# Verdun trip, Forts report number 1 - Fort Genicourt. VERY IMAGE INTENSIVE!



## TeeJF (Jun 26, 2011)

I first visited Verdun in the late 1980s and did the dreary tourist trek around Forts Douamont and Vaux and the uber-disappointing Tranche Des Bayonnettes. I went back again a few years later and stumbled across the Ouvrage De Froideterre which, although it was closed, proved simplicity itself to access in some depth - I submitted a report of that site a few months ago. Imagine my surprise to find gun turrets there with 75mm artillery still in situ, and machine gun turrets with swivel mechanisms still working smoothly after almost a century exposed to the elements. A short stop over on the way to Austria this May saw us wandering around another of the many forts surrounding Verdun and it proved so exciting that we decided to hurry back and try to enter some of the others.

Verdun was the keystone to France's defences against any German approach towards Paris across the Woevre Plain, but it was originally a fortified citadel town built to withstand the sieges all too common in the Medieval period. The citadel itself was progressively extended and then improved dramatically by the great fortess builder Vauban in the 1700s. Later still after the Franco-Prussian war in the 1870s the French authorities tasked a military engineer, General Raymond Adolphe Séré de Rivières, to construct an impregnable ring of fortesses around Verdun fit to withstand the threat of the increasingly devastating German guns from the Krupp factory in case of a resumption of hostilities. A huge glitch in the peace between the two opposing countries shortly after the war had ended resulted in the hasty building of the Verdun inner ring of six "Panic Forts" which includes Fort Belville (covered in my previous Verdun Forts report). Constant improvements were made to the armouring of the forts in response to the rapid evolution of German heavy artillery and the number of forts continually grew, each one an improvement upon the last. The general layout and the weaponry of the forts evolved very rapidly and it is possible therefore to see very wide variations in the construction techniques used and in the general style of the many forts, indeed some seem almost Medieval with cross shaped firing points in their moats, whilst others have much more in common with the Maginot Line forts built 50 or more years later.

Fort Genicourt was NOT the first fort we visited but it was the first we were able to access. It is situated quite a few miles back behind Verdun to the south covering the road to Saint Mihiel. Only Fort de Troyon is any further south in this sector and that is now in private ownership, accessible only on a Sunday for a fee. A prominent sign advertising the presence of chien de garde kind of put us off attempting a quiet Troyon-esque shufty so a short drive back towards Verdun saw us wandering up through the forest towards the as yet hidden fort. It's a bit of a debatable point as to whether the tracks through many of these woods are actually regarded as military training ground but there was little doubt from the signage that the woods themselves are. Fort Genicourt however is reached without leaving the track! Access though is a different matter as the main entrance is comprehensively bricked up. 

This fort appears to be the only one with a significant secondary fortification built on the site. There is a primary moat surrounding the fort proper but an extension to the moat surrounds a large earth sheilded artillery emplacement built with the most elaborate vaulted ceilings and quite steeply cut firing ports presumably to allow howitzers to operate under cover with their high angled gun barrels. The first of the photographs here are taken in and around the artillery fort and then they progress to the fort proper. 

I hope you enjoy them and should any of you want the Google Earth pins relavent to our wanderings please contact us with a PM off forum.


*The impressive fort entrance and drawbridge*









* The moat at this point is about 5 metres deep. The scarp and counterscarp walls are very steep and almost completely intact. It is not possible then to descend into the fortress moats without a rope, a long ladder, or the help of German artillery!  *








*The main fort entrance is further isolated from approach by the moat and drawbridge covering the subsidiary artillery fort. The heavily armoured metal gates are long gone from their posts...*








*A sentry point with a firing port to cover the drawbridge and adjacent section of the moat. There is a lower opening at the bottom of this sentry point to allow hand grenades to be dropped down onto any enemy in the moat below. The attention to the finish of the masonry on all of the Verdun forts is very impressive, all the more surprising on buildings with no obvious requirement for the ornamental. *








*The entrance to the artillery emplacements is open...*








*So it is possible to access the other side of the firing point unimpeded...*








*The amazing vaulted ceilings of the artillery emplacement. Each bay of the curved room held an artillery piece firing through a vertically elongated port in the wall.*








*The embrasures are elongated vertically in order to allow the high angle of elevation required for howitzers to operate effectively or for long range guns to gain sufficient angle to lob a shell with a high trajectory.*








*Scarp galleries constructed in the walls of the fort proper. These galleries allowed the defending infantry to shoot at any enemy in the moat. The later forts around Verdun did not have such extensive scarp galleries but instead had what amounted to hardened bunkers constructed at intervals along the counterscarp wall. These bunkers housed machine guns which could fire in enfillade along their sectors of the moat. The consequential absence of galleries in the lower fort walls increased the strength against bombardment significantly. *








*Still within the general area of the artillery fort this doorway leads into service rooms built on the inner side of the fortifications.*








