Louis Léon César Faidherbe was a French general and colonial administrator. He created the Senegalese Tirailleurs when he was governor of Senegal.
General Baron Hubert Rohault de Fleury was a French soldier who played a major role in the fortifications of Lyon.
Ouvrage Les Sarts is a petit ouvrage of the Maginot Line, built as part of the "New Fronts" program to address shortcomings in the Line's coverage of the border with Belgium. Like the other three ouvrages near Maubeuge, it is built on an old Séré de Rivières system fortification, near the town of Marieux.
The Séré de Rivières system was an ensemble of fortifications built from 1874 along the frontiers, ridges and coasts of France. The fortifications were named after their architect, Brigadier-General Raymond Adolphe Séré de Rivières. The fortresses were obsolescent by 1914 but were used during the First World War.
The city walls of Paris refers to the city walls that surrounded Paris, as it grew from ancient times until the 20th century, built primarily to defend the city but also for administrative reasons. Several successive city walls were built over the centuries, either adding to existing walls or replacing demolished ones, through 1846, when construction of the Thiers wall was completed.
The Thiers wall was the last of the defensive walls of Paris. It was an enclosure constructed between 1841 and 1846 and was proposed by the French prime minister Adolphe Thiers but was actually implemented by his successor. The 33 kilometres (21 mi) long wall and ditch made a complete circuit around the city as it stood at the time of the July Monarchy. It was bombarded by the Prussian Army during the Franco-Prussian War, captured by government troops during the Paris Commune and refortified at the start of the First World War. However, by then it had become obsolete as a fortification and was a barrier to the expansion of the city. The area immediately outside of it, known as "the zone", had become a shanty town. The wall was demolished in the interwar period; its path today can be traced by the Boulevards of the Marshals which originally ran just behind the fortifications and by the Boulevard Périphérique which was later built just outside. A few remnants of the wall can still be seen.
Fort de l'Est is a military strong point designed to protect Paris. It was built between 1841 and 1843 in Saint-Denis at the direction of French prime minister Adolphe Thiers, and was part of an immense defensive belt comprising 17 detached forts and the Thiers Wall surrounding Paris. The evolution of artillery quickly made these fortifications obsolete.
Fort d'Ivry was built in the Paris suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine between 1841 and 1845, as one of the forts in a ring of strong points surrounding Paris. The fort is about 1 kilometre outside the Thiers Wall, built by the same program in response to a perception that Paris was vulnerable to invasion and occupation. The fort was upgraded in the 1870s, to cope with improvements in artillery performance as part of the Séré de Rivières system. In 1946, the fort was vacated by the garrison. It is now the home of the Communication and Audiovisual Production Company for the Department of Defense.
Fort de Charenton is a fortification built in 1842 in the community of Maisons-Alfort, and part of the Paris defences planned by Adolphe Thiers.
Fort de Villers was built following the Franco-Prussian War to defend Paris. Located to the east of Paris in Villiers-sur-Marne, the fort was part of an outer ring of eighteen major fortifications built in response to improvements in the range and effectiveness of artillery since the construction of the Thiers fortifications of the 1840s. It was built in accordance with improved principles of fortification developed for the Séré de Rivières system.
The fortified region of Belfort formed the first line of defense in the Séré de Rivières system of fortifications in the Belfort Gap. Located in northeastern France between Épinal and Besançon, the primary line was built in the late 19th century to deal with advances in artillery that had made older defensive systems obsolete.
Fort du Salbert, also known as Fort Lefebvre, was built between 1874 and 1877. It was named after General François Joseph Lefebvre. It forms part of the Séré de Rivières system fortifications in the fortified region of Belfort in northeastern France. It is located at the summit of Salbert hill to the northwest of Belfort. During the early years of the Cold War it briefly served as an air defense coordination center.
Fort des Basses Perches, also known as Fort Valmy, was built between 1874 and 1877 in Danjoutin and Belfort in northeastern France. It is part of the first ring of fortifications around the city of Belfort. The Forts des Perches were unique among the first group in their re-use of older sites. They were rebuilt as part of the Séré de Rivières system and incorporated improvements to deal with the improvement in efficacy of artillery in the late 19th century. The fort's official name was derived from François-Christophe Kellermann, Duke of Valmy and Marshal of France.
The Fort de Vaujours, located in the commune of Courtry, Seine-Saint-Denis, near the town of Vaujours, is one of the forts built at the end of the 19th century to defend Paris. It became a research center for the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA), France's Atomic Energy Commission. The center was closed in 1997.
Raymond Adolphe Séré de Rivières was a French military engineer and general whose ideas revolutionized the design of fortifications in France. He gave his name to the Séré de Rivières system of fortifications constructed after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Described as the Vauban of the 19th century, his Belgian counterpart was Henri Alexis Brialmont.
The Fort de Bicêtre is a military structure built between 1841 and 1845 during the reign of Louis-Philippe during a time of tension between France and England, in the Paris suburb of Kremlin-Bicêtre. The fort is part of the Thiers Wall fortifications of Paris, built under a program of defensive works initiated by Adolphe Thiers. The fort served as a prison for those involved in the French coup of 1851.
The forts of Metz are two fortified belts around the city of Metz in Lorraine. Built according to the design and theory of Raymond Adolphe Séré de Rivières at the end of the Second Empire—and later Hans von Biehler while Metz was under German control—they earned the city the reputation of premier stronghold of the German reich. These fortifications were particularly thorough given the city's strategic position between France and Germany. The detached forts and fortified groups of the Metz area were spared in World War I, but showed their full defensive potential in the Battle of Metz at the end of World War II.
Fort d'Issy was one of the fortifications of the city of Paris, France, built between 1841 and 1845. It was one of six forts built to the south of the main wall around the city. The fort was placed too close to the city to be effective, and had a poor design that did not take into account recent experience of siege warfare. It was quickly silenced during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. After the armistice of February 1871 the fort was defended by National Guards of the Paris Commune against the French regular army in April–May 1871. The defense was irresolute and the fort was soon occupied. Today the site of the fort is an "eco-district", an ecologically friendly residential area.
The ceintures de Lyon were a series of fortifications built between 1830 and 1890 around the city of Lyon, France, to protect the city from foreign invasion.
Mount Saint-Quentin is a summit that lays in Moselle Valley to the west of the Metz area. Due to its location, it played a strategic role in observation, protection, and communication for the city of Metz located below.
