The Forts & Fortifications of Europe 1815-1945: The Central States

Germany, Austria-Hungry and Czechoslovakia

J. E. Kaufmann, H. W. Kaufmann

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781473838550
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

"Extremely well written and presented and gives you every scrap of information you'll ever need on cupolas, embrasures and cloches."—War History Online After the Napoleonic Wars, the borders of Central Europe were redrawn and relative peace endured across the region, but the volatile politics of the late nineteenth century generated an atmosphere of fear and distrust, and it gave rise to a new era of fortress building, and this is the subject of this highly illustrated new study. The authors describe how defensive lines and structures on a massive scale were constructed along national frontiers to deter aggression. The Germans, Austro-Hungarians and Czechs all embarked on ambitious building programs. Artillery positions, barbed-wire networks, casemates, concrete bunkers, trench lines, observation posts all sprang up in a vain attempt to keep the peace and to delay the invader. The strategic thinking that gave rise to these defensive schemes is described in detail in this study, as is the planning, design and construction of the lines themselves. Their operational history in wartime, in particular during the Second World War, is a key element of the account. "A useful introduction for those wishing to develop a knowledge of fortifications and their impact on the conduct of war."— Firetrench "The maps and plans, especially the plans, are numerous and extremely helpful. They show the arrangement of fortifications in a way that simple text would have found impossible. For those with an interest in European land fortifications of the 19th and 20th centuries, this book is an excellent general survey."—The Coast Defense Journal

Chapter 1

Introduction

The Central Position

Before the outbreak of the First World War, the Triple Alliance held sway in Central Europe from the North Sea/Baltic coast to the Adriatic with the Italian Peninsula serving as a major divider in the Mediterranean region. The geographical position occupied by the ‘Central Powers’ (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy) offered advantages as well as disadvantages. The central position favoured leaders engaged in wars of conquest based on a policy of ‘divide and conquer’, especially during the 1930s. However, the main drawback of this same position was it presented two major ‘fronts’ that required these nations to split their military resources. A quick examination of the situation before August 1914 highlights these problems.

Germany faced its traditional Slavic nemesis – Russia – in the East and its Latin rival – France – in the West. When these two nations formed an alliance at the beginning of the century, the Kaiser’s Imperial Army had to prepare for a war on two fronts. The late eighteenth-century partitions of Poland had removed a major buffer between Germany and Russia.

Austria-Hungary’s problem was not as thorny as its German ally’s was because it had mostly mountainous, easier to defend borders. On the other hand, Austria had to contend with a large and diverse non-Germanic population that included Magyars, Slavs (Czechs, Slovenes, and Poles in the north and Slovenes, Croatians, and Bosnians in the south), and Italians. Internal upheavals beginning with the revolutions of 1848 in the nineteenth century had led to the creation of the Dual Monarchy in 1867 giving Hungary its own government and King – in the person of the Austrian Emperor – and an equal status with Austria. The main threat was from Russia in the East as the Turks began to lose their grip on the Balkans, especially in the 1870s. The Russians and Austrians had wrested control of the Balkans from the Turks during the latter half of the nineteenth century and Austria-Hungary had virtually taken over Bosnia-Herzegovina provoking the Serbians’ ire. Thus, before the First World War the empire had to prepare for a second front facing Serbia while the position of Rumania remained unclear. The possibility of a third front on the Italian frontier was theoretically eliminated with the Triple Alliance. The problem for Austria was not so much the two major fronts facing their two Slavic enemies – Russia and Serbia – but the terrain that inhibited the rapid movement of large armies between these adjacent fronts. The Danube Basin offered good lines of communication within the empire, but the mountain ranges that formed much of its border from the Carpathians to the Italian border were extensive and had few railroads and good roads. In addition, in some areas, such as occupied Polish and Italian territories, its borders lay beyond these mountains. Germany, on the other hand, had excellent transportation systems unhindered by geography that allowed it to move troops from one front to the other, but the distances were greater and its two fronts were widely separated.

Finally, Italy, which had a relatively small land frontier and a long coastline, was in an excellent position for defence but not for offence. Like Germany, it had emerged as a nation in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The nationalist urge for unification fuelled the Italian government’s interest in annexing territories with large Italian populations like French-controlled Savoy, the coastal area around Nice, as well as Austrian-controlled lands in the Alps and the coastal areas around Trieste. The Triple Alliance theoretically focused Italy’s attention on France despite the formidable Alpine barrier, and created a single land front. The Italian Peninsula served as an effective barrier between France and the Balkans. Like Germany, Italy had few colonies in Africa. Thanks to its possession of Sicily and Libya, it stood to control the Mediterranean and put a spoke in France’s efforts to support Serbia. Thus, only the two Germanic members of the Triple Alliance had to consider the possibility of a two-front war.