*Where we found a large diesel donkey engine bolted to the floor which will have run either a generator or possibly a ventilator. *








*This is a strange layout for a firing port so perhaps this opening was purely for ventilation?*








*Beyond the artillery sub-fort the main gate to the fort proper is accessed by a second drawbridge across the moat however it is very securely bricked up.*








*In some places the masonry of the counterscarp has suffered from bombardment and then further still with the ravages of nature. It is often possible to gain access to the bottom of the moat where a direct hit has brought down part of the wall.*








*In the moat of the main fort now, the drawbridge to the main gate crosses above us.*








*An enticing opening in the scarp wall, so near, but at several meters above us, too d*mned far!*








*Bingo!*








*When you're in, you are (usually!!!) in. We are now almost directly below the drawbridge.*








*The scarp galleries run along the full length of this face of the fort.*








*Firing ports within the scarp gallery.*








*The underside of the drawbridge pivot mechanism.*








*These steps lead up from the scarp galleries to the main access corridor of the fort behind the bricked up entry gate.*








*As I said before, when you're in, you're in - but not always! When we got to this point we knew we were well and truly in!*








*And the view out of that tantalising but previously unattainable entrance high up on the scarp wall!*








*More superb vaulted masonry within the fort. All of the Séré de Rivières forts are beautifully constructed.*








*Most of the Verdun fortresses have single level barrack blocks but one or two have two stories. *








*Again the quality of the building work is outstanding.*








*The aesthetic quality of light and dappled shade in the moat is exquiste due to the heavy undergrowth.*








*Within a latrine block - the ubiquitous French squatting plate!*








*Beyond the barrack blocks the fort has an open, inner area for the deployment of more artillery. Shelters were constructed in order to drag the guns back under cover in the event of German counter battery fire. At Douamont this area was known as the Rue Du Rempart.*








*An overgrown firing port on a blockhouse protecting the "Rue Du Rempart" area from potential enemy infantry egress.*








*Within the blockhouse this flight of stairs leads down to the "Travaux 17" tunnels. After the battle of Verdun in 1916 certain shortcomings were identified in the construction of the forts whereby the defending soldiers could become cut off in the fort's fighting areas with no means of alternative access for reinforcement or for escape when all was lost. Accordingly in 1917 tunnels were dug deep underneath the forts linking all fighting areas and also providing secret exits for the troops caught in a fort when all attempts to defend it had failed. The name comes simply from the French word for "works" - Travaux. Thus they are "1917 works". *








*Many of the Travaux 17 tunnels were simply hewn from the rock and never concrete lined - though this is not always the case as will be shown in later photographs in a different fort...*








*The pit props in this Travaux 17 tunnel were completely rotten and the roof looked precarious in the extreme. Our nerves were not helped when immediately after I had said to TJ, "Don't touch the roof whatever you do!" her torch literally exploded in her hand because it's batteries had gassed up!*








*More exquisite light and shade on the Rue Du Rempart.*








*...and in the moat too.*








*We think that this room was a magazine. The addition of the unglazed ceramic tiles to the roof with very obvious air ways within the tiles would serve to draw moisture from the air very effectively.*








*A new torch and a new Travaux 17 to explore!*








*...but not too far!*








*The barrack blocks have communicating corridors running along the rear irrespective of whether they are upper or lower tier.*








*The view from an upper barrack block window.*








*I don't like graffitti normally, though digressing momentarily, how can one fail to appreciate something as old and typically topical as that carved by a Roman soldier into a door lintel at Philae Temple in Egypt. As I remember it said, "B. Mure stultus est" - "B. Mure is thick" basically. This odd work of "art" really took my eye though!*








*The one part of this fort we knew should be there but we could not find, were the emplacements and working spaces for the heavily reinforced steel gun turrets. This staircase, which was made of wood and totally rotten, ran up to a level just below the surface at the higesht point of the fort. But without a very long ladder we were going nowhere near those stairs!*








*The kitchen or bakery area of the barrack blocks.*








* I hope you have enjoyed this "tour" of Fort Genicourt. If you have enjoyed this report please let us know and we will put the other forts we visited on line, some of which are even more stunning. Thanks for looking. ​*


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## PaulPowers (Jun 26, 2011)

*Wow*

Awesome find


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## Janey68 (Jun 26, 2011)

Really amazing pictures.....


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## jonney (Jun 26, 2011)

fantastic stuff there TeeJF would love to see the rest of them


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## TeeJF (Jun 26, 2011)

jonney said:


> fantastic stuff there TeeJF would love to see the rest of them



OK, will do! The next one is a doozy but the best one is number four really. hay ho... no rest for the wicked! Honestly, these forts are awesome when you find a way in. Thanks for your kind comments.


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## smiler (Jun 26, 2011)

jonney said:


> fantastic stuff there TeeJF would love to see the rest of them


Me Too, Thanks.


