Douaumont, Meuse, France - Fort de Douaumont - real photo postcard c.1950s

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  Fort de Douaumont, Meuse Department, France - real photo
• Publisher:  Editions de Forts de Vaux et Douaumont
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Douaumont (French pronunciation: ?[dwom?~]) is a commune in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France.

The village was destroyed during World War I. Today the Douaumont Ossuary, which contains the remains of more than 100,000 unknown soldiers of both French and German nationalities found on the battlefield, stands high above the landscape.

The construction work for Fort de Douaumont started in 1885 and the fort was continually reinforced until 1913. The fort is situated on some of the highest ground in the area. At the very beginning of the Battle of Verdun (February 1916) and due to French unpreparedness, the fort was easily captured by a small German raiding party. Douaumont was later recaptured by the French army in October 1916, after major casualties on both sides.

Fort Douaumont (French Fort de Douaumont) was the largest and highest fort on the ring of 19 large defensive forts protecting the city of Verdun, France since the 1890s. However, by 1915 the French General Staff had concluded that even the best-protected forts of Verdun could not resist bombardments from the German 420 mm (16.5 in) Gamma guns. These newly deployed giant howitzers had easily taken several large Belgian forts out of action in August 1914. As a result, Fort Douaumont and other Verdun forts, being judged ineffective, had been partly disarmed and left virtually undefended since 1915. On 25 February 1916, Fort Douaumont was entered and occupied without a fight, by a small German raiding party comprising only 19 officers and 79 men. The easy fall of Fort Douaumont, only three days after the beginning of the Battle of Verdun, produced a deep shock in the French Army. It set the stage for the rest of a battle which lasted nine months, at enormous human costs. Douaumont was finally recaptured by three infantry divisions of the French Second Army, during the First Offensive Battle of Verdun on 24 October 1916. This event brought closure to the Battle of Verdun in 1916.^[1]

Construction work started in 1885 near the village of Douaumont, on some of the highest ground in the area. Over subsequent years, the fort was continually reinforced until 1913.

It has a total surface area of 30,000 square metres and is approximately 400 metres long, with two subterranean levels protected by a steel reinforced concrete roof 12 metres thick resting on a sand cushion. These improvements had been completed by 1903. The entrance to the fort was at the rear. Two main tunnels ran east-west, one above the other, with barracks rooms and corridors to outlying parts of the fort branched off of the main tunnels.^[2] The fort was equipped with numerous armed posts, a 155 mm rotating/retractable gun turret, a 75 mm gun rotating/retractable gun turret, four other 75 mm guns in flanking ""Bourges Casemates"" that swept the intervals and several machine-gun turrets.^[2] Entry into the moat which was surrounding the fort was interdicted by Hotchkiss anti-personnel revolving cannons located in wall casemates or ""Coffres"" present at each corner.^[2] With hindsight, Douaumont was much better prepared to withstand the heaviest bombardments than the Belgian forts that had been crushed by German 420mm howitzers in 1914.

However, the German invasion of Belgium in 1914 had forced military planners to radically rethink the utility of fortification in war. Belgium's forts were quickly destroyed by German artillery, and easily overrun. Hence, in August 1915, General Joffre approved the fateful decision to reduce the garrison at Douaumont and at other Verdun forts. So Douaumont was stripped of all its weaponry except for the two turreted guns that were too difficult to remove: one 155 mm and one 75 mm gun. Conversely, the two ""Casemates de Bourges"" bunkers, one on each side of the fort, were totally disarmed of their four 75's.^[2] The garrison was mostly middle-aged reservists, under the command of the city's military governor and not the field army.^[2]

type=real photographic (rp)

city/ region=meuse

period=post-war (1945 - present)

postage condition=unposted

number of items=single

size=standard (140x89mm)