Strasbourg Citadel
The Citadel of Strasbourg ( French Citadelle de Strasbourg ) is a fortress in the form of a pentagonal bastion built according to plans by Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban from 1682 to 1685 after the city of Strasbourg was conquered by French troops in 1681 . It was in the east of the old town of Strasbourg. From the citadel of the north are Bassin Dusuzeau in the Parc de la Citadelle casemated wall pieces obtained, which formed part of the southeast side of the pentagon.
Building description
The citadel , built between 1682 and 1685, formed a regular pentagon. The distance from bastion point to bastion point is about 350 m, the cladding of the earth walls are made of red sandstone blocks. In the fortress itself there were numerous barracks , depots and other buildings such as B. mills, bakeries, a chapel , officers' quarters, etc., which were arranged around a right-angled street system, which was oriented towards the city-side gate and grouped around a central square arms place . The fortress had three gates, a main gate and two side gates, and was the center of a complex system of numerous outbuildings , including an extensive hornwork that faced the gate on the city side in the east-north-east of the Rhine. The citadel was connected directly to the existing city fortifications by means of newly built ramparts , but separated from the actual city by an extensive esplanade . Their position was strategically very favorable, as one could dominate both the city and the nearby Rhine from here . The Kehl fortress on the other side of the Rhine, also newly built by Vauban, was not far away, so that the citadel could serve as a link between it and Strasbourg itself. The citadel was laid out in the fortification manner also known as Vauban's 1st system.
history
On September 30, 1681 troops occupied Louis XIV. , The date for the Holy Roman Empire owned free city of Strasbourg. This was also done for strategic reasons to clean up the Rhine border, to secure control of Alsace and the Upper Rhine Rifts and also to replace the Philippsburg fortress , which had been lost to France five years earlier . As early as October 3rd, the General Commissioner of the French fortresses, Sébastian Le Prestre de Vauban, and the Minister of War François Michel Le Tellier de Louvois paid a visit to the city to study the fortifications in detail and to initiate extensions. Following the submission of a comprehensive report on the situation of the fortifications in Strasbourg titled situation Strasbourg, ses défauts et ses avantages. Et les propriétés générales et particulières de la fortification, après l'exécution de son projet achevé , 3,000 workers began the extensive expansion and built numerous new external works , jumps and other facilities such as magazines and canals. The centerpiece was the newly laid out pentagonal citadel, which was built in the east of the old imperial city near the Rhine.
During the siege of Strasbourg in the course of the Franco-Prussian War , the citadel was shot at by German batteries near Kehl for weeks and badly damaged, but a direct attack was not carried out. After the end of the war, the outdated bastion city fortifications were abandoned and Strasbourg was given a more contemporary fortress system in the form of an extensive fort ring, so that the preserved part of the citadel was demolished from around 1896 to make space for housing developments. After Strasbourg and Alsace fell back to France after the First World War , the preserved remains of the citadel were declared a monument historique on April 27, 1922 .
Current condition
Today only two bastions (No. 27 and 28), the curtain wall connecting them and the ditch in front of them and the ravelin in it, which are embedded in a green area called Parc de la Citadelle, are preserved.
literature
- Walter Hotz : Handbook of the art monuments in Alsace and Lorraine . Munich / Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 3rd edition 1976, pp. 253, 254, 280, ISBN 3-422-00345-2 .
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 34 ′ 40 ″ N , 7 ° 46 ′ 20 ″ E