When war eventually came, Italy changed sides, leaving Austria-Hungary with a three-front war. The addition of the Turkish Ottoman Empire to the Triple Alliance partially counter-balanced Italy’s defection, but it did not alleviate the problem of a multi-front war for the two Germanic nations. In addition, the Turks themselves faced a four-front war in the Balkans, the Levant, the Caucasus, and Mesopotamia.

A multi-front war was not a new phenomenon, but in the twentieth century, it presented a new conundrum. Land warfare had changed drastically since 1870 and the character of armies and their use had altered. During the Middle Ages, European armies had been rather small and impermanent. When they formed, normally at the command of a member of the nobility, they existed for weeks or even months but seldom for years. Generally, they moved from one point to another living off the land, requiring little more than forage to meet the needs of both men and animals. The only obstacles in the path of these armies were defended positions often including wood and stone fortifications (castles, fortified towns, etc.) that dotted the European landscape. If they could not bypass such a position, medieval armies had to reduce it. Long sieges could and often did lead to the disbanding of an army. The death or capture of an army’s leader in battle could lead to an even quicker dissolution. A few battles or sieges could quickly end a war. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, with the appearance of cannon and the emergence of nation states, feudal obligations began to dissolve. These technical and social advances increased the vulnerability of fortifications and magnified the logistical problems armies faced, often limiting how far they could advance by bypassing obstacles and fortified sites. By this time, armies were less likely to fall apart at the loss of a leader and ‘regular armies’ inspired by nationalism began to emerge. The numerous fortifications from previous periods remained throughout Europe and many were updated. In addition, ‘modern’ forts that could deal with gunpowder artillery were built. Armies also increased in size, but mostly continued to forage when they were on the move. In the nineteenth century, during the Napoleonic era, new and large national armies requiring greater logistical support continued to move as they had done in the past, bypassing obstacles when possible.

Since the Medieval era, the objectives of an army had been to capture a location, destroy an enemy army, or both. Often, with numerous routes of advance available, a commander must eliminate any defended site in his path, which, as Ian V. Hogg pointed out, was much like a game of chess. Battlefields – whether they involved sieges or confrontations in open terrain – were relatively small so that commanders were able to observe most of the battleground often from a single position. This was still true at Borodino, a major battle of Napoleon’s Russian campaign in 1812, as well as at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. The only departure from the past was that Napoleon’s campaigns were not marked by great sieges. Instead, he opted for decisive battles, avoiding expending his forces in costly sieges. Even though armies that took the field in the nineteenth century were more extensive than in the past, they still concentrated on relatively small battlefields compared to the next century. As in previous centuries, a few battles could end a campaign or war.

The situation began to change in the mid-nineteenth century, particularly during the last year of the American Civil War. The armies that took part in this war were relative modern. They were equipped with modern artillery, used railroads for rapid movement, included new methods of communication, and had sophisticated logistical support that considerably reduced their dependence on foraging. Between 1861 and the summer of 1864, as the Union Army tried to take Richmond, the ability of large armies to move freely through enemy territory decreased. A series of forts and trenches forming an almost continuous line was built from Richmond to Petersburg. The engagement dragged out and did not become another Antietam or Gettysburg fought on a rather small battlefield lasting a few days. The battlefront stretched for about 40 to 50 miles and the lines held from the summer of 1864 to the spring of 1865.

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 saw even better equipped armies. Both sides in this war fought along the traditional invasion routes between France and the German states. Their armies, numbering well over a quarter of a million each, deployed along a front of over a hundred miles. By comparison, during the Richmond/Petersburg Campaign the combined armies of both sides totalled less than ¼ million. After a few initial defeats, the French Army of the Rhine, which covered a wide front, was split. Instead of retreating and maintaining a continuous front, part of the army concentrated around the fortress of Metz. The other part withdrew to the west, formed the Army of Chalons, and tried to relieve the force at Metz. Both were surrounded – the Army of Chalons at Sedan – and forced to surrender. The next time massive modern armies formed, the strategy had changed drastically.

