Little France (castle)

Little France
	Klein-Frankreich, Thurm Frankreich
	Erlenbach bei Dahn
	Remains of the battery tower at Little France
	Little France
Coordinates	49°06′18″N7°51′46″E / 49.1050°N 7.8628°E Coordinates: 49°06′18″N7°51′46″E / 49.1050°N 7.8628°E
Type	hill castle, hillside castle
Code	DE-RP
Height	322 m above sea level (NN)
Site information
Condition	ruin
Site history
Built	1484
Garrison information
Occupants	knights

Last updated April 20, 2019

Little France^[1]^[2] (German : Klein-Frankreich or Kleinfrankreich) is the ruin of a hillside fort in the German region of Dahner Felsenland. It lies above the village of Erlenbach bei Dahn in the county of Südwestpfalz in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol (Italy), the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland. The languages which are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch: Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. There are also strong similarities in vocabulary with Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although those belong to the North Germanic group. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.

The Dahner Felsenland, also referred to as the Dahn Rockland, is a landscape in the county of Südwestpfalz in the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is located in the middle section of the Wasgau, which in turn forms the southern part of the Palatine Forest and the northern part of the Vosges in France. The Dahner Felsenland has numerous rock formations within the South Palatinate Climbing Area.

Erlenbach bei Dahn is a municipality in Südwestpfalz district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany.

Location

The fort lies at a height of 322 m above sea level (NN) on the northern slopes of the 402-metre-high Nestelberg. Around 370 metres to the north, on the other side of a saddle-shaped side valley, is Berwartstein Castle. In the west, where it branches off the main valley formed by the water meadows of the Erlenbach, the side valley broadens into a bowl that is known locally as the Leichenfeld ("corpse field").

Normalnull or Normal-Null is an outdated official vertical datum used in Germany. Elevations using this reference system were to be marked "Meter über Normal-Null". Normalnull has been replaced by Normalhöhennull.

The Nestelberg is a 402-metre-high hill in the Dahner Felsenland in the Wasgau, a region that comprises the southern part of the Palatine Forest in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the northern part of the French Vosges in the departments of Bas-Rhin and Moselle.

Berwartstein Castle castle in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

Berwartstein Castle is a castle in the Wasgau, the southern part of the Palatinate Forest in the state Rhineland-Palatinate in southwestern Germany. It was one of the rock castles that were part of defences of the Palatinate during the Middle Ages. This castle is noted in the publication Works of Preservation of Monuments of Rheinland-Pfalz, which was assembled and edited for the Ministry of Education and Culture. This states that the three prime examples of rock castles in the region are Drachenfels, Altdahn and Berwartstein, castles where the stairs, passages and rooms are carved out of the rock to form part of the accommodation essential to the defence of the castle. Although the Berwartstein appears more complete when compared to the ruins of neighbouring castles, it is only a restoration of the original rock castle. It is the only castle in the Palatinate that was rebuilt and re-inhabited after its demolition.

History

How Little France came to have such an unusual name is still unclear today; although from the castle at Berwartstein it lay in the direction of France, whose present border is only 7 kilometres away. In 1511 it was recorded as Thurm Frankreich ("France Tower").

France, officially the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.

The little castle was erected in 1484 as an outpost of the Berwartstein by the knight Hans von Trotha, later also known in the local dialect as Hans Trapp. This outwork enabled a piece of open ground known as the Leichenfeld ("Corpse Field") to be covered by a crossfire from two directions: from the north (Berwartstein) and from the south (Little France). This field was the only place where the cannons of that period could be deployed against the Berwartstein. In fact, until 1591 when the castle burned down as the result of a lightning strike and remained unoccupied for three centuries, the Berwartstein was never conquered despite numerous attempts, something which may be attributed to the existence of the auxiliary castle.

Hans von Trotha was a German knight and marshal of the prince-elector of the Palatinate. He also bore the French honorary title of a Chevalier d’Or. In 1480, the elector enfeoffed him with the two castles of Berwartstein and Grafendahn which lay in the South Palatine part of the Wasgau region within the Palatinate Forest. In local folklore he is known as Hans Trapp or, more rarely, Hans Trott.

