battalion of 86 e régiment d'infantry de ligne , 200 customs officers (Douaniers), 250 Reserveartilleristen, 250 National Guardsmen , 30 gendarmes and 1,200 more soldiers from 70 different units.
Even after the founding of the empire , Teyssier offered bitter resistance, as he did not receive an official evacuation order until March 27, 1871.
The German military administration of the realm of Alsace-Lorraine had the fortress modernized from 1870 to 1900 and occupied with a Prussian garrison. The citadel was the last great fortress that was built to strengthen the empire. Due to the further development of artillery, the plant lost its military importance towards the end of the 19th century.
She did not suffer from the fighting during the First World War. 1944–1945 the citadel was damaged by American artillery. According to the inventory of historical monuments (monument historique), the citadel has been a listed building since 1979.
See also
literature
- Achille J. Dalseme: Le siège de Bitche. 6 août 1870 - 27 mars 1871 . Dentu, Paris 1877.
- Hermann Irle: The Bitsch Fortress. In: Contributions to the geography and folklore of Alsace-Lorraine. Strasbourg, JH Ed. Heitz (Heitz & Mündel), 1902
Web links
- official website of the Citadel of Bitsch
- The Citadel of Bitsch on the Bitcherland website, French
- Garden for Peace in the Citadel Area
Coordinates: 49 ° 3 ′ 10 " N , 7 ° 25 ′ 52" E