The end of the Franco-Prussian War brought a dramatic change in military strategy and tactics. The combination of new weapons – and some not so new – and massive armies, now with a more advanced recruitment, training, and support systems, meant that armies could no longer roam enemy territory freely looking for battle. One of the most fundamental changes was that a nation had to prepare to defend its entire land border. In the case of the Franco-Prussian War, the French did not attempt to hold their border. Instead, their troops concentrated on a few large engagements while most of the front was held by a number of weak isolated positions. The solution was to fortify the frontier, a stratagem used for over 2 millennia. However, in the past, frontier regions were dotted with forts or castles and fortified cities, which may have appeared to form a line. In some cases, such as the Roman Limes, they were even called a line, but no one expected them to be impenetrable. An enemy could usually pass through these lines and even overrun a few positions. Often the campaign could evolve into a single siege for one of these positions. The Franco-Prussian War demonstrated that if the defender concentrated his forces on one or two positions, his modern army could not survive for long. Few countries had the luxury of a vast territory where they could afford to trade space for time allowing them to pull back if they could not hold the frontier.

After 1871, the French started building a ‘Barrière de Fer’ under the direction of General Raymond Adolphe Séré de Rivières. Following up on the ideas of Sebastian Vauban over a century before for securing the frontier with forts, the general created a system of forts stretching from Dunkirk to Nice. The objective was for the forts, which sometimes created fortress rings around key cities, to make it impossible for an enemy to bypass them. Field armies would hold the gaps between the fortified areas. The enemy would be unable to avoid the forts without a fight. In addition, modern weapons would prevent either side from concentrating huge forces on a small battlefield. The belligerents would no longer be able to draw the majority of their forces together to fight battles like Waterloo, Gettysburg, or Sadowa. The continuous front became the standard after 1871. If it was broken, it could mean defeat.

France is ideally situated in Europe. The Mediterranean, Atlantic, and North Sea coasts cover much of its natural borders. The Pyrenees form a land barrier with Spain and are relatively easy to defend, especially in the late nineteenth century when Spain was not considered a serious threat. The Alps present a formidable obstacle on the borders with Italy and Switzerland. Since Italy had territorial claims on land it had ceded to France earlier in the century, this front was well defended at the key mountain passes, which were already protected by many older fortifications. Although Belgium was neutral, the border area continued to receive fortifications albeit on a smaller scale than along the Franco-German frontier where the main defences were built. Alsace-Lorraine had been a battleground between the French and Germanic people for centuries. When most of that region fell into German hands after 1871, the French heavily defended their new border expecting to fight the next war there. They concentrated their main efforts on their northeast front with Germany.

Russia’s situation was different yet similar in many ways. The Tsar’s vast empire stretched from the Polish Plains to the Pacific. There was little to protect in the Far East besides Vladivostok and, at the end of the century, Manchuria. From the frontier with Mongolia to the Urals, Russia required minimal forces thanks to its terrain and its remoteness. The main fronts where the Russians had expected large-scale conflict in the past were along the Caucasus Mountains, the Balkan Front (Turkey and Rumania), and the border with the German and Austro-Hungarian empires. The latter, one of the longest borders in Europe, would require the greatest concentration of defences and armies in time of war. The only country with a better situation in regards to defence was Great Britain, which had no land borders in Europe.

The countries that had the greatest difficulty contending with modern warfare were those in the middle: Belgium, Germany, Poland (after the First World War), and Switzerland because they had to prepare for two and three-front wars. Nations like the Netherlands, Switzerland, Rumania, Poland (after 1930), Hungary, and Yugoslavia that did not have an industrial base coupled with a large population faced a more serious challenge than the others did. Denmark, which lacked the resources to hold its single land frontier successfully,¹ and Italy can be included among the nations in the middle. Except for those that remained neutral, all of these nations succumbed in the world wars. Germany, the most powerful of them, achieved victory on its Eastern Front in the First World War and on the Western Front in the Second World War, yet lost both wars eventually. The middle ground of Europe portended disaster for twentieth-century warfare.

Germany and Austria-Hungary in the latter half of the nineteenth century best represent the European central position based largely on the borders of the old Holy Roman Empire that was dissolved by Napoleon Bonaparte in August 1806. By the end of the century its former lands formed Germany and Austria whose territories stretched from the Rhine to the Polish Plains and from the Baltic to the Adriatic Sea. After the First World War, Austria-Hungary fragmented and Germany lost most of its borderlands. Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Belgium, once part of the old empire, and the nations that formed from this twentieth-century fragmentation also had two or more major fronts to protect in time of war. Although Austria-Hungary and Germany had significant navies and considerable coastlines to defend, this work was concentrated on land rather than the coastal defences since the ultimate victory or defeat rested in the hands of the armies.