An outwork is a minor fortification built or established outside the principal fortification limits, detached or semidetached. Outworks such as ravelins, lunettes (demilunes), flèches and caponiers to shield bastions and fortification curtains from direct battery were developed in the 16th century. Later, the increasing scale of warfare and the greater resources available to the besieger accelerated this development, and systems of outworks grew increasingly elaborate and sprawling as a means of slowing the attacker's progress and making it more costly. When taken by an enemy force, their lack of rear-facing ramparts left them totally open to fire from the main works.

Crossfire military term for the siting of weapons so that their arcs of fire overlap

A crossfire is a military term for the siting of weapons so that their arcs of fire overlap. This tactic came to prominence in World War I.

After the main castle had been empty for decades, the outwork was badly damaged in the 17th century, either during the Thirty Years' War or the War of the Palatine Succession. A restoration of the remains began in 2005.

The Thirty Years' War was a war fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648. One of the most destructive conflicts in human history, it resulted in eight million fatalities not only from military engagements but also from violence, famine, and plague. Casualties were overwhelmingly and disproportionately inhabitants of the Holy Roman Empire, most of the rest being battle deaths from various foreign armies. In terms of proportional German casualties and destruction, it was surpassed only by the period January to May 1945; one of its enduring results was 19th-century Pan-Germanism, when it served as an example of the dangers of a divided Germany and became a key justification for the 1871 creation of the German Empire.

Layout

The base of a large battery tower, with a diameter of 14 metres and height about the same, has been well preserved. Its walls are 3.20 metres thick; and some of the stone ashlars show evidence of lifting marks, possibly from a three-legged lewis. The ground floor wall is pierced by three embrasures, the first floor has four. These openings could have been used by arquebuses and small firearms. The roof platform was wide enough to deploy culverins whose longer barrels increased their accuracy.

A battery tower was a defensive tower built into the outermost defences of many castles, usually in the 16th century or later, after the advent of firearms. Its name is derived from the word battery, a group of several cannon.

In military architecture, an embrasure is the opening in a crenellation or battlement between the two raised solid portions or merlons, sometimes called a crenel or crenelle. In domestic architecture this refers to the outward splay of a window or arrow slit on the inside.

The arquebus, derived from the German Hakenbüchse, was a form of long gun that appeared in Europe during the 15th century. Although the term arquebus was applied to many different forms of firearms from the 15th to 17th centuries, it originally referred to "a hand-gun with a hook-like projection or lug on its under surface, useful for steadying it against battlements or other objects when firing." These "hook guns" were in their earliest forms defensive weapons mounted on German city walls in the early 1400s, but by the late 1400s had become handheld firearms. The development of the arquebus is somewhat tied to technology developed for the crossbow as without the stock from the crossbow, the arquebus would not have a stable platform to rest one's shoulder on. Priming pans also were placed on the arquebus. A matchlock mechanism was added around 1475 and it became the first firearm with a trigger. The heavy arquebus, known as the musket, was developed to better penetrate plate armor and appeared in Europe around 1521. A standardized arquebus, the caliver, was introduced in the latter half of the 16th century. The name "caliver" is derived from the English corruption of calibre, which is a reference to the gun's standardized bore. The caliver allowed troops to load bullets faster since they fit their guns more easily, whereas before soldiers often had to modify their bullets into suitable fits, or were even forced to make their own prior to battle. The smoothbore matchlock arquebus is considered the forerunner to the rifle and other long gun firearms. Heavy arquebuses mounted on wagons were called arquebus à croc. These carried a lead ball of about 3.5 ounces (100 g).

North of the tower are the remains of an enceinte which used to surround it, and immediately to the northeast is a castle well, now filled in.

Little France was linked to the main castle by an underground tunnel which, for much of its length, was a concealed ditch covered by stone slabs and concealed with earth and vegetation; it has almost entirely collapsed.

Related Research Articles

The Palatinate Forest, sometimes also called the Palatine Forest, is a low-mountain region in southwestern Germany, located in the Palatinate in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The forest is a designated nature park covering 1,771 km² and its highest elevation is the Kalmit.