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## oldscrote (Jun 26, 2011)

Absolutely stunning,more please.....


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## stop line (Jun 26, 2011)

*Verdun today*

Would certainly like to see more. Like you, visited Verdun first in the 80's and also early 90's including places like Fort Tavannes, Mort Homme and Haudromont Quarries (which still looked like the photo in the Michelin Guide published in 1931 except for a bit more scrub!!). When I last visited the French had just started to return the battle field to amenity woodland form the forestry plantations created just after the War (the land was just too ravaged to do anything else with it) so would love to see what some of the places look like now.


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## chizyramone (Jun 26, 2011)

Wow. Thank you very much for report


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## Dirus_Strictus (Jun 27, 2011)

Quote - "We think that this room was a magazine. The addition of the unglazed ceramic tiles to the roof with very obvious air ways within the tiles would serve to draw moisture from the air very effectively."

These so called ceramic tiles are in fact just lightweight 'bricks' to a very common continental design - used to fill in large areas of walling and also found in cast in situ ceilings and floors. A common sight on all continental building sites in the 50s/60s, when large areas of walling had to be infilled between concrete pillars and then rendered. Knock a hole in any Spanish hotel/apartment block of that era and you will find them in walls, ceilings and floors. 

The room may well have originally been a magazine, but this brickwork was probably put up in the late 40s as a means of preventing the collapse of the original stonework vaulting. The picture shows that the mortar between these bricks is nothing like the original, seen in the much older brick wall that is visible. The fact that these lightweight bricks are largely hollow has nothing to do with ventilation, it is all to do with lightness and strength.


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## night crawler (Jun 27, 2011)

I've read all four now and still am amazed aw what you have done, the best report I've read in ages. Thanks


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## TeeJF (Jun 27, 2011)

*Ref: preventing the collapse of the original stonework vaulting*

> These so called ceramic tiles are in fact just lightweight 'bricks' <

Interesting point. But they are also un-glazed and un-glazed bricks absorb moisture. The free passage of air across same will then remove the moisture from the bricks and shift it elsewhere.The practice of applying a moisture absorbing "layer" in some form to magazines was common in the French forts at the turn of the century - literature in Fort Douamont makes exactly that point. Furthermore you can see what I consider may be a ventilation opening in the stonework above the unglazed bricks on the left of the photograph which leads through the wall into an adjacent passage.

> but this brickwork was probably put up in the late 40s as a means of
> preventing the collapse of the original stonework vaulting.

I very much doubt that though nothing is impossible - it doesn't take much looking around before you realise that these forts have been for the most part completely untouched since 1919. One might have expected repair work to be carried out in order to use the forts as a second Maginot Line in some way however in all the forts we have been into so far we have found little if any sign of repair work other than the appalling mess they call "authentic reconstruction" at Douamont. Add to which when the roof of one of these vaults is damaged it would take a damned site more than a layer of brick to hold it up. Over these rooms there is a layer of sand several feet deep, several tons of reinforced concrete, and finally an earth layer on top of that for good measure. With all that on the top of these forts I don't think a layer of brick will make any difference if a roof is collapsing! Finally it is very obvious which forts the French army are currently using and Genicourt is not one of them at this time. That's not to say that that has always been the case however but the forts "in use" are wired and padlocked, not bricked up with concrete block as the entrance to Genicourt is.

> The picture shows that the mortar between these bricks is nothing like the original

Agreed and not at all surprising really as all the forts were modified several times from the time of their construction to the time of their abandonment. I am unable to give you the dates of modification of this fort however as it falls outside the Verdun works, situated as it is on the road to St. Mihiel. And as such it is not covered in the reference material I have been working from.

> seen in the much older brick wall that is visible.

Brick? The vaults are built in dressed stone. This vault had no obvious damage to it other than to the entrance and a serious draught blows from the back out of the gap between bricks and roof. 

> The fact that these lightweight bricks are largely hollow has nothing to do with ventilation

Maybe, maybe not. I can't argue that point one way or the other. What I would say is that the room in question is built very closely to a design that was adopted after the demise of black powder. Such magazines had a raised oak floor and were often clad. This room is clad, and there is a line running around the wall about 6 inches up consistant with rotted wood. Furthermore, although the front of the room has been demolished for some reason, probably by virtue of soldiers practising demolition techniques or the like, it is in the right place to be a magazine, doors or not. It is situated within feet of where an artillery piece was sited - this fort is unusual in that it has the secondary fort attached which was clearly for artillery but it also has the feature common to every fort we have visited, artillery shelters within an open area in the middle (or thereabouts) of the fort - what we have been referring to by it's Douamont name, a "Rue Du Rempart". You can see the adjacent shelter on a previous photo.

> it is all to do with lightness and strength.

I can't argue that point one way or the other so I am afraid that I am sticking to my original theory for now! 

Thanks for the input..


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