The Changing Face of Fortifications

From the era of the Roman Empire to the close of the Middle Ages high crenellated walls, often surrounded with wet or dry moats, characterized most fortified towns and castles. Over time, construction materials and design features changed, accelerating with the appearance of gunpowder artillery in the fifteenth century. The new forts rapidly supplanted medieval castles, which nonetheless remained in use for more than a century albeit with significant modifications. As cannons increased in size, replacing the trebuchet and becoming more destructive, high crenellated curtains transformed into lower and thicker walls and bastions replaced towers. In many cases, the walls did not diminish in height, but they sank into deeper moats leaving less exposed above ground level. The trace of the forts became more geometric than the castle plan. Cannons became part of the new defences, which required thicker walls for mounting them as well as protection from enemy artillery. Designers added outer works to counteract the increased range of the newer artillery. To increase the effectiveness of the defender’s weapons while limiting the enemy’s artillery, engineers created large sloping areas around the position and cleared it of all obstructions. This was the glacis. An early development was the creation of a covered way above the counterscarp wall of the ditch or moat with a parapet from which the glacis began its slope. Tenailles, ravelins, and other features occupied positions in front of a fort’s walls as additional protection. Fortifications built between the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century were not greatly different.

For centuries, sieges played a significant role in most campaigns. Monarchs spent a considerable amount of their nation’s resources on building fortresses to protect their domains and hold conquered lands. The Napoleonic Wars brought a change in strategy that lessened the importance of fortifications, as the main goal now was to crush and utterly defeat the enemy’s army in battle, not by siege. This, however, did not stop the construction of new works. Barrier forts were built to prevent an invading army from making deep inroads beyond the frontier before engaging in battle. The range and destructive power of artillery greatly increased by the mid-nineteenth century as explosive shells and rifled cannons were developed. Initially, bastions covered the curtain walls (the walls between bastions) of a fort or fortress and served as strongpoints. Caponiers (defensive positions built into the moat to cover the scarp and moat) replaced bastions in some forts, especially those polygonal in shape. This system of defences, first designed by the eighteenth-century French general Marc René de Montalembert, became predominant in fortifications from England to Austria by 1860. Ironically, the French did not adopt them until after 1871, preferring to keep the bastions. The Germanic nations adopted a tenaille trace (system) as early as the eighteenth century. This too was proposed by Montalembert and remained popular until about 1850. The feature known as a tenaille was a low work situated in the moat to mask the curtain walls between bastions. The tenaille system consisted of a saw tooth or zigzag trace with salients that usually alternated in size and placed the covered way and its rampart in a position to enfilade an assaulting force. Ravelins and crownworks were similar but larger features. Unfortunately, these features alone were not capable of resisting new developments in artillery.²

Shortly before 1860, artillery underwent major changes. Heavy smoothbore cannons rated as 64-pounders³ were able to damage masonry forts at short range. At the time of the American Civil War, heavier 100-pounders and larger smoothbores, including 11in and 15in guns firing rounds of from 100 to 300 pounds and the Rodman 20in gun firing a 1,000-pound round made their appearance.⁴ The Parrott-rifled 100, 200, and 300-pounders and breech-loaders, including the Armstrong 70-pounders, were developed.⁵ In many forts like those of the American Third System,⁶ which included several with a pentagonal trace, gun embrasures in walls were replaced or supplemented with en barbette (over the walls) positions to eliminate the weaknesses created by crenellations. The exploding shells of the new heavy 10in and 13in seacoast mortars that fired shells of 85 to over 200 pounds could easily clear the ramparts of their defenders.

Many of the nineteenth-century forts included gun casemates that gave the new forts two or more tiers o...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Glossary of Terms
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Defending the Second Reich
• Chapter 3 The Monster in the Middle
• Chapter 4 The Third Reich at War
• Chapter 5 The Feeble Giant
• Chapter 6 The Cockpit of Europe
• Chapter 7 Conclusion
• Appendix I Vallo Alpino
• Appendix II Hungary, Economic Bastion of the Reich
• Appendix III Selected Sites Open Today
• Appendix IV What Makes an Effective Fortification?
• Notes
• Bibliography