Altdahn Castle is a castle ruin in the Palatinate Forest, the German part of the Wasgau region, and is located near the town of Dahn in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It stands 337 metres (1,106 ft) above sea level (NN).

The castle of Neuscharfeneck is a ruin and a cultural monument above Ramberg and Dernbach on the territory of an exclave of Flemlingen in the district of Südliche Weinstraße in the west German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

The Wasgau is a Franco-German hill range in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the French departments of Bas-Rhin and Moselle. It is formed from the southern part of the Palatine Forest and the northern part of the Vosges mountains, and extends from the River Queich in the north over the French border to the Col de Saverne in the south.

The castles of Dahn, near the little town of Dahn in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, consist of three rock castles:

Grafendahn Castle lies in the southern Palatine Forest, the German part of the Wasgau region, just under 1 kilometre east of the small town of Dahn in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

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The Jungfernsprung, is a precipitous rock formation in the small German town of Dahn in the county of Südwestpfalz. The rocks tower above the town by around 70 metres and are crowned by a type of summit cross at a height of 280 m above NHN. The rocks is the symbol of the town and the subject of an ancient legend from which it derives its name: Jungfernsprung means "maiden's leap".

The Bride and Groom is a double rock pinnacle, about 26 metres (85 ft) high, near the small German town of Dahn in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and in the southern Palatine Forest, the German half of the Wasgau region.

The German Shoe Road is one of several tourist-oriented, themed routes in southern Rheinhessen and in the West Palatinate in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is a circular route of more than 300 km largely running within the Palatine Forest-North Vosges Biosphere Reserve often on scenic secondary roads.

Scharfenberg Castle (Palatinate) rock castle

Scharfenberg Castle, is the ruin of a medieval rock castle in the Palatine Forest in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is situated above the small South Palatine town of Annweiler.

The Erlenbach is a stream, over 9 km long, in the South Palatine Wasgau region of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is a left tributary of the Lauter which, here in its upper reaches is still called the Wieslauter.

Lemberg Castle is a medieval castle on the territory of Lemberg in the county of Südwestpfalz in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Ruppertstein Castle is the ruins of a hill castle located at an elevation of 452 m above sea level (NN) near the village of Lemberg in the collective municipality of Pirmasens-Land in the county of Südwestpfalz in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is situated on top of the Ruppertstein hill south of the village of Ruppertsweiler.

References

↑ Burg Berwartstein, Germany at munnwerks.com. Retrieved 12 Apr 2014.
↑ Little France Archived 2012-10-30 at the Wayback Machine . in the Dahner Felsenland brochure, Rhineland-Palatinate Tourist Board. Retrieved 12 Apr 2014

Literature

Marco Bollheimer (2011), Felsenburgen im Burgenparadies Wasgau–Nordvogesen (in German) (3. ed.), Karlsruhe: Selbstverlag, pp. 76–77, ISBN 978-3-9814506-0-6
Jürgen Keddigkeit, Ulrich Burkhart, Rolf Übel: Pfälzisches Burgenlexikon. Vol. 3, I – N. Kaiserslautern, 2005.
Günter Stein: Burgen und Schlösser in der Pfalz. Frankfurt/Main, 1976.

External links

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Burg Berwartstein, Germany at munnwerks.com. Retrieved 12 Apr 2014.

[2] Little France Archived 2012-10-30 at the Wayback Machine . in the Dahner Felsenland brochure, Rhineland-Palatinate Tourist Board. Retrieved 12 Apr 2014

Little France
Klein-Frankreich, Thurm Frankreich
Erlenbach bei Dahn
Remains of the battery tower at Little France
Little France
Coordinates	49°06′18″N7°51′46″E / 49.1050°N 7.8628°E / 49.1050; 7.8628 Coordinates: 49°06′18″N7°51′46″E / 49.1050°N 7.8628°E / 49.1050; 7.8628
Type	hill castle, hillside castle
Code	DE-RP
Height	322 m above sea level (NN)
Site information
Condition	ruin
Site history
Built	1484
Garrison information
Occupants	knights